That's Why You're Back

Verse 1
All I've got is this sweater you left me
to get me through the night.
That, and all these memories together
when you would hold me tight.

But now it's an empty bed
that's much too big
for someone sleeping alone.
It's a lonely world
that is much too sad
for one heart beating alone

Pre-Chorus
I need you here
I can't stop thinking of you (You're all I dream of)
Yes I need you here
Don't you know that I love you?
Won't you tell me that

Chorus
I'm the one, the only one?
You've been lost, and you've been wrong.
But now you know that
I'm the one, the only one.
That's why you're back where you belong.

Verse 2
Getting off at the bus stop in the morning
to the same old carousel.
Spend my days bagging groceries (all day) at the checkout (every day)
"Clean up on aisle 12"

I'm back to the same old grind
and it's much too hard
to spend life being alone. (on my own)
And my broken heart know just what it wants
Come on and pick up the phone

Repeat Pre-Chorus
Repeat Chorus
Repeat Chorus


The Instruments

RealTracks
~683:Bass, Electric, PopHalfNotesPush Ev 120
3899:Vibes, Rhythm PopEven Ev 110
691:Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming AcRockBright Ev 120
691:Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming AcRockBright Ev 120
3707:Guitar, Acoustic, Rhythm 90sAcRockArpPick Ev 120
~2494:Piano, Acoustic, HeldChords 120
1856:Cello, Background PopCountry Ev 085
NashvilleEven8^1-a:Sidestick, HiHat , b:Snare, Ride

SynthesizerV
Weina (lead vocal)
Jun (duplicating lead vocal)
Qing Su (mid harmony)
SAROS (low harmony)

Effects Chain
Main Buss: HorNet ThirtyOneMK2, Lurssen Mastering (Pop Rock)
Vocals: VoiceCentric, EZ Mix2 (Phone with Delay), Panagment2, Abby Roads Chambers
Piano: EZ Mix2 (Piano2)
Vibes: Panagement2 (Panning FX)

Edit #1
I balanced the lead vocal, edited out the /s/ and /t/ in the doubled lead so it would sound more like a single voice, replaced Capital Chambers with Abby Road Chambers, and added a touch of reverb to the guitars. Hopefully things sit a bit better.

The Blah Blah Blah

Short version: All comments are welcome!

With January coming to a close without having posted a new song, I figured it was now or never get something done. I was also sick at home with a cold, so I had some time to work on a song. I was inspired to floyd jane's song "Closet Space", as well as the demo for the BiaB demo song "Macon" I ran across while looking for a style.

I found the demo _RUBY, and made some simple changes (along with a key change to a more reasonable C instead of Db.

Lyrically, there's nothing especially original here, but I liked the way it turned out. I'd considered adding a third verse where the narrator says the listener better "hurry up before she changes her mind". But it seemed to stand well enough with only two verses, so that's all it's got.

Of course, anytime a song works out, I wonder if I've accidentally remembered someone else's song as my own...

I figured I should put in an instrumental break instead of just repeating the chorus, but couldn't find any guitar solo that worked. Eventually I hacked out the instrumental break in the DAW, and got what I'd originally envisioned after all.

I didn't spend nearly as much time futzing around with the mix or the arrangement. Feel free to complain about, or even make positive suggestions.

Yes, the non-native SynthesizerV voices have trouble saying "bus".

The echo harmonies on the second verse ("all day", "every day") might be a bit too silly, but I like 'em. Again, feel free to disagree.

I've still got a cold, so goodness knows how the mix actually sounds. Again... feel free to make suggestions!

David. I am always amazed by the quality of the voices and your songs: precision work.
Laurent

David,

Wow! This is a great production. Love the voices and harmonies. Excellent mix.

You really understand what makes the SynthV work. Excellent stuff...

Bob

David, you've created a lovely sounding lite pop/rock tune here. You've really got a great handle on using the synthetic vocals. Take care, TB

A nice bouncey pop song and these synthetic voices seem to be getting better all the time.
Good job.

