You And I

you and i don't want the same things
i can see it in your eyes
the night falls
our shadows stalk the halls
we've nowhere left to hide

   love should last forever
   but we both know something's changed
   like a fire when fire has lost the flame

you don't want to hear me say it
you would rather hear me lie
our cold bed
the things we leave unsaid
the feeling we hide deep inside

   nothing lasts forever
   nothing stays the same
   did we try
   or only try to place the blame

you and i don't want the same things
but i don't want to say goodbye
i can't accept that
there's really nothing left
two strangers
both choosing losing sides

   love can last forever
   but only if we really try
   in the end
   it's for you and me to decide

The Background

TL;DR: All comments are welcome!

I started with the EMPOWER demo, and made a bunch of changes. Then I exported a backing track into SynthesizerV and worked out a melody. While working on the lyric, I did something I do far too infrequently: I changed the key from C to G to better fit the voice.

For me, writing songs is a slog and then lots of rewrites, and this was no different. You might notice each verse re-uses much material from the prior verse. This is a convenient poetic device that minimizes the amount of new material I need to write.

Still, it took days before I dropped my "Ode to Summer" song idea, and eventually came up with something workable.

Although I loved the drums in the demo song, the handclaps seemed out of place for the lyric, so the RealDrums were replaced by UJAM drums, mostly because it was easier to build a drum track with UJAM than with EZ Drummer. Then I kept the MIDI, replaced the UJAM drums with an Addictive Drums drumkit.

As usual, I added a bunch of instruments. I had bought an 80's sounding keyboard library called Rhodes Affair 2, and decided to try adding that, along with the Fret Affair 80's guitar sound. Unsurprisingly, it made it very 80's sounding.

The BiaB GrungePopGritty Guitar soloist apparently has no idea what a Maj7th chord is, and plays Dom7th chords instead. Replacing "Cmaj7" and "Gmaj7" with "Em" and "Bm" mostly fixed that, but the guitar parts required a lot of editing.

I eventually generated a bunch of sustained chords so I could simplify the guitar parts even more.

I wasn't going to have a guitar solo in the song, but after listening, my daughter said "I like it, but it needs a guitar solo" like I feared she might, so... I carved out room and added a MIDI guitar solo after a couple hours work. Spoiler: the guitar solo you hear is not that MIDI, see next paragraph. wink

The same daughter said "I'm not feeling it" when she heard the solo, so I ended up building it in BiaB anyway. I'm not thrilled with the effects on it, but I don't have a digital guitar pedalboard, so it'll stay like that until I get better FX.

This was a real bear to mix. It started out as a "wall of sound", and became more so as I added more instruments. Less really is more!

I'm pretty happy with the mix, but feel free to tell me where I went wrong. laugh

Edit 1: I replaced the snare with a more genre-appropriate snare, slightly altered the guitar solo notes/FX/raised the volume, and modified the guitar solo at the end.


Edit 2: My son did some tweaking to get the bass, kick and snare to play nice. There's also a huge reverb tail after the guitar solo, which I think is too much, but be says that's what the kids are into these days it's super-dope*.

[*] I doubt anyone used the phrase "super-dope", ever. Then again, as I was leaving the mall the other day, I passed someone who said "I'd like to see the Haunted Mansion [film]", so stranger things have happened. wink


The Instruments
Lead Vocal: SynthesizerV (Natalie)
Backing Vocal: SynthesizerV (Qing Su)
Bass: 1010:Bass, Electric, BritInvasion Ev 140
Ac Gtr1: 406:Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming Ev 136
Ac Gtr2: 691:Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming AcRockBright Ev 120
El. Gtr1: 2535:Guitar, Electric, HeldChords Gritty
El. Gtr2: Indiginus Generation Electric Guitar
Keyboard: Rhodes Affair 2 (LA 85)
80's El. Gtr: Fret Affair
Ac. Gtr 3: Indiginus Renegade Acoustic
Drums: Addictive Drums (United Pop/Acoustic Pop)
Bg. Lead Gtr 1: 3729:Guitar, Electric, Soloist GrungePopGritty Ev 110
Bg. Lead Gtr 2: 3729:Guitar, Electric, Soloist GrungePopGritty Ev 110
Solo Guitar: 3729:Guitar, Electric, Soloist GrungePopGritty Ev 110


The FX Chain
Master Track: HoRNet ThirtyOneMK2, HoRNet MasterTool, GregWells MixCentric.(Mix Fairydust)
Lead Vocal: SynthesizerV (Natalie), GregWells VoiceCentric (Lead Vocal), Panagement2 (Heaven)
Vocal Buss: Raum (Grounded), Panagement2 (Heaven)
Backing Vocal: SynthesizerV (Qing Su), GregWells VoiceCentric (Backing Vocal), Panagement2 (Heaven)
Backing Vocal Buss: Raum (Grounded), Panagement 2 (Heaven)
Bass: TrackSpacer (ducking vocal)
Ac Gtr1: TrackSpacer (ducking vocal), Panagement 2 (Heaven)
Ac Gtr2: TrackSpacer (ducking vocal), Panagement 2 (Heaven)
El. Gtr1: Panagement 2 (Heaven)
El. Gtr2: Indiginus Generation Electric Guitar, Panagement 2 (Heaven)
Keyboard: Rhodes Affair 2 (LA 85), Panagement2 (Heaven)
El. Gtr: Fret Affair, Panagement2 (Heaven)
Ac. Gtr 3: Indiginus Renegade Acoustic, Panagement2 (Heaven)
Drums: Addictive Drums (United Pop/Acoustic Pop)
Bg. Lead Gtr 1: Raum (Airy), Panagement 2 (Concrete)
Bg. Lead Gtr 2: Raum (Airy), Panagement 2 (Concrete)
Solo Guitar: EZ Mix 2 (Guitar Solo), JS Delay w/Tempo Ping-Pong, Panagement 2 (Concrete)


-- David Cuny
My virtual singer development blog

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