DMFA Theme : Princes of the Dreams.

[Xss]

Nah, just a little topic for my little "music thing from the 80'ties" since the other forum is going to be closed XD, that's all.
The music without the vocals  (In my opinion, this version will be the best one for a looooong time)  : http://www.furstreet.com/xss/music/Princes%20of%20the%20Dreams.mp3
JP Morris' try with the lyrics on the chorus : http://www.jpmorris.force9.co.uk/music/test/podchorus2.wav.mp3
Gaby's try with only the vocals : http://www.files.bz/files/1336/PrincesOfTheDreamsVoiceFull.mp3  : too bad I don't have good material to mix it with the music -_-
And with the music (thou you don't hear it very well) : http://www.files.bz/files/1336/PrincesOfTheDreamsWithLowBackground.mp3
In my case, I've been working during the last weeks on my version of the song with the vocals, I hope to finish it soon XP.
And the lyrics  :

While evil is rising somewhere far away,
Old prophecies say nothing can be done.
Yet some legendary hero goes into a journey.
You know the rest of that story, and as always you have won.

A life of bounty hunter : (or "being a warrior for hire")
You've always agreed with that.
Easy money made on weak demons falling in your traps.
But from now on and forever, (or "but engraved by fire")
Truth will follow you days and nights.
A blood legacy stating your preys were of your own kind.

----------

CHORUS

Come on, come on : let's spread our wings so we can fly.
Far from the ground, above the seas.
Let's go high, let's go and tear the clouds in the sky
We're the princes of the dreams.

Grab my hand if you're afraid to fall.

Don't deny what you will always be.
Follow your true feelings to be free.

----------

So tell me how do you feel now you belong to my world ?
Or are you just so afraid you're looking for a way out ?
No turning back anymore,
Voices inside, speaking so loud.

I guess what they're telling you :
That you have a dangerous might.
That your parents never explained why was you life built over lies.
But one thing I know for true :
Nothing could ever change your mind
The flame in your soul will be the same for all the time

----------

(CHORUS)

----------

Hello boy,
Will you follow me in the night ?
Don't be afraid, I don't belong to the wrong side.
And we won't fall.
We'll be the ones to rise.
We'll still be here at the very end of time.

----------

(CHORUS)

Let it go, you no longer need me.

Fly on your own now you are free.
Follow the true path of your destiny.

We are the princes of the dreams.



And...And that's all! XD
 

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Hmm. I should attempt this, if only to scare people off :-)

[Gabi]

I tried mixing the voice with the music using Audacity and they turned out to be in different tones. O_o It seems I've been using the wrong background music to sing along with. I guess I'll have to re-record it.

Edit: I made it! I downloaded the new background music, opened it with Audacity raised the pitch 2 semitones (or 1 tone, but the scale was in semitones - the new background music was lower than I could handle, sorry), exported it as MP3, listened it while recording a new voice version, amplified the new one because my sound card has lame input, removed some of the resulting noise but only in the voiceless bits, then added the voice to the project that had the background (which required several zoom-ins to synchronize it) and then exported it again. Here's the result!
http://www.files.bz/files/1336/Princes-of-the-dreams-final.mp3

[Tapewolf]

No offence, but should this be moved to the art section?

[Xss]

No offence, but should this be moved to the art section?

Er...Wait a minute, all the clockworkmansion is for DMFA? o_O Ok, I thought clockworkmansion was a group of different forums, like thenice, and amoung them there was one for DMFa "doh!!!" -_- Okay, so now, how can I move the whole topic without having to recreate it? '.'

Edit: I made it! I downloaded the new background music, opened it with Audacity raised the pitch 2 semitones (or 1 tone, but the scale was in semitones - the new background music was lower than I could handle, sorry), exported it as MP3, listened it while recording a new voice version, amplified the new one because my sound card has lame input, removed some of the resulting noise but only in the voiceless bits, then added the voice to the project that had the background (which required several zoom-ins to synchronize it) and then exported it again. Here's the result!

