It turns out I can take my old 2HTS entries that maybe didn’t come out like I wanted, put them in a computer and get an improved version. I can even have the computer use a replica of my voice! This eliminates one of my many curses where any attempt I make to remaster something makes it worse than the original. Considering my primary purpose in making music is to have songs I can listen to while drinking beer late on a Saturday night this is a watershed moment.
This effort is in its nascency so I haven’t fully explored using additional tools to clean up the covers that are spat out but so far it’s been very promising.
Let’s start with a song from a couple years before 2HTS started where I really had no idea how to produce. I was using an old Yamaha digital workstation with only 2 outputs as an interface into GarageBand. Here’s the original track:
And now here’s a version where I asked the computer to use a clone of my singing voice and make it a little more like a modern country song.
And just like that my crappy song is infinitely less crappy!
So let’s take a 2HTS entry that was a song I liked but where my performance was dodgy, my mixing was rubbish and the mastering was done by misusing every plugin i could throw at it because the timer was my enemy,
Muddy, muffled, craptacular. So I asked the computer to make it into a Slavic metal song:
It even gave it a better guitar solo!
So ok those are all things I could have done myself had I spent more time practicing when I was in my 20s. But what if I had a fun song i wasn’t entirely displeased with that I’d like to hear in a different genre? Let’s take Ejectulation:
I mean, I liked it even if the entire fandom for the song consists of just me. So let’s make it an EDM song with a female singer.
I’ve been enjoying that song even more than my original.
Now here’s a track that I recorded, mixed and mastered all within that old digital workstation. It’s kind of catchy. I mean, my mom liked it. which is more than i can say for the rest of my catalog. I think this is one I had put on the Amateur Night in Hoboken album.
So let’s have the computer fix it!
Massive improvement. Though I will note that this was the first time the limitations of the calculations from the rhythm of the algorithm let me down: I wanted it in an enka style and the computer said, “no, you get this instead.” OK, fine.
Now let’s take another pre-2HTS song that I just couldn’t make sound like what I dreamed of in my head. DJ in a Strip Club, another one from the Amateur Night in Hoboken era:
Wouldn’t that be much better as an EDM track with a female singer? Of course it would.
I feel like the conductor on a freight train to Banger City, even if it’s population: me.
Now back to disappointing 2HTS attempts. All my life I’d wanted to make Power Metal and just lacked the skills. But i’d try and fail many times, like this little story song about a knight and a dragon:
So now I tell the computer to make it a swedish power metal song but include some +rve cvl+ norwegian black metal influences:
It even took my crappy guitar solo and made it sound like a decent guitarist played it! It’s nice to take these tracks i never relisten to, because they pain me, and have one that makes me bang my head while hoisting my 8th tankard of ale!
This next one is the second part of a trilogy of songs where I’d already fixed one entry with vocaloid and I tried to fix this one as well but it didn’t turn out the way i wanted at all. Here’s the original before any tweaking:
I don’t think I could have fixed that if I’d had four hours instead of two. Just bad all around. So I asked the computer to rectify that:
I’m relatively happy with how Mother (the final entry in that trilogy) turned out so now I have a decent partner for it. Eventually I want to fix Gateway as well. Speaking of songs I was relatively happy with, enough so to make a music video for it, let’s finish this off with Fannybagz:
It’s not terrible by my low standards but it could be better.
That’s all for now. I have hundreds of songs, I think we crossed the 500 mark awhile ago, so while I have credits to burn I’ll try and add more covers as time allows.