We heard a few of Mario’s Errepici songs on a forum and expressed interest in a possible collaboration. It seems that he had been asking for a year or so for someone to work with on this song, but no takers. The song was cool, the robot vocal, not so much to our ears. We offered Jane and the Jane Is Not Afraid banner even though her vocal style is very different from what the robot was delivering.
We did a set of vocals that we sent over. By the next day, Jane felt she could do better, so we went again and were happy. It was hard to separate from the gridded feel of the robot to a more human feel that represented Jane’s feel as a singer (and a very new singer at that). We made it a condition of the project that performances not be altered as we believe strongly in our stance:
No A.I. – No Tuning – No Presets
Nu Balance Mix
We ended up with two very different mixes because the stems sent over were not what I would normally work from (covered in effects). I could only do a balance mix where I would normally start with raw sounds and build the whole feel from the ground up. In the end, I was happy with the outcome as with different approaches, I was able to adjust enough of the things I felt the song wanted.
Nu Sounds Mix
I got the DAW file (Reaper) which let me open and export the MIDI (notes) which I imported to Reason. From there I had lots of pianos (default sound) playing all the lines against Jane’s singing. I put things in order and worked sound by sound, making whole new instruments*. Some are a bit similar to the original sounds, but mostly I let the song lead. Doing that, I found a few things I had not realized. The lovely falling motif in the chorus was the main one and I had to copy that to the end to make an ending (as opposed to just finishing). It was already discussed about making a break at the middle eight (the spoke bit) so I added that too. This is very different from where Mario’s vision was, but we like it. Not in competition but like a Remix, or an alternate version of the song.
* from absolute basics – pure synthesis, incl drums. No Samples, no presets, no loops etc.
Next plans: we are starting on a combined think+sync + JINA EP
Benedict Roff-Marsh 