Hey, not bad, I like what you did with the background music and Audacity! I have to download that program and try on my computer! There's an odd effect, I don't know how to say it in English...The sound of the background music, it goes loud, down, loud again, down again...Like "sea waves" o_O. Quite of funny!
Well, thanks  , can I put it in my webpage (I'll do it within some days, maybe weeks...If it's OK for you, of course!)

[Gabi]

Of course it's ok! As long as you don't change my name to something else.

[Miaka]

I'd still love to try it...

would you mind horribly my slightly changing the lyrics to make it fit better? (Follow your true feelings to be free- when singing that, you need to rush part of the sentence, which throws off the tempo a bit, not to mention just being damn hard to pull. and maybe in some other bits, but if not I'll see if I can figure out how to do it without that.)

[Gabi]

There are several parts when the lyrics don't quite fit the music (like "journey" in the 3rd line), and some parts where they would if you changed the phrasing a little (like "you know the rest of that story", "true will follow you days and nights", and "I don't belong to the wrong side"). I recorded it just as I heard it because I didn't think XSS would want anything changed, but if he doesn't mind, I think it would be nice to hear different versions.

[Tapewolf]

I'd still love to try it...

would you mind horribly my slightly changing the lyrics to make it fit better? (Follow your true feelings to be free- when singing that, you need to rush part of the sentence, which throws off the tempo a bit, not to mention just being damn hard to pull. and maybe in some other bits, but if not I'll see if I can figure out how to do it without that.)

In mine I changed it to "Follow your true feelings to be free".  I made a number of other changes to help it fit the music in my notes.  I can dig those out tonight if anyone wants them.

[Xss]

I might be a very very weird weirdo guy, but...I don't have problems saying the lyrics with the music and with the good tempo, while English is not my native lenguage XD. And well, I'm too lazy to change the lyrics myself, so...If you want to change them a little bit, change them how you want, there is no problem! ^^ After all, this is just a little fan-theme music thing XD
In the meantime...
OHMYGOSH!!!! Audacity is wonderful!!! O_O Oh, thank you Gabi for having showed me such a great thing! "Jumps on Gabi, hugs her, tickles her, hugs her again" : they should do with you the same as they should do with Jyrras, do a pupeet version of yourself which will probably be sold to more than a million of copies around the world XD
Ok, "crazy attitude OFF", let me explain you why I'm so happy. I hate my voice : I can't stand no more to hear my DMFA theme song, and with my vocals on it it's worst. I don't sing to bad, the huge problem is just my voice : even when I talk I sound like a stupid guy who tries to imitate a women voice, and of course who fails, so it sounds ridiculous and..."ahem", quite horrible XD (now I udnerstand why some people in real life think I'm an total idiot XD) But with the "Holy Grail Audacity", if I raise the pitch of my voice a little bit with two demi tones, more or less, I end up with...With a quite cute sexy girl voice which sounds natural!  I even had a lot of fun listening my own song with my own vocals that way! ^^ No, I'm not crazy!  And I know it sounds stupid, but that's a good idea! (after all...What do you think I'm doing with all the musics I love? Rising the pich or lowering it, just to change the "gender" or the voice when it's possible! Yeah, I'm playing like a stupid kid!) ^^ It won't be great great great, but from the "crap" it was it's going to be "nice" XD So, lemme work on that for a few days, and within a week, I think it will be OK.
Oh, and you guys who are doing the DMFA radio project, I don't know if you already thought about it, but with that kind of program...Someone could do the voice of a guy and a girl (well, it depends on his/her voice : with some of the songs I tried, when you rise the music it sounds not natural at all : it depends on the voice of the person...).
Well, anyway, I'm HA-PPY! >^.^<

[Tezkat]

Nice try, Gabi. You must have been singing along to the version Xss sent us, which is indeed 2 semitones higher than the instrumental one that he posted. The guy's got a really high voice. The music may actually work better with a female vocalist.

Er...Wait a minute, all the clockworkmansion is for DMFA? o_O Ok, I thought clockworkmansion was a group of different forums, like thenice, and amoung them there was one for DMFa "doh!!!" -_- Okay, so now, how can I move the whole topic without having to recreate it? '.'

