Tune contest 1st Dec - 10th Dec

[boojiboy]

Sci-Fi/Western!

Your aim for this tune contest is to combine a science fiction style soundtrack with a Western style soundtrack in which ever way you want. There's many different styles of Sci-Fi scores and Western scores (Morricone being the most revered) and it's up to you in which way you combine the two into one piece.

Good luck!

Update:

I made some trophies.


1st Place prize (Gold)

2nd Place prize (Silver)

3rd Place prize (Bronze)

[Evil]

Oh, hell yeah! I really hope I have time.

[deFineLicht]

Woaa nervous, my first entry...

Well, don't expect to much, but here's The duell of the space saxophones

//Ed

[mysticjim]

Ok! I'm seriously thinking of having a go at this.

Can someone confirm, are we allowed to create the tune using any means at our disposal, its not just limited to midi tunes? 

I ask this cos I think I'm on an unfair playing field here, I run a small DIY/Hobbie music studio! I was intending to create a tune using digital drum tracks, midi/virtual synths and real recorded guitar parts, is this allowed?

Its by no means certain that I'll produce the best tune, there are some talanted people on here! And anyway, its not as if I'm a competent enough AGS user to enter the game competitions yet, I don't have time to enter the writing comp, and I'm crap at art so won't enter the arty compos!

I'll be submitting my tune within the next week or so!

[Nikolas]

Yes it is "legal" to use whatever you have in your posession.

check past tune contests for more details on the quality. Some times some amazing stuff come up! It's not exactly fair, but then again this is how life is. No one has the same computer/ same situation/ same talent and so on...

[mysticjim]

Allrighty then!

Here's my first ever entry in the tunes compo! Sci/Western eh? Insane!

right, here is the link to the tune;

http://www.clockworksniper2.co.uk/music/yeehaw.mp3

I chose a suitably western title!

Unfortunately I didn't get to work on this at my studio, I had to use my crummy PC and a sequencer at home, so this was produced under some severe limitations!

My original idea was based on some film I saw ages ago.  I can't for the life of me remember the title, but it was an extremely tacky Sci Fi / Western, it started off all Cowboys and The Wild West, then it went surreal and spacey somehow, I can vaguely remember a gunfight between Cowboys and green aliens!  I recall I was somewhat under the influence at the time, hence the hazy recollections, however the one thing I remember clearly, cos it was the only good bit about the film, was the way the soundtrack was constructed.

At the start of the film, it had a very traditional, typical western type theme, but as the film got more spaced out, they used the same chord progressions and melodies, but adapted them onto spacey synths and stuff, and played around with the tempo and rhythm.  So this is the sort thing I attempted.

It starts all spaghetti western, I came up with the melody line on an acoustic guitar, then worked out some chords to go underneath. The great thing about classic 1960's Westerns is that the melodies in them are quite similier to 1960's surf rock, and I love playing that sort of stuff.  I was originally planning to record real guitar parts, but as I mentioned earlier, I couldn't get to the studio, so I used the really bad banjo midi sound in my sequencer!  I used a vocal synth for the chord backing and programmed some galloping type percussion underneath, to try and get that typical western intro type feel.  I underpinned that with some repeating bassdrums.  The bassline was originally an umpah type thing, and while it sounded very funny, it didn't exactly have the feel I wanted, so I tried to make it follow the galloping rhythm, however it came out a bit more 'mambo' than I would have liked!

Then the Sci-fi bit kicks in and it all goes a bit strange!  As with that film I saw, I kept the original chord progressions, but sped it all up a little and introduced some trippy synths, then re-interpreted the main melody on a monosynth, with lots of chaotic pitch bending.  I would have loved to have used my theramin plugin on my studio PC, but alas again, I had to make do with what I had! 

The Sci-fi bit also brings in some rock drumming, and it starts to speed up as the tune reaches a finale, then it winds down right at the end before the fade.

The overall sound is a bit messy and quite cheesey, I had to use unhealthy amounts of reverb to make some of the midi synths sound a bit more convincing, and I had to limit the B'jesus out of it to make the mix a bit louder, but I'm well happy with the finished result.  It slips from Fist full of Dollars to Muse-type space rock inside 2 minutes!

Hope you dudes like it!

[maaark]

Here's my entry...
Slide-guitar for the westernish effect, lots of reverb and weird effects for the space vibe.
It's called Spacecowboy Madman. It's about a space cowboy going insane of loneliness.

http://members.lycos.nl/maaark/MyMusic/SpacecowboyMadman.mp3

If it doesn't work, go to http://members.lycos.nl/maaark/MyMusic/ and download the file manually.

Pretty weird.Ã, 

[thomasregin]

Hello everybody!

I am completely new in this forum. In fact this will be my first post!

I was referred to this forum yesterday by Nikolas and I've had a look around and so far I really like what I see!

The reason I am here, besides _loving_ adventure games, is that I am a composer looking for fun projects. And last night I stumpled across this contest here and thought I'd give it a try.

This is nothing fancy. Just something I more or less threw together today. It's probably the weirdest thing I've ever done musically, but it was fun as h...!

So, without further ado, I give you That Blue Grass Makes Me Spacy

I hope you enjoy it!

All the best,

Thomas Regin

[Evil]

Well, I wrote the whole thing, but never finished recording it. It turned into a super fast paced spaghetti/rockabilly tune. This was what I did of the intro. After this it went into the fast part. Figured I'd share anyway.

Western Song Intro!

[boojiboy]

Ok I'm not sure how it works with time zones and such. It's 8:30 PM on the 10th where I am. I'll wait about 12 hours me thinks and then announce the places. If anyone is still working on something either wrap it up or request an extension (I'd love to see more entries). All great entries this round, let's see how this turns out.

[boojiboy]

Ok great entries everyone. Here are the places and the reasons why.

Evil - Sounds excellent mann but it's not enough really. I wish you could finish that tune though.

Maaark - Your song is really good. Definately worthy of an entry, however, it doesn't really fit enough into the western genre and not into sci fi genre, in my opinion.

3rd place
deFineLicht - Great track! The synths at the start are excellent and, combined with the melody, make a great mixture of the two genres.

2nd place
thomasregin - It took me a couple of times to listen to this but, after a while, I GOT it. Man when it gets to about 30 seconds into it it really does something to my heart. I wouldn't say that bluegrass is necessarily linked with the western genre but there's definately a an amazing combination of two completely different styles. Not sure about the vocals

!st place
mysticjim - Oh how I wish you would've recorded this in a studio. But without it you still came up with EXACTLY what I was looking for. A perfect Morricone melody and as the track goes along it gets more synth like (amazing 70s sounding synth work; reminds me of 'goblin'). The midi drums are a bit out of place but otherwise excellent work. Congratulations!

And thanks for everyones entries. They were all great!

[mysticjim]

Yay! I wasn't expecting to win on my debut!  Thanks very much, and well done to everyone else for making it a close competition!

Right, I understand its tradition for me to come up with the concept for the next one.  Well, I'll get thinking about it today (while I'm supposed to be working!) and when I get home I'll post the new competition.

Thanks again everyone!

Jim