PG Music Home Forums General Discussion User Showcase End of the Rainbow (Synthesizer V)

End of the Rainbow

That damned cat's at the door
You'd think that he never gets fed
He keeps scratching away
Guess I'll get myself out of bed

The morning drive still an hour away
Waiting for the coffee to kick in
And for the day to begin

You say "Have a nice day" and give me a smile
I say "See you in a while"

You and me, just like falling leaves (just like leaves falling from trees)
Now those storms that blew us round are just a breeze (storms will die away)

After work, down to the park for a walk
Watching the ducks and the kids on the swings as we talk (as we talk)

The same old thing makes a perfect day (perfect day)
Like my favorite song I wait for the radio to play (radio plays)
Sharing with you each simple thing (simple thing)
Wondering what the next day will bring (what the day will bring)

You and me (you and me)
At the end of a rainbow (at the rainbow)
Finally made it to the eye of the storm

Now the sun is sinking down
You're warm in bed with a book
But our "happily ever after"
Turned out to be much harder than it looked (looked, it looked)

Taking out the trash, putting dishes away
Glad that life is finally so boring and ordinary (finally ordinary)

Days (the days go by) after the storm (the storms will pass)
Finally found a place to stay
That's safe and warm
Safe, safe at last


Instruments
1569:Bass, Electric, Soul60sA-B Ev 110
2810:Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm SmoothSoulFast16thsMike Ev16 110
1570:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm Soul60sHighBackBeat Ev 110
1155:Organ, B3, Rhythm Reggae Ev16 100
1950:Piano, Acoustic, Soloist PopRootsyJohn Ev16 100 (Bluesy)
1404: Guitar, Electric, Rhythm Soul70sWarmA-B Ev16 100
1407: Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm Soul70sA-B Ev16 100
1410: Piano, SynthLayer, Rhythm Soul70sA-B Ev16 100
Loop: HipHop\Old School - gangstar_beat_95b drums ev16.wav
RealDrums: Soul70sPercEv16^
RealDrums :Soul60sEv^
Vocals: Synthesizer V - Eleanor Forte (Lite)

Mix Chain
Master: Ozone Imager 2 -> Lurssen Mastering Console
Lead Vocal: Synthesizer V -> Greg Wells VoiceCentric -> Goodhertz Vulf Compressor -> Sunset Sound Studio (Room)
Lead Vocal Apiration: SpitFish De-Esser
Harmony Vocal: Synthesizer V -> Greg Wells VoiceCentric -> Raum Reverb
Harmony Vocal Apiration: SpitFish De-Esser
Drums: ReaEQ -> Goodhertz Vulf Compressor
Bass: Scheps Omni Channel EQ
Organ: JS Tremolo -> TrackSpacer -> Vulf Compressor
Piano: TrackSpacer
Synth: JS Tremolo -> TrackSpacer


Blah-bitty Blah Blah Blah
This started from the _RECTIFY demo. I changed the key, changed the chords - the standard stuff.

When I assembled the song, I thought that I'd have the standard repeating chorus, so once I put the chorus together, I could just cut and paste that part in.

Oh, best laid plans. How you go awry.

Actually writing the lyric proved a much more difficult than it should have. The backing suggested a happy sort of song, which is probably the most difficult kind for me to write. I mean, everything's great, what's to sing about? (Yes, I know: I should take a cue from Noel's songs).

I had in mind something along the lines of America's "All Around" - maybe someone going for a walk reflecting on the day. But the motivation for the song - the "who" is walking, and "what's happening to them" just didn't come. I think this reflects a lack of curiosity about other people on my part. I've got a tough enough time figuring out my own life without having to create mental models for other people. I spent the last two weeks watching all three seasons of Hinterland hoping I could crib idea from there, but since it's one of those murder-y shows, that didn't help.

Still, I enjoyed the series.

While I prefer to make sure that anything in my songs that's based on my own life is heavily fictionalized, I do have a cat named Harry who wakes my up every morning scratching on my bedroom door. So I guess I can thank him for the song. Once I got a start, I was able to slog through in a linear fashion. Each chorus required their own set of lyrics, leaving me to curse at myself for my foolishness. Especially when I got to the final chorus, and I was completely stuck.

I initially was going to have the singer be single, and the first verse he had an imaginary conversation:

You'd say "Have a nice day" and give me a smile
I'd say "See you in a while"

But that didn't scan well, and it added complexity to the narrative. So I replaced the "imaginary" person with an actual person, and moved on to the second verse, skipping the chorus. It's never a good sign when you're writing the song without the chorus!

