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Before I begin, I’d like to put in a couple of short updates (again, both of which are relevant to the topic): Music: There’s another new Philistine on the Sidewalk track up entitled “Contemplating Snowman Evolution”! It’s more like “Contemplate the Evanescence”, but it has more of a shoegaze/dream pop feel. I did this track for the musical competition I’ll soon be talking about. Check it out – [http://www.philistineonthesidewalk.net]! Fitness: My weight is currently at 206.6, which isn’t too bad for the weekend. I was down to 204.2 Saturday morning, but those homemade fajitas I had while doing Punchfest have stuck with me. However, I’ve got four days of hardcore workouts in front of me, so I’m sure the weight gain will disappear soon. On to Punchfest! |
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I participated in an online music competition called [Punchfest] on Saturday, and the goal of the competition is to start and complete a song in six hours. The name comes from the idea that there will have to be a lot of punching in (aka overdubbing) used to create a song that fast. The theme is revealed a few days before the competition, so it gives the artist a chance to come up with an idea for a track to work on. All of the themes are videogame-related, and they’re usually ones that allot for a plethora of game soundtracks to choose from. All of the participants get together on IRC to talk while working on their respective tracks and to talk about all of the songs once they’ve been completed. If you’re into covering videogame music, it’s a good challenge and a lot of fun! Now this isn’t my first Punchfest experience (okay, it’s only my second), so I’ll talk about this one and the one previous. Punchfest 5: Sunsoft vs. Data East This competition came on the heels of a [WCS] gathering where a group of us went to Benaroya Hall and saw [Distant Worlds] (which was excellent, by the way). My friend Mark had come down from Canada for the show and had decided he wanted to do Punchfest. He thought it would be more fun to do a collaborative Punchfest entry and I agreed, so he crashed at my place for the night and we got to choosing something the next morning. He’d always wanted to do the main theme from the SNES Shadowrun game, and I’m a big fan of that soundtrack, so we got on it. He took care of all the guitar duties and I handled the tracking and production side as well as most of the chatroom “duties”. I was going to record live bass for it as well, but the part was kind of tricky and we were running out of time, so I sequenced it instead. The listening party was really silly (as they usually are) and there were a lot of great tracks to listen to. Our track came out a little lo-fi, but you can only do so much in six hours. You can check out the songs here: [Punchfest 5: Sunsoft vs. Data East (Jul. 12th)] Punchfest 7: Sequels I saw that a new Punchfest thread had gone up on [The Shizz] late last week and I was debating whether or not I’d participate. The time frame was good, but it was more a matter of being able to get things scratched off my to-do list since it is a six hour competition, not to mention the listening party and post-listening chat. I figured that I should, since it’d be fun (something I’ve been shorting myself on lately) and it’d give me another track to put up on the Philistine on the Sidewalk page. I’m glad I did! Given that the theme was one that made it pretty easy to select a game, the song I chose was one that I’ve been wanting to do for a while. It’s a track from Dragon View (aka Super Drakkhen aka Drakkhen II) called “Ice and Snow” and it’s rather mellow and ambient in a nice D major scale. It’s also in 9/4, which kind of threw me to begin with, but that’s not even close to the weirdest time signature I’ve used (29/16 would take that honor). I decided to jettison the 2nd half of the song and focus on the intro melody, since it was very nice and easy to build off of. I’m happy with how it came out except for all the inexplicable clipping. I’ve gone over each of the tracks multiple times, but I don’t see any weird spikes in volume that would cause it to do so. I guess that must be the sound of snowmen evolving. In any event, the track went over well in the listening party, but the most enjoyed part was the reversed speech loop I put in the song and the subsequent deciphering. The consensus came to be that he was saying “slaw is for everyone”, and it has kind of stuck as a meme for Punchfest 7. All in all it was a good experience – I got a new song up for Philistine on the Sidewalk, I got a cover out of the way that I’d wanted to do for a while, I helped create a meme, and I had a lot of laughs! I can’t wait for the next one! You can check out the songs here: [Punchfest 7: Sequels (Jan. 23rd)] – they’re not up yet, but they should be shortly. Discuss this post at [The Forum of Jason Vincion]! Posted on January 25th, 2010. |
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