This song is inspired by Chinese Cinema and period dramas.
Pity I don’t speak Chinese Mandarin or I would have written the lyrics in Mandarin
I hope you like it
The animation in the video is created using REALITY app using footage from pictures from my travels
If you like it, this song is part of a collection of songs I just released on spotify and other streaming services. These are songs that I worked on in the last few months, all original songs featuring Eleanor Forte.
Check it out if interested:
Thank you @lueotw
All instruments in the song are synthesized. The one you hear most probably is the synth erhu (the Chinese string instrument).
Other instruments used are, piano, french horn, string orchestra, percussion and drum machine. But they are all synthesized (VSTs)
Hope this helps Let me know if you wanted more technical information
@lueotw
Ah yes, I know of it, I am also looking at Native Instruments but I don’t have enough space in my computer. Your instrument pack would have better sound than mine. Mine was a free instrument from Spitfire Labs.
Good luck with your compositions, hope to hear some of it!
Excellent work with the expression on the vocal. The strings and backing are also very good.
Two minor nits on the vocal. (Emphasis on the word minor!)
There are some words that pop out like dreams and blooms around 0:50. They sound they’re being sung as duh-reams and buh-looms. Probably an issue with the phonemes and not you, but they were noticable.
The other thing is that the crescendos sound a bit effortless. They get louder and the vibrato increases, but I can’t feel the effort change. Perhaps a bit of automation in the Tension and Gender could help?
@dcuny
Thanks for listening and thank you for the feedback!
The phrasing in dreams and blooms are in fact deliberate, but maybe I did overdo it a little bit.
I was going for the phrasing that singers like Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston sometimes do in their ballads when they get a bit dramatic
Here is an example at 1:40
Maybe it’s not working out quite the way I wanted to and you’re right maybe I did overdo it.
Thanks for the tip with the crescendos, I did use tension but maybe not enough. I never thought to use gender, will try it next time!
I had a close listen to the example, and used Spleeter to isolate the vocal. She’s lengthening the /r/ sound, but when I isolate it, I hear is as /er/, not /uh/.
So I think /d er iy m z/ is a close approximation to what she’s doing.
This is the fixed version (I know there are other parts I could fix but I have only fixed those parts at 0:50)
Thanks so much again!
ps. actually the part that annoys me most personally is “the blanket of the night” at about 0:30
I tried different methods and still can’t get it to sound natural
The vowel choice on /pass/ is a bit more rounded than I’d pick, but it’s a reasonable choice for the style.
Anyway, not to fix something that’s not broken…
This is another place where a singer might actually make a choice to replace that /ey/ with something rounder and more classical sounding - something like /b l ah ng - k eh - dx ah v/.
You might also consider putting a wider gap before the stop consonants - you’d be surprised how much separation you can have between stop consonants. It also give a more stacatto sound, which sounds a bit like tiptoeing of the stairs, which might be what you’re after here. In that case, you might play a bit with the timbre and adjust the breathiness as well.
That said, I’d be tempted to make the first syllable a bit longer and the second shorter in duration, simply because it matches the stress that they get. But that would ruin the lovely stair-step affect that you get from that phrase.
Again, I’m not sure this is any better than what you’ve currently got.
Let me know if you wanted more technical information
