As I wrote last week, I intended to rerecord the vocals to this new song and also change the instrumental track slightly. During what turned out to be a very hard week I only found enough time to make the small changes in the backing track, further improving the song. On Wednesday night I felt that I needed a complete break from work (both 'the day job' and my consulting gigs) and decided to have a go at recording the vocals again.
Familiarity with the tune meant that I was able to nail the singing in one take (possibly with an edit at the end when I garbled a phrase). I changed the phrasing in the first line of each half verse, leaving a quaver break before the first word then singing the second note early. I'm not so sure that this was a good idea, but anyway it didn't matter. I had difficulty trying to find a reverb setting that matched what I wanted to hear - the vocal is supposed to be intimate but with a reverb tail - and several times I converted the vocal file from mono to stereo (some plug-ins only work on stereo files) and back again. As a result, somehow the quality of the vocal became downgraded and I decided to abandon the evening's work.
Thursday was a very trying day, so again I needed a diversion in the evening and resumed work on the song. This time I reduced the amount of syncopation on the first lines and was able to produce a good take the first time around (possibly with an edit at the beginning). I also sang with a more throaty and whispered voice instead of singing naturally: this is hard to describe but it changed a quality of the singing. I was determined to save every version of the vocal file in order to prevent the sort of problems that I had the first night. So file 1 was the original vocal, file 2 the small edit piece, file 3 the composite version, and file 4 the tuned version, File 3 was in stereo albeit with two identical tracks so that it sounds mono; as file 4 was created from file 3, this too was in stereo. I did not add a little silence to one side as I tend to do: this creates a double tracking effect, but I wanted an intimate vocal with few effects.
I then aligned file 4 with the music and started once again the difficult process of getting the desired tone and reverb. I had been cutting the bass entirely from previous mixes, resulting in a somewhat lacking treble tone; the breakthrough came when I restored most of the bass. This led to a very natural sound. I quickly mixed the song once again and was pleased with the result. I let my wife listen to this mix on headphones and she thought the song/performance was very good.
On Friday morning, I listened once again to the previous night's mix: I felt that there was too much bass in the vocal that was also a touch too loud. I reduced the bass slightly - also affecting the vocal's volume - until I had a good, round, sound. I mixed the track one more time and deemed this song complete.
This was actually a very fast turnaround, as the music was written only eleven days previously and the words seven days previously. Most songs take about a month from conception to completion.
Now what? I have no ideas and no suggestions (e.g. a simple song in a minor key). I started fiddling with something on the piano yesterday evening but I don't know yet whether this is going to lead anywhere. I want to listen to all the eight songs that I have written and recorded since the summer and see whether there is a style missing from them, such as a waltz.
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