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Nothing Left

Like a leaf that keeps holding on
You won't let me go
But you know
Our time has come and gone (Time is gone)

Last night the swallows filled the sky (Last night / Filled the sky)
I saw them flying by, so high (Flying by / So high)
Heading somewhere past here (Somewhere / Past here)

Cold winds are blowing
You knew I'd be going
Nothing left between us anymore (Nothing left / No more)

      Nothing left for us to say
      It's all been said now
      Nothing left to say except goodbye
      Nothing we can do to stop our hearts from breaking
      It's time to fly

You know that I'll remember (I'll remember you)
Always remember
But now I've got to go out on my own (Go alone / All alone)
All alone
It's the end (End / It's the end)

I've loved these days we spent together (I've loved each day)
But nothing lasts forever (Forever)
Since love is gone
We can't hold on
Love is gone

Where it goes, I'll follow
Hoping in tomorrow
Hoping we'll find better days
Some way

(Chorus Repeats)

Instruments:
Bass, Electric, NashvilleRadioPopPushAB Ev 110
Bass, Electric FunkHalfNotePulseSync Ev16 100
Bass, Electric, ModernDiscoFunkAlex Ev 110
3646:Guitar, Nylon Fingerpicking IndieFolk16ths Ev16 100
3647:Guitar, Acoustic, Fingerpicking IndieFolk16ths ev16 100
Guitar, 12-String Acoustic, Fingerpicking Ev 085
Guitar, Acoustic, Fingerpicking Ev 085
Guitar, Acoustic, Rhythm FunkyFolk Ev16 110
913:Piano, Electric, Rhythm SmoothPoppy dry Ev16 090
Addictive Drums: Fairfax Vol. 2
SynthsizerV: Solaria AI, Eleanor Forte AI

Effects Chain:
Master Buss: Ozone Imager 2, Greg Wells MixCentric, Lurssen Mastering Console
Melody Vocals: Greg Wells VoiceCentric, LX480 Essential
Harmony Vocals: Greg Wells VoiceCentric, LX480 Essential
Guitars: EZ Mix (Acoustic Guitar)
Drums: CLA Drums
Guitar: EZ Mix (Acoustic Guitar)
Piano: Finisher Retro (Suitcase Panner), Trackspacer
Bass: EZ Mix (Bass4), ReaEQ (low pass, low shelf)


Short Blah
The mix (and some of the lyrics) is still a work in progress, and there are some "La la la"s that I should probably replace with real lyrics at some point.

Note: I slightly extended the ending.

Comments of all sorts are encouraged!

Longer Blah Blah Blahbitty Blah
The song is based on the demo style _KNACKS. What got my attention in the demo was the use of the VII7b5 and the III7 - chords I don't use that often. As usual, I rewrote the existing chords and put more major7th chords in the chorus.

I exported the tracks as well as a backing track, which I imported SynthesizerV, where I worked out a melody. I decided to use the Solaria voice, since I hadn't worked with it much.

It didn't take too long to come up with a melody, but I went back a rewrote the chorus to be a bit more "snappy" and more "chorus-y" than my usual chorus.

For the next couple weeks, I struggled to come up with some lyrics, with no success. I tried hanging a bunch of different lyrics on the melody, but none seemed like a good fit.

I finally settled for (yet another) breaking up and walking away song.

It was still a long slog - as I complained to my kids, I'm not sure why it's so much work to string a bunch of cliches together.

Usually, by the time I get done with the first verse, I have a fairly good idea what the song's key idea is, and can write the chorus to that. But in this case, I got all the verses done, and there didn't still didn't seem to be a strong idea that summed up the attitude of the song.

Which is - ironically enough - how I ended up with the chorus.

Once I got the lyrics worked out, I added the harmony. I wasn't entirely enthusiastic about actually doing the work, as I'd already lived with the song for much longer than I'd intended. Since there was still the mixing and sweetening to go - which would likely take another day or two - I figured now wasn't the time to skimp on effort.