Not all of it is DMFA, but we're sharing it with DMFA's sister (or should that be "brother"?  ) webcomic, CVRPG, and the admins are all one big happy family. PM one of them (e.g. Damaris) and ask to have it moved to the Tower of Art.

There's an odd effect, I don't know how to say it in English...The sound of the background music, it goes loud, down, loud again, down again...Like "sea waves" o_O. Quite of funny!

Yeah, there's some kind of sweeping phaser effect on the music. It's so regular that it sounds like a intentional filter rather than, say, a weird compression artifact. Either way, it's quite distracting...

I'd still love to try it...

would you mind horribly my slightly changing the lyrics to make it fit better? (Follow your true feelings to be free- when singing that, you need to rush part of the sentence, which throws off the tempo a bit, not to mention just being damn hard to pull. and maybe in some other bits, but if not I'll see if I can figure out how to do it without that.)

Heh... I had the same problem when I tried to sing it. There are way too many parts of the song where you have to scrunch multiple syllables into a single note, and I just wasn't wasn't able to pull it off.  Eventually, I went the route that you and JP were suggesting and started rearranging the lyrics to fit the melody. Then I figured that, if I was doing that anyway, I may as well fix the odd grammatical constructs. Then I started wondering if I shouldn't replace the words that kinda rhyme in a French accent but don't in mine. By the end, I was making up lyrics as I went along for no good reason.  The moral of the story is: Never let Tezkat edit your writing. 

In the end, my vocals were terrible and it didn't matter anyway.

I hate my voice : I can't stand no more to hear my DMFA theme song, and with my vocals on it it's worst. I don't sing to bad, the huge problem is just my voice : even when I talk I sound like a stupid guy who tries to imitate a women voice, and of course who fails, so it sounds ridiculous and..."ahem", quite horrible XD

Aw... I kinda liked your singing voice. It still sounds quite good when you lower the pitch a bit, by the way, if you want to fiddle with filters to make yourself sound more masculine...

Oh, and you guys who are doing the DMFA radio project, I don't know if you already thought about it, but with that kind of program...Someone could do the voice of a guy and a girl (well, it depends on his/her voice : with some of the songs I tried, when you rise the music it sounds not natural at all : it depends on the voice of the person...).

It's actually not that easy... Usually, when you try to raise a male voice by more than a semitone or so, it starts to sound very cartoonish and chipmunky. The sex change via pitch shifting trick only works for male vocalists that are already using mostly headvoice, since the biggest difference between male and female voices is not pitch but timbre. There are also noticeable differences in speaking style, though many of those gender differences are masked while singing.

Most men, even those with naturally deep voices like mine, can learn to imitate a female voice, even without pitch shifting. It's a bit harder for women--men just use less of their voice box, while women have to compensate for vocal cord length that just isn't there---though many female VAs can pull off awesome young boy voices with a little training. For the record, I've been able to pass myself off as a woman on the phone or Skype, but that took a lot of practice.

[Tapewolf]

Oh, and you guys who are doing the DMFA radio project, I don't know if you already thought about it, but with that kind of program...Someone could do the voice of a guy and a girl (well, it depends on his/her voice : with some of the songs I tried, when you rise the music it sounds not natural at all : it depends on the voice of the person...).
Well, anyway, I'm HA-PPY! >^.^<

It does indeed depend on the voice.  In some of the early drafts of DvP I tried to make myself female to do the 'Oh great Ti'fiona!' line (but this was an act of desperation).  I have also used Audacity's pitch-shifter for some effects, I slowed down Aaryanna's voice for instance.  For Dark Pegasus I used the realtime shifter on the Zoom RFX-2000.

On the song 'Vampires in reverse' I recorded the counterpoint for the section at the end with the tape running around 10% too fast, so it went really bass when played back at 15ips.  As a rule, tape varispeed sounds smoother than digital resampling.

I'll probably pitch-shift Jyrras into adolescence when we do the flashback with Dan.

