Chapter 37: City Life
Tang Miaoyi and An Qiuying, after leaving the studio, quickly forgot about the incident. By the time they left, the sun had already mostly sunk beneath the horizon, and grey shadows slowly covered the bustling city. In a few minutes, the sky would be completely dark, and the neon lights would give the city a unique atmosphere.
The two walked along the busy streets. Qiuying was guiding the two around pedestrians, as they made their way back to the subway station. It wasn't too often that she came to the downtown section of Shanghai, so Qiuying took in the sights surrounding her, as the sky turned yellow.
On the other hand, Tang Miaoyi was obviously more concerned about what to eat tonight. She began searching the nearby shops for a restaurant they could go to, "What about that Hot Pot place?"
"Hot pot? Isn't it too greasy? Can you pick something else?" Qiuying quickly shot down Miaoyi's suggestion.
"Then what about those barbecue skewers?" Tang Miaoyi said, pointing to another place.
An Qiuying was a little helpless. "Miaoyi, it's not healthy to eat out this frequently. Let's just eat when we get home."
"It's fine, if it's only this once, I won't get fat." Tang Miaoyi said indifferently.
An Qiuying's mouth visibly twitched. After everything she's seen while living with her, the phrase "only once" has no business coming out of Miaoyi's mouth.
But faulty as she was, no one could say that Tang Miaoyi was anything but persistent. After the 15th time asking, Qiuying finally gave in, and they ate at a skewer restaurant.
It was only because Miaoyi was tired today... Definitely...
But getting the last word in, they didn't eat at the random restaurant that Miaoyi pointed out, but instead looked for one online first, to find a high-rated one. It wasn't that hard to find one, due to the nature of Shanghai. Almost anything you could need was within 5 km at any interval within the city.
True to her word earlier, Qiuying let Tang Miaoyi eat until she couldn't anymore. She ended up paying, as Miaoyi was currently low on funds, but was stunned at the amount. Looking over at Miaoyi's plate, the skewers were piled up in a massive heap, numbering over 30. Comparing the amount of meat they would have held to Miaoyi's head, there wasn't much difference in size.
An Qiuying could only sigh, and pay up. She wasn't short on money anytime soon, so she didn't mind the price. They left the restaurant and hopped on the subway.
As rush hour was over already, they managed to grab two seats this time and didn't have to stand all the way back, which was much more relaxing.
After sitting down, they finally had the opportunity to listen to the vocals they had recorded today. "Why did you record your part so fast? Mine took much longer." Qiuying asked while sharing an earphone with Miaoyi.
During the recording session, Miaoyi had actually gone first, but had finished in one take! She had quickly gone to do a few final touches, before setting up for Qiuying's recording. But that left Qiuying feeling confused since she had recorded so many takes.
After all, from the very beginning, the plan for "Closer" was for Miaoyi and Qiuying to sing together, with An Qiuying as the main vocalist and Tang Miaoyi responsible for the male voice part. The reasoning for this was that when the song was to be released, the lyrics would sound strange if one person sang both parts. However, Song Ziyin arrived a little late. If she had come earlier, it would have been even more surprising.
As for An Qiuying's issue, Tang Miaoyi's response was simple: "Why was I fast? I was more familiar with it." Of course, it was much easier for the writer of a song to know what dynamics they wanted. Even in this case, where Mioyi is only recreating it, she knew what the original sounded like already. "Most of your time was me communicating my vision. I already knew what I wanted, so I went faster."
They talked all the way from Dream Painting Studio to their home, which required passing through more than ten subway stations and changing to another line halfway. Tang Miaoyi and An Qiuying carefully listened to the recorded sound while on the road, occasionally exchanging ideas, and eventually were both satisfied with the recording.
So, after today, the first part of "Closer" was officially completed, and the progress toward its release moved steadily forward. There is still a lot of work left unfinished, still.
Recording vocals is only the first of several crucial parts in the production of "Closer," and it is not even the most difficult one. Fortunately, Miaoyi was already familiar with the process. The most difficult part would be the process of collecting audio samples. Yes, that's right - audio sampling, similar to the "yip~" sound made by Da Mian when they were making "Fox"... This frustrated Miaoyi to no end.
In theory, a Future Bass like "Closer" shouldn't need audio sampling at all. In her previous life, almost all of the sounds were made using synthesizers, and most of the audio sources were even built into the software itself. All that was left to the producer was the manipulation, as the recording was mostly done already.
Unfortunately, this streamlined process had been left behind in the other world. In her past life, the development of electronic music was so far ahead of this one that the two couldn't even be compared, both in production and sound. In the beginning, Tang Miaoyi searched for something similar, but somehow all of the synthesizers common in "Future Bass" simply did not exist, and she struggled to find a synthesizer at all.
So, the only option left was to collect the sounds herself since she couldn't find any suitable sound sources. However, compared to something so obvious like collecting fox sounds for "Fox," Tang Miaoyi found it more difficult to collect the sounds for Future Bass.
This is because collecting samples for Future Bass could be a bit dangerous. Tang Miaoyi couldn't even do it herself, or she might risk getting into trouble. There are very few suitable sound sources for Future Bass. The most significant feature of Future Bass is the ethereal electronic sound in the chorus/drop part that can stimulate the audience's auditory nerves.
Yes, don't be tricked into thinking that the sound source for the chorus part of Future Bass is just a simple bass sound. All sounds have to originate from somewhere, even something so electronic sounding like Vocaloid uses real recorded audio as a baseline. Tang Miaoyi vaguely remembers that when this style originated, the founder actually went to a local power station to collect "real electronic sounds" to produce it...
But when thought about, it makes sense. Why would something be called Future Bass, if it could be easily recreated with regular bass?
Unfortunately, this made the sound significantly harder to record. Probably the reason why most producers used the pre-recorded sounds, was the complexity of recording audio yourself!
But left with no other option, that was what Miaoyi had to do. Who knew trying to recreate an entire genre of music from scratch could be so hard!
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