This week’s Saturday Sessions cover of “Addicted to Love” taught me a pretty clear lesson about timing and ears.
I finished the mix a bit earlier than usual so I could live with it longer. At the time, it felt right — including during our TV sound check. But once the video went live on YouTube, it was obvious the vocals were too loud. There’s no fixing that once it’s out there.
The good news is the Spotify version doesn’t have to be the same. I’m taking a few extra days with it, pulling the vocals back, and cleaning things up. I also used way fewer plugins this time. Everything was mic’d and recorded properly, then rendered to stems, mixed, rendered again, and mastered. That extra step made things cleaner overall. I saved the vocals for last, and that’s where my ears led me the wrong way.
That’s probably going to be part of our process going forward — small tweaks for streaming versions after the video is released. If we want, we can always put out alternate versions or lyric videos later.
Filming went about how it usually does. We lit candles and immediately set off the smoke alarm. That part wasn’t planned.
We’re starting to settle into a weekly routine now. Emmy sings along to the track with my vocal as a guide. Later that night I do a separate pre-film session. She edits her footage, loads it onto the iPad, puts it on the TV, and then we film together again on Friday. That gives me a couple days’ worth of performances to pull from. This week I also started using more of Emmy’s filmed footage in the final cut.
People seem to be picking up on what we’re doing. Views are lasting longer, subscriptions are up, and the performances are starting to make sense to people watching. We always look at the original artist and video beforehand to get ideas and understand what made it work in the first place.
The filming room is mostly finished now. There are still a few things we want to add, but it’s close.
Costumes and props have turned into their own ongoing project. I’m running out of closet space. Most of it is cheap stuff we find online, or things Emmy builds, or random things we already have that end up on camera. She’s also started doing her nails to match the artist or video we’re covering, which has been a fun detail to include.
Some weeks she’s louder. Some weeks I am.
This week, I was too loud.
We’ll fix it on the next one.