To The Stars (demo)

Robert Dean showcased his demo song on this forum and he was interested in hearing other members' demos and outtakes. So here is one of mine.

In early 2018 I read this David Snyder's forum post. It inspired me to write this song, thanks to David for that It was intended to be sung by a female with my vocals dueting in the chorus. I asked one woman to sing it, but she hasn't commented this request so far. I haven't actively sought another singer, so the song will most likely be buried in the sand of history, but I thought it might be interesting to hear your opinions about it as a demo version, anyway. The lead vocal track is only a guide track for the real singer, I have used the Vocaloid Cyber Diva for that. Also my vocal track is just a rough take, because I don't have the final female track to match with. Thus, no much vocal mixing or de-essing. Also rhythm of the lyrics in some parts would need some polishing.

For the music itself, I got inspiration from dream pop style, especially Finnish band called Cats of Transnistria.

I hope you find at least something to comment about in this unfinished work.

RealDrums: BossaBrushes, MarkTree

RealTracks:
Acoustic Bass Bowed #2483 + Amplitube 3
Acoustic Piano #2808
Electric Guitar (DI) #2879 + Amplitube 3
Electric Guitar Strum Dirty #1018 + Amplitube 3
Electric Guitar Muted (DI) #836 + Amplitube 3
Electric Guitar soloist #1836, #2690
Synth #2582
Vibes #1215
Organ #688

MIDI:
Tremolo Strings - The Orchestra
Elven Choir - The Orchestra

Vocals: Vocaloid Cyber Diva and me

Lyrics:

Standing in line at the boarding gate
passengers of dreams always have to wait
a ticket in the hand wishing that a heart sign
a thumb up and some heart-warming words
on the heading line
would open the VIP door
even when the flight to the stars
is overbooked once more.

This is a journey like falling in love
together for better each other to shove
driven by the same dream for light years ahead
heartening the shy mates to pilot instead.

Fighting for seats in the business class
romantics of life not privileged to pass.
the majority won't get a nice place by the window
they have to settle for crumbs of hope
in the afterglow
never reaching a heavenly scoop
but they build their own starlit show
by the support of their group.

This is a journey...

You want to be stared and admired every night
but you don't see the reality
you'll be blinded by light
burned by heat
crushed by gravity.

------------
Janne

Janne,

Great to hear some of your unreleased material. I enjoyed that very much - cool to hear the creative process.

Bob

Janne, you have a great start here. The backing tracks are really good. Once you get a real female singer and you sing your harmonies I'm sure that you will have a winner on your hands.

my goodness that vocaloid is the first time ive heard that.
impressive !
might i suggest leaving out the drums ? or just haveing the odd tom hit here and there ? ie very subtle.
i really like the cinematic style of this song.
and that CHANGE AT 3mins10secs.
this evening i must be in a female choir mood cos this song with
a massed female choir would be amazeing imho.

very well done !
om

Hi Janne,

This is such a aural feast!!!! To my ears, the whole presentation is a festival of sounds. There is so much creativity on show absolutely everywhere. You've really unleashed your inner Richard Wagner with this one.

Love it

All the best,
Noel

Janne,

Cool atmospheric intro and also throughout it maintains that ethereal sound texture! Lovely chord progression! I think you have something here that is worth your time to continue to polish until you are satisfied with the final product! Take care, Torrey.

Is VOCALOID a VST plugin? That's ... not bad for an artificially created voice. I might have to check it out.

I'll be interested to hear how you end up fleshing this out. Sounds ... ethereal.

Thanks Bob, I'm glad to hear you enjoyed my demo

Janne

Thanks Mario for your kind feedback Probably this demo won't ever progress more, but good to know I might have had a winner

Janne

Thanks om for your positive words and suggestions Leaving out the drums, that's an interesting idea, if I ever come back to the song, I'll consider that, the bossabrushes I used are not in line with the over all style. And I hope to find a big female choir to sing it

Janne

Janne,
Very different from all I have heard by you. Dark New age sound. Excellent job on robo girl, I think it suits overall song feel. So interesting to hear another vocals, recognizing your phrasing At this stage, I would not even look for a live vocalist and call it done.
Thank you for sharing.
Misha.

Hi jannesan,

It is a beautiful composition. It remains to find a nice voice like that of Janice (& Bud). Good luck.

Kindly regard
Derochette
alias JaniJackFlash

Janne,

Quite a soundscape. This has a "current" vibe.

The vocaloid works well for this. Synths are good. Guitar solos, too.

