Song#5 Yang Ku-cinta Itulah Kamu - Final Product & MV

Tadaaa~ Final Product desu~

1. Idea Stage
2. Composing and Arranging Stage
3. Recording & Mastering Stage
4. Final Product & MV

Here's the intro blog on everything you need to know here.

Soundcloud upload

As usual I uploaded to Soundcloud first. <shamelessly promoting link here>
I used a copyright free picture of P.Ramlee himself holding a guitar, which I thought was exactly what my song was all about, guitar and the Malay language.

Music Video

While planning for the MV, I thought of the best way I could film both of us singing, but make it look casual and not formal-like. So, I just scrapped up the idea of driving and recording the whole thing in two takes.

The first problem was the location, which had to be long enough for the whole length of the song, scenic and minimal traffic. "What's the best shot that best represents Penang?" I thought. Well, nothing screams Penang other than the two sea bridges bearing its name! So I worked out the trip from the island to the mainland using Bridge 2 and back again using Bridge 1 which works out to be some 50-60km worth. Location problem solved!

The second problem was the camera kit. Initially I thought of using my pocket camera, the same one used to film the "All on this farm" MV, but struggled with mounting it on the car windscreen. Fortunately, my girlfriend had this car dash cam, which flipping it 180 to face the passengers, made for a rather decent camera replacement. Problem solved!

The third problem was finding stand-ins for the air guitar strumming, which was kinda last minute drama plot event prior to the song start. So I enlisted my neighbours LCC and LCG to do the honourable job of stand-ins and air guitaring in the backseat of my car.

We ended up shooting the first take in the afternoon, about 4pm on the Bridge 2. As I always plan things with two reasons in mind, we took a detour off the final shoot to Frog Hill, near Kepala Batas. Apparently the place was said to resemble some place in China, though all I see is several abandoned mining pools of questionable coloured water.

After spending some time there, we shoot the final take on Bridge 1 at dusk, where this round, my neighbours decided to start looking left and right for the entirety of the song (much wow).

For this MV, I chose a old-timey edit to the song while alternating the takes between take 1 and take 2. Here, YouTube tutorials for Adobe Premiere Pro CC was my best friend. I also made use of the first jazz draft of the song as the credit roll music. The biggest surprise of the shoot was that the car dash cam live preview screen and the eventual video file was different in dimensions. Initially during setup, the live preview screen showed a wide angle capture, which obviously didn't crop my girlfriend and my face - unlike the final recorded file.

Oh well, screw car dash cams next time.

Final Product

Here's the final product <drumrolls>. Thanks for watching!



PS. The Behind the Scenes is here

Song#5 Yang Ku-cinta Itulah Kamu - Recording & Mastering Stage

Putting all the theory out of the way, now is the time for some actual action!

1. Idea Stage
2. Composing and Arranging Stage
3. Recording & Mastering Stage
4. Final Product & MV

Info on this blog? Click here

Recording

Initially I thought of using Bigfishaudio's prerecorded riffs (they actually have one for gypsy jazz) just like what I did for the "All on this farm" song Eventually I stumbled upon a great VST that runs on Kontakt, called Django Gypsy Jazz Guitar.

The VST for Rhythm mode looks like this:

Rhythm wonder

And the VST for Lead mode looks like this:

Lead action

Anyway, I programmed the Rhythm and the Lead into 2 separate tracks, with the MIDI input through my Korg microkey MIDI keyboard. In fact, the Kontakt library files is separated into 2 lead voices and 1 rhythm strumming voice.

The great thing about the Rhythm track was that the VST accurately simulates different playing styles - up and down the neck, pick strumming, sliding and many more parameters. All I needed to do is to enter the chords through MIDI and the VST will strum accordingly.

The accompanying Lead track, similar to the actual playing in gypsy jazz was recorded sparingly in between pauses of singing to give it that little flair overall. I found referring to this website very useful in faking some licks and solo runs, go have a look!

