hololive English -Council- – Rise – RingNin and TOB Vocal Cover

So here’s the big one I was talking about posting on the Sunday before today, my birthday. Just so happened that I started showing some symptoms of the Rona last Thursday, and hopefully, I’ll be fully recovered today or sometime soon, but anyway, that had this release slowing down, especially with my video work for this. But hey, at the very least, I got some sort of break, and I even learned some more about using AviUtl, my top highlight there being the use of curve movement for the camera control! And of course, this upload’s on my birthday! I feel like the most intense song cover I’ve made so far in terms of the production process should be posted on such a time, you know?

Talking more about how intense this is, this is a duet cover, and I haven’t done a collab cover for over six years already. And this cover singer who’s now more focused on VTuber songs, especially holo ones, had the honor of doing a cover of holoCouncil’s Rise with RingNin, whom I think I first encountered while looking through Shigeru’s mix commissions info again. Remembering the well-contrasted vocal combo in the epicness that is holoCouncil’s first original and my eager listening to the fluffiness that is Nin’s singing voice, well, I ended up wanting to cover this song with her, and I’m very humbled by her work! And it seems like this is her first song cover in English, too!

Leanna also made a smart move in putting Nin’s vocals in front and mine in the back. I mean, why have a voice as cute as Nin’s in the back? And I tend to blast my dude voice, so yeah. Add the warmth Leanna managed to add in a revision, and we got this epicness here! Also, it seems like Leanna and I share a birthday? Well, whenever her birthday actually is, I’d like to greet her a happy birthday!

And last but not least, Nin and I got help from Syd for our avatars and the background in the cover MV! The designs match the members with the individual lines we covered, with me having Kronii’s and Bae’s and Nin having Mumei’s, Fauna’s, and Sana’s. Other references include Fire Emblem Engage’s Alear (who was also designed by Bae’s character designer, OG-level artist Mika Pikazo), and The World Ends With You’s Neku Sakuraba for this take on my avatar, while the titular Cardcaptor Sakura served as a reference for this take on Nin’s avatar. And I feel like purple is the hard-carrying color in our avatars here. As for the background, it makes me think of Syd as even more of a badass with how detailed and complementary it is! And speaking of Syd’s awesomeness, check out their official work for Elaine of KoMETA’s second original Nakaukit too!

Also, how much have I been watching holoCouncil recently? Well, like with the rest of the girls of holoPro, I feel like I’ve come to watch them more than I did before thanks to HOLOSTARS and their brand of classiness humbling and grounding me. As for specific members I’ve been tuning into, the most I have so far might be Fauna if we’re talking solo streams, Kronii and Bae for collab streams, and Fauna, Bae, and Mumei in terms of music. Surprisingly, overall, Fauna is at the top of my fave Council member ranking right now. I guess it’s the fluffy voice and the horror writing.

With all that said, here’s an mp3 copy of the cover~ And as always, I’d like to ask for honest constructive feedback!

Finana Ryugu – TSUNAMI – TOB Vocal Cover

I am pretty inclined towards hololive Production, but I do watch VTubers outside that from time to time. Nijisanji is included, of course, especially the EN branch. Though the Feesh isn’t one of the members I’m tuned into the most, with the depths of my viewing being nothing deeper than peeks at her shenanigans. Still, with my perversion that’s worse than hers, she gets stuck in my brain hard with just those peeks. As for this first original song of hers that I covered, it’s pretty much the only Nijisanji EN solo original that I like enough to buy a digital copy of so far, especially with the combination of KIRA’s electronic dance pop sound and Finana’s cute and cool and cheeky voice. Also, it should be noted that I used e_ku’s very faithful instrumental remake for this cover.

So how do I put into more detailed words how I approached this cover? Well, basically, and while trying to outdo how wild the Feesh can get, I’d describe it as my sexy cuteness aggression (read: my tendencies toward being a slimy beast on the prowl). The mains were a lot of exercise for my lower register of creepiness, the harmonies ranged from pop-punk yells of desperation to scratchy falsettos of tryharding, and the ad-libs of posing were meant to help present my bored and overboard flexing on the naughty little Feesh as well. And speaking of flexing, a big part of what pushed me to make this cover of this song that’s been stuck in my head lately is outdoing the originally synth vocals of that one part near the end of the song with my very screeching and kinda moaning doubled wails.

