Lamp Sessions (Monthly Challenge #007 & Member Sample Pack) – December 2018

Nice work everyone, the pack is cool 🙂

Harry, shouldn’t the challenge be “sample pack only”? Use as much processing/resampling as needed but stick to the samples? We got plenty to play with imo.

BIG UPS to HARRY for all of his time and effort, for all of the Lamp Sessions!

Also, this is a pretty gnarly pack…this is a talented lot, much respect

And Harry, just so we are clear: you didn’t need to participate in the pack making to participate in the challenge, correct? The challenge itself is still open to All SG, yeah?

Looking forward to hearing the entries!

I enjoyed listening to everyone’s contributions, good job on organizing the pack Harry. Time to get a tune assembled.

Cheers for arranging this Harry, and everyone who contributed, there’s some really cool material for this month.
I would have arranged my folders differently if I knew the format though, it must have taken you ages!

I know I’m not very active on this forum, definitely keen for this challenge. Been feeling very uninspired recently and i feel this is the push i need. Thanks for putting the time in for this challenge

Much love people 🙂

Thanks for putting in the work guys! Definitely a cool challenge. Looking forward to hear all of the contributions. 😀

Cheers

Thank’s a lot for the samples peeps. Looking forward to downloading them for this challenge.

Thanks for Harry for these monthly challenges looking forward 2019!

I know its SG samples only. But how do we feel about using vocals from movies to add that bit extra…?

Feel like it could add a bit more to my tune thats all

Looks like this is the first submission? I was hoping to hear some from others by now. I didn’t want to take it too seriously and work right up to the deadline, plus I’m kind of sick of working on what I have already so here it is.
It was great being restricted to such a good sample pack, lots of fun, and everything came together pretty quick. Much easier than trying to create and sound design everything yourself.
I like the core loop I have going for this, but IMO it probably gets a bit stale and could do with a switchup for the last 32 bars, but I don’t have the patience right now. It would definitely need some shaking up if there was a second drop for a full length track.

Everything is purely from the sample pack, except for a couple of vocal snippets I nicked from a public domain movie.

Not my most technical track but open to feedback in order to improve on future efforts.

https://soundcloud.com/struktcha/lamp-sessions-monthly-challenge-007-december-2018/s-Pqswj

Cheers

Alright, so heres my submission.

After trying to mix this down for so long…. theres a few things I’ve noticed. At points theres too much high end and kind of fatiguing, I’ve tried EQing some points but it detracts from the vibe. Also kind of muddy think I’ve been messing around too much and ruined it personally. Drums were punching through nicely but lowered the levels and brought everything else up as when i played on a phone could pretty much only hear the drums. Any advice would be sweet, thanks Genies 🙂

https://soundcloud.com/secondencounternz/hysteria-lamp-sessions-07

This was actually a second attempt, but im glad now I decided to restart fresh. I will certainly be spending more time on this at some point, developing the intro, resampling, adding more edits etc etc. Thanks for all the awesome samples to play with yall <3 Big Ups Sample Genie Crew!!

https://soundcloud.com/sinchrone/sample-genie-lamp-sessions-december-2019/s-76R7a

So yeah guys, there is my submission too. Its my second attempt because I lost the first file somehow, but at least I like this version more 😛 It was a fun challenge and thanks for all the guys that put in the work for the sample pack, it was a nice selection of stuff to work with 😀 cheers

https://soundcloud.com/user-504070628/sample-genie-lamp-session-december/s-T4vFv

Glad to see some new faces with some wicked entries!
Thought I’d mix things up a bit this month with some experimental half time, I figured it’d be a fun way of making use of as much of the pack as possible.
I put a more conventional tune I made with the pack up on my soundcloud too if anyone is interested, won’t be my entry though as it’s a bit TOO minimal

Really nice turnout this time! I’ll leave proper feedback in a day or two.

I had fun with this one. Happy new year genies!

Byombs Aywyay.

https://soundcloud.com/the_shrike/sh-lampsamples-v004zzz/s-iCsMz

Wow. I am mind blown by the quality and diversity of all the entries. Great work everyone!

I wasn’t able to make a proper entry this month so I am glad I at least did a few sounds for the pack to contribute a bit.

Big Ups to everyone that participated! My vote goes to Freeman.

great one from freeman

Amazing work, definitely a strong output from everyone who participated. My Vote goes to Fake, even though Freeman’s track is a heater too. Hard to decide between all those entries though haha 😀

Great productions this month. Enjoyed listening to all of them. I didn’t get near to finishing so just some feedback this month.

Hard to choose but vote goes to Sinchrone’s – Track is pure fire!!!.

Ace to see some new faces with fresh submissions! I’ll get proper feedback done ASAP.

It’s a close one, I think I’ll have to vote for Martialystikz though. I just really liked the atmosphere of your tune, I’m really getting into more minimal stuff at the moment and I really like the vibes you had going on.

Props to Shrike for a killer drop too, I really love that sub-hit you have with the kick, makes it super hard!

Oh this is so great to see this turnout, espcially in a month that can be quite busy for folks. Pouring out my 40 for m y homies that missed out this time, but I know you lot will be back soon.

And big big ups to Harry, who has done a phenomenal job keeping all of these challenges on the rails…it doesn’t just happen, folks…Harry puts in WORK. Thank you for that.

My thoughts on entries:

Freeman – Really nice vibe, well mixed, everything coming through as it likely should. It’s fun & informative to hear how others used my sounds! I’m sure you all feel that way at least a bit. There isn’t really much to critique here. Sub bass is strong, creativity is in full flow…this is very nice.