Sounds close to done to me. Because it has that modern sound, you might consider using finger snaps or claps along with the sidestick (or in place of it).

fj

Very cool song Janne. Love those vocaloid tunes. Excellent backtrack. The duet was very very cool. Well done

Hi Janne,

I actually love the vocaloid when it is used like this... this was a very inspiring song to listen to!

Good work!

Will

Hi Janne,

Very impressed with the vocaloid, sounded much better than I expected it too. Especially sounds good when mixed in with your vocal.

Guitar solos work well.

Good track, enjoyed!

Thanks Noel, always pleasure to read your positive review "Inner Richard Wagner", that was really nicely said

Janne

Thanks Torrey for your kind and supportive comment Glad you liked the chord progression, even when it's quite complicated this time. Let's see when I get some inspiration to work on this more.

Janne

Thanks Phil for listening and commenting Ethereal - I was aiming for that. Vocaloid I'm using is not a VST plugin, but sort of a sequencer program. There might have been a plugin for Cubase in some Vocaloid version.

Janne

Oh yeah!

Man, these lyrics are SO incredible and so appropriate for today.

I love this, Janne, but I have to say, the lyrics are so good I would love to hear also an alternate arrangement where it is more simple, maybe just guitar, or something with a slow build, where you sing it, and you can really hear the poetry of the lyrics.

Just a thought! Love these lyrics I am telling you!

Thanks Misha for your nice comment Good to know that you think the Vocaloid voice suits the feel, but I still would like to hear it sung by some real opera star

Janne

Thanks Derochette for your kind feedback and good luck wishes Yeah, I hope to find a real ethereal voice.

Janne

Misha nailed it with "dark new age."

Perfect description and given the textured mix the vocaloid fits well ... and for us that is relatively rare.

The "connect your own dots" lyric is quite fitting for the overall vibe.

And, man, that "band" is amazing. There are so many tracks that would at first appearance seem to not work together well ... but they do and do it excellently.

Well done dark new age!

J&B

PS Thanks Dero for the mention of me (Janice) but that style, although enjoyable, is way, way beyond my vocal "imagination" and I doubt a southern drawl would fit

Thanks fj for your generous feedback Glad you think that Vocaloid works. And good idea to use finger snaps or claps, could fit with the theme, maybe together with some long reverb.

Janne

Thanks Scott for your nice comment And I'm glad you liked Vocaloid and the duet also.

Janne

You've build a solid foundation.

Best of luck on taking it to the next steps.

moto

Janne,

Yeah, lot’s of potential in this one. I remain amazed by how well the vocaloid features work—not quite entirely natural sounding here, but it fits well with your mix. Like the duet harmony vocals in the chorus—that works really well. From a production standpoint, the orchestra is a little overpowering in spots, and I might choose to tune that down and shine more of a light on the vocals . . . but a judgement call. Great start that’s worth a little spit and polish!

Hope all is well in your world!

Deej

Great lyrics, that alone should make the project worth continuing. You could always hire someone from fiverr as I often do for lead vocals. Interesting project, indeed.

Thanks Will for your kind feedback I'm glad you loved Vocaloid, maybe this is good genre to use it for.

Janne

Thanks Dave for your kind words BIAB provides many good solo guitarists, but naturally they can't beat you yet, maybe never

Janne

Thanks David for your very rewarding comment I knew you would like the lyrics, because they are inspired by your words Interesting suggestion for more simple arrangement, would be completely different than my spaceship dream pop style, but I think about that. Of course, if you want to, you can make your own cover version

Janne

So good to hear a song from your workbench, Janne, and this one IS a good one. Seems ALMOST done. I agree with Derochette, and disagree with Janice. She can make any style sound wonderful. Man, I really want to hear this with your final vocalist and your harmony. Cool instrumentation is already there with just a few tweaks for the mix. Thanks for dusting this one off and sharing it. I've been working on one since reading Bob's post, too.

I really like the instrumentation and the cosmic mood. Great opening.

Very nice melody that the vocaloid presents well.

You should definitely continue with this song. Hearing the female voice, I think this should stay with a female singer because it just seems to fit the whole mood and tone of the song.

Wow, that Vocaloid track motivated me to go check it out, I had no idea synth vocals had gotten this good. A little too pricey for me at the moment though – doesn't BIAB itself do something like this?

The overall feel reminded me of the David Lynch / Angelo Badalamenti songs sung by Julee Cruise in "Twin Peaks".

