The best part about being on hiatus as my throat heals is that although I can't join any collabs due to my unstable condition where I might find myself unable to sing for weeks at a time, it means that whenever I am able to sing I have freedom to record whatever it is I feel like!
My era of yolo short covers is back~ ✨
The Sunday morning before previous, I woke up to find that Chungha dropped a Korean version of Porter Robinson's "Everything Goes On" which is the new League of Legends song that I've been hearing everywhere, released for the new Star Guardian skins and animation!! And I do love me them magical girls!! And I love Chungha's gooooorgeous, emotion-driven singing.... And just this arrangement of the song is so beautiful, simply magical and enchanting and flowing. đĨē I sighed and clutched my heart upon first listen, absolutely immediately fell in love, and had an inkling that I'd want to try to sing it if possible loooool.
While getting ready to go out, I couldn't stop listening to the song... Actually for nearly a month my throat condition wasn't great and in particular I could barely eke out or control my head voice which sucks because most songs are too high for me so I depend on it lol. Luckily it had been starting to come back so that morning was me testing it out along to this song—at that time I was skeptical that I'd be able to even sing the "looooonGER~" because it's a sustained note and then goes higher without any reset...
That was a super fun Sunday by the way! My friend pKotetsu (whom I wrote about in this post; he was one of our amazing animators for DREAM✦SCAPE) was in town for the Dreamcatcher concert so we spent a lot of time together hitting up good, good food spots. đđ I still think about that Sunday's food x friends adventure... My favorite matcha latte spot ever, mochi muffins, authentic Italian pizza, burnt brown sugar boba, mango sticky rice bingsoo, matcha warabimochi, unexpectedly really bomb wings that we got at the dessert place... Take me back to that day LOL.
I spent my 45 minute long drive home just looping the hell out of that song and continuing to test my head voice, began familiarizing myself with lyrics while getting unready, and then started recording it that same night HAHAHA. Until 3:30 AM... before a Monday... when I have work............
But it was too much fun. :3✨ I've said this again and again but I really think it's something special to cherish when you have something you desperately want to sing and you're able to spontaneously indulge yourself with it.
My condition wasn't perfect—in fact I would hate to give anyone the raw recordings in this when my voice often sounded scratchy or grating or unstable or not properly supported... And this song was exceedingly hard to sing... I got away with it(?) by doing the mixing myself and masking it with effects—used a lot of the same ones I showed in 0X1=LOVESONG and gotta say I'm pretty happy with how my "medium effort" mixing sounds now! It's a huge upgrade from before and sounds remotely polished enough despite not going much into the details or automating or having a clean instrumental. (I made this instrumental by taking an audio recording of the song off of youtube and removing the vocals in Audition...) All things considered, I'm fairly happy with how the end results sound đ
i absolutely fell in love with chungha's korean version of the new Star Guardians song (orig. by porter robinson) - the arrangement and lyrics are simply magical so i wanted to try singing it đĢ pic.twitter.com/VaZc4dmj1w
— Eva ❖ CODEX // Gemini (@waterpixieva) July 26, 2022
I truly do not know how this became an entire cover with a video uploaded to YouTube like this lmao.
For those who don’t know, I’ve been on-and-off vocal hiatus for the past year due to throat damage from laryngopharyngeal reflux! But esp the past few months with my condition fluctuating, I pretty much haven’t done any singing.
…Until one day I was in an angsty TXT mood (whom btw I've realized might have my current favorite discography among kpop boy groups?) and started singing this for fun… In fact, about 1/3 of the mains were recorded with speakers bc I thought of it as karaoke looool.
It’d been 1.5 months since I’d last sang so was basically testing my vocal condition—I expected my voice not to be able to handle low notes, pleasantly surprised, then I thought maybe rapping would be too much, was super happy since my last rap attempt my throat said nOPE, and DEFINITELY I thought I’d be skipping the chorus and loud parts, but big shock!!! Somehow….a cover came to existence!!
This was so fun—from the whole unexpected recording experience, mixing with lots of effects, getting to do a new yolo duet with the best friend (thank you chiisa for your angel voice and Sakura-chan!!!), pulling this video out of my ass…..
Thank you for watching and reading if you did ♡
I will sing lots more when I’m recovered!
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PS: I got greedy and rushed to upload this the night before leaving for AX LOL. Kinda contributed to my dying but I'm glad I got this out there ;v; I'd like to do a little breakdown of the mix effects, maybe coming soon !?
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Yaaaay I did it! Rather than a proper mix breakdown, I just showed everything that was on my effects chain—they're kind of the typical effects that I would use for vocals, especially kpop vocals that need to be thick and punchy, and ESPECIALLY since I only recorded one layer with no doubling!
mix breakdown ?! kind of !?
such a huge relief that ppl liked my mixing for the "0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You)" cover tysm đĨē
Razzyorganized this as a birthday chorus for Ryan—who is my longtime friend and fellow member of Gemini—and it includes the vocalists of DREAM✦SCAPE(aka the three girls of Gemini plus Aerin!) and vocalists from 「CHAOS」 which is an awesome, powerful group that I look up to. They were the winning group of FCCB back in 2015!
The result is just...pure.....girlgroup vocal supremacy.... It sounds so good.... D✦S and CHAOS girls have a TON of vocal chemistry in our own groups respectively—and when you put us together it's this amazing balance of sweet, powerful, sassy, and energetic voices. đđĨ And made all the better by THIS FABULOUS MIX..!!! So impressed with Naya's work! I want to know all the secrets behind being able to produce a pop cover that sounds this polished and professional.
