Ulysses - based on the poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson

The long day fades,
the slow moon rises,
voices call me from the deep.

My ship will sail beyond the sunset
across the endless sea.

I will drink life to the lees
Through the scutting drifts vexed by the Hyades

Far away, far apart
Always roaming with a hungry heart

Weak by time and fate,
but back in the old days
we could move heaven and earth
Now we are old and grey

Come my friends,
It's not to late to seek the new world.
To strive, to seek, to find,
and not yield.


The Band
Bass: RealTracks ~700:Bass, Electric, PopHalfNotesPush Ev 085
Piano: RealTracks 892:Piano, Acoustic, Solo-Accompaniment PopLiverpool Ev 065 (A-simple)
Acoustic Guitar 1: RealTracks 3906:Guitar, Acoustic, Rhythm SongwriterSlow16DADGAD Ev16 060
Acoustic Guitar 1:RealTracks ~1676:Guitar, Acoustic, Fingerpicking CountryBrent Ev 065
Drums: RealDrums [NashvilleEven16^3-a:Sidestick, HiHat , b:Snare, HiHat Open
12 String Guitar: Strummed Acoustic 2
Percussion: UJam One
Strings: Orchestral Tools LA Sessions (Studio Strings)
Oboe: 8dio 8diOboe
Trumpet: Embertone Chapman Trumpet
Lead Vocal: SynthesizerV (Anri AI)
Backing Vocal: SynthesizerV (Eleanor Forte AI)

The Processing Chain
Master Buss: Greg Wells MixCentric (GW Party Started), Lurssen Mastering Console (Americana Loose (Less Glue))
Main Vocal: Greg Wells VoiceCentric (GQ Lead Vocal), LX40 Essentials (Plate)
Backing Vocal: Real ADT (Subtle Vocal ADT), GW VoiceCentric (GW Backing Vocal)
Drums: EZMix (Drum Buss), EZMix (Drum Room 2), ReaEQ
Percussion: Vulf Compressor (Master Hump)
Bass: EZMix (Bass Control), ReaEQ
Guitar 1: EZMix (Guitar 3)
Guitar 2: EZMix (Acoustic Guitar with Reverb)
Piano: EZMix (Piano2), EZMix (Studio B), ReaEQ
Oboe: Raum (Grounded)
Strings: Raum (Grounded)

The Story
The song started with the JBALLAD.STY. I decided to try something different and use a fairly simple chord progression.

Once I brought the backing tracks into my DAW, I realized that it was too long and repetitive. Normally, I'd go back into BiaB and fix it there, but I started slicing and dicing and moving things around, all the while hoping that I wasn't going to have to change the key of the song, or I might end up with a lot of lost work.

Spoiler: Of course I ended up having to change the key.

Once I had the form to something shorter (perhaps a bit too short), I imported it into Synthesizer V to work on the melody. Once that was done, I tried simplifying things, but old habits die hard.

Then I started working on the lyrics, but... nothing.

I had a vague idea of a ship on the sea, but wasn't sure if it would be literal or metaphorical. I remembered my Dad used to have a poster in his office of a boat sailing, with a portion of the poem Ulysses by Lord Alfred Tennyson:

      How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
      To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

Ironically, these key lines didn't make it into the final edit of the song.

Since it was written in 1833, the poem is in the Public Domain. I consider using poems a bit of a cheat, but only because I'm trying to learn songwriting. But it had been a couple of days, and I wasn't making any real progress on the lyrics.

I decided to keep as much of the original language as I could. There are a few words that are completely archaic, and I may decide to go back and replace them. Specifically:

      I will drink life to the lees
      Through the scutting drifts vexed by the Hyades

Once all the words were worked out, it was obvious that I'd picked a terrible key for the singer. I'd used the new Anri voice, although I really envisioned this as something more suited for the Cangqiong voicebank, which I unfortunately don't have yet. I'm not terribly unhappy with the results, but I would have liked to have a voice with a bit more oooph to it.

So I pitched it down to somewhere that sounded better, and regenerated the backing tracks. Fortunately, all the edits stayed in place, and the instruments that carried the melody were all MIDI, so it was much less painful than it might have been.

I worked on the string parts next. Since I keep bugging Shigeki that he should use trills and stuff, I figured it would be hypocritical not to do that myself. wink The parts are simple, but I think they turned out nicely.

I'd been intended to use an English Horn in one of my songs for a while, and had just bought a bunch of sampled double reeds. Ironically, I ended up using the 8diOboe instead - an instrument that I was deeply disappointed with when I got it, but it seemed to fit better than my shiny new sample libraries. Go figure.

I then went back and worked on the articulation. There's currently a bug in SynthesizerV, so there's some EQ to minimize that.

My son then went in and did some polishing. There's not really a whole lot going on in the arrangement - most of the interesting things are happening in the string section.

Any and all comments welcome! laugh

-- David Cuny
My virtual singer development blog

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