Fake aka 6F7A – Dirty dirty grimey half funk. This is well-executed in every way. Very strong. Always love hearing your new tings.

Martialystikz – nice low key groove, elements are working well together; I’d say some bits could be made a bit stronger, like the weird wobbly lead that comes in 16 after the drop…that’s a very subjective thing, it could just maybe do with a little more shine & presence

Sinchrone – Nice tune, solid concept, good execution. I think it needs a last 3-5% of *something* in the mix (je ne sais quoi…?) to help glue things together just a little bit. What I mean is that I’m wishing the low sub would creep into a glue a bit better with the low & mid, and I think you could possibly achieve this with a bit more (gentle) compression and eq on the master. Something that seals it all up just a bit more tightly. Well done.

Struktcha – I like this one. I agree that it is too busy, esp at/after the 1st drop, and I don’t think it’s so much that there is too much going on, per se, but that the elements feel disparate…I feel like it’s one tune mixing into another around the drop, but what it’s dropping into is pretty great. It might just be that one last drum loop that you lay in before the drop, I dunno. For me, arguably, I think that this mix is sonically the most appealing of all the entries (Freeman’s is also up there). You go wide and tight, sub is big, drums are big but contained. I listened to some of your other stuff on Soundcloud (give me a follow, wouldja?) and there is some pro stuff on there. Keep it up! I would strongly consider going in and culling out whatever it is that we are all kind of commenting on, the busy-ness, and then I think you’ll have a proper strong tune here. Nicely done!

I’m gonna go with the crowd on this one and tick the box for: FREEMAN, but I think this has been the hardest one to vote for yet, everyone that entered has some strong game.

THANKS ALL

Oh and I say: if you contributed samples, but didn’t quite have time to create an entry, you should definitely get a vote.

OK, so firstly happy new year to one and all! Hopefully you have all had a fun and refreshing few weeks.
With all the progress that’s been noticed here on the forum over the last 12 months it’s looking highly likely 2019 is going to be a very promising year for you guys 😀

This month’s contest was ridiculously strong, definitely the best yet. Mixdowns are noticeably massive on all the submissions, really pro sounding stuff guys, which is a considerable achievement.

We haven’t done this yet, and maybe won’t again, but because it’s been literally impossible for us to pick a winner (we all have different fav’s!) we are going to award 1st place to everybody involved this month – so you all get a free month’s membership. Please drop us a line over email and we can sort this out for you. This isn’t a cop out, we genuinely think you all deserve recognition for what you handed in.

Now, moving on.. as you may know, the next two months will not feature any challenges as such as we’d like you all to focus on demos for the big send out that will be happening in March.
Now’s the time to get together your best 1/2/3 demo’s for our folder which we’ll be sending out to many of the top labels on your behalf. Given the progress that’s been made we expect this submission window to be pretty exciting. So now’s the time to get working!

Your best chance of catching peoples attention will be if you have strong musical ideas. Clearly your mixes are very good now and you have the technical understanding, but it’s the SOUND, GROOVE, VIBE that’s going to catch ears. Really push yourselves to write original music, or perhaps an update / twist on an existing style – but our best advice is DO NOT try to faithfully re-create a Break, Mefjus, Noisia, Signal (etc) tune – do your own thing. If it’s sounding too familiar, think again, this is best advice for getting a demo picked up by labels who spend hours and hours listening to what’s out there, it must jump off the page and call for several listens.

Thanks again for taking part, it’s great to see some new names coming forth from the shadows to submit, it takes some guts to do that, even on the anonymous domain, so well done!

Have a great month in your labs, we are really excited to hear what’s handed in in 8 weeks time!

SG

Much later than I was expecting to post, had issues with my audio interface, luckily have it sorted now.

Great to see Genie HQ setting up positive vibes for 2019.

Glad you guys enjoyed my submission, I enjoyed everyone’s as well. Like Balron said diverse group of tunes, all with their own merit.

Here’s my feedback sans vote

Second Encounter – I like the composition, I think if you cleaned up the mix a bit more (to me it sounds a bit closed at the moment) and got the impact of the drop just right, it would help the tune roll more. Overall though the structure is solid, and the elements flow together.

Skrutcha – Very nice bass arrangement, reminds me of older Drum and Bass in a good way. I like how the bass develops, mixdown sounds good to me. Really solid tune, good rhythm/groove got my head nodding. Maybe incorporate some melodic element?

Martialystikz – Dig it, I fancy the underwater sounding bass-ish lead, the only thing that I would suggest is more automation to make the repetition more interesting. More motion in that sound would be very interesting. Strong idea. I like the drum groove.

Sinchrone – I really like the groove on this one, the vocal “hey” sound and fx really keep this one moving, I think the intro could use a tad more energy, more percussion perhaps? I like the break, maybe come up with B drop. Arrangement is good though. Maybe turn the hats down a tad, I like the outro filtered drums into that sound effect. Good stuff!

Fake – Great as usual man, nice elements and flow. Very meticulous and I like the bass rhythm switch ups. Mixdown sounds good to me. Keep up the good work!

Shrike – This one grew on me, I like the mixdown. I’m with Harry on that “Uhhhh” it’s a great switch up, I like this tune a lot, the drum fills/bass fills are sick. The atmosphere in the breakdown is cool. Would like to hear it if you develop the tune more, wish it was longer, it rolls.

Good stuff guys, looking forward to the new year. Hope the turnout for these sessions continues to grow this year.

Thanks for all the input everyone! For all those interested in the “Hey” sample, I went and looked at what it was, since I couldnt remember at all lol. It is actually just a short clip of one of the Balron risers, with the stock Ableton vocoder adding a slight layer of positive formant shift.