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-# Early Sunsets Over Monroeville
-
-2023-01-16
-
-One evening, Mom entered my room when I practiced ukulele. She was like
-"you should record smth" so I did.
-
-I went for Early Sunsets Over Monroeville ("Monroeville" hereafter) by My
-Chemical Romance (MCR), for following reasons:
-
-- I happened to be playing that song
-- It's one of the few MCR songs acoustic enough for the ukulele, the only
- pitched instrument I can play
-- [Billy Cobb made a cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVYs4kvBii8)
- and I enjoyed it immensely
-- There is one more reason but it's complicated so I put it at the end
-
-The work began on 2023-01-12 and ended on 2023-01-15.
-
-## Step 1: Learn song
-
-Monroeville is structured as follows:
-
-- intro
-- verse 1
-- prechorus 1
-- verse 2
-- prechorus 2
-- verses 3, 4, 5 that have more or less the same lyrics but get
- increasingly emotional
-
-I found [the ukulele
-tab](https://ukutabs.com/m/my-chemical-romance/early-sunsets-over-monroeville/)
-and learned to play the chords. Then I spent a few showers to practice the
-vocals.
-
-## Step 2: DAW
-
-I know this can't be a one-take because I only have one mic, and the uke
-would completely demolish my untrained voice. Also, this song is like
-5 minutes long.
-
-I did try recording and putting together clips in Audacity before, but
-without bars and beats it was a pain to synchronize.
-
-This time however, I installed [Ardour](https://ardour.org/) and gave it
-a whirl. A few hours and ready to go.
-
-## Step 3: Rig
-
-My rig:
-
-- second hand soprano ukulele
-- USB lavalier mic for online lectures
-- overear headphones, never used for six years
-- a laptop
-
-## Step 3: Record strumming
-
-This is like rhythm guitar in the original composition. Chords were not
-too hard, but it took a while to play on tempo. This is me strumming the
-intro:
-
-<audio controls src="../img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/intro_strum.ogg"></audio>
-
-## Step 4: Improvise
-
-I improvised a riff to imitate the prechorus melody. This was done by
-plucking the G string. I just clipped my nails, so to make it sound
-brighter I used a guitar pick.
-
-<audio controls src="../img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/prechorus_plucks.ogg"></audio>
-
-## Step 5: Record drums
-
-I recorded some clips of me slapping my thighs but ended up discarding
-them because (a) they sounded off-theme and inconsistent, and (b) it was
-stupid. Also this is an acoustic cover so drumless would be just fine.
-
-![Screenshot of the editor window](img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/editor.png)
-
-▲ It was this moment that I decided thigh drums didn't go well with
-Monroeville.
-
-## Step 6: Record lead
-
-I found [lead guitar tabs on
-Songsterr](https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/my-chemical-romance-early-sunsets-over-monroeville-tab-s22636)
-and transposed some of it for the ukulele. This is the prechorus lead:
-
-<audio controls src="../img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/prechorus_lead.ogg"></audio>
-
-My fingers were not good at fretting and picking strings on tempo, but in
-a choir of tracks these imperfections were easily concealed. Near the end
-I accidentally rang strings I wasn't supposed to touch, but luckily they
-were somewhat in key.
-
-## Step 7: Record vocals
-
-It took a few tries to place the mic somewhere stable enough, but there's
-still this kind of low-frequency oscillations in the waveform:
-
-![](img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/mic_oscillations.png)
-
-Good news is it's barely noticeable.
-
-I could not go as hard and emotional as Gerard or Billy in the second half
-because (a) I never trained myself to scream, and (b) I've never had any
-experience with a zombiefied romantic partner. As a result, the second
-half sounds emotionless, which is a tradeoff between that and being
-completely out-of-tune.
-
-## Step 8: Mix
-
-It's just playing with faders, panning the tracks, and dragging some
-automation curves to conceal the noise in the vocal track when I kicked
-over a trash can.
-
-![Screenshot of the mixer window](img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/mixer.png)
-
-▲ This was the Hackerman moment of the project.
-
-I also added a reverb filter for the vocals.
-
-## Step 9: Export!
-
-Enjoy: Early Sunsets Over Monroeville (ukulele acoustic cover)
-
-<audio controls src="/static/early_sunsets_over_monroeville.flac"></audio>
-
-Ardour gave me this window but I don't know if it's bad or good?
-
-![Peak: -2.7 dBFS, true peak: -2.7 dBTP, integrated loudness: -20.3 LUFS,
-loudness range: 6.4 LU. Below are waveform, spectrogram and
-LUFS-over-time.](img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/export_analysis.png)
-
-## What's the one last reason I did this?
-
-twenty one pilots did a livestream recently where Tyler shared a few demos
-of theirs tracing back to the Regional at Best era, circa 2010-2012. Here
-we have a clip (MP4, 17.4 MiB):
-
-<video controls>
- <source src="/static/vessel_stream_trees_demo.mp4" type="video/mp4">
-</video>
-
-Tyler put the gang vocal track on solo where he was like "__HELLO__ e-yeah
-a-yeah a-yeah hello hello hELLO". It was cringe af but the song was
-incomplete without it.
-
-And I, a musically illiterate engineering student, have one more reason to
-justify my own piece of carefully mixed cringe.