As mentioned in the Project thread on The Nice, you can make Bono of U2 sound kind of hot by playing 'Mysterious Ways' about 7% (or was it 14%) fast.  But it doesn't work with Bal Sagoth.  Ever.

[Miaka]

woot, I recorded my doing the chorus at while I was at Kaos' earlier. not my best, I didn't warm up, my breahings utter s***, but other than that I kinda like it and it gives you an idea of my singing voice. whenever he puts that(and the lines I did) up.

[Xss]

The guy's got a really high voice. The music may actually work better with a female vocalist.

Yep, that's why I'm going to do my little thing with Audacity! XD
And for the high voice, maybe that's the good thing after having spend years screaming on the loud music I put on my room XD More seriously I didn't have the choice : I tried to sing it lower and it turned out terrible (wierd wierd voice...and it was shaking a little bit, like if I was unable to control it). I had to put it that high and almost scream XD I killed my voice that day, had problems to talk after that (and same thing with my new version of the vocals).

Not all of it is DMFA, but we're sharing it with DMFA's sister (or should that be "brother"?  ) webcomic, CVRPG, and the admins are all one big happy family. PM one of them (e.g. Damaris) and ask to have it moved to the Tower of Art.

Okay, I'm gonna ask him X3.

Heh... I had the same problem when I tried to sing it. There are way too many parts of the song where you have to scrunch multiple syllables into a single note, and I just wasn't wasn't able to pull it off.

Well Ok, maybe it's because I'm French, and I just pronounce badly some words, so I manage to put a lot of syllables in a single note XD, and so on and so on XD.

In the end, my vocals were terrible and it didn't matter anyway.

Aw, too bad -_- . Well, thanks anyway for trying. Though I think that by changing the pitch of my vocals it could turn quite well for a change.

Aw... I kinda liked your singing voice. It still sounds quite good when you lower the pitch a bit, by the way, if you want to fiddle with filters to make yourself sound more masculine...

Lol, well thanks, even if it won't change my mind XD. I even get to the point where I recorded my own voice talking, just talking, and it was like "Oh my God, this is how I look like when I'm talking in public!   " 
Filters to change my voice? o_O How, with what? On Audacity? Well, to have some fun (and for curiosity) I could try X3.

As mentioned in the Project thread on The Nice, you can make Bono of U2 sound kind of hot by playing 'Mysterious Ways' about 7% (or was it 14%) fast.  But it doesn't work with Bal Sagoth.  Ever.

Hm, I should try! B3
Does someone here knows the band Toto? The song "White sister", sung by Bobby Kimball? Jesus, you rise the pitch (or make it go faster) a little bit with audacity and it really sound like a female voice, and a relly good one! OhmyGosh, I love that program! ^^

woot, I recorded my doing the chorus at while I was at Kaos' earlier. not my best, I didn't warm up, my breahings utter s***, but other than that I kinda like it and it gives you an idea of my singing voice. whenever he puts that(and the lines I did) up.

Wiat if I understood it. You want me to mix it with the song and upload it on the net? Well, I'll be glad to do it, but there is a little "ahem cough" problem ^^". See, Gabi sent me her vocals one day, and I was unable to mix them with the song in a good way (putting the lyrics in the good place it will sound at the good time). Too complicated and too long for me to explain why (but if you really want, I'll explain XD), but if you know how to mix yourself your lyrics with the song it will be better.

[ITOS]

Just wanted to say, nice work so far.

Unfortunately, Windows default voice sings better than I do so I can't really do anything to help.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Not all of it is DMFA, but we're sharing it with DMFA's sister (or should that be "brother"?  ) webcomic, CVRPG, and the admins are all one big happy family. PM one of them (e.g. Damaris) and ask to have it moved to the Tower of Art.

Okay, I'm gonna ask him X3.

*cough* Her, I believe. Darkmoon is a him, Amber and Damaris are hers. Unless I'm mistaken?

[Tapewolf]

Okay, I'm gonna ask him X3.

*cough* Her, I believe. Darkmoon is a him, Amber and Damaris are hers. Unless I'm mistaken?

