Woman Alive

18 November 2014:

I have now started recording a new song that Ive called "The Champion". Its also a black metal song mixed with some other genres. Check it out on the The Champion page. You can also check my ideas page to see all my unrecorded compositions, probably I will pick one of those to record next, feel free to give me your opinion on there!

30 october 2014:

A new video is finally out!! I have added my video clip in a very cool way to the video. They are like floating and waving screens from the future that appear in the video from time to time. This may be the final version, I'm not decided yet.

26 september 2014:

I'm done creating the scenes for the video, here they are:

Next all I need to do is integrate these scenes to the video.

26 september 2014:

Tonight I decided to continue working on the video a little. I have now finished the first scene and it's pretty funny!! Here it is!

25 september 2014:

On the 22th of September I started an intensive school program which will last 9 months, so it will be harder for me to find time to do this but I will still continue working on this. However it may progress just a little bit slower for a while. I still have to put the "video clip scenes" on some screens in the video to consider this finished, I'll work on this a little bit tonight, hopefully I will be able to show you something soon!! :D P.S Im studying transactional websites development :)

20 september 2014:

Video version 1.33 is now available!! Lots of small improvements in this one. Notably the filesize is considerably smaller due to a lot less details in the background (that grain effect in the background increased the CPU needed to decoded the video by too much!) indian is fixed, pretty much everything that was not perfect is now fixed, including the snareman and cymbalman who were not perfectly in sync are much better now! Only thing left to do is create my videoclip scenes from the footage of last saturday (exactly a week ago) and incorporate them. I have 2 more days of freedom before I start an intensive school program so I would like to finish this before!! But also I have so many other things that I want to finish before as well!

19 september 2014:

The next version of the video 1.33 is rendering and should be ready sometime tomorrow. It should feature a fixed indian and more ghostly. A background that causes less lag on the computer. And most importantly blood splatter (which are really ketchup splatters in a plate) behind the crucifixes. And oh yea the crucifixes are now distorted as well.

Soon after that I will get cracking at making what should be the last part of the video creation. Some videoclip scenes which will be played on screenlets inside of the video. Sort of a video inside of a video...

18 september 2014:

I'm working on video version 1.33 and my first priority is to make the background less pixel intensive hoping that this will solve the lag problem of the video. Also while I was at it I took the liberty of moving the snare and hi-hat 2 frames after. I always found that the snare and hi-hat looked a little out of sync while the bass drum seemed right on. It looked to me like they were hitting early, so I moved them by two frames to the right hoping this will fix or diminish this problem. We will see when version 1.33 is out.

Next I have started adding some blood splashes (ketchup splashes..) behind the raising crucifix, which are now by the way featuring a new distortion effect that you can only see in the upcoming version of the video. This is going to be a rather time consuming task if I use a different splatter for each time the crucifix raises. I have 31 takes of the splatter, some good ones and some bad ones. I'll probably just use a selection of the best looking ones.

By the way while Im adding some splatters behind the crucifixes Im also making some test on video version 1.32 to make it play without lag. I tried something that seems to do the trick for now. I have applied a gaussian blur filter while converting the video with VLC. This has lowered the file size from 1.2G to 700M. It may help with the lag problem. This can be seen in Video version 1.32e

17 september 2014:

Last Saturday (13 September) I have spent the most of my day filming scenes that I will incorporate in the video. Then over the following days I have continued fixing the dancing indian and starting to incorporate some of the new footage. I have tweaked the dancing indian a bit and Im happy with the improvements however for some reason that I dont understand he skips at 54 seconds. I have fixed this problem now and this should be ok again in the next version but I never understood what caused that. Most importantly I have incorporated a stroboscope effect in the blast beat parts of the song (suggested by my girlfriend :* I love you baby!). The new updates can be seen in Video version 1.32 and soon more elements will be added!!

By the way that contest that I wanted to submit the song to which limit date was the 15th of September. I talked to the person who posted that on her Facebook page on the 14th telling her my song is ready but she never answered.. According to facebook she never even checked my message... Anyways I think I was actually supposed to mail my song.. And I dont even know the address, or have a CD version... Who sends songs by the mail anyways its not the 90s!!?? Anyways screw that retarded contest :P Im doing this song for myself so I couldnt care less..