As for the audio engineering, I had Leanna work on that. Stuff about it that I’d like to highlight include how she got the Autotune effect kicking in at the start of the song, how she quietly cherrypicked and powerfully tuned my harmonies and ad-libs, and how her frigid mix got me sounding like a boss monster (I wanted to say NieR:Automata‘s Grun, but as memorable as that boss is to me, I feel like I’d be disrespecting that kid’s lore if I used him for the comparison here). Again, thank you very much for your help, Leanna.

With all that said, here’s a link to this cover’s mp3 if you wanna the hear some sounds of me haunting your ass on a more regular basis. And again, I’d like to ask for honest constructive feedback~

Towa Tokoyami – FACT – TOB English Cover

I think I made and sung translyrics that are more forward and aggressive than the original, alright. Combine that with my voice, and you get the ultimate threat to multiversal security. And yes, I be feeling myself a lot again. Should help you remember that the original singer is way more decent than me, though.

Also, I am now more sure that bass boosting is essential to mixing my vocals. Thanks very much again for helping me figure that out, too, Leanna~

Now, here’s this cover’s mp3, and here’s this cover’s lyrics sheet. Please credit and link me if you want to show the world that you’re more charming than me with my stuff so that y’all can give me more concentrated fire guaranteed to keep me canceled forever. I still encourage honest constructive feedback, though.

IRyS – diorama – TOB English Cover

This is another impulse production, and this time, you can more clearly see that it is one. I mean, for one, I sang “wherever” instead of “whenever,” a translation error I didn’t notice until the last minute. And then there’s how I sang the bridge, especially “Yes, even so, this little light.” I figured out how I should’ve made it sound at the last minute, too. And I think I also messed up in recording “Now I say, let it glitter on until it starts to melt away.” There’s a bunch more to point out, I think, but hey, the point is that that’s what I get for trying to churn out this much this fast, and that I should be more forgiving to myself while still striving to improve more and more (especially if I got the meaning of the song right), hahaha… X”D

On the other hand, my quest to make English covers out of them holoEN original songs in Japanese continues with this song by holoEN VSinger IRyS, and I still have a lot of confidence about my lyric writing and musical vocal abilities. For one, I like the grand and fantastic vibes I worked up here. There’s also the playing around I did with the “I” and “we” in the choruses. And then there are those growl moments. Also, I’d like to send big thanks to Leanna for doing the audio engineering on this cover, and special mentions go to her enhancement of the grand and fantastic vibes and to her tuning in the final chorus!

And now, with even more encouragement to outdo me, here’s the mp3, and here’s the lyrics sheet. Please don’t forget to credit and link me if you’re gonna use my stuff, too!

And of course, fire away with honest constructive feedback!

Rikka and Calliope Mori – spiral tones – TOB English Remix

Now that I think about it some more, Calli seems to be taking it easy in “spiral tones”…though maybe a bit too easy, if you ask me, especially about how she uses the “out with the old, in with the new” messaging. Maybe it’s an attempt to stick to the idol tradition some more, though I think she’s already pushing said tradition’s limits well with her own brand of gap moe, for one. And then there’s how she’s jokingly called a boomer and a dad. Thinking about it that way, I’m even more underwhelmed by this “actual boomer dad trying and failing to fit in with the kids” level of competition I’m facing here, especially after going through the work I and my commissioned folks have done for this remix production.

