ebookslot Chapter 8, 5 Minutes: Conquering Tiffany
Chapter 8, 5 Minutes: Conquering Tiffany
Tiffany's lips trembled slightly, as if she wanted to say something. Her Adam's apple bobbed, but in the end, she just nodded vigorously, turned around, and with her back to everyone, quickly wiped the corner of her eye.
Ahn Jung-hwan watched this scene in silence.
Having navigated the ups and downs of this industry for over a decade, he knows all too well what kind of intuition and talent this is.
Not every producer can translate a singer's feelings into technical language, and not everyone can understand a work that has been repeatedly polished by a top team in just fifteen minutes.
"Take this card."
He took out a blue temporary access card from his suit pocket and handed it to Jiang Yan. "This is a temporary access card for the SM production department. It's valid for one month. During this month, you can freely enter and exit the fifth and sixth floors of this building, and use any recording studio and equipment as long as it's available."
Ji-soo suddenly turned her head, opened her mouth, and stared wide-eyed.
She spent two years at SM, working her way up from intern to Kenzie's assistant. She met countless producers and composers who wanted to collaborate with SM, but none of them had this kind of access the first time they entered the building.
Jiang Yan took the blue card, still warm from his body, with both hands. When his fingertips touched the raised SM logo on it, a strong sense of unreality surged in his heart.
"I'll give you a maximum of five days for the title track's arrangement." Ahn Jung-hwan crossed his arms, his tone regaining its previous sharpness. "You need to give Lee Soo-man a final report next Monday, and you must have a complete revised version by the end of Friday. What you have now is Kenzie's seventh version of the project file. I need you to create a new version based on hers, retaining her most essential parts."
"Okay." Jiang Yan answered without the slightest hesitation.
"And..." Ahn Jung-hwan paused, then suddenly lowered his voice and said to Tiffany, "Regarding the song 'I Just Wanna Dance,' you communicated with him yourself. Of all the versions, only he expressed what you wanted to say."
He picked up his coat from the sofa, walked to the door, and suddenly turned back to look at Jiang Yan before leaving: "Five days, Jiang Yan-xi, don't let me down."
The recording studio door closed gently behind them, leaving only three people in the large space.
The platinum records on the wall gleamed subtly under the lights, quietly watching the young man from Busan.
"You live near Hongdae?" Tiffany dimmed the lights in the recording studio a few notches, went to the water dispenser, filled a glass with warm water, and handed it to Kang Yeon. "Jung-hwan oppa said you were discovered in a small recording studio in Yeonnam-dong. How come I've never heard anyone in the industry mention you before?"
"It's not like I've officially entered the industry." Jiang Yan took the water glass with both hands. "I just take on odd jobs, modify demos, arrange bass lines, do a little bit of everything. I'm a student in the Department of Applied Music at Seoul Arts University, and I'm still studying."
"A student?" A hint of surprise flashed in Tiffany's eyes. "No wonder your perspective is completely different from those producers who have been doing this for over a decade. They are all too professional, so professional that they only think about how to make the arrangement more gorgeous and complex, but no one actually sits down and asks me what I think is wrong."
Jiang Yan smiled sheepishly and scratched his head, not responding to the question.
Tiffany didn't care. Holding the cup in both hands, her gaze fell on the quiet waveform on the screen. Then she put the cup aside, picked up the monitoring headphones on the mixing console, and slowly put them on her head. Her eyes suddenly became extremely serious.
"Jung-hwan oppa said he'd give you five days, but I want to try the idea you just mentioned now."
"Could you change just a small section right now? Just the first eight bars of the chorus. As you said, cut three layers of strings and leave only single notes on the piano. Let me hear what it sounds like."
Jiang Yan nodded without refusing, put the water glass aside, pulled up a chair and sat down in front of the mixing console.
Opening Kenzie's Pro Tools project file on SM's top-of-the-line Mac Pro workstation is a completely different experience from modifying a demo on a five-year-old laptop in a convenience store.
The densely packed tracks on the retina screen were so clear they were almost blinding, and the damping of each pusher was just right.