-v.v-

On the other hand, recording the singing was a big challenge lately, due to the heavy nightly rain season - for recording is always done at night. The noise level was so loud that I had to record inside the storeroom below my stairs, kinda like Harry Potter. This round I tried out recording direct to my iPad (with the USB camera connection kit) to an app called Rode Rec, and it was awesome! The app at the very least could recognise my Blue Yeti (which apparently can be powered by the iPad) and record in near lossless audio. I then transfered the audioclip back to Ableton on my desktop

Recording my girlfriend's singing however was on a bright sunny weekend afternoon with the neighbors being unusually quiet at that hour. That recording was done in the comfort of my room, phew!

Mastering

This round I shall simplify my explanation with more pictures below.

My setup (Vibraphone, Lounge Lizard and Addictive Drums were just leftover swaps during the VST selection round):

Full setup

In fact, one of my earlier drafts didn't use guitar due to me being unaware of top class VST like Django. However it led to me making the lounge jazz version with Rhodes sounds (Loungelizard VST) which I plan to use later. The sample files per scene is still there for later mixing.

For the Bass track, I opted for the Ableton's stock instrument called Upright4 Far Bass paired with Dada Life's Sausage Fattener like in this picture:

Upright4 Far Bass

On the other hand, here's the devices for the vocalists:

Male settings

Female settings

For my recording, I had to deal with the low level noise of the outside, so I inserted a gate preset (Softly) while adjusting the threshold. Both tracks were complete with a Multiband Dynamics compressor and a Deeser with individual differences as shown in the pictures above.


This round, I sent some vocal audio to the 'A' reverb channel where a Small Room reverb device was setup, not too much though, else the vocal would sound echo-ey. 

A. Reverb Channel

Finally I glue compressor'd the vocals, and put a Gentle limiter to both the Instrument Group and the Master channel. Simplicity wins as usual (mostly stock devices and presets).

Stay tuned for Part IV of  IV for this song!

Song#5 Yang Ku-cinta Itulah Kamu - Composing and Arranging Stage

Without further ado, here's part two!

1. Idea Stage
2. Composing and Arranging Stage
3. Recording & Mastering Stage
4. Final Product & MV

Intro intro intro blog...

Arranging

For this song, I had trouble deciding the parts for each singer, male and female. Sometimes the chorus is repeated for each singer to have a turn, sometimes they sing together. Certain songs call for verses to be sung in turn prior to the chorus. Taking all that into consideration, I decided upon:

1. Intro
2. Verse 1 & 2  (male) 
3. Verse 1 & 2 (female)
4. Chorus (together)
5. Instrumental
6. Verse 2 (male)
7. Choruse (together)
8. Instrumental
9. Bridge/Verse 2 (female with male voiceover)
10. Final Chorus
11. Outro

Composing

For this song, I stuck to basics with the base key C major. Verse 1 & 2 was fixed to a 8 bar progression, while Chorus was a 18 bar progression. I mostly decided the chords by ear and wrote out the three / four voices chords names later. Sorry I couldn't be more technical on these stuffs for now, but as usual, add the 7th or the 9th for jazzy feel. For those interested in playing out the song yourself, here are the chords:

Intro
 C, G/B, F/A,C/E 
F, G, C, Em-5 
Dm,C, C7 
Dm,Dm7
G,Gaug 

Verse 1/ Instrumental/ Outro

Cmaj7, Fmaj7, Fm7,Fm7(b5) 
Cmaj7, Fmaj7, Fm7, EMaj7

Verse 2 
Am7,C/E, Emaj7, Am7,C/E, Emaj7, 
Am7,C/E, Emaj7, F7, Dm7, Dm7(b5)

Chorus
Cmaj7, Fmaj7, Fm7,A#m7, 
Cmaj7, Fmaj7, Fm7,A#m7, 
Fmaj7, Dm6, Bdim7, A#m7 ,A#dim7 
Cmaj7, Fmaj7, Dm7, Dm7(b5)

Lyrics

Here's the lyrics in Malay where basically the gist is couple typical banter and the guy is on the short end of the stick, but loves the girl anyway.