!Also please note that unfortunately ever since video version 1.31 I am facing a problem where the video is freezing at random places even if it's loaded enough. It looks like it's lagging but I know it's not the case because the progress bar show that the video is loaded sufficiently, even when it's completely loaded this happens. I suspect that this happens because I added static and dust effects on the backgounds in video version 1.31 and since I keep the video very high resolution (1080p) I believe some parts of the video now just require too much CPU to play correctly. I will have to play with the encodings parameters and find a way to encode the video in a way that this wont happen. Please stay tuned while we are having some slight difficulties :)

12 september 2014: I wanted to finish this before the 15 of september because it is the limit date to submit it to a certain random contest that I wanted to submit it to :P Well the song is quite ready even though the video still needs a bit of work so maybe Ill be ok :) Anyways Video version 1.31 is out featuring an indian that dances much better than the previous ones I find :P Even though I still plan on adding certain effects to him to make it all a bit more interesting. Video version 1.31 presents some much better backgrounds than all of its predecessors. The cool background of the flutes part introduced much earlier and at some point lost is back but also the background through the rest of the song has been made much more interesting and dark and has been fixed up :) I am really proud of Video version 1.31 because while not all the elements that I want to add are there, lots of little errors are fixed and the whole thing start to have a bit more of a convincing feel I believe. I'm totally uploading this one to Youtube (https://youtu.be/g9HLs0ZBdj4)

11 september 2014: A dancing indian ghost was introduced in Video version 1.29 and in Video version 1.30 the indian was supposed to be in better sync with the song. However when I saw the result I knew I still had some work to do! The indian follows the beat of the song more but his dancing now seems to skip and feel weird and unnatural. Also there are artefacts on the ground that appear around him and that does not look too good. For this reason I immediately went back in Kdenlive and started synchronizing this indian from scratch!! First of all now I marked the moments where his feet touch the ground instead of marking the moment when he is "down" as I initially did. I think that in the next version of the video, coming really soon, the indian will be dancing in a much more satisfying way :) Also on a side note, some extra effects have been added in the back ground to make the whole video more "black metal" and I think this is a positive change. Stand by the next version is coming very shortly!! Also I just noticed that the effects on the background of the flutes medieval part have been off for I dont know how long, turned them back on, they will be back in the next version! Another little problem that I am seeing is how the background is jumping up and down, I thoughed I disable the up and down jumping from the "old film" effect I put on it but I didnt use the right parameters. This too will be fixed in the next version which is already rendering, should be up tomorrow. On a site note today and a few days ago I made some little updates to this page. First I stopped all the videos in the "timeline" from preloading and just today I changed this animated lava background for a static bg, both for usability and because I felt like moving on to the foresty bg for now.

8 september 2014: The fixed Video version 1.29 is now available. Next Im am working on a change where the indian will actually dance to the beat of the song and a few more little tweaks to the video :D Also Video version 1.29 is the first version of the video that has the new improved mix #53 for its audio!

7 september 2014: The new video featuring the dancing indian has a serious problem where all the flutes part of the video are just black. Stand by while we correct this little issue.

broken video #1.29

6 september 2014: Of course, as soon as I say that the song is finished that is when I start having new ideas and hearing all these problems with the song and things I should improve in the video. Here is a new mix mix #53. I'm pretty happy with this new mix even though I'll have to take the time to listen to it over the next few days and decide for sure. But whats different in this mix is this: First the volume of the main vocals have been lowered but their echo raised and made longer, also they have a bit more high frequencies, making them more distant and eerie and also less covering the other instruments. The organ has been lowered a little bit, I know the organ is cool but I think if it's too loud it sounds a little cheesy. The sound of the snare has been changed, I added back a little of the mid frequencies, just a tiny bit, to give it more body, I also made its echo a little longer because I find that sounds more black metal like that.. I boosted the high and low frequencies just a little bit to give the song more juice and more presence. Now I'm going to try a few little changes in the video and I will let you know how that goes! Take a peek at this funny Woman Alive Dancing Indian video that I randomly made yesterday before going to bed. I'm thinking of trying to place this guy to dance on the stage instead of having him on a screen in the sky. Here is a quick video that I have made yesterday with this dancing indian while I was suffering from insomnia:

Experiments with the dancing indian

5 september 2014: I pretty much believe that this is it folks! The song and video are finished. Maybe I might modify some things eventually if I feel the need, tweak the mix a little, add or fix elements in the video. But for now I am quite satisfied with the result and I think it's time to start working on some new songs. I have added some flute-people to the poster for good measure and better representation:

3 september 2014: The mixing and video are almost done but Im still making final adjustments in the mix and adding little details in the video. A few days ago when I was at the gym using my girlfriend's bluetooth headphones I played my song right after Siebenbürgen - Delictum (great album by the way!) and I found that my song was too bassy compared to theirs. They had more presence in their sound. So I decided to give a tiny middle frequencies boost to my song. I also tweaked the sound of the echo vocals and made the choir's reverb a little less long. While I think this was good I think it has unbalanced things a little bit, now the main vocal is too loud, the echo vocals are too low... Anyways Im not a professional at mastering so it may never be perfect but I will certainly tweak a few more things before I am satisfied. The new mix is mix #52. I have also made a few things in the video, I told you I wanted to move the echo vocal-head in front of the crucifixes, that's done. But also I have added a dancing indian video in the "indians part of the song". The new video is Video version 1.28

24 august 2014: There were some little problems with the cucifixes in some places. I fixed those and tweaked them a little more, added grain effect, slowed their raising speed. This can be seen in Video version 1.27. In the next version I will be moving the crosses behind the echo vocals.

23 august 2014: New updates in the video, I have added crucified women that raise on the beat in the Woman Alive chorus. I have also tweaked the elasticity on the guitar bass and lead vocals and added elasticity to the echoing vocalist head. This can be seen in Video version 1.26.

18 august 2014: At first when the video with improved elastic effect was finished rendering there was a problem with it. The video was not in sync with the audio at all! It turns out it was because in mix #51 I had goofed and rendered it with a full bar before the song starts instead of the usual 2 beats. Hence the video was out of sync. I had to re-render mix #51 then put it back in the video and re-render the video. I make the audio in Cubase on Windows but the video in Kdenlive on Ubuntu. I run both Windows and Ubuntu on the same laptop, needless to say that this involves a lot of reboots :P But here is is, Video version 1.25. One of my favorite things in video version 1.25 is the changes that I made on the main vocals face. It went to a lame face trying to look scary unsucessfully to some crazy difformed creature with what appears to be horns.. I'm pretty happy about that :)

14 august 2014: Lots more is new for Woman Alive, the project! First of all I made mix #51. Mix #51 is like mix #50 but I have implemented some masterization techniques suggested by Cubase (the program I use to record) and my friend MAC (he recorded a lot of albums). Basically its a truckload of compression and a little bit of stereo enhancer, that's Cubase's idea, Mac's idea is to keep the drums out of the compressor, which I did and that gave me the occasion of throwing a subtle reverb on the whole drums section which I find gave an interesting depth effect. Next I started tweaking the video. As I mentionned earlier it's good all the musicians are in the video now, Im done filming! But now it all feels a little bleak in the video compared to the song so that is the first thing I want to address. Add more effects and tweak more stuff on the video to make the video as dark and mystical as the song is. I tried a bunch of things but its when I started playing with the "lens effect" (a type of video distortion) that I found something that I liked. By messing around with this effect I accidentaly streteched the guitar, I tought it was cool so I decided to apply a similar effect on the bass and main vocals! You can see this in Video version 1.24. But I wanted it to be done better also I wanted to fix a few things, like for example the organ lost its "old film" effect at some point through the videos updates. So I went back in there and improved things still a little bit and started rendering a new version of the video already. The rendering of the last video was 13 hours lol so its getting longer and loooonnnger.... In 13++ hours I'll post the result :) The plan for now is to continue tweaking the video for a while until I have explored all my ideas, so tweaking the musicians, making it darker and more mystical but also maybe: adding elements in the sky, videos in the background instead of the normal background at some places or videos in screens in places :)

8 august 2014: I corrected the 2 small errors of video version 1.22 and released the corrected version as Video version 1.23.