And how fun is the video...!! It's such a ride and I'll never get over how clever it is to emulate the line distribution videos that Ryan enjoys watching. Oh and we did a secret, last-minute premiere to watch it with Ryan for the first time and that wAS WILD. I had to be the one to be like, "hey are you online rn!! oh tHANK GOD.. can you help me with something? i need you to help check this link for me" ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️ while sweating bullets hahahaha;;; We had a lot of the singers gathered already and the premiere had to be set for a specific time so....if Ryan was not available at that exact time, we would've had to reschedule it but also couldn't reveal it to him too far in advance. Anyway it all worked out perfectly for a delightful surprise. :>
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A fun trend happening this month is #SingingMarchwhich is a set of daily prompts created by @KerriSama. Lots of my friends have been participating! Including my good friend KT who, for day 6's "Duet" theme, took the opportunity to add to the recording of "Koi wa Nandarou" that I did last year YEEESSSSSSSSSS. Both of us were in the Mermaid Melody cover scene back in 2007 but somehow never overlapped until years later after that culture submerged—ha, get it.
Impromtu duettttt đĨē KT's lovely singing puts mine to shame (cringing) but I'm sooo happy for both the existence of this and to see any resurgence of Mermaid Melody hehehe
As for me, I've only participated in #SingingMarch once so far—it was maybe 2 or 3 AM one night when I'd already been irresponsibly staying up late and decided to indulge in my spontaneous idea of recording a certain song for the "From before the 2000's" prompt, furthering my irresponsibility. (So irresponsible.)
The song choice I don't believe anyone on this planet could have predicted hehehe it's "Desperado" by The Eagles (1973) with the arrangement that Pristin'sSungyeon sang on the show Girl Spirit and dedicated to her grandmother! I loveeee her rendition to bits and always sing along to it in the car by myself. Typically I don't care much for oldies or country so this is an exceptional sort of outlier. I really enjoyed all the emotions I was able to pour into it!
:D :D :D This week I uploaded a surprise yolo solo cover!
The past month has honestly been a pretty rough time, both physically and mentally. My chest pain/rib discomfort went on for three weeks and completely disrupted my life and debilitated my body... It worried me whether that plus my prolonged sore throat could possibly be COVID related—I even took a test and at one point was really frustrated at the ridiculously delayed (3+ weeks) results. It's truly a shame considering all the praise I had for how easy the drive-in was and how the entire process was contactless and quick. Was surprised that they trusted me to do my own stabbing of nostrils! But no, this country is fucked if this is how our testing is going and it's fortunate that I had nothing lifethreatening. đ (Side note: I now believe the sore throat was likely a return of acid reflux due to switching to sleeping on one pillow months ago after years of using two; the turning point happened when I reverted back to two! Who coulda thunk!! A pillow!)
Within that time, at work we were supporting a huge virtual event that led to me putting in 10+ hour days for over a week with only 1 day off, and at certain times I was under a lot of stress. On the final day, I worked 14 hours. ☠️ This compounded with the stress of falling behind on projects and owing lines that I couldn't record due to other project priorities and then my health issues.. And whenever I could record I felt like I did nothing but struggle and fail to deliver—I just.. felt so down on myself about literally everything I did. All of my work made me cringe and I felt embarrassed to be me. orz
My mental health hit a pretty bad point when it was like... y'know I was in pain, still didn't have any answers, this country sucks, was exhausted from working, constantly felt anxious, couldn't sleep enough, my free time was all spent on deepening my insecurities and pervasive negative thoughts, some other personal issues, and it felt like I wasn't allowed to enjoy anything.
When I was finally free from the crazy work schedule and I had my lines in for my most urgent project, I felt.....so....liberated!!! To finally not be stressed or in pain, I felt like a whole new different person. That day I watched the finale of Good Girl—a show featuring a bunch of powerful Korean female singers and rappers which I quite enjoyed—and felt inspired all over again by Jang Yeeun's performance of "Mermaid" and how she's always played this role as a fierce rapper, and finally got to break out of that "bubble" to show that she could be a singer too and confidently challenged different genres. Her growth was so touching! I loved the song already but this time...I felt........maybe I could try to sing it?? My sore throat had at last recovered, the timely pressures were no longer so pressing, I realized the song wasn't too high, and this sparkling burst of inspiration was much too precious to pass up. đ
Immediately pulled my mic out and to my pleasant surprise it only took 1.5 hours to finish recording (albeit TV size) compared to my typical struggling for days or weeks...?! In hindsight there are reasonable explanations for this—the lack of belting or uncomfortably held out notes, not recording harmonies, the verse requiring more emotion than singing skill, the chorus requiring neither lol... But in any case, it was SO REFRESHING ! ! And then I did half of the mix that night! And was actually happy with my work?!?!
