ASIA Without You

Without You (like all songs ASIA with me) has a significant place in my heart.  It's obviously a love song, but it's also got a very sad, bittersweet undertone.  It's not the happy, floaty butterfly love, it's possibly a lost love you can't forget or a love coming to an end or love and separation.

For me personally and more recently there was a someone I never wanted to be without...and even though I lost this lover, there will never be a day, without her.  I think we both knew it was coming to an end, I had sent her this song and it's lyrics and while I didn't want things to end between us, they did...and maybe this song was a sad prelude to that.

Best friends who became lovers but tried to change back into just friends...so the line: "wanting things the way they used to be, you don't know what that can do to me" is a reference to that.  Then followed with: "one more day maybe never, might as well be forever" is a reference to the fact we kept putting off meeting in person and being the friends we promised to be, only that each day we didn't meet turned into forever.  Other lines and even sounds from this song remind me of her in a sad, had to be this way, kind of way.

But even still, I love her like I love all my girls...for life.  As time will go, both of us will know, there will never be a day, without you.  She will always be in my mind, every day.

I found this rare live in NY version of the song from their first tour, I need to get this bootleg Alchymya album!

So, I decided to sing it...I know I'm not a good singer, at least...I can't do John Wetton's vocals justice (but then, who could?) but I tried.  I haven't been able to write write or draw due to personal problems I've already spoken of, but I wanted to make some actual content for my Blogger so I'm singing...

I tried to test out my new phone, different video styles and to try some self-karaoke.  My vocals are...well...I know I can do better, but I also don't want to bog myself down with too much preparation (procrastination) or post-production nonsense so I'm just wingin' it.  I wanted something that wouldn't be too difficult since I tend to be an unsatisfied perfectionist with things so I went with a this simple shoot it and upload it deal.



Test 1) I used an app called DU Recorder which records your phone's screen directly and even allowed me to do a lil' picture-in-picture of myself while the YouTube video of it played on my phone.  Held my phone horizontally to shoot then had to rotate the video 'cos of the way DU Recorder recorded it vertically.



Test 2) I directly recorded myself on my phone, while I played the music on my home theater set-up in the background.  Then I added a background image to fill out the screen horizontally.  Held my phone vertically to shoot and then once I added the background image it was done.

First, I have to say my new phone is awesome with a great camera & microphone and the DU Recorder app (and it's video editor) is amazing, too...isn't technology wonderful?  Years ago, you would've needed so much more stuff to make something like this work...and yet this does a good job and I see the potential for more things to with it...but again, I also don't wanna fall into too much over-production crap; this needs to be fast, easy & raw so I can continue making content rather than being too picky and never finishing anything.

Second, there's pros & cons with each of these.  I'm leaning more towards the first video 'cos I like the smaller picture-in-picture of myself so it's less about my face (and what's behind me...do I need a green screen now?) and more about the overall song.  Seemed a lil' easier to shoot, with a lil' more freedom to control things as the video is going and the file size seemed smaller so it uploaded faster.  With that freedom comes the cons of seeing everything happening on my phone, ya know...like that pop-up coming up to inform me that my battery was at 15% ha ha...also, it was hard to hear the music since it was coming from the phone (and not my home theater set-up), but the phone's speaker had to be turned down so it didn't drown me out.  I could go on'n'on about these pros & cons, but...

Third, regardless of each tests' pros & cons...I don't know which really sounds better yet.  I want the music to be clear enough without drowning out my voice, but I also want to sound good enough to go along with the music.  The end product matters more than any pros & cons I've listed.

I think there's a third route where I could run the music through my home theater set-up like in the second test, but still do the picture-in-picture over something else like in the first test.  Instead of running the music from the phone I could just go to an image or a gallery of images to scroll through to show behind my picture-in-picture of myself singing?  Just have to be careful not to overdo it 'cos I wanna keep this simple.  I think I'll try that with my next karaoke video.

Something else to think about is that I plan to do more karaoke stuff using this DU Recorder app, but I also plan to use it to do other videos where I'm playing games or browsing things online.  Some looks better in vertical mode, while others look better horizontally.  If the video from the phone's screen is vertical, then I'll have to make a background to add borders to make the end video horizontal.  I have so many ideas, kinda excited...