Through this whole lung collapse thing I've gained courage, but honestly it's also instilled a lot of fear into me. @__@
Introspection
I really must have grown a lot because I didn't think toooo much about posting my Nekkoya dance cover... Of course, I went through the cycle of uncertainty and thought it through to make sure I was comfortable with this footage going public, but it wasn't like, "HOLY SHIT I'M SO NERVOUS THIS IS MY FIRST REAL DANCE COVER OUT ON THE INTERNET SINCE I QUIT EIGHT YEARS AGO WHAT IF THIS RUINS MY LIFE!!!" and just posted it feeling like it was a normal thing for me to be comfortable with people seeing me dance and for me to be posting dance covers to over 1000 followers.
Wow. So this was my first real dance cover out on the internet since I quit dance covers eight years ago. Cool! I'm proud of me! I've come a long way physically and mentally! ^^
Nekkoya (Dance/Vocal Cover/Mix Breakdown)
Monday, November 12, 2018
2 comments Labels: covers (non-serious/short), dance, mixing, rambling but with slightly more thought
WOW I AM BACK ALREADY!! I posted the thing I mentioned in my last blog that I had worked on and would be putting out soon yay!
This was the dance I filmed at Fome's band's studio back in September ;v; Before my injury/surgery, I kept thinking maybe I'd practice Nekkoya more and find a time to re-film it but now I really don't know when I'll be okay enough to try dancing again... It's honestly becoming frustrating that it seems like I would be almost fully functional, but I'm really not close to being normal ;; I hit my limit last night just trying to reach my phone charger that was on the ground while I was in bed, and today I had to call my parents to ask them to help me carry my laptop bag into the house because my chest hurt too much for me to handle the weight. orzzzz Anyway, when I eventually get better, I'll get back into dancing weekly with dance friends! By then I'll probably move on and work on other dances so I thought it'd be a waste if I never did anything with this recording and with how passionate I was about practicing Nekkoya back then. ;o;
I yolo recorded the vocal cover just four days after I was discharged from the hospital LOL. It's really the biggest shame that I was literally using this song to practice my endurance and live singing (initially it was my ultimate goal to sing it live while dancing), only to have it all erased by my lung collapsing...... Although I probably didn't actually have the time to do it, it's regretful that I didn't record it when I was in full condition. Still, I was honestly surprised that I was even able to sing this much right after a lung surgery LOOOL
Lately I've been thinking a lot about making a mix tutorial/breakdown sort of video, so I wanted to share something that I found interesting while mixing this! It's crazy how big a difference different mixing styles make.
Initially I had intended for the vocal cover to be eextreeeemely low effort—and the recording process was indeed low effort...kind of. More like it took my body effort to physically be able to sing, but then I was like, "eh it sounds decent i guess ok moving on to the next line" and didn't record any harmonies. I thought I could get away with a fairly low effort mix too since this was just a fun thing for twitter/blog. ^^;;
What I ended up doing was tuning, timing, panning my doubles out 10% (one double -3 dB quieter than the other), putting these effects on my vocals bus, making volume adjustments for the most noticeable parts, and doing minimal mastering. (Alright~ it's actually a lot but I consider it to be fairly low effort because I usually manually go through everything to do a pass of clean-up, volumes, and EQ... This time I relied mostly on effects that just worked across all the vocal tracks, and I didn't fine-tune the settings as much as usual.)
So starting with 3 compressors which I made strong bc low effort and hopefully means I don't have to make as many volme adjustments. Multiband compressor to bring down parts that were too mid heavy. EQ to just slightly boost highs and cut lows and mids. C6 Stereo is a multiband compressor by WAVES that I find to be good at making things sound more balanced and polished even with low effort. :'D And then some delay and reverb.
For mastering, I used Izotope Ozone and all I did was use the Maximizer (aka you pull down one handle and the mix magically sounds better!!) and then used gating in the Dynamics module to bring out the bass in the instrumental, basically by doing the opposite of compression.
What I ended up with was this mixdown which I really thought was going to be the final mix. Because low effort!
Fast forward two weeks when I finally slapped this mix on the video and realized that I wanted to redo the mixing LOL... It may be ""low effort"" but demo 1 is mixed (and I think would've been acceptable for another kind of song)—yet when I went with a different approach it sounds drastically different and in my opinion, way more fitting for this particular song.