I also want to note too that I typically only record while my parents are asleep but because I was in such motivated spirits and wasn't struggling with the song, I pushed through and recorded while they were around AND through a neighbor's visit which I thought was really brave ;v;;
There are still more projects that I'm behind on, but I'm so. glad. that I treated myself by taking out a few days to dedicate to this. This was the self care I needed; it was the best thing I could've done for my soul. ✨ All things considered, it was incredibly satisfying to have a spontaneous desire to sing something... and then actually sing it. Stress free, without needing to try too hard, no restrictions, and for once I felt like I suited the song! Honestly have been feeling down about my mixing as well so it was validating that I actually felt proud of something I did so quickly and I had fun playing with all the reverb and delay. The video was such a blessing to do!! First time filming myself with a projector (an artifact from my mom's past job) and now I'm tempted to go this route with all future videos because HELLO THERE instant, moderately low effort, but extremely good aesthetics!!! Very exciting.
Also got to show off some cute The Little Mermaid paraphernalia which were gifts from chiisana đ Small side story, but I actually remember it was either the morning before I watched the Good Girl finale or the day prior, when I used that hairbrush and for some reason left it on my bed instead of putting it away... Later I noticed it and was like, "Huh it'd be cute if I could make a video with that kind of aesthetic sometime! Not that I have any ideas or will probably be making anything soon." IT WAS A PREMONITION... or maybe it was the cause? Idk.
Filmed on my bed!
Test model~ it wasn't very visible during the day so glad I waited til sundown
And finally, I quite enjoy doing basic things in After Effects so I had fun making the text effects—but especially being able to include rainbowesque bubbles felt like a mini dream come true. ^^ Thanks to Irozuku Sekai no Ashita Kara, I'm forever whipped for the colorful, glowing, bubbly bokeh look and you can count on seeing that again in hopefully improved forms! đ
This gratifying little project really reminded me what it is that I love to do best and why I continue to create things with all my heart.
【Cover】 Jang Yeeun - ëĒŠėëĻŦ (Mermaid) 【Eva】
Shoutout to Sonny for being the one to introduce me to this amazing song and the inspiring multitalent that is CLC's Jang Yeeun đ
Without a doubt I've been procrastinating writing this post and I can't really explain why LOL...... I'm definitely proud of these uploads—it's not the case where after uploading I feel so embarrassed about my work that I avoid the video for months, which definitely happens... Maybe it's because I dedicated a whole tireless month to working on just cover projects (aka worked my ass off to get these out before Animal Crossing took over my life) so as soon as I was done, I wanted to be absolved of any effort or responsibility related to them for a while? Hm idk... Or perhaps it's because I'm proud of them that it feels weird to admit so and write about it in detail? ^^;; There's a lot I want to say...
Two big uploads that mean a lot to me!!! đ
The moment I heard Elsa sing Show Yourself on my first viewing of Frozen 2, I just knew it was a song I wanted to sing. Frozen holds a permanent residency and large real estate in my heart for being what helped me explore my feelings and heal through a difficult time—and I just love Elsa and the whole icy motif (metaphorically and aesthetically) and the two sisters' different experiences with isolation and being honest with oneself. The first film is a masterpiece. đ
The sequel is...fine? good'ish? But on my second viewing of it I sobbed through Show Yourself... I like the lyrics a lot! My favorite line is "I have always been a fortress, cold secrets deep inside" aaah it just resonates with me so hard...... In many ways I try to be pretty open—like how I share my thoughts and experiences on this blog!—but in many other ways I seem to always be keeping my walls and guard up. Have been criticized for that before by someone who was one of the most important people to me at the time ;; And honestly around everyone who doesn't know about my singing, weeb, and k-pop interests, I'm extremely secretive and not comfortable with talking about my interests... >< thus it's hard for me to form a close relationship with anyone outside of this circle or anyone from whom I fear judgment. And due to my thorny personality I'm often described as an ice queen which certainly has its negative connotations but I've embraced and like the nickname haha.
I also really love the build-up of the song—it made it super fun to sing because there's such a variety of emotions and range to it ^^!! I especially looove singing low and emotional and chilly, and then there's an arc of self-realization and then breathy AND THAT SUPER HIGH OPERATIC FALSETTO I DIDN'T KNOW I COULD DO and then slightly warmer and then strong! until I'm belting and sadly can't even reach the notes without mixed(?) voice hahaha. And with Disney songs, you can be emotive and nuanced in ways that poppy songs often don't allow: there's somberness, there's reservation, there's wonder, reflection, curiosity, confidence, openness!
I'm so, so, so happy that I covered this song. ;u; Recently I started feeling a lot like I wasn't sure in my own singing capabilities and to be frank, in a lot of collabs I've been in, I'm not that happy with how my singing or vocal tone sounds compared to everyone else? Even if I do redoes, sometimes it feels like I'm hitting a wall. It just kinda feels like GOD FINALLY I got to actually sing and show people some of my strengths!!! Like real singing that I'm proud of!!! đđ
Phew okay I practically just wrote an essay LOL. One last thing-- I used to do multi-language covers often (or at least just posting more covers in different languages and recently I've only been doing JP and KR) AND I DID NOT FREAKING REALIZE. It's been ten years since my last multi-language cover.............. jeebus...................... Let's not think about that too hard! Anyway I learned while working on Show Yourself that I basically don't know anything about any language lol. Especially with the added pressure of knowing that viewers would more pay attention to my pronunciation than usual and with this somewhat more classical style there's less room for fudgery than in poppy songs. . . it was a long struggle learning to better deliver the different accents in all these languages. Still much to improve on. Bless Fome for not only making me sound good with this mix but also teaching me some of the nuances in the Japanese and Mandarin that I missed!
Anyway here's the video I just wrote a thesis on. Queen Elsa rocks.
