SHR4C004M-002 Composition & Production
Having recently researched the hyperpop music of SOPHIE for the earlier assignment, I have used this composition to apply what I learnt.
The influence of this composition also extends to more recent hyperpop artists, such as 100 gecs, Femtanyl and FEM&M, as well as similar musical styles in Vocaloid producers such as DECO*27 and Kikuo.
Synthesis
I decided to approach this composition without using samples or synthesiser presets. I am aware that this was not necessary; it was a choice I made because I felt it was appropriate to the style to be in control of all of the sound.
Therefore, the source for all sound in this composition is either basic oscillators in ES2 and Vital, or audio that I have recorded live (such as piano and vocals).
For example, many of the basic synth sounds were made in ES2, such as the drums and 808.
e.g. the snare, which is composed of a rapidly falling sine wave over filtered noise.
I also used ES2 for sound effects, such as the sound that transitions from the piano intro. This sound—made from a sine wave falling in pitch over a ring modulator—was originally a failed attempt at recreating the Doctor Who cliffhanger sting, but I think it works repurposed here.
More complex sounds, such as metallic clanging noises and bubbly textures, were made in Vital.
For example: a percussive sound made with detuned square waves into heavy filter sweeps, followed by a chorus effect and heavy distortion.
These sounds made in vital were influenced by SOPHIE’s digital synthesis of acoustic textures, in which she creates sounds more abstract than what would typically be found in electronic music (i.e. a synthesised drum kit).
Furthermore, the Korg Monologue was used for analogue synth solos, recorded live in 109.
Vocal synthesis
The vocals in the reference music for this composition are typically either heavily processed and exaggerated, using autotune and vocoders, or made using vocal synth software such as Vocaloid or Utau.
I wanted to blend these methods; I wanted to hear my own voice in a processed hyperpop style but also sounding like a vocal synth. To me, this seems appropriate to the genre: a key feature of hyperpop is its references to nostalgic internet culture, to which vocal synths (such as Hatsune Miku, popular in the late ’00s) are particularly relevant.
So, I created a voicebank for Utau using recordings of my voice. This would have been too complicated to do in English, but Japanese is phonetically significantly less complex, which makes this process simpler. The song’s lyrics are therefore in Japanese.
I programmed the vocal melodies in OpenUtau. Then, in Logic, I turned them into two main parts: one matching the range of my voice, and the other shifted up an octave (with a formant shift to make it sound more natural).
