I released my single album ‘Defective Product’ at 12 PM on Saturday, November 21, 2020. I will reorganize the work records I previously wrote on my Korean blog and write them in English.
- Concept & Opportunity
It’s been so long that I can’t remember, but I first came up with the song between February and March 2020. Considering that the main guitar was recorded in mid-March, I think it’s probably about right.
This was a really mentally difficult time for me. Due to my mother’s sudden illness, I stopped all performances and outside activities, was eliminated from dozens of contests throughout 2019, and in the meantime, the coronavirus suddenly broke out again…
I couldn’t avoid doing household chores, and I didn’t have time to do stress-relieving activities like exercise. I was so busy and exhausted, but nothing came back to me.
In the meantime, there was a time when I was working hard all week to submit an orchestral piece for a contest, and suddenly I got so dizzy that I had a hard time even standing.
After going through this series of events, I suddenly felt like I was a person with a screw missing. When I was young, I went to many places and won awards at national competitions and quite a few awards at math and science competitions, but compared to who I am now, I felt like I had a flaw somewhere and was falling somewhere.
That’s how the first lyrics came out.
추락하는 모든 것들에는 날개가 있어.
그런데 난 날개 하나 없는데도 계속 아래로 떨어지는지.
(Everything that falls has wings.
But why do I keep falling even though I have no wings?)
And the next lyrics were written naturally.
‘I am a defective product, but my body is fine, right? So is my head broken? Or is my heart broken?’ The thoughts came together one after another and the lyrics came out.
With these lyrics, I wanted to quickly spit out what was in my heart.
And from the countless self-deprecatory lyrics that came out, I selected the ones that I felt were most appropriate for my situation. That’s how this song started.
- Instruments
Percussion – Real Kick Sample, 808 Kick, 808 Clap, Battery Ride, Cabasa, Shaker, Cymbal, Reverse Cymbal, Chime, Reverse Tambourine, and other FX.
Bass – Real bass module, tremolo bass module (both sources from Trillian)
Synth – Pad synth with slow tremolo (Arturia Analog Lab)
Guitar – Acoustic guitar (recorded myself)
String instruments – I put in full orchestra size string instruments, but the string instruments seemed to be playing a little separately, so I mixed them with chamber size.
Vocal – pad, doubling, main vocal
- Recording
Vocal & Guitar are recorded by ISA One, Peluso P87.
However, if there was something unusual, I wanted to test the dbx 160a at this time, so I set it so that when the vocal sound approaches the headroom, the compression is applied slightly. (It was so slight that it didn’t seem to have much meaning whether I put it on or not)
The reason we considered a compressor at this time was because the part shouting ‘down’ in the last chorus was so loud that it broke through the headroom. However, if you listen to it softly, there is a big dynamic difference between the small and loud sounds, so the part that connects to the front part feels different.
When recording vocals as a pad, I used the P87 as the main microphone and placed it facing the front, and installed the second microphone, WA-47jr, on top of it and placed it facing both sides for Mid/Side recording.
- Album Cover
When the song was almost finished, I asked the person who had always taken care of my album covers to do the album cover this time.
He said he would create a rough draft and work on it in about a week, but personal circumstances suddenly arose, so I had to create it myself.
There were two concepts I initially thought of.
1) Torn paper airplane
2) Broken robot toy
Among these, the robot toy is actually too difficult for me to buy or draw myself, so I decided to make it with a paper airplane concept. And I worked hard at folding the paper airplane.
While I was making this and that, I thought the shape wasn’t right, so I looked for a paper airplane, and I found a paper airplane called a Stinger that looked just right.
Also, I thought it would be too boring to just use white paper, so I copied the sheet music I was working on on both sides, and as you can see, it came out pretty, which was nice.
When I folded it all up, I wondered how this paper airplane could represent the theme of ‘defective products’… After thinking about it for a while, I thought of a mirror.
I thought it would be a good contrast, like the lyrics of the song, to make the part in front look fine and the part reflected in the mirror behind look broken.
That’s how the song was released. It’s been so long since I made the song that I forgot how I made it, but while translating it into English, I feel like I took a trip down memory lane for the first time in a while.
These days, I can’t release it due to financial issues, but I’ve been working hard on making songs and stocking up on them. I will gradually release it later.
I hope you enjoy the article.
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