【Eva】 Show Yourself / Frozen II ❄️ 【5 Language Cover】
Now the second upload is even more special !!!! Nine years ago, 5 friends and I decided to join a competition (unofficial chorus battle) called DUBattle Royale with the group name Gemini, because among our group we had many "vocal twins" and we blend extraordinarily well together. What a fucking beautiful thing it is that the six of us can still sing together after all these years..... I call them my first found family because they really are that to me—I know that regardless of the ebb and flow in our changing lives, I can always still count on them to have my back and cherish that special bond that only we can understand. We were hoping to have a group meetup again in Toronto late this year but with the pandemic there's no way so maybe next year for our 10th anni. :>
So yeah we sang this amazing IDOLiSH7 song that's about flying high, smiling together to overcome challenges, having courage, and reaching for our dreams together !
Our anniversary date unfortunately fell on the day that shelter-in-place was first announced in the US and in general there was a lot of grief and anxiety on social media—so as a group we discussed if we should hold off on the upload/if it would be tonedeaf to sing something so cheery in these worrisome times, but in the end we decided that it might be a welcome breath of fresh air for some people who were looking for some light in the darkness? ;; Thankfully I think we were right ;;;; To hear that we helped cheer up some folks makes this video even more meaningful than it already was. I love it a lot.
We were super fortunate to get to collaborate with an incredible visual team (I call them the visual fairies!) who are all sweet and skilled as heck and I greatly treasure their friendship too. đŠ The video is so gorgeous..... Look at all these pretty pastel colors........ Our characters and different personalities were captured so well.... The clothing designs are perfect for all of us..... The camera movements are expertly smooth and the video is just sparkly good vibes all around. I would absolutely work with pash, kayla, and azuka again without hesitation anytime, anywhere. đ
Fun fact: every Gemini member has a strong preference towards girl idols lololol so we end up singing a lot of songs that cater more to the girls' ranges and voices. But for this one we girls have been like, "YESSSS OUR BOYS GET TO SHINE SO MUCH!! GET ITTT!!!" hehehe Jay especially is the standout in this song—he is the center of this comeback!! đ
Oh and also I mixed............. the mix evolved a lot lol. We started recording this a long time ago and my mixing style and what I want to convey in this mix has changed a shit ton throughout the working period. I ended up settling on this wide sound with the vocals not too pushed forward, still bright but not overly crispy, fullness in the mids/lows, wet prechoruses but dry choruses. There's definitely something here that's preventing this mix from being on the level of professional that Fome is able to achieve in his mixes—I'm certainly hitting somewhat of a wall... but given my lack of advanced knowledge and not having as much in my toolkit compared to many other mixers, I'm overall kind of satisfied with the mix? It's pretty contained and doesn't make me cringe? lol
Looking forward to Gemini's 10th anniversary project~ đ
Happy to be able to say: I have a new solo cover!!! ✨✨✨
So twelve and a half years ago, I uploaded my very bad "fandub" of For Fruits Basket to youtube—my first cover that I put online. But like. Recorded in Windows Movie Maker with a $20 microphone. Mispronouncing everything and singing the wrong words.
Fast forward to when the 2019 reboot of the Fruits Basket anime was announced, I knew I definitely had to cover the opening theme—no matter what kind of song it was, no matter if I actually sounded good on it or not LOL! Hit up my friends' art and instrumental commissions, immediately started recording when the song came out, and I was set on uploading in April because I have other projects to worry about.... Until I got sick for 2 weeks, was on biz trip for 1 week, never fully recovered, had to focus on other things. :c Singing this was a struggle! In any case, I'm just very glad that I finally finished it; this is a super meaningful project. đ
Bless my friends sherry and Dibur for making me sound and look this pretty?!?! sherry's art is just wonderful and warm and adorable. TuT And Dibur's instrumental makes me feel like a princess.... Do check out their links below to support/commission them!
There's a special reason behind me holding a basket full of candy in the illustration: I wrote a "future generation" fanfic called Candy Basket as my 8th grade novel lol. A friend and I wanted to make it into an anime (literally drawn in Microsoft Paint) and I was going to voice the cat character, but this is something to share more about another day~
A super exciting thing—the bestie Chiisana and I have finally released our duet of Girl's Day's iconic song Expectation!!! Although we recorded it in 2014, many plans fell through throughout these years and at long last, expectations have become reality....haha get it.......thanks I'm here all the time
We're very privileged to have aeror404's hot, leggy art and Nobelz' amazing animation đ
Since there have been multiple "finished" versions of this mix that span across 5 years—evolving with my growth in mixing skill/judgment—I was interested in comparing them and seeing exactly how my style of mixing and mastering changed!
Sad that YouTube was not very kind to the mix though so please listen at the link below:
It's a good week of uploads!!! I published my solo cover last week and today, the best friend [goddess] Chiisana uploaded her solo cover! We worked hard on our videos so it's nice that we got them done QUQ Fun fact: we both sang, mixed, and animated our own videos!✨
【æãŖãĻãŋã】Shokugeki no Soma OP - BRAVER 【å°ããĒ】
I'm slain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are not deserving of Chiisana's vocal cord vibrations. Her talents transcend human capabilities. Chiisana is a literal goddess and angel. I can't even begin to fathom how she does what she does. This animation is badass. And just..just listen to her belting. Are you still alive? Yeah, me neither. I want Chiisana to sing at my funeral. I love her so, so much.
t h i s i s t h e c o v e r o f t h e c e n t u r y
And then there's my cover which I wrote about here LOL.
