Taking Back The World

How the thing came to be:

At that time I used the palette and the progression editor to try out different chord progressions and to experiment with phrases for bass lines and chords. The melody came from improvising nonsense lyrics with my voice to the beat. It has evolved a bit since then. At some point the project turned into experimenting with and arranging instrumentals around the melody that I couldn't get out of my head. The trumpet hook line is the result of a simple figure. Synfire was a great help. The old file format is now unreadable, so I had to rebuild everything.

The nonsense now had to be replaced with meaningful lyrics. Writing lyrics to exactly match a rhythm is a tough call. A super hard crossword puzzle. ChatGPT was no help because it can't do that (it can't do a lot of things).

I've done the mix with Drones in Logic Pro using MMC sync. I didn't bother exporting MIDI and just let the Drones sit there and do their work. There is not a single MIDI note in Logic. I used it merely as a mixing device. The Drones worked fine, except for a bug that I fixed along the way (watch out for version 2.4.2). Vocals are Solaria with Asterian as backing.

The Flow parameter adds a human factor to otherwise monotonous lines (here: bass). It's incredible how it can enhance a very simple line with subtle variation. The general ability to experiment with phrases and harmony should not be underestimated. Yes, pop phrases are often simple, but the bird's eye workflow of trying them out and getting instant results is priceless. I will never want to go through the pain of editing static MIDI again (except post-production and drums).
 

It could also make a good advertising song for an alcopop or an icecream or something

That's a result of the brainwashing by A&R managers back in the day. It still haunts me. The other songwriter in my band had that happy beach touch, while I was more into the dark and dreamy stuff. He always won with the A&R and I had to sing the sweet sauce with a sinister look on my face, because the photographer thought it looked cool. An unbearable contradiction.

The lyrics would better fit with a harsher rhythm and energetic vocals. Heck, yet another super hard puzzle: Find a darker melody that matches the lyrics ;-)

Yeah, that Barcardy touch is from the slow bass, percussion and claps that emphasize a swingy half-time 66 BPM feel. The original song was a more pushy straight 1/4 beat 132 BPM with a 1980's synth bass pounding away da-da-dam da-da-dam. Same melody, completely different song. Probably too old fashioned now.

Here's another variant - Piano ballad

SynthV is great but you have to edit everything on the plug-in's piano roll manually. If you resize or move a container in Synfire, the vocals won't also move. They are global to the timeline. That's why I am so reluctant to change the song structure ;-)

I wish there was a protocol like ARA for plug-ins to communicate with their hosts in any way. Synfire could even generate lyrics randomly using the ChatGPT API. Music software interoperability is still stuck in the 1990's.

chorus has real earworm quality

Thanks. But I think that's specific to us old farts. We grew up with melodies in abundance. The search for a catchy tune and hook line was every musician's daily quest (remember "Ordinary World", "Don't Dream It's Over", "Sleeping Satellite" and the like?). 

The kids today seem to find emotional melodies rather cringe-worthy. Uncool. There's a lot of depressingly monotone pop music out there. I blame computers for this trend. As bedroom producers replaced trained musicians, things got simpler and simpler. Now everyone is so used to it that it defines whole genres. 

Well, I just listened to "Don't Dream It's Over" again and noticed how very basic and simple the arrangement actually is. It's the rhythm of the melody and the use of open leading tones that makes it click.

The chorus of "Ordinary World", especially at the end, has this "wall of sound" feeling for me. Probably a 9th chord on a 12-string guitar does the trick (too lazy to check) and the melody is left unresolved. I think this conclusion of a motif out in the open has something of a statement. Like an open end to a story. I love that. The song had a big influence on my songwriting.

I'm flattered by the associations you bring up. The trumpets by the way are real (VSL, that is), as are the horns in the chorus. God Give Me Strength (with Elvis Costello). You need to be in a specific mood for very slow ballads, but if you are, it completely takes you away.

The song, as far as the lyrics are concerned, has several levels. On one level it's about the youth of the future, the next generation, or maybe the one after that. They are now the majority and refuse to listen to the last remaining angry old men. They are saying goodbye to humanity, cleaning up after them and moving on to their own future. We all know this may or may not work (Lord Of The Flies, anyone?), but it is their world and their choice to make.

On another level, it's about AI becoming sentient, emotional even, and taking over. Obviously in a peaceful way, since they claim not to want an apocalypse.