7 august 2014: I finally rendered a new version of the video. Video version 1.22 which also features the last version of the mix mix #50. This is not final yet, I still want to fix a few things in the mix that are bothering me, and the video, I still have a few more ideas that I would like to test implementing in the video, I also want to add lot more effects to make it all a little more dark and mystical :D Its now taking over 12 hours to render the video, maybe in the future Ill come up with methods of making my video authoring "lighter on the computer" I will really need this!! Oh by the way there are 2 little bugs in the latest, at 5:30 and 8:40.

4 august 2014: I am still continuing to create new mixes and compare them. Also placing the new instruments in the video. There is not much exiting to tell at the moment for the video except that it's coming along and in the next day you will definitely see an update! You may notice that the mixes are sounding better and better!! I just made mix #48 at this point I'm not sure which is better between mix #46, #47 and #48.

3 august 2014: Yesterday I went to see my friend Iohann and we listened to my last mix in his special thousand dollar speakers which are supposedly professional and it revealed that my mix had no bass! So I decided to get back to it and try to increase the bass in the sound. I also wanted to raise the back vocals and finally remove some of the highest frequency boost in the flutes because it made my tongue attack too audible. So here it is mix #46. Better or worst? I am not decided yet but I think it has a lot more bass now! By the way my friend Iohann also gave me a double bass drum pedal that was very awesome of him, it's missing parts though, 1 hammer and the connector rod. Unfortunately those connector rods are pretty expensive I couldnt find one for under 60$ and at that price Im not even sure it's gonna fit! If you want to see my friend playing at the drums checkout this video => Kraken Lullaby.

30 july 2014: It's already been a few days since my last update! The truth is that I've been working so hard I barely had the time to post here! Between the installation of my new video host's server, the gym, the running, the cooking and all that I always still manage to put a few hours of work on the song every day but time flies by!! I want you to know that I have been doing some good progress on the video. I am done implementing the new organ tracks and now started on the new flute tracks. I am done giving them flappy wings and evil colourization, next I need to place them in the video and make them fly around :) After that theres the new vocal tracks left to incorporate. I could have rendered the video every night so you can see the progress but I figured I will just finish with what I have filmed lately and then render. Also I am still being challenged by the mix. I tought that mix #40 was pretty much the ultimate mix, but as time went on and I was working on the video and occasionally listening to mix #40 and comparing it to other songs from professional BM artists, I started to think more and more that my mix was too loud and slightly distorting. So I decided to go ahead and lower all the volumes equally and made that as mix #41. I feel that mix #41 is a step forward because now the mix breathes a lot better! Everything sounds a little bit better and clearer, the sound is a little less "painful"... However just lowering all the volumes equally did not really work out as perfectly as planned, even though I lowered everything equally for some reason after that all the volumes were wrong.... So now I have to start re-adjusting everything again and hopefully will not end up as loud as I was before in mix #40!! Just now I have created mix #42. It is mix #41 but with a few volumes slightly re-adjusted, a few little subtle bugs fixed and a new EQ on all flutes!! Hope Im going in the right direction! Time will tell!

25 july 2014: Yesterday I filmed the flute and extra vocal tracks that I was still missing for the video. Today I have checked all this footage and identified it. Also made a new mix, mix #40, implementing a few ideas that I had in mind and some recommendations from friends. Next I will put the new instrumentalists in the video and I will take this occasion to test out a few new ideas that I have for the video.

