ErikH2000
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Lengthy video explanation:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/411783031

Okay, we done this before for Perfection, and we created the I Saw Isosceles song. It worked great.

Next Sunday (4/21) 3pm PST, join my Twitch event for a sing-a-long event. I will teach you how to sing a song I wrote. I call it The All Blocks Hymn. This song is about pushing Soko-Ban blocks because a fictitious deity really wants you to do that.

Now, if you want your voice to maybe get into the Godkiller Game, you should have for the session:

1. headphones
2. a microphone (a laptop/phone recorder is fine)
3. a somewhat quiet place to record

That's it. It's gonna be silly. It's gonna be easy. If you mess up, it's fine. The event link is in my sig down below - Godkiller Gamedev Sundays.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

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[Last edited by ErikH2000 at 04-28-2019 04:50 PM]

averagemoe
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I should mention that silences at my house can be unpredictable in timing. I may have to use a recording of the stream to sing when it's convenient for me.

____________________________
There are two types of sheep in the world. Those who jump off a bridge when told to, and those who jump off a bridge when told not to. Don't be either.

ErikH2000
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averagemoe wrote:
I should mention that silences at my house can be unpredictable in timing. I may have to use a recording of the stream to sing when it's convenient for me.

I have heard your singing. It's worth waiting for!

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

Someone Else
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I think I'll be able to sing along.

ErikH2000
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Someone Else wrote:
I think I'll be able to sing along.

Woohoo!

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Fiddled with GarageBand in my hotel room last night, and I see the song coming together. The version I made last night is too upbeat. I need to make it dreary and plodding.

Lyrics below. The “God” in the lyrics is fictitious.

—
The All Blocks Hymn

Verses

All blocks we do push north.
We all push blocks due north.
We push them all, and then they fall.
All blocks we do push north.

Verses repeat for east, south, west

Choruses

Some say there's no reason to do this.
That God just wastes all our time.
But if we stopped to question Him
We’d fall so far behind.

Some say the blocks go nowhere.
Some say they all come right back here.
But as long as God has blocks for us,
Our future is secure.

Some say pushing blocks is boring.
And possibly they could be right.
But each push only brings us joy
Or at least we think it might

Some say this song is too long
Tedious, dull, and grim.
But God wants us to sing and work.
So for that you can thank Him.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

Xindaris
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More than likely, my travels this weekend will make me unable to catch the stream live, but I have a decent enough singing voice/ear, so I'll try and record from the recording a day or two later. It's probably better if I'm able to practice as much as I want before "seriously" recording anyway.

____________________________
109th Skywatcher

Here are some links to Things!

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[Last edited by Xindaris at 04-19-2019 04:22 PM]

ErikH2000
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Xindaris wrote:
More than likely, my travels this weekend will make me unable to catch the stream live, but I have a decent enough singing voice/ear, so I'll try and record from the recording a day or two later. It's probably better if I'm able to practice as much as I want before "seriously" recording anyway.

I think many people will prefer recording later, so I'm going to make it easy to do it that way

I finished writing the song on an airplane flight last night which is the most productive thing I've ever achieved while flying. IPad GarageBand gets more credit than me for that.

3pm Pst today, we gonna do it!

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

ErikH2000
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Okay, the video is up.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/414542524

It contains full instructions on how to participate. You can also just listen to my bad singing if that makes you happy.

Your recordings for the song can be posted here as replies with attachments. If you can get a recording to me before next Sunday 4/28, that would be ideal. But if you need a little more time, let me know.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

averagemoe
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I can't do anything with that extra syllable in the third chorus. It just throws off the entire rhythm. I was thinking, it's already establish what's being pushed, so could we just drop the word "blocks"?

____________________________
There are two types of sheep in the world. Those who jump off a bridge when told to, and those who jump off a bridge when told not to. Don't be either.

ErikH2000
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averagemoe wrote:
I can't do anything with that extra syllable in the third chorus. It just throws off the entire rhythm. I was thinking, it's already establish what's being pushed, so could we just drop the word "blocks"?

I appreciate it's a bit tricky, but I think it's doable. If you listen to how I sing it after the music has stopped, that's basically it.

I worry about changing the lyrics at this point, because some people have maybe already recorded theirs. Or won't see this conversation when they record.

-Erik
-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

Xindaris
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Okay, I've attached my attempt at some recordings here is a LINK to the recordings because apparently the file is too big to attach to a post: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2b0h8daup0b19wr/All%20Blocks%20Hymn%20-%20Xindaris.zip?dl=0 . I'd appreciate it if you let me know when you've got the file because it's taking up limited dropbox space and I'd just like to remove it from there as soon as possible. 4 takes at each tempo because I messed up at least one chorus or verse every single take and I know from experience that having multiple takes to cut together is useful even if the person says a line basically perfectly.

