Blaah

It’s time again!

Hey all, hope you have been enjoying the Summer so far (or at least those of you in the Northern Hemisphere anyway!)

It’s time for Soundation to have a go at a genre-based challenge!

This time, we have taken inspiration from some of the biggest tunes released this summer, as well as a popular timeless genre, and let you all loose on trying to create some incredible tracks off of it.

Garage house is a huge genre, so it is worth highlighting the key information about it:

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Garage House – Developed in the late 80s/early 90s NYC at Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage and associated clubs in New Jersey. Typified by big soulful vocals, disco sampling, and re-creation, percussive elements, deep sounding, maybe some gospel influences too e.g.

Byron Stingily – Get Up Everybody

Blaze – So Special

Masters At Work Feat. Xaviera Gold – Gonna Get Back To You

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UK Garage – Developed in the UK in the mid to late 1990s and into the early 2000s. It has a direct connection to Garage House thanks to the likes of Todd Edwards (who you should know through his work with Daft Punk). See “Sample Choir”. These chopped-up drum patterns were picked up by UK producers and blended with contemporary R&B sounds and bass rhythms present in rave, jungle, and drum&bass that were popular at the time to create a unique club sound E.g.

K.C. and Zed Bias – Let Me Know

Strickly Dubz – Realise

Wookie – Battle feat Lain – Original Mix

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Future Garage – emerged out of the ashes of dubstep in the late 2000s based on the sound of UK Garage and incorporates aspects of deep house, dubstep, and other interim house and electronic soul genres. This is the basic genre of the songs you’ve put up. These are the songs that got me hooked on it at the time, but I find that I am a bit disconnected with what’s happening now:

Zed Bias – Neighbourhood (Roska Remix)

Joy Orbison – Hyph Mngo

Sully – Track Side

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Rules

We have some rules for the contest:

Make sure you keep the final production of your song to Soundation!

Try to be original, don’t steal from other songs…

Only post contest songs into this group

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Judging criteria

For this competition, we are asking you to produce your very own song! You can go for any subgenre of Garage house, 90’s house, or even another genre of your choosing! It will be judged on a number of criteria:

Creativity

Summer theme

The quality of the dance music/danceability

Mixing and Mastering

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Extra help

In order to help with submissions, we have 2 huge aids.

Firstly, Blezz has managed to put out a video on producing music for this exact genre, and is well worth a watch! All of these tips he gives out are relevant to the Soundation studio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjFWBcbXRmI

Second of all, we have an attached .sng file with several instruments that are a staple part of many House and Garage songs – feel free to use these as a starter for your songs if you need a hand!

 

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Prizes

In terms of prizes, we have some huge rewards!

First place earns a spot on the featured tracks, as well as getting a full 12 months of Creator account, and a sample pack from the sound shop of their choosing.

Second place earns a feature on the #house and techno group, as well as getting a month of Creator, a sample pack from the sound shop of their choosing.

Third place will earn a feature on the #Drum and Bass group, a sample pack from the sound shop of their choosing.

Any other tracks have a good chance to be featured at least once in the #house and techno group and may be reposted on Soundcloud.