Josephine Swan never imagined that her stay in South Korea would lead her into K-Pop's glittering and challenging world. Each day, she encounters new hurdles and adventures that fate has in store for her and her four team members. Between gruelling...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The cones of the studio monitors kept vibrating in time with the powerful and thickly extended bass lines and dramatic build-ups of Forever Young's accompanying melodic lead through the recording studio control room. The linear frequency response with the midrange sound frequencies of the loudspeakers provided a full and pleasing sound image and emphasised the balanced text-musical relationship between our still unedited foreground-dominant voices and the spot-dominant instrumental music in the background.
Park Han-beom's fingers moved quickly and deftly over the keyboards of the technical equipment in front of him.
"At the moment, the arrangement of your recorded takes still seems confusing, but...with a few moves..." he began, pointing in my direction and indicating the different coloured cuts of our voices, which, with the help of a few subsequent cutting and sliding actions on his part, were compactly arranged and provided the working producers with a good visible overview of all audio regions.
I nodded in understanding and my grey eyes followed the work of the two Koreans closely as he then began to cut the takes into small sections. The black castors of my chair scraped quietly on the light laminate floor and brought my body closer to the work surface.
"...Now we can listen to and evaluate the available audio regions one by one," he said, clicking on the subdivided sections, whose markers automatically reproduced different sounds and voice sections and the control room was filled with the recorded voices of Rosè, Choi and Jennie in the next moment.
"And what are the selection criteria for listening?" I asked curiously, looking at Park Han-beom, whose glasses reflected the bright light of the computer screen and made his dark eyes shine.
"Objectively, we assess the correctness of the melody and lyrics, as well as the speech intelligibility and fine-tuning within the pitches. In addition, we remove noise and superfluous breath sounds in the vocals that have been unwantedly picked up by the recordings or the partially unfavourable position of the microphone," Choi Pil Kang said next to us and received an approving nod from his work partner. The next moment I heard my voice resounding loudly through the room, discreet little plopping sounds could be heard and added emphasis to her explanations.
"In addition, we evaluate the vocal expression and sound of the voices, as well as the rhythm and other musical details that are crucial in the use of the production. Then we proceed in chronological order and additionally check the coherence and genuineness of the heard cuts," Park Han-beom added and I blinked several times against the amount of information that filled my head by now.
"It's very time-consuming...the programmes and filters alone that we use for sound, pitch and timing corrections, as well as the complete post-processing of doubling, harmonies and other instrumental or vocal track elements are very extensive and can quickly become difficult if there is disagreement," Choi Pil Kang explained with an amused smile when he noticed my reaction.
I just shook my head with a smile, my eyes still fixed on the computer and its programming sequences.
It seemed complex and inscrutable at first glance, comparable to any beginning of a new beginning, which with time and the growth of experience evolved more and more towards understanding, simplicity and daily routine.
♛
But no, take me home
Take me home where I belong
I got no other place to go
No, take me home
Take me home where I belong
I got no other place to go
No, take me home, home where I belong, no, no
No, take me home, home where I belong, oh, oh, oh
No, take me home, home where I belong, no, no
No, take me home, home where I belong
I can't take it anymore
My back slowly sank against the back of the chair and I enjoyed for the moment the freshness of the cold soft fabric on my skin, seeping through my clinging shirt.
My fast-beating heart was still pounding loudly in my chest, while the tension and initial uncertainty that had prevailed before were gradually displaced by a lighter feeling of relief and liberation as soon as I was released from the recording studio for the second time with a confident smile from the two recording producers.
Her sudden request to be allowed to make a private recording with my voice made me stop in surprise shock and my body froze again inhibited in its movements.
"No one will hear you."
"No other strangers. No other producers or Yang Hyun-suk. Not even your members."
"You are alone."
I took a deep breath.
The soft tones of my voice, in addition to my lingering excitement, further fueled the resulting coarse surface on my skin, which by now was ringing loudly through the set-up studio monitors in the otherwise empty room due to the tireless efforts and encouragement of the two producers.
"I must confess...a beautiful and extraordinarily soulful choice..." remarked one of the glasses-wearing Koreans, glancing in my direction.
My solo song Runaway, performed in September, was a comparatively tender catchy piece of music by the Norwegian singer Aurora, whose lyrics sometimes dealt with the longing to find a belonging and peaceful home and the feeling of connection, as well as the sensations of isolation and a mental distraction from unpleasant aspects of daily life.
"It spoke to me in many ways at the time..." I replied softly and lowered my head, my fingers rubbing together mindlessly.
I had to sing the song.
The singer's voice sounded fragile, almost sad and troubled, contrasting with her mysterious and powerful tendencies that emerged at the same time. In many aspects an emotive song, with a powerful message that had captivated me over the last month in the context of my inner struggles to overcome.
Physically, spiritually and mentally.
It concluded at the end of the month, an outlet of the throttling sometimes suppressed emotions and feelings that had accumulated in my mind over the past September and needed to be processed.
Besides my conversation with Kim Gyeong, the solo was also considered, from my point of view, a crucial climax amid my development.
"Obviously very expressive..." said Park Han-beom, his narrow upper lip beard twitching.
"As well as gentle and soulful...very authentic." agreed Choi Pil Kang with a smile.
"Thank you," I replied to her compliments and I felt a piercing heat spreading across my cheeks.