This was my first time mixing, animating, AND drawing for a video! Albeit they're very low quality, childish doodles because that's all I can do. ;o; (The main illustration is by soemei đ)
Tbh you wouldn't think that a mix for this type of cover would be difficult at all, but this was a struggle through and through. All of these years of using a Blue Snowball—which has the reputation of being a difficult mic—I'd NEVER had nearly this amount of trouble T_______T Matching my mic quality through all of my takes was an absolute nightmare that I probably spent at least 10 hours on over the span of the year. I wish I were joking when I say that I probably did some sort of EQ adjustment to literally every single syllable in this song. Recording this cover was the reason I decided to finally upgrade and take up Fome's offer to long-term borrow his extra mic passed down from his uncle lol;; Considering what I had to work with, it now sounds somewhat consistent enough so I think my long hours of EQ bore fruit, yay!
I don't even know what to say about the animation haha. It's pretty simple. I wish I had good aesthetic sense and had better creative ideas adlkfjslf but luckily I had pretty soemei art to make up for it!
Fun fact: I just discovered today that my cover might just be the only... existing version of this song on youtube....... I-I can't believe.... Gotta make a shout out to Victor Entertainment—I'm so fortunate that they actually approved my copyright dispute ;u;
Hello hello!! So I finished working on a solo cover on Saturday and uploaded it to youtube but encountered something for the first time—the video didn't become unblocked as soon as I submitted a copyright dispute and it says, "Viewing restrictions caused by this claim are still in place for the time being," which was new to me and some friends. ^^;; When I uploaded a snippet as a copyright test in March of last year, they approved my dispute so fingers crossed that their policy hasn't changed!
In the meantime since I don't know when (or if, heh--) I'll be able to publish the cover, I thought I'd post a sneak preview here for the couple of people that regularly visit my blog. ♥ Kind of like a secret patreon reward lolol except you've paid me with your interest and support and that truly means a lot! It's really an honor that you come and read what I have to say, especially in an era wherein blogging has died and following social media feeds is much easier, yet you go out of your way to let me feel like I have a voice and a space to share things. ;^; Usually I don't very much address my "readers" since I don't like setting up expectations that I'll have readers, but I know a few of you have been out here lately and I immensely appreciate you~~ <3
The song that I covered is a b-side track from JUNNA's first mini-album called "Shooting Star" ! It's mostly in English with a bit of Japanese sprinkled in, which I found interesting along with the fact that there was such an easygoing acoustic song amongst JUNNA's intense discography ;u; If you don't know who JUNNA is, she's a brilliant little rising star with an amazing and surprisingly deep voice. At the age of 14, she was the singing voice of Mikumo (whom I cosplayed) in Walkure / Macross Delta. I had the privilege of seeing her perform live at AX two years ago and she just..blew me away.... and hilariously could not come out for the final bow at the end of the show because it was past her curfew LOL.
For the art, I commissioned soemei whose work I really love! It's tender and flows beautifully, and her coloring style is lovely as hell. It's so nice, what the fuck--
I also did a simple animation for the video so please check that out when and however the video gets published later on, hopefully soon. ;v;
Click above if you'd like to listen to my Shooting Star cover, or this link:
Once again I'm terrible at keeping this blog updated with all the projects I've been taking part in, so here's stuff from March til now!!
First of all, two more episodes of Youtaite React came out! I'm not in them, but I produced and edited again. :> For these two episodes, our youtaite friends are cringing over their first covers.
This one I haven't really shared but it's a cool thing I got to be a part of ;o;!! Pash, who was one of Gemini's artists during ACB, asked me to sing for her Songwriting for Film final project—a sweet song befitting for a romcom!
This was my final in a songwriting for film class! We had to write and produce an original song to use as a "feature" for this early 2000s romcom film. Special thanks to @Diburrito for providing me with bass/guitar and @waterpixieva for singing the vocals! pic.twitter.com/DPm7tdWR6H
Listen here to "Spring Buds" if the tweet embed breaks ;v;
I'm frankly not super sure I'm proud of my vocals in this but please enjoy—Pash is a wonderfully talented budding songwriter~
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For Sophie/kuroko's birthday, I got to sing in a chorus of Orangestar's "Your Night Sky Patrol" with a bunch of cool people ;v;)b Huge props to Kusa and Para for making this happen!
【HBD Sophie ❤】 ãããã¨ãžãŠå¨æį / Your Night Sky Patrol 【8äēēååą】
Having the privilege of seeing Davichi perform their legendary song "8282" at KCON inspired me to record a short cover of it the night I got back from LA ahaha. They were simply breathtaking *___*
Chiisa and I were actually going to record ourselves singing this song for an online singing show audition in 2010, so I wrote these rap lyrics back then...... shudders
"Yeah, just like a fool, I hope that you’ll find your way to me once again This heart needs fixing, needs some loving, needs for you to mend This calls for stitches, got some glitches, and I cannot forget Pick up the phone and call me before we both end up in regret"
~
In this time, I also uploaded a vlog from my trip to Japan and Korea! ^^ I need to get around to posting some of the photos we took...
What's in the pipeline now?