Breaking the verses by time seemed the most obvious choice, and singing about work is boring, and requires too much work to set up a narrative with little payoff. So off to the park for verse two. This is the point where I finally figured out the point of the song - drama in a relationship sucks.

Still no chorus in sight, but I did come up with the lyrics "we reached the end of the rainbow", so figured that the other chorus would be variations on that theme.

For the final chorus, I tried to touch on the bits of emotional conflict that hadn't yet been said. Finding a rhyme with "ordinary" turned out to be a pain, because I'd been using /ay/ sorts of rhymes. I finally cheated and went with the near rhyme "finally" figuring that they both ended with the long /e/ sound. Close enough!

That got the verses completed, but no choruses. I fleshed out the "end of the rainbow" idea for one verse. A "storm" is associated with rainbows, so hurrah - thematic continuity.

Since I was completely brain-dead by this point, the final chorus had me completely stumped. I finally decided to crib a lyric from Steely Dan's "Home At Last", which borrowed the idea from Homer's "The Odyssey", so I doubt Donald Fagan will be sending his lawyers.

The vocal needed a lot of tuning - getting the male vocal to sound consistent in the lower registers is a bit of a balancing act. I'm sure it could be better, but better to get something out the door than fiddle with it forever.

Yes, it probably needs a de-esser. I tried to err on the side of intelligibility.

I then brought it into Reaper to assemble and mix. My son listened to the initial rough and fiddled with the drums and bass. I wasn't sure that I was going to add harmony to this one, but my son suggested that the song was pretty much the same all the way through. I lied to myself and said that if I added harmony, I wouldn't have to create a better arrangement.

So I went back to Synthesizer V to work out a harmony part. I was initially going to do add a male voice singing a simple harmony part in 3rds and 6ths. But I had a headache, and I lost the chord sheet. There are some "interesting" chord choices in the song, so getting the harmony to work out took a bit of doing. If I was going to do that much work, I figured I'd do something more fun than parallel harmony. A couple ibuprofen later, the harmony was done.

At that point, it started sounding a bit more like a song.

I then went back to BiaB to find additional instruments to add to the track to add some variety. Then it was a matter of removing instruments in various parts, and adding others to (hopefully) create hills and valleys in the arrangement.

Mix, mix and mix some more.

Edit: I mentioned on the Synth V forum that I really should have used a de-esser, and someone pointed out that the vocal can automatically be split between the harmonic (voiced) and inharmonic (unvoiced) portions. Which was really cool, because putting it on another track means that never hits the compressor and can be added back in to sound more natural. So I've made some changes and re-uploaded the file.


All comments welcome!

I think you did very well with with this track - Eleanor often sounds better when using the deeper and darker sounding parts of her abilities...

I truly enjoyed listening twice to this song.

However, it is still not convincing if you compare with a true human voice and I know you will be the first one to say that, David.

I wonder if it would be possible to make it more convincing if we choose not to make the lyrics an important part of the track... meaning... write some lyrics that sounds good using Synth V, but not care too much about the meaning of the words... like they did in the 70s and 80s funk music (I remember someone from Tom Tom Club (or maybe it was Talking Heads) saying something like "deep and meaningful lyrics are for folk music or country music, but they can be distracting in funk music meant for dancing".)

In other words... why not try to make a vocal that is sounding very convincing and compose the music around that?

I'm experimenting with that myself...

Thanks a lot for sharing all your great tracks with Synth V!
Will

David,

I always enjoy reading your detailed recounting of your musical journey.

A good rhythmic Pop track. The combination of drums, bass and stab-y piano is nicely infectious. You have a good handle on adding "a bit of sugar" along the way to add interest. The organ, for example...

Love that stop @ 1:00.

I'm impressed with the rhythmic singing of your vocaloid. That can't be easy to achieve. Adds nice expression. Your BGVs are impressive as well!! Nice countermelodies and call-responses...

The mix sounds good to me.

fj

So very cool how these songs are developed. Just can imagine the possibilities with this technology. AI lifeforms that you cannot tell if they are real people or software.

Cool tune and lyric. Well done

I am truly impressed with your work. Not only do you have your stable of singers actually harmonizing wonderfully, the lyrics to the song fit the AI vocalists perfectly. It is all rather brilliant. Good job to you, the girls and the band.

Thanks, Will!


You're absolutely right about that.

It can be a bit startling moving from a synthetic voice - which sounds fine - and then a real vocal, and realize how much is missing.


I'd actually wanted to do exactly that, something like Miraculous Encounter - the lyrics are throw-away and hearing the "English" vocal "Hurdy Hurdy Hurdy..." always makes me laugh.

I actually started out trying to do something like that, which is one of the reasons it took even longer to get this song done. But this is the sort of song that's best built on a drum loop, and I didn't have any luck finding a style in BiaB that worked well.