Hey, very cool David!

Excellent work on this!

I really enjoyed the arrangement and all of the vocal work.

Good stuff!

David,
Very nice effort. Well rounded tune. While I prefer real vocalists, I think you did a great job articulating robo voices. To my ears, vocals are a bit dry and metallic robo is slightly showing under silicone skin. Perhaps a bit more reverb and some common fx (vocal+instruments) could smooth it out a bit. Thank you for sharing.
Misha.

Wonderful arrangement on those vocals, David.
Couldn't help wondering how it would sound with electric drums though.

Vic

Hi, Laurent.
I think the SynthsizerV is doing all the heavy lifting with the vocals.

Truthfully, I didn't do that much tweaking of the voices.

Thanks for listening and commenting!

Hi, Bob.

Thanks!

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

After hearing what ThomasS had achieved with BiaB using the auto-harmony function, I was going to try that instead. But I forgot and did it the hard way again. Next time, though, I'll try to be a bit more lazy.

Thanks!

Hi, Torrey.
Thanks!

I keep trying to write something that's a bit more "pop", so it's good to hear I'm on the right track.

Thanks for listening!

Hi, Steve.
Thanks!

The synthetic voices are getting much better, although there's still a bit of an accent to the ones that aren't native English. But some are just so pretty, I use them anyway.

Thanks for listening and commenting.

David, I really like this. The vocals sound great. The arrangement hangs together nicely. The holds are very well done. The bouncy pop vibe makes this memorable and a very enjoyable listen. Good job, Tom

Thanks, David.

Good to hear. As I'm typing this, I hacking away with a nasty post-nasal drip - there's no way I could have sung on this.

It's nice to be able to create music, even under non-ideal conditions.

David...love the melody...and of coarse the harmonies are dreamy...super production as usual...someday the machines won't need us at all...I wish that was a joke!

Hi, Misha.

Thanks, although I should confess they're pretty much out of the box.

Interesting... I'm using a slightly different FX chain this time around. I've got the Greg Wells VoiceCentric to handle compression and EQ, followed by Panagement to place it into a room, I'm also routing it to Capitol Chambers (emulated chamber reverb). I suspect that's where the "metallic" sound is coming from.

Normally I'd use an LX480 (emulated Lexicon LX489L) which gives a richer decay. So I'll probably choose a different 'verb and see if that helps.

Now that I'm looking at the vocal again, I should fix some of the harsh attacks on "I need you..., as well as manually adjust the wave amplitude so the compressor doesn't have to do all the work...

Thanks! I appreciate you listening, as well as the feedback.

Hi, Vic.
Thanks!

I did think I could possibly layer the drums (I'd seen a UJAM Silk2 demo where they did exactly that). I'll give it some more thought.

Thanks for the feedback and the kind words.

Hi, Tom.

Glad to hear it! I suspect the original BiaB demo is where most of the credit should go... But I'll take for myself anyway.

There was a lot of hack-and-slash to get the hook into the final chorus, so I'm glad not all the seams are showing.

Thanks for listening and commenting!

Hi, Dan.

Thanks!

Actually, the latest feature in SynthesizerV is that it converts the sung audio into MIDI, along with an attempt to figure out the phonemes of what was sung. So there's literally a effort to put humans back in, instead of the other way around.

I'm happy the melody works. After I've heard the song dozens of times, it can be hard to know if the song works, or I'm simply used to hearing it.

Thanks for listening and replying!

David, what a lovely song! Fun lyrics, and the arrangement just keeps the tune percolating forward. The vocals sound quite nice, and do not to my ears have any distracting artifacts or pronunciations. You've done a great job, especially considering you're not 100%. Hope you feel better soon!