I'm working on two things that should theoretically be coming in the near future! One being a solo cover—my first one since Whistle in 2016 aaaa—which I've been working on since March. I mixed, animated, and also drew some doodley things, so it's going to be my very first attempt at the Holy Trifecta, heh..... The other project being the special edition of Youtaite React that we shot during the official youtaite meetup at Anime Expo~ That was...probably the craziest fucking shoot I've ever done LOL. More details here in my AX post. It's very, very close to being done! So close!
Yup, so now I've reverted back to only ever blogging when I have a new cover/collab to show haha. It's kinda tough when I spend most of my time at work, but I don't want to reveal too many work-related things here... Ummmm, for a few weeks I basically spent most of my waking free time working on mixing—which resulted in one new upload, yay! I still have another in the pipeline that I had planned to finish before mixing for Ascension CB consumed my life, but I'm doubtful that it'll work out.
Recent exciting happenings are that I went to KCON LA! This year went pretty well. ^^ The concerts were a lot of fun and luckily a huge improvement from last year, when we were only able to get the shittiest seats because they cut like 40% of the seats AND they didn't provide screens that were visible from the sides of the stadium. Huge improvement this year with the return of the 360 stage and 360 large screens! I also went to more fan engagements (fanmeetings) than in past years, which meant a lot of waiting in line, but I got to see a lot of my faves up closer than I'd probably ever see most of them in a concert. And I attended LDN Noise's amazing panel where they discussed their music production and even opened up their project of an EXO song and broke all of those intricate layers down for us! Freaking awesome. That panel lit up some fuel in me that immediately got to work on Never as soon as I arrived home from LA, redid the mastering, re-imagined some effects, and even recorded some extra layers and subtle adlibs.
In the order of the artist I was most excited about, to the artist that I was least excited about but still impressed me, these are the gods and goddesses I had the privilege of witnessing in song and dance this year:
NCT 127, Wanna One,
WJSN/Cosmic Girls, Oh My Girl, Seventeen,
SF9, Super Junior-D&E, Girl's Day,
Heize, KARD, GOT7,
Astro, Vixx, Kim Taewoo
They were all incredible!
Chiisana and I totally lost our shit when Wanna One surprised us by performing Never ;;;;
WHICH LEADS ME TO OUR DUET OF "NEVER," originally from Produce 101 season 2 but also has been rerecorded by Wanna One! This song especially means a lot to me because it was composed and written by Hui of Pentagon, which is one of my current favorite groups but is sadly a group that's painfully underrated and overlooked. ;A; They're full of talent, but there's not enough recognition or interest.. I think Never was their first breakthrough—and it may be a bit sad that Pentagon didn't perform in their first song that charted #1—but it brought a lot to their name, so I'm grateful that Hui got this wondrous opportunity!! And then went on to compose/write for Wanna One's big debut song >u<!!!
So yeah, please enjoy! It may not be the most polished mix, but I spent a lot of time on this. ;v; And it's been a while since Evasana's last duet, so I'm happy this pulled through.
【Cover】 PRODUCE 101 - NEVER (ë¤ë˛) 【Eva x å°ããĒ】 We would like to dedicate this Evasana duet to: ♥ Wanna One, whom we had the honor of seeing last weekend at KCON LA!! We freaked the heck out when they performed this song ;u; ♥ Kim Jonghyun, whom we for sure thought we would be seeing this year at KCON LA. #justiceforjonghyun ♥ The underrated boys of Pentagon! Get them royalties, Hui~ Song: “NEVER” originally performed by ęĩë¯ŧė ėë¤ for PRODUCE 101 Season 2 Composed by: Hui of Pentagon, Flow Blow Lyrics: Hui, E’dawn, & Wooseok of Pentagon Arrangement: Flow Blow MP3: https://app.box.com/s/r5ktaeiioqhyb15... Vocals: å°ããĒ (chiisana) - http://www.youtube.com/ChiisanaChanx3 Eva - http://www.youtube.com/waterpixieva Backing Vocals: å°ããĒ (chiisana) Mix: Eva Video: å°ããĒ (chiisana) Unofficial instrumental from Everysing and provided by kyungsoáo. Thank you for watching!
Just wanted to share some more pictures from the making of my 10th anniversary video aka my last minute impulsive decision to go with the idea that required shooting about 60 shots. orz Why did I do that to myself LOL.. It was veeery time consuming, and oh my god it was so frustrating when I went from frantically running around for two days/nights doing nothing but shooting, to...being completely bedridden with food poisoning and still many shots to go. =A=
Actually, the concept I was originally planning on was basically a scrapbook and then I'd superimpose the videos while editing, WHEN SUDDENLY my mom brought home a pocket projector she got for free. 8D;; So that just kind of fell into my lap and I was super excited, but god it came with so many limitations lol... I couldn't get the projector to play videos from my SD card—let's be real, there are reasons that this was given for free—so I had to lug my laptop around everywhere and change out all of the shots that I had planned to be outside. :c
My little "studio" on my bed was also janky as fuck LOL and I only had one LED light to combat the terrible, terrible, terrible, ugly lighting in my house.
And then... the 2 days it took just for color correction because the footage looked. so. bad. LOL Still does, but I'm glad that such a difference can be made at least..!!
It was a ton of work and time but I had fun making this video for sure! Let's not impulsively decide to rush a video with 60 shots again. That was enough wannabe-videography fun for a while~
That's right!!! Ten. Ten whole years..... For half of the entire duration of my lifetime I've been doing this thing where my parents would be at work or asleep, and I take out my little microphone in my bedroom, shut the door, and record myself shrieking in languages I can't speak.