But - as usual - I was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out. It's not really a duet, but I just thought the difference in timbres worked better than having two female voices.

It was pretty clear that some of the instruments were going to need to be replaced. The bass wasn't really adding to the song, so I replaced it with three different BiaB basses - one for the verse, bridge, and chorus.

I liked the drums that came with the style on the chorus, but I didn't think it fit well with the verses. I couldn't find a BiaB style, so I tried editing the track. That didn't work at all.

I tried out a couple of my UJAM drumkits, mostly looking for something a bit more "contemporary" sounding. I ended up using the MIDI from the Deep drumkit, but swapped the drum out for the Addictive Drum Fairfax Vol 2. kit. I edited them a bit, reducing the hihats. My son finessed the chorus.

I was going to add some drum fills, but I'm not sure they're needed. I miss the cymbal crashes, though, and will probably add them in.

I didn't do a whole lot of editing on the vocals this time around. I did tweak the lyrics and placement of the notes so it would flow a bit better. I managed to get the word "baby" removed from the lyric by holding a different syllable, so that's a win. I also took out "dear", despite some misgivings.

The song feels a bit short, but I don't think adding an instrumental or bridge is really necessary. There's no introduction or ending to the song, but I think it fits the theme to have it end the way it does. Feel free to disagree.

As noted above, feedback is welcome! Thanks for reading this far.

Really nice song, David. Very good lyrics and great harmony. Nice vocals all around.

Allan

super wow , this amazed me re the vocals.
us vocalists are gonna be redundant...lol.
great job on this.
your talent shines through in spades.

best.
om

Fantastic production... Love the kick & bass mix... Vocal counterpoint & harmony is really fine. It must have been a laborious process, but I'd say, well worth it... I'm very impressed.

The first singer enters astonishingly human, to the point of sounding like a distinctly flawed human singer (believe it or not I mean this in a good way)... but the second voice instantly cancels that, and it's total robot duet. I would either omit the second voice entirely or give the countermelody to an instrument, highlighting the main voice and its spiffily happy melody, which, IMO, deserves to be a solo.

You know the synth voices have come a long way when you forget that they are synth. I liked Ulysses better than this one, it had a classical crossover quality to it while Nothing Left is pure pop. But this is still good. I liked the quickening in the chorus, I could've stood to hear that chorus a third time.

You're still on an amazing path here, I'll certainly be following every step.

I hear it the opposite to Mark, I thought the voices becasue less artificial when they were together.
Excellent work the chorused Rhodes E Piano give it a very 80s feel.

Hi, Alan.

Thanks for the nice comments!

Hi, OM.

There are some great guitarist in BiaB, but I don't think we have to worry about guitarists being made redundant by the software.

But it sure makes it a lot easier for me when I want to go back and make any changes to the lyrics or music!

A couple of years ago I was bugging PG Music to add support for voice synthesis in BiaB. There's now an option to export lyrics in MusicXML format, but... I don't think anyone is using it.

Then again, with the advances is vocal synthesis, I suspect that the technology isn't that far away from being fairly common technology, so it may show up in BiaB sooner than later.

Thanks for stopping by to comment. I appreciate the positive comments!

Hi, bloc-head.

It's certainly less simple than singing, but it's not that difficult. The really hard part for me is coming up with lyrics!

I'm glad you enjoyed the song!

Hi, Mark.

That's the AI "auto-tune" feature at work. I sort of prefer the version that sounds like plain old "auto-tune", but adding imperfections helps sell the performance.


Well, the song wasn't originally conceived as a duet, so you've got a point.

However, I've become stupidly fond of this version, so... probably not going to happen.

Besides, I intentionally left the male vocal a bit bland, so not to eclipse the mail vocal.

However, I probably went too far with that, so - just for you - I've gone back and re-done the male vocal a bit. It's not a huge improvement, but it's just a bit better if you squint and apply a whole lot of confirmation bias.

What I will do is redo the vocals when a "real" English male vocal is available.

Thanks for listening and the critical feedback!

Hi, Rob.