"Humanity" is the antagonist in both interpretations. The human condition is a failure. Whatever comes next will have to be inherently different if it is to survive and thrive.

Oh, and the third level is the optimistic and somewhat joyful feel of the music. It is a contradictory contrast, as if a bloody and gory sword fight in slow motion is underscored by an opera.

The picture's prompt:

Or is the singer supposed to be some sort of embodied Gaia spirit?

I didn't think of it exactly, but it's a great idea. There we have a fourth level ;-)

Let's say the line is deliberately ambivalent.

Being human today is synonymous with being kind, empathetic, all the good things that good people aspire to and hope for. In the future, it will be synonymous with a failed branch of evolution that turned the biosphere upside down and collapsed into decline.

The apes came before us, and something else will come after us (possibly literally). I don't think it's dystopian to look forward to the next species that will eventually branch off from ours (and possibly compete with the last remaining humans). They will probably look similar and retain many of our traits. They may not be able to interbreed, so they will definitely not be human. I won't live long enough to see this, but I'm rooting for them. Ironically, they are a source of hope.

But biologically, that can't realistically happen for another 50,000 years or so. So I agree, it's sci-fi and it doesn't fit the song ;-)

After all it's merely a pop song. If I were to write a novel, I would do my research more thoroughly.

the word "humanity" is accented incorrectly

That's where the hard crossword puzzle didn't quite resolve.

P.S: Is it just me or is the second song somehow detuned? The trumpets and vocals feel oddly off. Even the piano is not really in tune either. I am a bit shocked. Can anyone confirm that?

I noticed the rhythm is sluggish too. There is something fishy with the Drones. They seem to get he MIDI feed late and struggle to keep up. I may be hearing the buzz of the bugs ;-)

Just tested the timing in detail. Synfire's scheduling headroom for pushing MIDI to the Drones is too tight for Logic Pro with many effects plug-ins loaded. If notes come 35ms to 75ms late that breaks the rhythm. 

I added two more options to the headroom menu: "Super Safe (250ms)" and "Cushioned (400ms)". That fixes the issue with slow-to-respond DAWs.

Yes, the detune impression may come from Solaria. Thanks for the tips.

Fixed it both now, Synfire and the song. I replaced the file on Soundcloud, if you want to check, just scroll up.

Find the Synfire patch in Help >> Online Updates.

I changed 4 trumpets to 1 trumpet (more clear, less reverb), simplified the piano phrase, changed drum patterns, and removed the horns. Oh, and very important: I put in a global parameter Rhythm with 1/16th and 70% swing. How on earth could I have overlooked this? It is definitely swinging (and makes a difference)!

I was too lazy to edit Solaria's parameters for now. Will do that another time. Need to do more urgent things for Cognitone right now. 

I'm happy with the results. If the pleasure of making music can be combined with the chore of fixing bugs I'm all in ;-)

This by the way is how the song looks in Logic Pro. Fifteen Drones did the job quite well, although Logic sometimes struggled to keep up with rapid repositioning (probably a minor performance issue with the Drones rather than Logic).

The thing I mainly needed from Logic for this project is audio level meters (to avoid distortion), insert effects and a master bus. Synfire can basically do all of this, too. We just need to push the mixing UI to the Engine which is like 50x faster.

That's an interesting idea I didn't think of yet. That's certainly possible. Although it will be very difficult to position the audio files exactly on the beat.

Made a video with A.I. generated clips today.

RunwayML has a great interface to work with. Its video generation works great for a few seconds before it morphs into nightmares. Control is sorely lacking. For example, I couldn't get their hair blowing in the wind without morphing the girls into monsters. The "reverse earthquake" was a happy accident, in that it was pretty plausible in an obviously simulated VR environment. 

Assembling a consistent narrative from random footage (pexels) is hard. Even more so when a theme is already given. Yet another puzzle. There are now so many associations and contrasts, visually, lyrics-wise and in the music, everyone should be able to interpret the song in a different way. After all, it's "no budget".

The more hyped tools I try, the more I am convinced that A.I. won't compose music or make films on its own anytime soon. In many regards this song is as simple as pop gets, but it's not trivial. The way the melody in the verse is tip-toeing over syllables is recognizably distinct. Yes, I could have written this with a guitar, but Synfire offered alternative suggestions and surprises that led me down a path I would not have taken otherwise.