Looking back, this hobby gets really time-consuming and it's frustrating, but definitely rewarding in its own ways. Somehow I feel like I've found and lost myself many times over the years because of singing.
In middle school, I likely permanently ruined my own throat because I wanted to take advantage of every breathing second that I had after school and before my mom came home from work—which meant forcing myself to keep singing even when it hurt. Sometimes I purposely sang with my throat in pain because it dulled my very obnoxious vocal tone.. It was an exciting new hobby and it was thrilling to collaborate with other coverists and be a part of something. I could never say no, and god I had so many lines to do LOL. But probably because of that, I'm still dealing with throat issues today. Right now I'm going through a decent phase, but sometimes it just hurts to use my voice, and that was a pretty big source of depression for me especially early in college. There was nothing I was passionate about, but I knew at least that I loved to sing and rap—it was the only thing that made me happy and through which I had an expressive/emotional outlet—but it physically pained me to do. And my throat doctor didn't even know what to do with me. But I'm a bit better now ^^ and I learned a huge lesson in self control haha.
Then there was my phase in high school during which I was super obsessed with trying to cover k-pop songs as soon as they were released, so that I could "ride the wave" of attention. I ended up spending a lot of time covering songs that I didn't actually like that much, just for what I perceived to be "popularity." A few of them I kind of regret; they were so half assed LOL. I wouldn't do it again. :'D It's still a struggle of balance finding something that I think others might enjoy and that I would enjoy and be able to put my heart into producing.
And of course feeling shut down and built up again and again; it's been a rollercoaster!! I'm not someone who was born with inherent talent, and it's so easy to compare yourself to others and feel like you can't even do anything. Honestly, I can barely sing at karaoke. Even to as recent as Tokohana for LSO's final round in September, I was actually extremely emotionally distraught when trying to record lines and I wished my vocal tone were better, struggled a shit ton with higher notes, struggled to hold notes out, couldn't live up to the other members' awesome. (rly if you haven't heard it yet, please do bc Gemini sounds amazing<3) But I figured out a long time ago, that if I couldn't be the master at anything, I needed to put in that much more effort to strive to be a jack of all trades ;v; That's how I ended up dabbling in all these different languages, in rapping, in "animating," in mixing and mastering, even tried to dance.
I consider animating a lost battle for me. At first in the Dark Ages, I was so proud that with my AMV-making experience, I was able to put names for when people sang in groupdubs LOL! And then I assumed the role of video-maker for Gemini since I was most interested in Sony Vegas. But then when everyone else was making magic in After Effects and I was still in Sony Vegas with my very (still) brokenly horrible sense of aesthetic, I couldn't keep up and decided to focus on mixing. Now I'm slowly picking up bits and pieces of AE because of work, but I suck LOL.
And mixing..... That's still very much a work in progress. I first started out trying to "mix" in Windows Movie Maker lmao, and I still remember DUBattle Royale in 2011 when the judges told us to EQ, and I was like, "What's that?" LOL I really fell behind my peers in learning to EQ and master.. Although I've improved a lot in mixing (especially during LSO), I end up feeling ashamed and as though I know nothing compared to other mixers. LSO was really a huge challenge; I was so proud of myself at first and then I kept realizing all of these mixing flaws I caused and got mad at myself tbh. But that's all the more reason for me to learn more and prove myself, so my next challenge will be OTO&ME CB! Q^Q)9 I'll.. try my best and hopefully can make something nice for us to all look back on!
Because of this hobby, I found a career path for myself. I totally went through a phase in high school when I dreamed of becoming a Hello!Project idol and then a K-pop idol LOLLLL. It was always obvious that I'd never be able to. I knew I loved singing, and it was depressing that I had waaay too many limitations to do that, but I had enough interest in mixing and video editing that I decided to enter university as a Radio-TV-Film major. I still always felt like I had no talent, but eventually it ended up working out great! 8D Because now I primarily do video and audio editing at my awesome grown-up full time job; otherwise working on sets and often as the audio recordist. It's great.
Most importantly!!!!!! I'm grateful for how many people I've met and how many friends I've made in online covering communities, as well as all the support I've received. Q___Q I met my best friend Chiisana in 2007 because we both covered overlapping anime songs and made AMVs—turned out we lived in neighboring cities and obviously both didn't care enough about stranger danger even though she was literally 11 years old LOL!! Then I got to meet a lot of nice people through singing Mermaid Melody and Hello!Project. AND THEN K-POP.... I got a message in 2010 from some girl named Mimi who did some k-pop duets with a guy named Ryan. And you see, kids, when coverists really love and accept each other, sometimes they do things all night (talked in chat) and give birth to baby groups like Gemini. And sometimes, this group becomes family as important to you as blood. QAQ I'm so lucky that we still sing together and even came back as a full group for a chorus battle this year, five years after our last battle!!! <3
And joining the vocaloid/youtaite and twitter community in 2012 really changed my life. I had never felt so immersed in people that were similar to me and accepted me. A lot of them were so cool and social or really talented or popular, but they still wanted to be friends with me?? I felt for the first time that I could kind of talk to people and socialize, and it made me more confident and outgoing in my college classes. ^^ Since then, most of my friends that I hang out with IRL have been people that I met in the youtaite community—bless that there are so many of them in Norcal. :'D It's been a bumpy ride, but some of these people will be lifelong friends I think.