He put on his headphones, placed his fingers on the clippers, took a deep breath, and focused all his attention back on the world of light before him.
Tiffany's vocals remain that warm, amber-gold hue, beautifully bright, yet suffocated by the dense array of instruments and harmonies beneath.
Several layers of strings intertwine to form a delicate, pale purple net, exquisite and magnificent, yet completely obscuring the human voice.
The bass track pulsed with low frequencies, interfering with the piano's arpeggios, like two undercurrents swimming in the same body of water, moving in opposite directions and repelling each other.
He found the starting point of the eighth measure before the chorus and his fingers flew across the keyboard.
The first layer of strings is silent.
The second layer of strings is silent.
The third layer of strings is silent.
The remaining long notes of the first violin are retained, but the volume and reverb are reduced by two-thirds, turning the main melody that filled the entire sound field into a faint background color.
The MIDI tracks for both pianos were completely removed, leaving only three single notes before the chorus, as a transition in mood.
The bass track remained unchanged, but the EQ was improved by two decibels in the 80-120Hz low-frequency extension, while the muddy 200-300Hz band, which tends to sound muffled, was attenuated, transforming it from a dull growl into a steady heartbeat.
His fingers slid gently across the fader, watching the deep purple bass light band slowly sink and steadily support the amber gold vocals. The light bands that were originally repelling each other finally began to flow in the same direction, like a river that finally merges into the sea.
Finally, the volume of the vocal track was increased by three points overall.
It's not that she pushed more, it's just that she was previously buried in the pile of instruments, but now these three points are enough for her to stand out from the mixing.
The number of harmonic layers was reduced from six to three, but each layer was slightly shifted in sound image, allowing them to spread out like wings on both sides of the human voice.
After doing all this, Jiang Yan took off his headphones and looked at Tiffany beside him. "Senior, listen to this through the monitor speakers and see if it's the kind of sound you're looking for."
Tiffany nodded, took a deep breath, raised her hand to press the play button, and closed her eyes.
Eight sections.
The transition from the verse to the chorus is only eight bars long.
The arrangement suddenly transformed from a symphony orchestra packed to the brim into an empty room lit only by a warm yellow table lamp.
The bass drum beat steadily, like the only heartbeat in an empty room at midnight.
The bass is placed at the bottom, no longer a competitor to the piano, but the ground that supports her voice.
The faint strains of the violin lingered in the distance, like the shadow cast by the city lights that never go out outside the window.
Then, her voice came in.
There was no obstruction or competition from any musical instruments.
That slightly husky mid-to-low range carries all the stories accumulated over nine years of her career, like a woman who has just taken off her high heels at a midnight party and walked barefoot into the living room, stripped of all packaging and definitions, leaving only her most authentic self.
Tiffany suddenly opened her closed eyes.
The echoes of those eight bars were still playing from the monitor speakers, but her breath felt as if something was choking her.
After a long while, she turned her head and looked at the young man in faded jeans in front of the mixing console.
She instinctively gripped the coffee cup in her hand, her knuckles turning slightly white, and her eyes were even redder than before, but it was hard to see clearly in the dim light of the recording studio.
"This is what I want."
Her voice trembled slightly, "This album is so important to me. It's the first time in my nine-year career that I can truly be myself. I can't mess it up. Jung-hwan oppa said he'd give you five days, but I don't care how long you take. Even if you take more than five days, please finish this song."
"Even if the company denies responsibility, I'll treat you to a meal as a thank you, and I'll also make up for this payment. Thank you!"
Looking at her earnest expression, which made her eyes red, Jiang Yan vaguely recalled the little girl who had become a big star in Seoul, as told by the Busan nuns.
That's how it was; she bit her lip, desperately trying to hold back her tears.
Her figure briefly overlapped with the image of the tall, thin girl in my memory, who always hunched over and followed behind me, before quickly separating again.
He snapped out of his thoughts and nodded: "Okay, I'll give you a satisfactory result before I leave work on Wednesday."
……