Originally Posted by dcuny
Hi, Ron.

Originally Posted by DC Ron
David, wow, this is REALLY nice! Super write, and the arrangement is perfect. Amazing vocals that remind me of a modern take on David Gates. Very impressive. Those harmonies are sweet as well.
Thanks!

I remember hearing the demo song for An Xiao and being impressed by the voice. But the cross-synthesis wasn't great, and he had too much of an accent for me to use as a lead voice. They've fixed most of the issues with the latest release, although some of the /d/ sounds are still a bit "thick", and I was pleasantly surprised by his voice.

Of course, it helps that I use the voice when working out the melody, which ensures that the vocal range is good and the timbre fits.

Gates (and Bread) was a monster on the charts back in the day. And a huge influence. Turns out that he bought a cattle ranch. Who'd have thunk? laugh

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Think in the future I'll delay reading your longer narrative until after listening to the song for the first time. I LOVE reading about your process, but I can sense my subsequent listens are somewhat distracted by knowledge of what the Wizard was doing behind the curtain. And you are ONE BUSY WIZARD. But a Wizard indeed. smile
One of the things Sunu showed me was that there are a lot of ways to arrange a song. If it's got a nice melody, it'll be fine no matter what you do.

Heck, just vocals and guitar or piano will work. All this is really just window dressing that hopefully stays out of the way of the vocals. laugh

Thanks for listening and commenting!

David, sorry for the second input, BUT...

Yeah, I spent WAY too many hours in the upper bunk of my dorm room learning the guitar parts to Best of Bread my freshman year. Should have spent more time on calculus. But then again, I've forgotten all my calculus and I still know Best of Bread inside out. smile

Absolutely agree with your "if it's got a nice melody" approach to songwriting. I'm there 110%.

Lastly, reviewing your other replies, I'm SO thankful to know I'm not the only one who can still hear the tells in AI (and most other synthesized) vocals. Know this will change in time as the technology gets better and my listening gets less discerning. But for now, I'm like you in that I focus on other parts of the music once I hear the tells. Don't get me wrong, think non-human vocals of ALL types are about to really take off. Will make me a little sad though, when vocalists better than me (not so hard!) choose to go that way. I'll miss the human aspect of it, even when I can't tell whether it's human. Weird, huh?

DC Ron
BiaB Audiophile
Presonus Studio One
ASUS I9-12900K DAW, 32 GB RAM
Presonus Faderport 16
Too many guitars (is that a thing?)