I've been working on an album that I'm very excited about, it's aiming to be a very personal album with 'spoken word' energy, words from the heart. I usually keep this kind of personal music under a different alias (Which you will never know about :) ) but I figured it a good idea to stop hiding myself. I should be allowed to show that I feel good and bad things. In terms of 'good and bad', this album is more bittersweet than anything. All of the lyrics were initially written within a full week and then tweaked and adjusted sometime after. I'm not experienced in mixing vocals, both singing and non-singing, so it's been a struggle and a learning experience to get the music to sound how I want it to sound.
I've also been working with a real-world violin, I paid a fella to record some violin for me for two of the songs on the album, and the process of learning how to mix and edit audio that isn't straight from a software synth has been frustrating and rewarding. I use Reaper as my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and its stock plugins, I've always had a good experience with them and I get the sound I want. But with violin and vocals, my usual workflow wasn't working, they weren't sitting in the mix correctly. I tried out the "1175 Compressor" that comes with Reaper, as opposed to the "ReaComp" compressor I normally use, and the SOUND I got out of it has probably changed my entire life. The vocals and violin sat where I wanted them to sit, pure bliss. I want to make sure this album sounds perfect in every sense, using it as a lock and key for the theme it's centered around.
I had an eye-opening experience with a past romantic interest that I had all but forgotten about, which in the context of this story is probably a bit fucked up. Me and this woman, we'll call her B, were somewhat romantically interested in each other. We'd spend time together, we'd flirt, but we grew apart. The age difference was too much (She was like... 30, and I was 23). I left that behind me and moved on and I had all but forgotten about her, I knew she still existed but she never crept up in my mind. Around 4 years had passed and she messaged me out of the blue, apologizing for how things ended and wanting to reconnect as friends. It was stated that I had such an impact on her life in a positive way that she was thinking about me enough to approach me after 4 years to apologize. It was a weird feeling.
Admittedly, I thought it weird of her to be this attached to the memory of me considering how little time we spent together in the grand scheme of things. But, at the same time, I had enough of an impact that after 4 years she found me and apologized. I meant that much to someone in such little time. I've never felt the experience, I know it exists from people telling me how much I mean to them, but it's never settled and I've never felt it internally. This experience was more of a shock than anything, I felt a hint of the feeling that I meant something to someone else (As opposed to being told I mean something and just... accepting it). We've reconnected and we're talking again, and the feeling of knowing I mattered enough to be searched is still something I'm trying to get used to. It's been a couple days and it still feels like a prank or a joke, like they're setting me up for something. I hope I can properly internally feel it and smile about it.