Plus, I didn't have a good grasp on the style. But eventually...


I'm looking forward to hearing it!

Hi, floyd jane.

I aim to please!

Everyone has a different methodology, and every song - no matter how well planned - has a different sort of genesis, and I enjoy reading how other people approach the process.

Well, except for pros like Jimmy Webb, who follow a known processes. And floyd jane, who revealed the true secret of lyric writing is to mow the grass while the subconscious works things out. One look at my so-called lawn would reveal why I've got problems coming up with lyrics.


Thanks, I appreciate hearing that!


Thanks again! The background vocals are one of the few places in the writing process that's actually fun, because by that point all the lyrics are written, and it's interesting trying to get the balance right.

Thanks for commenting!

There are some very interesting things going on with synthetic singing these days.

But - if you've got some money - it's amazing how many excellent singers for hire there are out there that can do a fantastic job.


Thanks! I appreciate you taking the time to listen and comment.

Just because of that, I'll double everyone's pay on this one.

Thanks for the kind words!

David,

You are on a roll! These synth productions are great.

Very well mixed. For some reason, the music progression on this sounds very XTC to me. Do you remember them? Was it Andy Patridge? (That is a huge compliment by the way.)

Thanks a lot for your detailed answer, which is very much appreciated.

I hope you will continue the journey with Synth V - it is very interesting to follow and I enjoy listening to your tracks!

Will

David,
Enjoyed reading about conception, struggles, found object motifs, methods and resolutions in journey to create this tune.

Turned out pretty cool. If I was given this in a blind test, I would think that Korean producer is trying to hit western markets
Funnies aside, excellent and well thought out Pop composition. Unusual twists in phrasing and harmonies. Vocal Synth voices are spooky, but make the point. Interesting listen for sure. Thank you for sharing.

Misha.

P.S Cats are the best!

Thanks, David!


Thanks again! Sometimes it's just painful to go back and listen to earlier stuff, but all we can do is keep learning and moving ahead.


Huge compliment appreciated!

I didn't listen to a lot of XTC back in the day, but my son put Making Plans for Nigel on a CD recently, and that got me listening to King For A Day and Mayor Of Simpletown. That's some crazy good pop!

But the harmony for this song was inspired by some of Fujii Kaze's music.

I wasn't familiar with his music, but I'd run across an scary-good Synthesizer V cover of Fujii Kaze's Kaerou.

Cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDhgbf4LlgU
Original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfx2EPhb4ao

Fujii uses jazzy chord progressions with lots of minor 7th and major 7th chords, but the harmony moves more stepwise than along the circle of fifths.

So that's what I was going for with this song. But XTC also has a similar jazzy harmonic sensibility, so I hear the similarity.

Thanks for stopping by!

Heh! I'll take favorable comparison with K-Pop any time!



Thanks!

It's interesting writing songs with the melody first. There's less thought about "Can I sing these notes" and more "Do these notes sound good?".

But the voice still has a natural range, and deviating too much from isn't good.


Yes, and don't let those "dog people" tell you otherwise!

The problem is, cat's know how cool they are, and have no qualms using it to their advantage.

Hi David.



I don't know where to start! There are so many great things to talk about.

With all sincerity, this is such an inspiring composition.

• the groove is great
• your chord progression is outstanding
• I love the melody
• the lyrics support the melody well
• I love the arrangement
• the mix is super
• the vocaloid is excellent

It wasn't until near the end of the song that I even realised it was a vocaloid doing the singing. When the singing started, my first thought was "I don't recall David sounding like this." Then I just sat back and listened. Near the end, there was a Cher-like auto-tune effect on a couple of notes that caught my attention. Then I went back and looked at your list of instruments and discovered I'd been listening to a vocaloid!

I was very impressed that you'd managed to get it sounding so good!

Thank you so much for all your notes. Writing those up would have taken ages! There is a huge wealth of information in them, though, and I know they are going to be very beneficial to my own productions.

With your lyrics, you did a great job getting them written. There are a lot of words there and I would have really struggled to come up with anything. Seriously.




One of my strategies is to use dummy word phrases that sit comfortably on the notes of a music phrase. I don't worry if the words don't tell a story. In the early stages, I only look at matching: (a) syllable stresses with musical stresses; (b) musical phrases with word phrases.

Then, when I have my starting lyrics in place, I look through them to see if there is an inspiring phrase somewhere amongst the collection. If I find one, I set about creating lyrics that lead-to or lead-from that phrase. When doing this, I'm guided by Andrea Stolpe's concept of Internal(I) and External(E) phrases. This is a bit like "Show" (External) and "tell" (Internal).