I find it really interesting that even though I didn't re-sing anything, just because of the way it's mixed, demo 1 sounds way more expressive and energetic than the final! (Truthfully I even think I sound like a better/stronger/more interesting singer here..) Somehow making it sound more robotic and uniform just fit the song much better in the end. The first thing I needed to get rid of was all of my strong breaths at the end of notes—they made me sound constantly short of breath, because well..I really was lol...... That part I had to do manually. =_= High effort but made a huge difference! I also went back and re-tuned a bunch of parts that were off lolol.
The biggest game changer was sort of diluting the vocals and making it sound like there were more of them (thus weakening the focal point) and making them blend more into the instrumental. This I did by adding the WAVES effect Doubler4 Stereo [settings], making the instrumental louder, and using the two multiband compressors to kill a bunch of the mids.
Because twitter video can be ass, you can also listen to my final mix here~ Oops, this ended up really long. If anyone is interested in this kind of stuff and wants to discuss anything, do feel free!
asdfddj i'm rly late at this point celebrating #IZONE1stWin but here's a bit of my attempt to dance Nekkoya from Produce48 from a few months ago along with a quick cover ✨ pic.twitter.com/ggSqreqtMT— Eva @ Gemini (@waterpixieva) November 13, 2018
I yolo recorded the vocal cover just four days after I was discharged from the hospital LOL. It's really the biggest shame that I was literally using this song to practice my endurance and live singing (initially it was my ultimate goal to sing it live while dancing), only to have it all erased by my lung collapsing...... Although I probably didn't actually have the time to do it, it's regretful that I didn't record it when I was in full condition. Still, I was honestly surprised that I was even able to sing this much right after a lung surgery LOOOL
Lately I've been thinking a lot about making a mix tutorial/breakdown sort of video, so I wanted to share something that I found interesting while mixing this! It's crazy how big a difference different mixing styles make.
Initially I had intended for the vocal cover to be eextreeeemely low effort—and the recording process was indeed low effort...kind of. More like it took my body effort to physically be able to sing, but then I was like, "eh it sounds decent i guess ok moving on to the next line" and didn't record any harmonies. I thought I could get away with a fairly low effort mix too since this was just a fun thing for twitter/blog. ^^;;
What I ended up doing was tuning, timing, panning my doubles out 10% (one double -3 dB quieter than the other), putting these effects on my vocals bus, making volume adjustments for the most noticeable parts, and doing minimal mastering. (Alright~ it's actually a lot but I consider it to be fairly low effort because I usually manually go through everything to do a pass of clean-up, volumes, and EQ... This time I relied mostly on effects that just worked across all the vocal tracks, and I didn't fine-tune the settings as much as usual.)
So starting with 3 compressors which I made strong bc low effort and hopefully means I don't have to make as many volme adjustments. Multiband compressor to bring down parts that were too mid heavy. EQ to just slightly boost highs and cut lows and mids. C6 Stereo is a multiband compressor by WAVES that I find to be good at making things sound more balanced and polished even with low effort. :'D And then some delay and reverb.
For mastering, I used Izotope Ozone and all I did was use the Maximizer (aka you pull down one handle and the mix magically sounds better!!) and then used gating in the Dynamics module to bring out the bass in the instrumental, basically by doing the opposite of compression.
What I ended up with was this mixdown which I really thought was going to be the final mix. Because low effort!
Fast forward two weeks when I finally slapped this mix on the video and realized that I wanted to redo the mixing LOL... It may be ""low effort"" but demo 1 is mixed (and I think would've been acceptable for another kind of song)—yet when I went with a different approach it sounds drastically different and in my opinion, way more fitting for this particular song.
I find it really interesting that even though I didn't re-sing anything, just because of the way it's mixed, demo 1 sounds way more expressive and energetic than the final! (Truthfully I even think I sound like a better/stronger/more interesting singer here..) Somehow making it sound more robotic and uniform just fit the song much better in the end. The first thing I needed to get rid of was all of my strong breaths at the end of notes—they made me sound constantly short of breath, because well..I really was lol...... That part I had to do manually. =_= High effort but made a huge difference! I also went back and re-tuned a bunch of parts that were off lolol.
The biggest game changer was sort of diluting the vocals and making it sound like there were more of them (thus weakening the focal point) and making them blend more into the instrumental. This I did by adding the WAVES effect Doubler4 Stereo [settings], making the instrumental louder, and using the two multiband compressors to kill a bunch of the mids.
Because twitter video can be ass, you can also listen to my final mix here~ Oops, this ended up really long. If anyone is interested in this kind of stuff and wants to discuss anything, do feel free!
