This is a song originally by Title Fight, off of the album Hyperview.

I’m going to break up the following write up of this song in four sections; inspiration, process, mixing, and areas for improvement.  I think this is an important thing to speak about in order to demystify the song, and also open my process to a community of people who would be willing to offer constructive criticism, appreciation, and also share in my enthusiasm for making stuff!

Inspiration 

Well first off, I need to admit that my choice to cover this song is by no means an original idea. There is a long list of amazing YouTubers who had been covering this song for the past 4 years,  specifically a cover by a YouTuber named Salfadel, and she has an amazing voice and did it so well that it convinced me to do a cover of my own.

This cover was posted on my channel and received a pretty minimal response. So I was sad for a period of time and then decided that a better feeling is to allow it to be a moment to learn and practice than to let it just be something to be ashamed of. So I opted to create a fuller version with multiple layers of harmonies, and some sparse guitar on top.

Process

The process of making this cover was to add on to a basic cover that I had recorded a year before and made it something that I could learn from. This involved having a microphone that I then recorded into Digital audio work station. I set out to give it a full and open choir sound, particularly at the beginning of the song.

This song required, a mic, a guitar, a DAW, and computer. I then broke it up into 2 sections, having a full choir element in the first half, and then at the start of the second verse, it was more or less just the original video.

– Voices –

There were 8 different voices, broken up into a chordal choir section, and a choir to fully accompany the melody line (the vocal part in the original). This meant a bass, tenor, alto, and soprano voicing for most chords, which were then dragged and dropped to an appropriate part of the song. Sometimes I tuned the parts, sometimes they were fine untreated but overall they were a huge pain because of how precise I wanted to be with them. The process of making my music is going to be the back and forth between the technology and my own musical ability, sometimes my ability is lacking and the technology (the DAW) can help me round it out to get it to where I need it to go, but in the end the best is to just really nail the take. That takes time. It’s about the negotiation of time and resources.

– Guitar –

The guitar part was added into to add a bit more motion to what I already had, and also to have a more prominent part in the upper frequencies (specifically around 1-3k). This was done all on my Epiphone acoustic. It helps add a detail, that helps draw attention to the song. I believe it adds a little replay value to the song, as well as making it dance in a melodic way. It sometimes doubles the harmonic rhythm of the vocal, it sometimes acts as a transition between sections.

Mixing

The mixing for this was pretty minimal and was more about having the parts have their own space, and for it to be easily heard.

– Original video audio-

The first part of this song was taken from a video I recorded of the song, and what I did to make it sound a little less like it was recorded on my iPhone (which it was), was to add a low pass filter until around 1400 Hz. This gives the other parts of this song an easier time being heard in the end and also gets rid of some room noise (which is common for microphones that are also meant to be phones).
– Voices –

All of the voices were not EQ’d at all. The only effect on them was to tune them up a little when absolutely necessary.  This being said, the levels of the tracks were super important to the overall sound. If you want the voices to blend together, you need to mix them so that the most important/ most notable voice is the loudest. The chordal voices were softer because they were mimicking a piano more than anything else.

– guitar –

The guitar in this is also not EQ’d, was recorded through a condenser mic, and was treated with slight distortion on the first part, and absolutely nothing on the next part.  When putting a slight distortion on an acoustic it acts a little like a compressor and blended in surprisingly nicely.

Areas for Improvement

USE COMPRESSORS AND EQ. I did not use eq’s or compressors at all in this because I’m a potato, but because of that it sounds very unprocessed and kind of like a more authentic choir. I think I could have added an upright bass to this, and a bit of the low end off of all of the individual tracks (probably until around 200 hz).

I would have also liked to add a compressor to the chordal choir parts to make them act a little more like a synth.
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If you have comments, critiques, or further questions please email me at Kiernan.kai@gmail.com

or….

Comment on this. I will definitely respond!