On the faster BPM, I became very frustrated listening to your singing on verses 1 and 3. (Err, choruses 1 and 3; you and I have different meanings for the words 'chorus' and 'verse' I guess. I called them verses in the recording.) Because I was listening to you sing those lines not quite right it got into my head and I couldn't do it unless I quickly ripped the headphones away from my ears when you sang that part. Between takes 2 and 3 on that recording you can hear a brief example of my frustration with this (feel free to laugh at it, I do), and by take 4 I decided to just listen to my own take 3 instead so my ear wouldn't keep following the wrong rhythm.

If you want more takes, it'd be extremely helpful to me personally to get a recording of just the backing music you were using. I'm pretty used to the rhythm of the lyrics by now, so that'd eliminate the problem of "listen to wrong-->sing wrong" entirely for me. Also, this was recorded using my laptop's mic out of largely physical laziness, but I can also try it with the desktop and the mic I use for streaming if there's too much echo/noise/etc.

____________________________
109th Skywatcher

Here are some links to Things!

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[Last edited by Xindaris at 04-23-2019 03:43 PM]

ErikH2000
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Xindaris wrote:
Okay, I've attached my attempt at some recordings here is a LINK to the recordings because apparently the file is too big to attach to a post:

Noice!

Thank you so much for pushing through and making that. I think I underestimated how hard this is to do. Yours came out quite nice though.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

averagemoe
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File: blocks.zip (6.5 MB)
Downloaded 48 times.
License: Public Domain

My takes, and a suggestion. Record upbeat mode first so that you can go into dreary mode being genuinely sick of singing the song.

I'm not sure how much of my performance was real.

____________________________
There are two types of sheep in the world. Those who jump off a bridge when told to, and those who jump off a bridge when told not to. Don't be either.

ErikH2000
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Registered: 02-04-2003
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averagemoe wrote:
Record upbeat mode first so that you can go into dreary mode being genuinely sick of singing the song.

Sympathies. The song is so firmly lodged in my brain now... I have to listen to anything else to keep from it repeating again and again and again.

Really nice work. Especially, the "some say pushing blocks is boring" line.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

averagemoe
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Don't worry about me. The hatred wore off.

____________________________
There are two types of sheep in the world. Those who jump off a bridge when told to, and those who jump off a bridge when told not to. Don't be either.

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

averagemoe wrote:
Don't worry about me. The hatred wore off.

In the game, the song is supposed to induce hatred too. So maybe it is working as intended.

If anyone else wants to take a crack at recording a part, there is still time. I think I will edit what I have together on Sunday and play it on the stream at 3pm.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

mauvebutterfly
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For people still wanting to do the recording here are timestamps in the twitch video:

Dreary starts at 17:00
Upbeat starts at 20:40

I generally started recording about 10 seconds before the start so there will be some dead time at the start of each recording.

I did 8 recordings in total, 4 dreary and 4 upbeat. 2 of each version were sung in a low octave that probably sounds awful and isn't usable, but I included those just in case.

Also, it's kind of annoying that twitch interrupts with ads periodically. In the future I'd recommend uploading the singalong version to YouTube, or making a downloadable file with just the background music or something similar. This affected Dreary Low Octave 2 by interrupting the recording in the last verse, so my timing might be slightly off for that take. Several other recordings were scrapped since the ad interrupted me during one of the first verses.


Google drive link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=13zKZ-IWUuVmSOhpEj7ZYERvDj3cE-TkH

Hopefully that will work. Also I misremembered your instructions and saved everything as .mp3 instead of .wav so hopefully that won't cause you too much grief.

Since I'm using an external link instead of the forum to upload the recordings, I guess I should also explicitly mention that these recordings are all Public Domain for legal reasons.

____________________________
106th Skywatcher

ErikH2000
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mauvebutterfly wrote:
I did 8 recordings in total, 4 dreary and 4 upbeat. 2 of each version were sung in a low octave that probably sounds awful and isn't usable, but I included those just in case.

Ah, great!

It was too much to ask people for multiple recordings, when one is hard enough. But multiples makes for a bigger crowd. Heading home now to do some editing. Will show off everyone’s singing at 3pm pst on the stream.

Thanks!

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

ErikH2000
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Oh man, it's turning out way better than I hoped. I really was lucky with the help I got from you three!

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Xindaris, MauveButterfly, and AverageMoe...

I redid the song with a slightly different harmonization, and used some different vocalists that went through an audition process. (And AverageMoe, I know you already backed out, but please read on.)

This could be a disappointment for you. In the end, I decided I needed to really get the song polished for it to have the intended effect.

I have something to offer you in thanks for your help, which was valuable in "prototyping" the song. Send me an email to info@seespacelabs.com, and I can give more details. (You too, AverageMoe)

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

mauvebutterfly
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Glad to help. Maybe I'll do a song cover of it on my youtube channel or something once the game is released. I enjoyed our version while it lasted.

____________________________
106th Skywatcher

averagemoe
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I sent that email a week ago and still haven't heard anything. I think I might need this in a P.M.

____________________________
There are two types of sheep in the world. Those who jump off a bridge when told to, and those who jump off a bridge when told not to. Don't be either.

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

averagemoe wrote:
I sent that email a week ago and still haven't heard anything. I think I might need this in a P.M.

You got spam-filtered for whatever reason. I see the email now. Will reply back there.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)