I typed for too long, sorry. Here is my celebratory(?) 2006-2016 vocal evolution reel!! I hope I can improve much, much more and keep singing with cool people in the future~ Thank you!
VERY SORRY FOR MY UGLY HANDWRITING AND HUMOR AND THE UGLY IN GENERAL TBH.... Hi everyone!! This is a very special video to me because 10 years ago—when I was 13 years old—I uploaded my first cover on youtube. And somehow, 10 years later, this is still my hobby. I'm still here trying to learn to sing and rap and mix and slaughter languages, and it's still fun. I forget to express it, but I'm really grateful to everyone who's ever supported me along the way! ;_; Thank you for encouraging me and teaching me!! ♥♥♥ To commemorate, here is my 2006-2016 vocal evolution reel archive compilation...video thing. An update to my last reel which was 5 years ago! https://youtu.be/9sGI7ZSdXEo (And an excuse to bring to light a lot of covers that were never finished tbh.) Please watch your ears—it will be painful, sorry. :'D Thank you for watching!!! If you'd like to hear the full version of something that's not on my channel, you might find it on my collab playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA5E87AF81CFCA7C6 soundcloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/waterpixieva box of extras: https://app.box.com/s/e3hdl6o7hhhneyjd2u7i Or just request ^^
LSO final results came out!!! Gemini finished tied for 3rd place (with MagiColle), and that's really amazing. ^^ I'm really glad our team members' hard work was recognized. It was crazy but a fun run, participating in my first youtaite community chorus battle. ;v; So proud of everyone!
I would normally feel quite empty, but.... I've..just been working almost nonstop and have more things on the horizon LOL. I just have good memories of LSO ^^
Firstly!! I've been really wanting to do a solo cover since this summer, and when BLACKPINK debuted, I had decided on their song Whistle. Right after the end of LSO round 2, I had tried to start recording but didn't get very far with my sore throat, which then developed into a cold. So now finally after LSO round 3 finished, I went right at it and have been working on this almost every night—learning the raps, recording, mixing, making the video. FINALLY I'M DONE YAY QUQ
So here is my solo cover of BLACKPINK's whistle! It was a fun song to do!
My cover of "First Love (ė˛Ģë˛ė§¸ ėŦëė ėėí´ė)" by Kim Sohyun (ęšėí) for the k-drama The Suspicious Housekeeper OST!
I recorded it pretty much as soon as the song came out in November 2013 LOL...... And then it fell to the bottom of my priority list and never got completed so I finally fished it out of nowheresville, threw reverb all over it, and hoisted it to the light of the internet!!!
Kim Sohyun is SO GIRLCRUSH, LIKE.
She was my favorite child actress (maybe even favorite actress overall) when she was 13, and now she's already 16 and beautiful and talented and perf. *__*
WOWOWOWOW I completely missed blogging these three projects I was in this year so let's rectify that.
Kazou's birthday was in November, we sang a ballad for him, and I mixed!!
Have I ever mentioned how much I love Kazou he's like my precious little bro
AND IT IS SUCH AN HONOR getting to mix all these people and ARIANNA ART IS *______*
【HBB Kazou】Anamnesis【10äēē】 Birthday Boy: Kazou (user/soundmutation) Anamnesis Original by Annabel Mix by Eva Tuning/Timing by Mochi (user/littoaznmonkey) Video by YanoviP Art by Arianna Vocals by: Snowscape (user/YYHyasha) Beck (user/beckties) Nike (user/Nikessi) Howl (user/MrHoowwl) Arianna (user/AcchanChangminMax) Angelica (angelicaJ29) Eva (user/waterpixieva) Fome (user/fome) Chiisana (user/ChiisanaChanx3) Yanovi (user/yanoviP) MP3: https://app.box.com/s/mwg12o5dx6dp73c...
~
Denny's a stupid and he had a birthday too and I guess I sang in the video
THIS ONE ALSO HAS REALLY NICE ART man I'm not used to being drawn much
【6äēēååą】1/6 -out of the gravity- (THE WINGDINGLRS)【Happy belated birthday, Denny!】
ANDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
The series of birthday presents for Chiisana continued back in June. :> This one is my solo!
See: (1) O.K; (2) SPiCa acoustic
【Cover】 Nishino Kana - Best Friend 【Eva】
Many thanks go out to Fome and Dibur—who mixed and created the instrumental, respectively—for I couldn't have completed this without them.♥ I'm blessed to have such amazing and talented friends..! ;^;
..Like that one girl Chiisana/å°ããĒ. I guess this is for her. (http://www.youtube.com/ChiisanaChanx3 ← I highly recommend subscribing to her since she's got the most beautiful voice!! We also have another duet in the works that will be up on her channel ;D)
This present is late for your birthday, but a thank you to you requires no occasion. I can't believe it's been 8 years already since we met through singing anime covers on youtube LOL! And you've supported me throughout the entire journey so far, while being the most inspirational, talented, and kindhearted person I know. Thank you and I look forward to the rest of our lives, my dear best friend ♥♥♥
ALSO HOLY SHIT this video looks /super narcissistic/ when one person doesn't like showing her face online LMAO.. Please forgive me for that!! Who is Chiisana??? this video is for Rock-kun
