Postcards From Nowhere

I found the blue skies hiding behind the grey
They'd always been there but I didn't see 'till today
Couldn't figure why couldn't see the sky

      Postcards from nowhere were my yesterdays
      I've thrown them away
      What the future brings could be anything
      Tomorrow is the turning of the page

Feels like forever trying to find the way
Drifting through darkness, searching for better days
Couldn't turn around, looking for higher ground

      Postcards from nowhere were my yesterdays
      Dark and stormy skies have blown away
      What the future brings could be anything
      Tomorrow is the turning of the page

The dream is near
It's almost hear

      Postcards from nowhere were my yesterdays
      Dark and stormy skies have blown away
      What the future brings could be anything
      Tomorrow is the turning of the page
      So long, old days
      Tomorrow is the turning of the page


The Instruments
Bass 1397:Bass, Electric, Soul70sSync Ev16 100
Electric Piano: 2194:Piano, ElectricVintage, Rhythm CoolJazzPop Ev 085
Guitar 1: 2448:Guitar, Electric, Background, PopDreamyBrent Ev 085
Guitar 2: ~1435:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm JazzFunkGroovinChords Ev16 110
Guitar 3: 1401: Guitar, Electric, RhythmSoul70sBrightA-B Ev16 100
AcPiano: Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm Soul70sA-B Ev16 100 (Probably)
Alto Sax: Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm Soul70sA-B Ev16 100
Drums: Addictive Drums (Fairfax Vol 2., Faxer 2)
Ac. Guitar: Indiginus Renegade Acoustic (DustyWind)
Lead Vocal: Synthesizer V (Emily Forte AI)
Backing Vocals: Synthesizer V (Emily Forte AI, ANRI AI)


The Effects Chain
Master Buss: Ozone Imager, Lurssen Mastering Console (Americana Loose - More Glue)
Vocal: Make Me Scream, Greg Wells VoiceCentric
Vocal Room: Sunset Sound Studio (Iso Booth, Studio 3), Sunset Sound Studio (Plate Spring, Plate 1)
Sax: EZMix (140 Plate)
Harmony Room: Raum (Grounded)
Bass: Make Me Scream, ReaEq (Basic 11 Band Rock Bass), RBass Mono
El. Piano: Trackspacer, Finisher Retro (Dreamer), Finisher Retro (Suitcase Panner)
Ac. Piano: EZMix2 (Piano2)


The Short Version
This is still a work in progress, so feel free to comment on whatever.

Thanks for listening!

Notes on the Second Mix
Mark Hayes pointed out that the vocals were a bit flat and lacked energy. So I've bumped the key up 7 semitones, and changed the tempo from 100 bpm to 105 bpm.

I also made a small change to the lyric, and no doubt will continue to do some further tweaking, especially to balance the harmony against the melody.


The Blah Blah Blah Part - Feel free to skip it. laugh
This was built around the demo song METRO. I changed a bunch of chords, some of which I got a bit too creative with.

The minor6 chord and the guitars gave it a bit more of a surfer tune feel than I expected. I decided to add a modulation to this, as well as an extended ending.

I decided I should use a bridge instead having three verse/choruses in a row. Little did I know how much effort the sax solo was going to take.

Some day I should write a song with a chorus that's a simple repetition, so it's easier to write and more catchy. Today wasn't that day.

After creating a backing track, I imported it into SynthesizerV and worked out a melody. Unfortunately, the chorus sounded a lot like the verse, and both the verse and chorus were a bit bland. Even worse, the ending of the chorus sounded a lot another song I'd written. But I figured I'd deal with it later and just plow ahead.

The initial plan was to use the new ANRI voicebank that had just been released, and I started with the ANRI voice. But I didn't think it was as good as the Eleanor Forte voice. I tweaked the version to a "male" version, and decided to write to that voice. (Obviously I eventually changed it back).

I wrote dummy lyrics - nonsense verse - to fill in the syllables of the song to help me get started on the lyric. It didn't really lead to anything, but it got me something that could be fixed, which is better than a blank sheet. I went looking through some ideas I'd written while working on other songs, and found an old lyric that I could - with a bit of rewriting - fit into the beginning of the song. I also found the "postcards from nowhere" phrase in my notes, which I'm sure I filched from someone else's lyrics.

Some "fill in the blank" work, and I had a chorus. smile

At this point, the similarity between this and another song I'd written became really apparent, so it was time to move notes around to make it "legally distinct", so to speak. The result sounded a lot more like real chorus, so I had my daughter listen to the "before" and "after" versions.

She pulled no punches - the first version is "flat", "boring", and "all sounds the same". The second was a great improvement. Not necessarily good, just an improvement.

Yeesh - perhaps I've raised a bit too much like me. wink

Since there wasn't enough room to develop much of a story, I figured to go ahead with the instrumental. A few lines from the dummy lyrics were salvaged and stuck after the instrumental.

Then I went through the melody and did a lot of edits. There were still a few bits that clashed with the harmony, and eventually I decided to shift back to Eleanor "natural" voice. The song was a bit low for the voice, but... onward anyway!

As the Eleanor voice isn't especially powerful, when an advert for the "Make Me Scream" VST showed up in my email on sale, I decided to give it a try. It was a saturation/distortion effect. It certainly doesn't turn the vocal into a scream, but it does give it a bit of edge. I also used in on the bass, because... well, I did pay for it.

Writing harmony is the fun bit. I tried to make the harmony differ on each verse, to provide a bit more variety.

Then I went back to BiaB to create the sax solo. The new Multi-Riff feature proved helpful, but it still required a whole lot of cutting and pasting. It just didn't seem to want to create a cohesive solo. The key change in the middle of the solo probably didn't help. I spent a lot of time on the solo, and am still not totally happy with it.

The drums weren't working as well as I wanted, to I pulled out the UJAM "Deep" drumkit and started looking for some MIDI that I could build on. I found some patterns I liked, but ended up doing a lot of editing to them. I ended up using Addictive Drums, and putting far more time into working on the drum track than I expected.

I really wanted to have an arpeggiated guitar in the back of the first verse, but again... nothing in BiaB seemed to match. So I got out the Indiginus "Rengade Acoustic" and played in the part.

The drum track was still lacking energy in the final chorus, so I went back and added a ride cymbal.

There are still a few lyrics that I should probably tighten up - "couldn't" shows up too much, for example - and the intro could use some work.

But I figured it's time to release it and get some feedback.

-- David Cuny
My virtual singer development blog

Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?