David,

The backing tracks are exquisite. A near-perfect Bouncy-Radio-Pop sound.
Part of that might be just how go the mix is.
The vibes make a nice glue (gonna have to remember that and steal it)
The vocals are amazing.
The lyric is nicely furnished. Especially the verses - which are quite sad (though there seems to be no sadness in the vocal).
The drop is really well done.
Ear Candy.


fj

Very nice use of BIAB real tracks, and SynthV voices. Excellent production, mix, and overall pro quality. Good song with a strong melody.

Hi, Ron.
I'm glad you liked it and the voices weren't distracting.

It's also good to hear that a bit of the song's "attitude" came through.

I was thinking about adding a bridge/verse that was basically "Although I really miss you, I know heartaches come and go, so you better make up your mind I'm not going to wait forever". But I got lazy and thought the song worked "As-Is".

Thanks for stopping by to comment!

Hi, floyd jane.
Thanks! I did a few more tweaks, but hopefully didn't break anything in the process.

Yes, they really blend nicely with the piano (a late addition) Normally I'd remove them out in more places of the arrangement, but I thought the worked well.

But now that I think about it, I should probably see if I can reduce them a bit if I go back and edit it again. Because no mix is really finished, you just stop working on it, right?

Yeah, that's also why I pushed the BGVs to the front - the sound nice.

Yeah, that was intentional.

It's more of a "You broke my heart and I want you back... but on my terms."

Another verse/bridge would have clarified it, but I ran it past one of my daughters, and she could hear the attitude without it having to be explicit. But it would have helped.

Thanks! You're generous with your praise... and I appreciate it.

Hi, Elliott.
All my favorite words!

Thanks for commenting - especially about the melody!

Hi David,

Man, those vocals are something else! Especially when you bring in more than one. Very clever and effective the way you have them arranged, I'm sure that took a lot of work. Also liked the melody.

I'm waiting for the AI to get good enough so that I can feed it my voice and it will produce something that sounds like I would sound if I was someone that was a good singer

Good song, I always enjoy listening to your productions.

So well done, David. Really enjoy reading all about your process. Vocals sound great and all the buses sounded fine. Good write with a catchy melody. Fun, bouncy beat that brings hope to the lamenting lyrics. Much enjoyed.

David - this is great stuff. I love your productions. It's incredible how you can put together such sound. We need to get together sometime - when time allows,

David, WOW this is fantastic.
A great pop song.
You are an expert on those synth vocals.
They sound so real.
Super mix.
IMHO your best to date.

I like the echo harmonies. Definitely keep them.

Smooth and soft and positive.

I hear this as a number in a musical.

Good work!

Hi, Dave.
Thanks for mentioning the vocals and melody.

I sent you some comments in a chat. People are using RVC (sung voice cloning) with SynthesizerV to do exactly that.

The problem is that underlying performance is what give the vocal a lot of its character, so that doesn't often work out.

Thanks again!

Hi, Marty.
Thanks!

Well, I can't ask for more than that!

I appreciate you listening and commenting.

Hi, Brad.
Having some amazing sounding RealTracks makes it fairly easy.

Yep! There's probably another week to go with this cold, if my son is any indication. (He's the one who brought it home).

I'll get a hold of you when I'm feeling better, thanks!

Hi, Mario.
Thanks!

Well, it helps that the software does most of the work. Some of the female voices sound really good, but I need to spend some time playing with the new male voices.

But male voices sound less good, partly because of the lower register, but mostly because if you apply the same level of vibrato to them, it just sounds weird.

Well, it's good to hear I'm not going backwards!

Thanks again for stopping to listen and comment!

Hi, Scott.
Good to hear! There are things that sound cool musically, but I'm not sure if they break the suspension of disbelief that you need when listening to a song.

Excellent!

Interesting. I hadn't really thought about it, but those "echo" harmonies and the sort of "Greek Chorus" BGVs probably push it in that direction.

Thanks for commenting!