I agree that the song is a bit short. One more round of the chorus is certainly not a bad idea.

This is a "pure pop" song, and it's not as polished as "Ulysses", either. Plus, I think "Ulysses" has more emotional weight. The "La las" really don't fit, and I'll have to replace them at some point. But the feel of the song is upbeat, which is in contrast with the material

Every song is a different animal, and I never know quite how they're going to turn out until they're done.


Yeah, this is pretty amazing stuff. Each iteration of the singers adds more features.

It's frustrating because there are things that the voices clearly can't do yet, but it's an amazing tool.

Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

Hi, Ray.

In fairness to Mark, he was commenting on an earlier mix before I went back and adjusted them a bit.


That instrument keeps showing up in my songs, for obvious reasons. Plus, I've got a number of sampled Rhodes pianos. But so far I haven't had to use them, because the ones in BiaB have worked just fine.

Thanks for listening and commenting!

Hello David
You are the total high-tech musician here ;-)
How you do it is always a mystery to me
A duet with artificial singers
Incredible !!!
Especially because sometimes it really sounds absolutely realistic
In a few years you'll have to point out that the vocals are artificial
because you can't tell them apart from human ones...
Great performance David
Many greetings
Andi ;-)

Quite impressive, David! I especially like the female voice. I also like the way you intertwine the two vocal parts, I've heard you do that before and it's very effective.

Nice mix, I especially like the drum sound you have achieved, kick and snare sound great.

Good listen, enjoyed this one!

DCuny.
You have really piqued my interest in vocal AI tech.
i stupidly hadnt realised it had come so far.

Is there any chance you could do a mini teach-in on these
Pg forums how you use this tech with biab/rb etc ?

In my case i would like to use femme back up vocs carefully crafted ....
To be as natural as possible bcos i cant afford live femme session vocallists..
You are very adept at using the tech and i feel lots of pg users might become interested As this vocal tech developes further.

once again, well done.
Best
om

Man, that's really cool contrapuntal melodies. I like how it starts right out with vocal, and the way you build it to a boil. The vocals may seem "flawed" by many, but I think it's amazing technology and you use it so well. This is a good song. Very entertaining.

Hi, Andi.

It's funny, because when the singers are in your native language, I can hear all the little imperfections.

But for other languages, like Chinese or Japanese, I can't hear any of that, and some of the demos I hear are absolutely convincing.


There are a couple English demos (not by me) that are very good, to the point where I have difficulty telling that it's artificial. So I think you're right about that.


Thanks!

Hi, Dave.

Yes, the new Solaria voice is the first American English voice, and it's got some nice qualities to it.

The "male" voice is a tweaked female voice, and it's hitting some pretty low notes. So it's not especially natural, despite my attempts. There's an English male vocal coming out this quarter, so I'm looking forward to trying that out.

I didn't really think there was much room in the vocals for the kind of "intertwining" harmony part I added, and originally was just going to try to add some "Oooohs" and "Aaaaahs" from BiaB. But the results were disappointing, and stacking harmonies in SynthesizerV is a lot harder than working out a single countermelody by ear.

So I went with that instead, and I think it turned out nicely, especially since the song hadn't been planned for that.


Thanks! I picked up a couple Addictive Drums over Christmas, and this is one of them. It's also running through the CLA Drums VST, which is making the snare a lot more punchy.


Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!

David,

An excellent listen. A good write.
("..not sure why it's so much work to string a bunch of cliches together." - HA! funny...)

The instrumentation is exceptional. Drums and Bass dominate with just the right amount of coloring from other instruments - the classic Pop formula, done to perfection!

The mix is solid.

You keep notching those singers higher with each new song. Impressive.

LOVE!!! the chorus!!!
...with one caveat.
The last line "leaves you hanging". It's too short.
I NEVER make songwriting suggestions to people (I view this forum to be about production, not songwriting)...BUT...
I wanted that last line to continue/extend...simply repeat it..
"It's time to fly... time to fly....fly...."
(and that last "fly" could be "echo-y")

COOL stuff. Well done.

fj