First, thanks to everyone for taking part and listening!
I really appreciate all the help, encouragement, and support from everyone in this community as I try to resurrect these junglism battles.
I’ve put the tracks in more or less the order I received them, with some rearranging to get a good mix of short and long songs.
JUDGING RULES:
ALL VOTES MUST BE IN BY END OF DAY MONDAY FEBRUARY 24th!
You can only vote if you submitted a track to the battle.
If you didn’t submit a track, your feedback is still welcome but won’t count toward the results.
As usual, please vote for your top three (not including your own beat of course): 1st: 3 pts 2nd: 2 pts 3rd: 1 pt
Constructive feedback on the tracks is strongly encouraged!
The winning song will win this WFMU 2016 MARATHON PREMIUM CD: IN THE BACK[ING TRACK] OF MY MIND,
24 tracks of a cappela masters & backing tracks, 1960-1979, compiled by Bob Brainen of Give the Drummer Radio.
First listen through, strong field , well done you guys like I said before no mean feat to get those bongos to play nice in dnb, I’ll have a proper listen later and make a shortlist…
Christ, I’m not even half way there and am soooo humbled already! These are some absolute bangers. Will edit the post with more thoughts later, but I wanted to do a live reaction thing ;D.
EDIT:
First of all, This was a tough choice! All of the tracks are great or good. Also, I don’t feel qualified enough to give anyone any pointers, so I will try to describe what I felt when listening instead.
#1
Track 5
So mellow! So pleasantly oldschool! I had a very LTJ Bukem feeling during the intro section. And it uses heaps of samples from the battle pool. The arp is lovely! The only element that was slightly jarring was the breakdown middle section (around 2+ min) — the track lost a bit of speed there. Otherwise, this is something I would listen to in the car. Thank you and congrats!
#2
Track 7
Lovely piece of music. Very early Noisia sounding. The artist knows their shit. IMHO, it’s the best sounding track of them all, but it’s second place because of how track 5 does uses the sample pool. I can hear some bongos here, but (to steal the way @kokonuss phrased it) the bongo integration is less proper. This track should be published and shared with the dnb world.
#3
Track 1
I love it for having a veeeery good drum section and great breaks. The panning arp is also great! I feel like it misses a „one last something” (and I don’t really know what that is) to be really great.
One more thing, track 9 seams to be one of the quietest ones, and it kinda stick out from rest. Maybe boosting volume a bit to match the rest and re-upload it will be helpful.
Ofc if author agrees to this
DnB can go to some insane loudness , but i would say we are all around more or less - 10, - 9, - 8 lufs for reference
Great track, I love that it had a free-form jazz vibe about it, big fan of half timing too, decent mix btw…
#2 track 7
Again really nice track, great use of call and response, also nice to hear the more modern neuro side of the scene repped… solid mix too
#3 track 4
Another great tune, super gritty old school jungle vibe , love the period correct mix too, it’s very easy to over produce when you do stuff like that so hats off to you…
Nice tracks, great Battle.
Hope to participate a next time.
Compliments to all and special to #1 (production ear candy), #6 (synth sounds, style) and #7 (exciting story).
I’ve taken the user’s original file and re-rendered it at -14.5 lufs, which was the highest I could without getting any clipping (they are on vacation and can’t do it themselves). Though, honestly, the two tracks (normalized and un-normlized) sound the same to me. I think it may be a compression issue.
Agreed—I don’t want to do anything that would change the sonic quality or could be considered a creative choice, which I think adding a limiter would do.
Found it hard to judge a top 3 but have enjoyed listening through several times to compare all the tracks
my picks are:
1 - track 6. one of my favourites in terms of the polished mix, nice stabs / samples with space around them and really deep subs
2 - track 4. I enjoyed the switch ups in the drums and the break programming (the Dillinja style amen in particular). Good integration of percussion loops from the samples and interesting stuff happening in the low end
3 - track 2. Loads of vibe, especially creative with the dissonant harmonies in the pads to create an atmosphere. This is the one that made me think of early photek
Hats off to all submitters, I enjoyed the whole playlist. Sprinkling my votes:
#1 - Track 1
Cool sounds with the big reverbs and sudden drum injections. Jarring but in a really good way. A super interesting production.
#2 - Track 11
Full commitment to the bongos and love the spaced out retro psychedelic vibes.
#3 - Track 3
Not as polished as others but has a really lively energy and the main riff is weird and funky. I reckon if this came on in a field you’d get a lot of people wiggling. Deserves a nod.
1 - Enjoyed the “bong” vocoders
2 - Bongos Nice moody track with a dark vibe, I like the tube flange like effect on the vocals, only not in the top list because a couple of bongo hits seemed a little out of time.
3 - Pretty manic, but I like it’s old school rave in a warehouse kind of vibe. Proper naughty!
4 - Very on theme with the Bongo breaks - I’m loving the almost kind of Squarepusher vibe on this one - I love how aggressive and raw this is
5 - Very pro sounding - Nice bass sound - Very on theme. Very heavy use of the bongo samples, nice progression
6 - I like the spooky vibe and surprising synths. Great track, but feels a bit less on theme than some of the others
7 - Like the synths at the start has a very cool build up, drop to the piano is really nice, I like the harsh bass sound. - Again feels slightly less on brief than some others - But very good none the less
8 - Like the heavy use of bongos. The break feels a little out of time at times. Very on trend
9 - Bongos for days
10 - Really like the synth sound at the start, Vocal chop is great, made me smile. Again the break gets a tiny bit out of time at times and maybe you could have taken a bit of low end off the bongo sample. A little bit rough and ready, but it’s great.
11 - Absolutely bang on theme with a good mix and some nice variation. Tells a bit of a story. Don’t love the bass which takes up a bit too much space, but other than that love it!
I normally give a few honourable mentions, but in this case I’m not going to because every track is bloody great so it seems ridiculous to single some out.
, well done you guys like I said before no mean feat to get those bongos to play nice in dnb, I’ll have a proper listen later and make a shortlist…