Here for the Lung Haul
Friday, November 9, 2018
0 comments Labels: covers (non-serious/short), fan account, rambling, videos
Somehow after gaining much more free time, I ended up blogging less? LOL Here is a big update post~
After my hospital discharge, I stayed home for a week just recovering which was a bit rough at first. I couldn't sleep the first few nights because of the discomfort in my chest, and also because I would mis-estimate how long my legs are or where my pillow was while trying to settle myself down without breaking my body... and once I was down, I could not move without pain and my arms weren't strong enough to adjust myself with lmao. I was just stuck with however I landed, even if it meant my feet dangling off the bed. What a funny problem to have honestly!!
Thank goodness I was mostly functional by last weekend because it was a crazy (and also very rewarding) (and painful) one! But more on that later.
On Monday, I had my follow-up appointment with my very cool surgeon and received some great news along with his nonchalantly optimistic life advice! My breathing has improved a lot and he says that because I'm young, I'm recovering ahead of schedule!! However it's also because I'm young and my nerves are sensitive that I feel more discomfort and pain than most of his patients... Then he took me off my painkillers because I was apparently taking them too much ("it's not candy") so I've been continuing to feel mild discomfort but at least it's not pain anymore and my surgical wounds are finally healing. I try to take it easy now so I'm doing alright.
I've been doing work from home since last week and on Wednesday I went into the office for the first time! It's already been...a lot. It's an overwhelmingly busy time for my company right now and some things stacked up while I was gone... Lots of projects are due next week... I'm already really tired...
But I'm happy to report that I recovered from my burnout!! I hated feeling flat and inspiration-less, not having the energy to do anything and having nothing sound fun to me. I'm feeling pretty inspired and less exhausted now and I'm able to fantasize and plan for future projects—and that makes me glad because it means I actually desire something, look forward to something.
You know, this recovery period was my first time getting to experience being a NEET in 7 years? I haven't taken a good break since I started working part time the summer before starting college—and I don't count travel vacations since traveling is exhausting. I'm pleased that I was able to fill up all that free time without feeling empty or stressed. ;v; I finally got into another k-drama (it's been a long time) called 100 Days My Prince, a historical rom-com with some tense royal drama, and I really like it! I'm also watching the anime Zombieland Saga and everything IZ*ONE related! Plus I worked on a little something that I'll probably put out in the next couple days. ^^
And now...I've also started to play LoL again.......because K/DA is smashin' awesome and made me want to try playing Kai'Sa :D She doesn't even have solos in this song but she definitely appeals to me the most because 1) Her design is the most my style—it's cool and chic without being over the top. 2) Her official profile seems to imply that she's Chinese or has strong Chinese influences!! "Kai'Sa won Hong Kong’s Can You Dance in 2018" and won my heart in the process. 3) She's an AD carry, which I main! And her abilities have long ranges which is an A+ for my cowardly ass. 4) I kind of like her lore—she's a human who was consumed by the void and is now seen as a monster. 5) Somehow I've accidentally started only cosplaying purple-haired girls, so it would...be perfect... But I definitely wanted to try playing her before deciding to commit to trying to make this cosplay........... I am researching the required purchases and thinking about it..!
After I finish up my current solo (I touched up the mix last week but gonna do some redos once I have the lung capacity~), I'm probably also likely going to record a full solo cover of POP/STARS because I like it a lot!!! I love Soyeon T___T The others sound great too and it's an extremely catchy, badass tune that I've had on replay!
Meanwhile I quickly learned Soyeon's rap and did a yolo live cover a few days ago, but hopefully when I get around to recording it for real, I won't flub on the words this much. It's a fun song and this kind of rap is very much my shit bahaha.
Other things I've worked on that I never got around to posting:
My local youtaite friends performed at a coffee shop in September, I shot all of the moving shots, and edited this little highlights video for them. /o/ They'll be performing here again in March I think!
After my hospital discharge, I stayed home for a week just recovering which was a bit rough at first. I couldn't sleep the first few nights because of the discomfort in my chest, and also because I would mis-estimate how long my legs are or where my pillow was while trying to settle myself down without breaking my body... and once I was down, I could not move without pain and my arms weren't strong enough to adjust myself with lmao. I was just stuck with however I landed, even if it meant my feet dangling off the bed. What a funny problem to have honestly!!
Thank goodness I was mostly functional by last weekend because it was a crazy (and also very rewarding) (and painful) one! But more on that later.