Still, I’m pretty sure that a considerable effort was made for the original, and I do quite enjoy Rikka’s powerful songwriting and performance along with Lefty’s groovy arrangement. And while I never really thought about Calli’s work in “spiral tones” that deeply until I started writing this blog post, I had already intended to work this lyrical remix into a clapback of sorts, mostly because of how I really want to prove myself to Calli some more and how I think doing that would have to involve challenging her as well. Yeah, I could’ve tried to be more brutal with my remix lyrics, but I honestly think it’s good that I didn’t think about the original lyrics that far until now. And I could’ve had Rikka added to the illustration, but with the way I’m hijacking the track, well, I think I would’ve been more brutal if I had his face added there, hahaha…But anyway, this is still a chance to outdo that one previous fanwork event attempt of mine, so yeah, here’s me taking it.

Now, while I’m more confident in my lyrics and performance this time, my confidence is even more boosted by the audio engineering work, with Jenn handling timing and tuning, while Leanna handled mixing and mastering again. It’s not the first time I’ve had their services, but it is the first time I’ve had the full duo themselves working on my stuff, as Leanna also handled timing and tuning for that previous work due to Jenn being too busy at the time. Again, I got some freaking impressive work here, especially with how loud and clear my vocals sound. So yeah, thank you very much, you two!

As for the illustration, I commissioned Genka, who drew for one of my Lisa the Tearer vids before. I was intending to have only my avatar drawn, but then I felt like I might look too focused on myself, so I decided to have him draw Calli as well in a split screen. Also, I’m appreciating his shading skills even more now, especially after having watched the corresponding timelapse vid he sent me. Special mention also goes to my avatar’s gold/yellow eye, which has me amused while it reminds me of Shadow Selves from the Persona games. With all that said, thank you very much for your work, bro!

As for the video, I have some strangely particular confidence in my Japanese attempts there. And I intended to have the Japanese not be accompanied by English translation at first, but after realizing that I might be able to reference “Dead Poets Society” in English translation under one Japanese attempt, I decided to try having some more fun and add English translations to the rest of the attempts.

And speaking of boosted confidence, I got enough to share an mp3 copy and the lyrics sheet! Don’t forget to credit and link me if you’re using my stuff, of course~

But hey, with all that boosted confidence, honest and constructive feedback is even more encouraged here! Besides, I’d be defeating my messaging in this remix if I don’t do my best to encourage and appreciate that stuff. So yeah, go for it, people!

UPDATE (August 16, 2021): I made it… TwT

fool’s eyes – a Tobby remix of nostraightanswer’s “bokeh”

I’m on time this time, and this time, the post is…a remix of a track from specters? Didn’t you try and fail to roast that before, you stupid bear?

Haha, yeah, I did. I mean, I’m also having a harder time looking back at those posts now thanks to embarrassment. But hey, that time’s yet another thing to be thankful for, too.

Though I’ll discuss more about the album and how I changed my mind about it in my next Tobby’s Recommendation Yell. Right now, there’s this remix I made out of “bokeh,” specters‘s opening track. I think I started writing the lyrics for it during September 2020, in the early days after the roast fail. “bokeh” was the only track I could bear listening to from the album at the time, but while I was captivated by its sound, I couldn’t (and I still can’t) really relate to being someone with visual acuity problems. There may also have been inspiration coming from Calliope Mori happening to me, busting my brain more open to the idea of making lyrical remixes of music from my favorite artists as well, and not just in rap. So yeah, I think those are the inspirations that kickstarted the process of me writing lyrics about my thoughts on and struggles with moral and spiritual blindness, both my own and others’…though probably more my own, hahaha… X”D

And while I’m still nervous about having to endure some highly likely, if not inevitable, suspicion drawn by my “cultured” self prancing around in public while claiming that I reversed my opinion on specters, I do have some confidence in this production. I mean, aside from taking time to sharpen my lyrics and vocals, I’m also glad that I took time and saved up for some freaking beautiful audio engineering from Leanna and some freaking cool illustrations from my cousin beesdeknees. On the other hand, I’m still not that confident in my video and marketing skills, as I still feel like I’m running on instinct more than I should there, but still, I’ll keep on learning and doing my best.

So yeah, here’s the mp3 and the lyrics sheet now. Please credit and link me if you’re using my stuff out there, and please give me some honest constructive feedback.