I came across a post by Kiffie on Mastodon thanks to a boost by @elsemusic:
I found the song on Kiffie’s album “This Brings Life” and had a listen. It’s very ethereal, lots of reverb and a big wash of synths, then some nice arpeggiated synth noises for a middle break. My first thought was that it would sound great with much more up-front female vocals and a guitar-based backing, following Kiffie’s “different genre” request. There is not a lot of contrast between verse and chorus, and I thought I could improve on that too, so I said I’d give it a go.
I was about to head off on a road trip to see family in Alsace, so I did a quick bit of pre-processing at home so that I could work on it on my laptop. Kiffie had expressed concern that remixers would have to recreate it by ear, but we have the technology to do all that! The steps involved were much like what I did for Blinding Lights. After dropping a copy of the track into Logic, the first step was extracting a tempo map to sync everything to; it turned out to have a fixed 70bpm tempo, so that was easy. Next up was using Logic’s stem splitter to break it out as much as possible, and that worked OK, though the keyboard parts were all together as they are not very distinct (it’s still borderline magic!). The main thing was that the vocal line was pretty clean. I then extracted a chord map from the original track, revealing a Cm key with Cm, B♭, Gm, and A♭ chords, and applied it to the whole project.
The vocals were the trickiest part. I applied Flex Pitch to the extracted vocal track, which allowed me to generate a MIDI track with the notes in, which I then imported into Synthesizer V. Pitch conversions like this are quite hit and miss, but it provided a good enough guide. I recently picked up a new female voice for SV called “Etta”, which I thought would work well for this track; it has a certain weight and authority. Then came the laborious step of entering all the lyrics, checking pronunciation, splitting/merging syllables, substituting phonemes, deleting conversion artefacts, and adding breaths to get a realistic vocal track working. Getting timings right is the hardest part, and I was tweaking that all the way to the final mix.
As usual, I relied heavily on Logic’s players for the rest of the track. First of all trying a simple drum track in various styles; my original thought was a very pared-down, almost “unplugged” vibe, but having heard the vocal line against a trip-hop/trap-style drum backing thought I’d go a different way. I often find that songs seem to have a life of their own. The sharp, staccato drums needed a complete contrast to run against, so I added a lovely soft pad using Logic’s Alchemy synth; this also provided an element of continuity with the original song.
I was in two minds about adding guitars; despite it being my original idea, it’s not that well suited to a trip-hop feel (though my Groove Armada-ish song “You’re on mute” did that). But I left it in (using UJAM’s Amber2 plugin) providing some quiet rhythmic texture on top of the backing pad during the verses.
I wanted to add lots of contrast for the choruses, as I felt the original song didn’t have enough of that, and the lyrics and melody provide a solid, majestic feel. I used SV’s vocal modes to make the intro and verse voices quiet and smooth, leaving space for stepping up a gear to a much stronger delivery in the choruses, bolstered by (my favourite!) two tracks of backing vocals, using the excellent “Solaria” voice in SV that I’ve used many times before. I’m still constantly amazed by SV; the vocal line is so exposed at the beginning, but it really stands up to scrutiny.
The break section was asking for some kind of solo instrumental line, and the original song used a strong arpeggiated melody, so I thought I’d do the same. The stabby solo part in the break is from Alchemy driven by a “modulated pad” Logic player, and the sharp, tinkly synth patch for the fast arpeggios is courtesy of UA’s PolyMax synth. My favourite bit of the whole song is just after the second quiet break when the arpeggiator cuts in, with an anticipatory lead in from the fat, squidgy, subby bass, also from Alchemy.
After letting the backing vocalists support the last section of the instrumental break, I amped up the accompaniment for the final chorus, and did lots of vocal edits to make it sound more spontaneous and natural. I couldn’t resist adding the “my love” backing vocals to the final fade out; I’m very happy with them.
There’s not much processing on the rest, mostly Logic’s standard track EQ and compressor, though I did use a UA LA-2A compressor on the main vocals.
There is one shared reverb for everything, handled by Logic’s incredible-sounding Quantec Room Simulator. Final output is pushed through a classic SSL bus compressor, followed by Logic’s mastering plugin.
I did this whole project in just over a day and I’m very happy with how it turned out; I think Kiffie is too! So, a big thank you to Kiffie for inviting me to do this.
Anyone else want a remix?
[Verse]
In your arms I felt loved, As I whispered little names, Many words describe you, I still worship you the same.
Parting is such sweet sorrow, Though we talk all night, Making plans for your tomorrow, You'll always be my light.
[Chorus]
Goodnight my princess, My saviour, my queen, I love the beauty of your patience, In worship, majesty.
[Verse]
We have climbed the mountains, As we wondered how to be, As we walked together, We were boundless as the sea.
Holding hands still feels so good, Like palmer's palms do kiss, And spending time together, Will you please remember this?
[Chorus]
Goodnight my princess, My saviour, my queen, I love the beauty of your patience, In worship, majesty.
(My love, my love)
As always, I really appreciate reposts of links to my songs on here or on BandCamp.