Malay version (Blue for male, Red for female and Green for singing together):

Intro

Wahai sayangku, inilah laguku,

Lagu baru digubah untukmu

Dengarlah musik, nyanyi b'samaku

Rentak irama, melodi

In-dah~

Verse 1

Kalau kita, bermain komputer,

Meskipun Kita sudah dewasa,

Tembak-tembak , bom bersama,

Gelak ketawa berguling sel'mba

Verse 2

Ohhhhhh, kau suka bela binatang

Oooooh, kucing, ikan, kura-kura,

Oooooh, terpijak tahi-lah,tapiiii

Yang kucinta itulah kamu v

Verse 1 

Wahai sayang, kau sering lupa,

Lupakanku 'pabila minum makan,

Hello sayang, kau lupa lagi

Masa tengok gajet di pameran

Verse 2

Ohhhhhh, apalah kau begini,

Woooooh, pelupa lagikan cuai,

Ohhhhh, ingatla pesanan iniiii,

Yang kucinta itulah kamu v

Chorus

Sehingga kita bertemu,

Ku sediakan Maggi kari,

Campur Milo dengan keju,

Makanan enak untukmu,

Bridge

Ohhhhhh, apalah kau begini, (Maaf sayang aku lupa,)

Woooooh, pelupa lagikan cuai, (Cuai tapi aku pantas)

Ohhhhh, ingatla pesanan iniiii, (Ku juga ingin berpesaaan)

Yang kucinta itulah kamu

And the translation...

Intro

Oh my love, this is my song

A song written just for you

Hear the music, sing along with me

Rhythm and tune, melody

Beautiful

Verse 1

If we, played computer

Even though we're adults

Shooting, bomb together,

Laugh out loud, rolling on the floor casually

Verse 2

Oooh, you like to rear pets,

Oooh, cat fish and turtles,

Oooh, stepped on shit, but

Whom I love is you

Verse 1 

Oh my love, you always forget,

Forget about me when drinking and eating,

Hello my love, you forgot again,

When looking at gadgets on display

Verse 2

Oooh, why are you like this

Woooh, forgetful and careless,

Oooh, but remember this,

Whom I love is you

Chorus

When we meet again,

I'll prepare Curry Maggi,

Mixed with Milo and cheese,

Delicious meal for you,

Oh my god, why do you want

Hohohoho (to fatten me)

Eating together with you,

Whom I love is you

Bridge

Oooh, why are you like this (Sorry my love I forget,)

Woooh, forgetful and careless, (Careless but fast,)

Oooh, but remember this, (I also wish to say this,)

Whom I love is you

That's all for this section!


Stay tuned for Part III of  IV for this song!

Song#5 Yang Ku-cinta Itulah Kamu - Idea Stage

And so, as some may say, your life isn't complete without gypsy jazz and sweet duet. Which is what I'm going to set out to do. Dearest, if you're reading this (which you eventually will), here's the introduction to this blog!

1. Idea Stage
2. Composing and Arranging Stage
3. Recording & Mastering Stage
4. Final Product & MV

Source

Nothing screams gypsy guitar better than Django Reinhart himself. After listening to hours of his playing style, I tried playing it on my guitar to little success. I guess one could not simply replicate hours and years of training and practice :p

This round I tried minimising the number of instruments involved in my song. Based on Django's typical instrument setup, I gather that the very least you need is a guitar and a rhythm section.

Also, since this is planned to be a Malay language song, I tried getting inspiration from Malay hit classics like:

P.Ramlee swaggy dude

1. P. Ramlee's Getaran Jiwa 
2. Modern hits like Kau Ilhamku by Man Bai
3. And Aku ingin mencintai-mu by Edcoustic

just to get the feel and pacing of Malay love songs. It also helps that Malaysians study the language from primary to high school, which makes writing lyrics a breeze. Secondly, I intended this song to be a duet between me and my girlfriend, because nothing beats singing together with your loved one :)

I guess that's all for now, until the next post :)

Stay tuned for Part II of  IV for this song!