REALLY good song. I'd stick with the elements you have and do a slight remix to settle your vocals into the mix and rethink the drums.

Thanks J&B for your kind review Nice to hear that Vocaloid fits, I can't imagine how this song would sound with Janice's vocal or any other singer, everyone has his/her own style and usually the arrangement should be changed to reflect that style, I have had to change the arrangement several times because of that. But I hope I find a vocalist with courage to try to challenge Vocaloid in this song

Janne

Thanks moto for your kind words and wishes

Janne

Interesting sound, cool listen. The guitar solos worked really well, and I'll steal Torrey's words: ethereal and atmospheric.

By nature the Vocaloid is a bit thin in the lower and mid registers. Adding your voice on the chorus really helps bring things together.

Nicely done!

Absolutely wonderful progression--throughout, but especially in the instrumental bridge near the end. I really hope you will continue to search for a singer. At present, the melody is a little blocky and could be benefited by a human voice and some small glissando's. Having said that, though, what follows might make the more inhuman vocal more fitting than not.

This began with a real epic romantic feel. I thought I was in for a rapturous love song. Clearly that is not how it turns out as both musically and lyrically it just gets darker and darker. I HOPE what you were aiming for is "creepy", because that's where I think you arrived.

You both established and shattered the epic romance convention and wrote a piece that, to my ears, works more perfectly as the ending music for the credits of a Stephen King adaption or (help me) a Michael Haneke film. Dear God, I hope that's "good news" to you, because from my chair it's freaking brilliant.

Don't stop on this one. You might need a little help from a native English speaker/writer to polish a little, but that's hardly necessary. Whatever you do, don't ruin what you have.

Yours, in fear and trembling,

T

Thanks Deej for your kind comment Glad you liked the duet harmony. Dream pop style can be characterized as "an atmospheric subgenre of alternative rock that relies on sonic textures as much as melody". So mixing vocals lower is part of this style. Some other style would give vocals more light, like Mr. Snyder's suggestion.

Janne

Thanks TuneMonger for your positive feedback It always pleasure to get such a nice comment for my lyrics. I have never tried fiverr, although I have used couple of other singer hiring services before. It is bit of hit and miss, usually sounding ok, but not like the "right one" vocalist.

Janne

Thanks Marty for your kind and supportive comment I hope that someday I can make the final step from "ALMOST done" to "done"

Janne

Hi Jannesan,

I listened with pleasure and amazement to your demo.
At first, like nearly all others, I was amazed how that Vocaloid worked out here. I looked it up on internet and saw I knew it already. Dunny used it and was experimenting with it.
It's a interesting demo, including this artificial voice and combined with your vocals worked very nice!
I think you don't need a human anymore (for singing).

There is one thing I like to mention: the band and especially the organ and synth (I think) were too loud and distracted my attention once in a while. I know it's probably a personal feeling, but I thought I have to mention it here.

Hans

Thanks Ezekiel's Storm for your kind comment Cosmic mood - I was aiming for that, glad to hear I succeeded Yes I agree, this was made for a female vocalist and it fits the mood and the genre (like, for example, Cocteau Twins).

Janne

Thanks Mark for your nice comment Vocaloids have surely got better and after this one I'm using, there are better but I haven't followed the development for couple of years. Yes, there is Vocal Synth (Sinsy) support in BIAB, I have never used it, though.

It's an honor to read Lynch / Badalamenti / Cruise reference, thanks for that

Janne

Thanks Ray for your positive feedback I'll keep it in my mind if ever working again with the mix and arrangement.

Janne

Thanks David for your kind feedback Maybe I should duet with a female Vocaloid more often to get a fuller sound

Janne

Thanks Tangmo for your insightful and rewarding comment I fully agree, the melody is bit blocky, it is not easy to make nicely flowing melody with Vocaloid, so I left that freedom for the real vocalist.

Thanks for mentioning Michael Haneke, his early movies were really creepy. I wasn't after so creepy, the ending is more like a warning to think about consequences of chasing after dreams. Maybe the dark part is people naively dragging others to the same horrible fate. Difficult to explain, but I'm happy with the ending and glad that you liked it also

Janne

Thanks Hans for your nice feedback I'm glad you liked my duet with Vocaloid. And thanks for mentioning that those instruments were too loud. It's on purpose, characteristic of the style I was after (the wall of effected instruments). But if I experiment with this kind of style in the future, I'll try to make it sound more Hans-friendly

Janne

Hi Janne,

That would be a marvellous idea to make it more Hans friendly, although it (almost) is already!

Hans