On Monday, I had my follow-up appointment with my very cool surgeon and received some great news along with his nonchalantly optimistic life advice! My breathing has improved a lot and he says that because I'm young, I'm recovering ahead of schedule!! However it's also because I'm young and my nerves are sensitive that I feel more discomfort and pain than most of his patients... Then he took me off my painkillers because I was apparently taking them too much ("it's not candy") so I've been continuing to feel mild discomfort but at least it's not pain anymore and my surgical wounds are finally healing. I try to take it easy now so I'm doing alright.
I've been doing work from home since last week and on Wednesday I went into the office for the first time! It's already been...a lot. It's an overwhelmingly busy time for my company right now and some things stacked up while I was gone... Lots of projects are due next week... I'm already really tired...
But I'm happy to report that I recovered from my burnout!! I hated feeling flat and inspiration-less, not having the energy to do anything and having nothing sound fun to me. I'm feeling pretty inspired and less exhausted now and I'm able to fantasize and plan for future projects—and that makes me glad because it means I actually desire something, look forward to something.
You know, this recovery period was my first time getting to experience being a NEET in 7 years? I haven't taken a good break since I started working part time the summer before starting college—and I don't count travel vacations since traveling is exhausting. I'm pleased that I was able to fill up all that free time without feeling empty or stressed. ;v; I finally got into another k-drama (it's been a long time) called 100 Days My Prince, a historical rom-com with some tense royal drama, and I really like it! I'm also watching the anime Zombieland Saga and everything IZ*ONE related! Plus I worked on a little something that I'll probably put out in the next couple days. ^^
And now...I've also started to play LoL again.......because K/DA is smashin' awesome and made me want to try playing Kai'Sa :D She doesn't even have solos in this song but she definitely appeals to me the most because 1) Her design is the most my style—it's cool and chic without being over the top. 2) Her official profile seems to imply that she's Chinese or has strong Chinese influences!! "Kai'Sa won Hong Kong’s Can You Dance in 2018" and won my heart in the process. 3) She's an AD carry, which I main! And her abilities have long ranges which is an A+ for my cowardly ass. 4) I kind of like her lore—she's a human who was consumed by the void and is now seen as a monster. 5) Somehow I've accidentally started only cosplaying purple-haired girls, so it would...be perfect... But I definitely wanted to try playing her before deciding to commit to trying to make this cosplay........... I am researching the required purchases and thinking about it..!
After I finish up my current solo (I touched up the mix last week but gonna do some redos once I have the lung capacity~), I'm probably also likely going to record a full solo cover of POP/STARS because I like it a lot!!! I love Soyeon T___T The others sound great too and it's an extremely catchy, badass tune that I've had on replay!
Meanwhile I quickly learned Soyeon's rap and did a yolo live cover a few days ago, but hopefully when I get around to recording it for real, I won't flub on the words this much. It's a fun song and this kind of rap is very much my shit bahaha.
Other things I've worked on that I never got around to posting:
【Highlights】 Norcal Youtaite Alliance Performs @ Slap Face
My local youtaite friends performed at a coffee shop in September, I shot all of the moving shots, and edited this little highlights video for them. /o/ They'll be performing here again in March I think!
BAR Con Matsuri: TOKYO LIVE Promo Video
I also put together two promo videos for a local three-day event that happened last weekend! BAR stands for "booze - anime - rock" and Fome is one of its organizers so I volunteer once a month as his audio engineer assistant. If you're ever in the Bay Area on the first Thursday of the month [Edit: IN 2019, IT'S THE FIRST FRIDAY!], it's definitely a fun thing to check out! This month was the big extravaganza—the first of its kind—with three days of events, some guests from Japan, eurobeat, and Phoenix Ash's (Fome's band) single release. It sucks that I had to be injured for it because I would've put in so much more if I could. ;n;
After overexerting my body on the first day, I resolved to spend the second day sitting still at the soundboard and I promised that I would only touch cables... But we ran into so many issues (plus this was a very loaded show with 6 acts across 6 hours) and had such a lack of stage hands that I ended up exerting myself like ten times the amount I intended to... Twas rough but I'm alive and I ended up with lots and lots of wonderful memories! The girls from Japan were soooooo fucking sweet, respectful, and humble that I can't stop gushing over them. T____T I really did not expect for them to talk to me as much as they did and one of them even called me cute AAAAAA I love them and will support them for the rest of my life... Definitely some of my favorite artists that I've ever worked with—although I'm thankful to report that everyone on this lineup was nice to work with! But like! a cute girl!!! called me cute!!!! I'm ded. I was in a lot of pain on the third day tbh. But all of the performances were a blast, there was a lot of good music and sweet people, and the events were successes, so it remains in my mind as a good memory.
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