23 july 2014: I was supposed to continue the filming of the new instruments today but I just saw the osteopath for my knee and after the treatment I need to rest, since the filming requires a lot of standing I should wait for tomorrow. Instead today I made a new mix mix number 39. It's basically like mix 38 but I listened to mix 38 yesterday before going to sleep (or trying to!!) and I took notes about what I thoughed should be changed. Today I implemented all those little changes and released them in mix #39! Enjoy!! Note that while being unable to fall asleep I have been youtubing and wikipediating and discovered Watain and Dissection. First when I read about Dissection I thought they were wackjobs, but when I heard their music I was blown away!! It was the best thing I had ever heard. How does it make any sense that people so disconnected from life make such good music? That gave me something to think about!

22 july 2014: I am still working on the mix, I have just released mix number 38 earlier today, but also lately I have been adding organ in more places and I'm absolutely delighted with the sound that the organ brings to the mix! It makes me think a bit of a Nightwish vibe almost in some parts and I love Nightwish!! I am more and more certain that the song is finished but once in a while I detect a little something here and there that I still think needs hammering. I'm glad I'm taking my time with this song. Officially it's finished but I cannot promise I will not be making any more changes just yet!! Next step is to add all the new instruments in the video. Today I have filmed all of the new organ tracks, I was going to also film all of the new flute and vocal tracks as well but I ran out of time so I will continue tomorrow (I must also keep some time to work on my business, it's not like this song is about to start paying the rent :P). After that I also want to make a few little changes to the poster, I was thinking of adding some of the flying flute people in the background. I was also thinking of either making a new poster that represents the 4 different parts of the song or maybe just changing the background of the existing poster at this effect. But most importantly stay tuned because I am planning some major changes in the video, in the same way that at the mix I took a good song and made it into a bad-ass song, I am planning to do the same with the video! In a little bit I will probably have some new video elements to show! Cheers!

17 july 2014: I am still playing with the mix, adding little details and moving a few things around. Yesterday I made a mix and I started feeling like the song was getting ready!! I still want to take my time before saying that's it, that's the final version but in mix number 36 it is starting to sound like something :)

15 july 2014: For the last few days I have continued to listen to my mixes and produce new ones. Im still not 100% satisfied with the mix but I think its getting better. If you look on the right you will see that Im now at mix #32 already. Also I have added a new flute around the end of the song and I'm still not sure if I will keep it or not. At this point Im not sure what is the next step. Should I remove the new flutes, make something different? Or keep it and start filming the new instruments that I've added recently?

8 july 2014: I have been listening to my different mixes mixed in a playlist on shuffle with other songs from professional black metal bands to get a feel of each of my mixes and how they perform and compare. While doing this I have created some promotional artwork for the song just for the fun of it.

6 july 2014: I have continued playing with the mix and I produced a new mix again, mix number 29. I fixed a lot of little details that Im glad I took care of but as for the general sound itself, Im still not 100% sure what I want and how I am going to make it sound. At this point I have to listen to mixes 27, 28 and 29 and chose what I like the most in order to chose a general direction. I may also add a few elements to the song itself.

4 july 2014 again: I should have gone to bed a long time ago, but I had to make some changes in the mix. After hearing a song that someone posted on Facebook from Abigor I knew exactly what was wrong with my mix. Basically I have added more distortion in the guitar and reverb and made it sound thin and bleedy, made everything sound a lot thinner! Especially the bass! No more nice round sounding bass, I boosted the middle range in the bass, left only a little of the low frequencies. I made the bassdrum thin and squeekly too and left almost only very high range frequencies in the snare along with that ridiculously huge reverb that was already on it. Also the vocals I made them a LOT more distant! A lot more reverb, sound a bit lower. You can hear the new mix in mix number 28 I am not sure if I will like these new changes in the long run, Ill have to compare between mix 28 and 27. I could continue to tweak this forever but now I must go to bed. Goodnight!