David,

Very nice song!
The accompaniment is very simple compared to your usual songs.
However, this brings out the charm of this song's melody and harmony.
It's very pop and takes advantage of the charm of Synth V's voice.
Enjoyed my listen a lot.

Best regards.

Shigeki Adachi

I've been a fan of your tracks since I've first heard them, your music is why I got Band in a Box. Great work and great job using Weina!
I have a question and sorry if this is bit invasive, are you willing to hand out Synth V project files and instrumentals if asked for? I want to cover one of your songs someday but I cannot recreate melodies very well unfortunately.

Hi David
Incredibly good song
Lead voice and backing vocals absolutely top class
For me so far the best song with AI voices here in the forum
Congratulations
Many greetings
Andi ;-)

Hi, Shigeki.
You're absolutely right about that. I wanted to get it done quickly, which is unusual for me. I sort of regret that I left some things out, like a proper introduction or a bridge, but I might revisit that later. And I certainly didn't build up the sort of arrangement that I typically do.

Of course, if I really regret it I could add those in at some later point. That's one of the nice things about working with software.

Thanks! I'm glad it wasn't too much of a detriment to leave it out.

That's all I could hope for. Thanks again!

Well, thanks! That's flattering.

I hope you're enjoying using BiaB!
Hrm... I hope you don't mind a long-ish answer, instead of a straight "yes" or "no".

My feelings about covers is mixed. I figure that if you're going to cover someone else's song, you should try to make it your own. Otherwise, you're just copying someone else's work. The song came out the way I wanted it, so it's not likely I'll think it's a better version. I suspect that most artists feel the same.

Of course, having a real singer is an entirely different matter.

If you're doing it for your personal learning experience, you can use something like Spleeter to remove vocals, and then add your own vocals on top of it.

Heck, you can even use Spleeter to grab the vocal, import it into SynthesizerV, and get most of the vocals in that way.

But if you're taking the stems and VSQ files and just putting in another voice, where's the fun in that?

If you look at my SynthesizerV files, I can guarantee you're not going to learn much. There's almost no automation going on. I'd rather change the note duration or words to make the singing work better

Aim higher than making a cover of one of my songs. You've got all the tools you need to create original music of your own. To me, that's much more satisfying than copying something that's already been done.

That said, I'll be happy to answer any questions you've got about SynthV, BiaB, mixing, copying melodies, or whatever. Just send me a Private Message on the forum.

I hope this was somewhat helpful!

Hi, Andi.
Thanks for the kind words!

Viele Grüsse to you!

I'll note that although term "many greetings" is grammatically correct in English, it doesn't really translate well. It comes across more as "I greet you multiple times". The internet tells me there's the original Latin "salutem plurimam dicit", but that's also not well known here. "Best wishes" is perhaps the best substitute, but it lacks the flavor of "many greetings".

All said... it's a cool greeting.

Thank you for the answer. I perfectly understand the perspective, in fact I forgot about that feature in Synth V that allows you to convert audio to MIDI and also those vocal removing tools, thanks for reminding me of that. And yeah I'll send a PM towards your way if I need to, thank you ^^

That is pretty sweet. I lot of work went into that production.

Cool pop song.

Hi David,
Nice job with That's Why I'm Back.
I enjoyed the lyrics, and the vocals.
You certainly have tons of talent.
thank you for sharing.
Happy Valentines Day to you and your family.
hugs and blessings, cheryl anne

The synthV vocals sound great and are singing with lots of emotion.
You really are a master at this and the time to do this "right" must be huge.

The lyric well paints the broken heart.

We get a Carpenters’ feel with the song - in a good way.

And despite the cold the mix sounded fine to us.

Enjoyed it!

J&B

Sounds good! Feel good song.

Nice pop song with great harmonies. David.
Even with Weina you get a bit of a Carpenters vibe, you seem to have a good knack for this sound and arrangement style.
Good work.

Cool song David. You sure have a handle on the vocal synths. Harmonies were excellent. I imagine a huge amount of worm. Really well done.