When in doubt use 'them' or 'they'... 

[Netami]

Llearch is right, check the photo album. 

[Gabi]

*Hugs XSS back.* I' glad I could help. I'll see if I can record a fee version one of these days.

By the way, what's your native language? It seems to me that people who speak different languages perceive the song in different ways. My native language is Spanish, and I didn't have that much trouble crunching two or three syllables into one note, but I was a bt put off by the parts where the accents of the words were altered (like journey instead of journey, or belong instead of belong).

[Miaka]

I just did the chorus though, I was just saying that... >>

and no, you wouldn't need to mix this version, just say if my voice is any good/if you'd want me to learn and record the whole song. then I can see if I cand do that myself, but I somehow doubt I'll do any good. >>

[Xss]

By the way, what's your native language? It seems to me that people who speak different languages perceive the song in different ways. My native language is Spanish,

Pues mira por donde, menuda casualidad  : mi lengua materna tambien es el español, jo, yo creia que eras americana (vete a saber porque XD).
...Ok, let's go back to English XD. Spanish because of my mum (who's Spanish), and French because I've been living in France since my birth, and English because of the studies XD.

Just wanted to say, nice work so far.

Unfortunately, Windows default voice sings better than I do so I can't really do anything to help.

Thanks! ^^ What is that thing about "windows default voice"? o_O

About the song, I'm still working on it, the biggest chalenge is to make it sound well (sometimes the music is more loud than the lyrics, sometimes it's the contrary), and I have some weird bugs...Like to vocals going faster than the original music when I try exporting them again and again in MP3 and Wav to work with it in the two different programs! 

[Gabi]

By the way, what's your native language? It seems to me that people who speak different languages perceive the song in different ways. My native language is Spanish,

Pues mira por donde, menuda casualidad  : mi lengua materna tambien es el español, jo, yo creia que eras americana (vete a saber porque XD).
...Ok, let's go back to English XD. Spanish because of my mum (who's Spanish), and French because I've been living in France since my birth, and English because of the studies XD.

XD So all those e-mails we've exchanged... we could have written them in Spanish! Well, I'm South American. From Argentina. I must tell you now that your English is very good.

[Xss]

XD So all those e-mails we've exchanged... we could have written them in Spanish! Well, I'm South American. From Argentina. I must tell you now that your English is very good.

Hehe, thanks! ^^
And yep, you could have talked in spannish XD.

Well, well well, in the meantime, after weeks and weeks, days and days, hours and hours, a looooooot of time of work I finally...Give up! XD Nah, it's just that I'm starting getting tired of working again and again on that song, and I really reached the point where I can't stand that music more or 5 minutes without having a weird pain in the skull! XD
The other problem is Audacity and the program I'm using (Melody Assistant...MA to writte it faster). Audacity can export work in mp3...But with a very very bad quality of sound! So I was planing on taking the vocals, rising them on Audacity, exporting them in WAV format, opening them with MA, mixing them with the music (rising the music too), and then exporting it on MP3. Well, don't ask me why, but my normal vocals with the backgroung music have a nice quality sound (but it's a big mp3, something like 13 Mos) for something done "with your own hands at home". The other version of the song, the one risen, just sucks when it's exported with MA, with a lot of saturation and stuff, and I really don't know why. So I had to export it with Audacity : even if the quality of sound is crappy, it's better than the result with MA. I've been going crazy with all that stuff during all the afternoon...Maybe I'll try tomorrow, but probably within some days XP.
Well, what else to say? I tried to make a "funny effect" with the lyrics "don't deny what you will always be/follow your true feelings to be free", but I'm not sure if it's really good...Perhaps I may change it, that's someting I can do quickly.
So, now the links normally are :
http://www.furstreet.com/xss/music/POTD1.mp3  : the huge one (13 Mos) with my normal vocals. In a word  : crap XD I don't like it.
http://www.furstreet.com/xss/music/POTD2.mp3 : The song of POTD1, changed with audacity. I don't know what it is in English, it's a little option to change the frequency of the music. The normal one is of 41000 I think, so I put it to 49700 I think. The voice is better, I think it sounds as a female voice most of the time (some other it sounds like a weird squeeky voice XD And it can depend on the speakers you're using  : I know for having listened it with different ones), but the music goes faster.
http://www.furstreet.com/xss/music/POTD3.mp3  : Again, the music of POTD1, this time I rose the music of two semitones, and that's it.  Again, in my opinion that's better ^^
Well, have fun with that, now those who wants to do their own version of the vocals can do it. In the meantime I'm going to sleep XD.