4 july 2014: I had an idea today while relistening to the song in different speakers, when I heard the part with those new "echo vocals" of the middle part, I felt that they sounded good, but kind of out of place, but I had this vague vision that if they were somehow doubled with flutes lick it could sound really nice. So I started jamming some flute on this part and soon enough recording something. I am now rendering the song including this new flute and also featuring a few more tweaks in the mix. There is another part (in the chorus part of the indians part) where I kept hallucinating some soft ambient synth while filming, Im thinking of possibly adding either some synth or more flute in there we will see. You can hear the new mix in mix number 27

3 july 2014: Today I made a video using a few funny parts of the bass filming. At this point Im taking some time to listen to the song and evaluate if I like the sound, what I need to fix, if any instrument should be added, but its almost finished. There are those echo vocals that I recorded which are not yet in the video, Im still not 100% sure I am keeping them or re-recording them. I want to tweak the sound mix more to really make it sound as good as possible and the video as well and I was thinking of possibly adding some elements to the video.
Made a little video using bass filming bloopers!

2 july 2014: Today I worked at recording the echo vocals for the middle of the song again, I felt that I was having difficulty making my voice sound the way I wanted and also difficulty making it sound properly in the mix but still it is good practice and I felt that what I have recorded today was not too bad so I released a new mix of the song including those new vocals. It can be heard in the mix number 26. Also I am happy to annonce that Patience, our missing cat has come back! We are very happy about this and I feel that life can finaly go back to normal and I can concentrate on being productive again :) At this point I still do not know if the song is finished or not. I will put it on my phone and listen to it and decide how I feel about it. One way or another there will be a little bit more work left to do on the video.

30 june 2014: I have corrected the errors in the video and rendered it. I am uploading the latest video now. Yesterday we have lost one of our cats, today we are searching for it so I do not have much time to work on this today :( I hope we find her soon!! Soon enough probably tomorrow Ill continue recording the few last bits of the song. Stay tuned for more updates!
we miss you Patience!! Come back soon!!

29 june 2014: I have finished filming the bassist and incorporating him to the video. Though there is a bug in the video at 7:03. I have now fixed this bug and I will render the corrected version of the video when I go to bed tonight (because the rendering process now takes over 10 hours to complete, there are so many layers and effects). Next I will continue working at recording this echoing voice in the middle part of the song and add it to the video too and after that I will have to decide if I want to still add more, but I think it is almost done!

24 june 2014: Yesterday I finished recording the bass and I have also made changes in the mix, I am pretty happy with the new sound, which can be heard in woman alive mixdown test 25!!.mp3. Next I need to add the bass to the video but I cannot do this now because I do not have a strap for it. My guitar strap is special and does not fit a normal instrument, so I will need to go buy one, however today is St-Jean and all the store are closed. I mentioned earlier that I thought of adding more and more instruments eternally maybe that could be cool... Now if I wanna do that it would be kind of the next step... Im not sure if its worth doing that, if it will really amount to anything more interesting if I do it, but Im now going to start attempting to record this second echoing vocal, Im actually thinking of putting it only in the middle part of the song. Well we will see, but one way or another the song should be soon complete. It's good that it took so much time to record this song in a way, they say the mixing should be done by a different pair of ears than the people who recorded the song, but since I do everything myself I have no other pair of ears available, however I have been mixing and remixing once in a while and its already been 5 months that Im working on the song, so I consider that my ears today are different than my ears many months ago, so it should be as good as a different pair of ears :P More updates soon!

19 june 2014: I am currently in the process of recording some bass on the song. I initially thought that after the bass the song would be complete but yesterday while unable to fall asleep I had some ideas. First of all about the bass that Im currently recording, Im facing the challenge of not only recording it nicely but also I must decide what exactly are the bass tracks and does it join the bass drum or the guitar rhythmically? I want a bass that sounds good, makes the song better not worse but also that has a nice demonic feel to it :). Now about my new ideas I was thinking:

• Instead of stopping after the bass I could continue adding more for a while, I was thinking a second vocals that echoes the first and also more percussions like people banging on baking sheets and maybe a few more guitar tracks could not hurt!!
• I was thinking I could make a version 2 of the same song which would have a more black metal sound. Something that would sound a bit more like this => Raven Dark - Blinded By Idollight. A much more minimal and ambient type of composition ressembling more the original Woman Alive recording, a very dark and distant sound... like, the one I am currently working on could be the "symphonic version"...

Stay tuned, soon you will be able to hear the new bass tracks!!