Here's an example. I'm creating it as I type so I have no idea what it will be about yet.

Let's say, when fitting syllables to music, I wrote a phrase on line 10 of my dummy lyrics that said, "My mind spins around and around."

Firstly I'd think... OK... this is "Internal" (i.e. an audience cannot see it; it's inside me). So let's try using it as the last line in a 4-line verse. For 4-line verses EEEI (External, External, External, Internal) or EIEI are good lyric patterns for a first verse structure.

Next I'd think.... OK... now I need an "E" line 3 to get to line 4.

Hmmm.... what about... "Waves roll and lap at my feet". The audience can see this so it's definitely external.

That's the last two lines done. Since waves occur at the beach, let's create a beach setting and have two more E phrases for lines 1 and 2. I'll go with a tropical setting. If I use an XAXA rhyme scheme, then line 2 needs to rhyme with "around". (This means my lyric content will follow EEEI and my rhyme scheme will be XAXA)

Voila (as the French say)... I'll just pick anything tropical that I think of. Since I'm using two E phrases, they can be independent of one another. Like "Show and tell"... the "tell" depends on what is "shown". With "Show" and "Show", though, that's not a requirement.

With a few modifications to the above starting words as I massage my four lines into a structure, my verse could be something like this...

• The music of steel drums dances on air
  A palm tree sways with a rustling sound
  Rippling ocean sloshes over my feet
  And my mind spins around and around

Since I seem to be holidaying in the Caribbean in the above lines, I'll create a chorus using that. The phrase "Caribbean Happiness" just came to mind, so I'll use these words for a chorus until something else comes along.

So far, after a little more on-the-run massaging, my verse and chorus look like this. I repeated a variation of the last line of the verse because I like the effect it created.

• The ringing of steel drums dances on air
  A palm tree sways with a rustling sound
  Rippling ocean sloshes over my feet
  As my mind spins around and around
  My mind spins around
  
  Caribbean happiness
  This is Caribbean happiness
  Complete freedom from worry and care
  Caribbean happiness everywhere

Now it's on to verse 2. (Maybe the above turns out to be verse 2. If that's the case, I'll need then to consider how to get to it when writing verse 1.)

If you read through the above, I hope I didn't sound patronising. I just wanted to pass on an idea or two because you mentioned my name in the initial post

Thanks again all the inspiration that you sent my way with "End Of The Rainbow"!
Noel

Wow! Thanks!


I'll have to track down that autotune bit!

Seriously though, thanks. The real goal here is to present the song, and I'm glad the synthetic voice isn't getting in the way. I can't take that much credit for how successful it is, since the software developer did most the work. It feels a bit like taking credit for a BiaB guitar solo.


Thanks for this! I've read through it a couple of times, and will look at it some more later.

Sometimes it simply takes a long time for my brain to shift into "creative" mode, and these are good exercises to follow. I especially like the idea of internal/external.

For me (and I suspect many others), songwriting is just hard work. And there's nothing the matter with that, but tools to get out of a non-productive rut are always welcome.

But I thought you might be amused to know that at one point, I actually did write a full set stream-of-consciousness of lyrics for this song. It resulted in "gems" such as:

the way things you like / are the wrong kind of blue

and

but the glass clarinet / refuses to / play the right song

Usually these sorts of exercises produce something usable. Once that "seed" is found, there's something to build on, no matter how slight. I just knew that everything I was doing was going the wrong direction and, like that ship in the Suez Canal, it took a long time to get turned the right way round.

Thanks again for your enthusiastic support!

The narrative was engaging...I enjoy it from start to finish.
There're still a couple of points that could be de-essed or reduced as plosives but not a big deal...they brought out the sythn nature a little in those points but they were few and far between.
Cool arrangement.
Cool song.

David,

I really like what you are doing with AI vocals. They truly keep improving with each song - love the way you experiment.

Great stuff!

Bob

David,
I like the "just another day" lyrics; cute details and a jaunty upbeat synth backtrack makes this feel happy for no particular reason.
Your arrangement sounds just right.
The vocaloid? I admit I would prefer to hear a warm human voice having fun with this, but you do very convincing work with these AI singers!

Robert

Hi, Ray.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it!


Interesting. SynthV has on option of splitting the vocal into the voiced and unvoiced portions, so I did that. I then went through the track and manually edited all the plosives and silibants to reduce the attack and energy. I also edited the unvoiced attacks of some of the vowels, since they were a bit rough. (This would be a really cool option for "real" vocals).

I didn't want to bring them down too much, for fear the vocal would become a bit too "lisp-y".

I'll have another listen, but it may be the nature of the resynthesis.


Thanks!