[Tapewolf]

I don't know why I'm doing this but some time ago I decided it would be fun to play around with XSS' "Princes of the Dreams" and rearrange it for the synthesizers I have at my disposal.
Although he was kind enough to give me a MIDI version of the song it was kind of messed up, so I've been trying to rebuild it from scratch with a few alterations and (hopefully) improvements.

This is very early stuff.  The lead sound, which is a dulcimer(!) is just as a guidepost for me.. I know the timings are wrong.  If Xss doesn't crucify me first the lead will be carried by the vocals not by that.. thing..

http://www.jpmorris.force9.co.uk/music/test/xss-jpm.wav.mp3

This has lead, bass synth, Hammond, Oberheim, lead synth (can't do the guitar twirl) and a simple drum track.  I'm going to add another bassline or possibly wurlitzer bass instead.  And other things as they come to me.  It needs a bit more aggression?

[Xss]

If Xss doesn't crucify me first

In fact I really like what you did, I even want moooooore! ^^ Great work!
I like what that little theme you put at the end (starting at 33 secondes more or less) : if it's a variation of something in my theme I don't recognize it and it's cool X3
Perhaps it would need to be a little bit more "aggresive", but it has been a long time I haven't heard that DMFA theme wighout thinking "Aaallggg! Turn it off! TURN IT OFF!!!" 

[Tapewolf]

In fact I really like what you did, I even want moooooore! ^^ Great work!
I like what that little theme you put at the end (starting at 33 secondes more or less) : if it's a variation of something in my theme I don't recognize it and it's cool X3

Perhaps it would need to be a little bit more "aggresive", but it has been a long time I haven't heard that DMFA theme without thinking "Aaallggg! Turn it off! TURN IT OFF!!!" 

The theme at the end is based off your guitar twirl at the start of the song and repeated throughout.  I was trying to do it with pitch-bend and portamento, but I ended up with that instead and thought it worked nicely.  Since you like it, I'll work on it some more tonight.  I haven't yet done the main verse section, which seems to be slightly different from the others.  I think this is probably the first song I've done where the fast leslie mode works really well on the organ.

As you can probably tell, this song has been swirling around in my head for a few days.

[Lysander]

That fancy remix does sound nice. Makes it seem like it's played in different instruments.
Since there's so many references as to how it's sung, I'll have to give it a go. So long as it's alright with the creator.
First step, get it stuck in my head like the Zoo City themes and the Beings and Creatures song. Then be able to sing "lalalalalala." Lastly, put things into words.

[Xss]

The theme at the end is based off your guitar twirl at the start of the song and repeated throughout.

It is? o_O Wow, you really changed it!  X3

Since there's so many references as to how it's sung, I'll have to give it a go. So long as it's alright with the creator.

It's alright for everything by anybody XD I put in the first post the lyrics and a version of the instrumental part of the song, and I put the vocal (well, my version of the vocals) yesterday so that you can have an idea of what I had more or less in mind. Now if you want to do a remix, or whatever with it, you can do it X3.
Er...What is the "beings and creatures" song? '.'

[Tapewolf]

The theme at the end is based off your guitar twirl at the start of the song and repeated throughout.

It is? o_O Wow, you really changed it!  X3

I also kind of merged it with the riff from 'Lovely Creature' by Nick Cave (one of the less depressing songs on 'Murder Ballads')

Er...What is the "beings and creatures" song? '.'

http://www.dougtheeagle.com/stuff/BeingsAndCreatures4.mp3

[Xss]

Ok! X3 Not bad, even if it's not my kind of music.