Chapter 28: The Melodic Detour
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Michael woke up feeling terrible. The block with 'crybaby' the night before had left him frustrated and exhausted. He felt like a failure.
He sat in his makeshift studio, looked at the 'crybaby' project on his laptop, and felt instant rejection. He couldn't. Not today.
He couldn't go back to that dark, defiant headspace. He didn't have the energy. It felt like trying to open a door that was locked.
'Okay. I'm not going to force it,' he thought. 'If it doesn't want to come out, it won't.'
But the idea of not making music, of simply giving up, was worse. He needed to work. He needed to create. He needed to win.
He decided to "cleanse his palate." If he couldn't do the emotionally difficult song, he would do a technically fun one.
He decided to work on something completely different, something easy.
He summoned the System interface and opened his inventory. His eyes passed over 'hellboy', 'Paris'... too aggressive. They passed over 'let's pretend we're numb'... too sad.
And then he saw it. 'White Iverson'.
A smile drew across his face. He remembered the song. It wasn't a war cry. It wasn't a funeral lament. It was a vibe. It was an atmosphere. It was the perfect song for driving at night.
'This,' he thought. 'This isn't pain. This is technical. This is fun.'
He closed the 'crybaby' project and opened a new one. White_Iverson_v1. It felt like a weight was lifted off him. Today he wasn't going to fight his demons. Today, he was just going to make a beat.
Michael sat in front of his laptop, the White_Iverson_v1 project open. Unlike the tension he felt with 'crybaby', this felt... fun. It was a break. It was pure technique.
He immersed himself in the process, not as a tortured artist, but as a producer playing with his tools.
First, the heart of the song: the synthesizer. The guide described it as "watery" and "misty." Michael spent a whole hour rummaging through his folders of pirated plugins, looking for the exact sound he remembered.
He found a simple pad, but it wasn't enough. He started playing with the effects, the side of production he really loved.
He added massive reverb, making every note sound like it was played in an underwater cavern. Then, he added a "ping-pong delay," so the notes bounced between the headphones. And finally, a slow phaser, to give the sound that "swirling" movement he remembered.
He hit play. The melody was hypnotic. It was exactly the "watery" sound he wanted. It sounded expensive and professional.
Then, the drums. He wanted them to be crisp, to cut through the fog of the synth. He programmed a 16-note hi-hat pattern, fast and steady. A soft kick. And a sharp snare that hit hard.
Finally, the bass. This was the key part. It wasn't an aggressive 808 like 'Sodium'. It was a melodic 808. Michael programmed a bass line that didn't just give rhythm, but sang its own melody, gliding between notes, complementing the synth.
He left the eight-bar loop playing. It was addictive. It was a complete soundscape.
Now, the vocals. He approached the AT2020 microphone. Not to record seriously, but to experiment with the laid-back vocal vibe.
He mumbled over the beat.
'Saucin', saucin', I'm saucin' on you...'
He tried different flows. A fast rap didn't work. It had to be lazy, almost as if he had just woken up. He found a middle ground, a mix between singing and rapping, that fit perfectly.
He added an Auto-Tune plugin. He didn't set it to the max to sound robotic. He put it on a subtle setting, just so his voice would glide between the notes of the beat, becoming another watery instrument.
He realized that this song was the perfect fusion of everything he had learned. It had the atmosphere of 'Sodium' and the melody of 'Star Shopping', but with a confidence and a flow that were completely new.
He laughed. This was easy. This was fun. It was just music.
After a couple of hours, he had the beat ready and the vocal melody memorized. The instrumental played on a loop in his headphones, a hypnotic and relaxed soundscape. It was time to record.
He got into his closet-booth. The space felt less like an isolation cell and more like a real studio. He stood in front of the AT2020.
Unlike 'crybaby', this song didn't require emotional tearing. He didn't have to dig into his trauma. He didn't have to cry. He just had to be cool. It was a vibe.
He pressed the record key. The watery beat began. He took a deep breath. And let the words come out.
'Double OT... I'm a new three...'
His voice came out lazy, melodic, coated by the subtle Auto-Tune he had configured. He wasn't rapping; he was floating over the beat.
'Saucin', saucin', I'm saucin' on you...'
'I'm swaggin', I'm swaggin', I'm swaggin', oh-ooh...'
He was having fun. A smile drew across his face while he sang. It was a role. It was a character. That of a young Allen Iverson, arrogant, confident, unstoppable.
'I'm ballin', I'm ballin', Iverson on you...'
'Watch out, watch out, watch out, yeah...'
Michael recorded the vocals effortlessly. There were no blocks. There was no frustration. It was easy. It was a game.
'Started rockin' the sleeve, I can't ball with no Joes...'
'You know how I do it, Concords on my toes...'
He was simply playing with the flow and the tone, finding that perfect middle ground between singing and rapping that the song required.
'I ain't rich yet, but you know I ain't broke, I...'
This line. He sang it with quiet conviction and an ironic smile. 'They have no idea.'
'So, if I see it, I like it, buy that from the store, I...'
He allowed himself to sound a little arrogant. The song asked for it.
'I'm with some white girls and they lovin' the... like they OT...'
'Double OT like I'm KD, smokin' OG...'
'And you know me, in my 2-3s and my gold teeth...'
'I'm smiling, bitch you see me from the nosebleeds...'
It was pure braggadocio, a character so far from his reality of "Glasses Boy" that it was liberating to play it.
He reached the chorus, the part he knew was the heart of the song.
'White Iverson'...
'When I started ballin', I was young...'
This part did resonate. He was young. And he was starting to "play" in a much bigger game. His voice became charged with a genuine melancholy, but it was a cool melancholy, not one of pain.
'You gon' think about me when I'm gone...'
'I need that money like the ring I never won, I won...'
'The ring I never won,' he thought. His engineering degree. His life in 2025. He sang that line with unexpected honesty.
The rest of the song was just as easy. The lyrics flowed.
'Cigarettes and a headband...'
'Commas, commas in my head, man...'
He laughed to himself singing that. 'Commas, yes. Hundreds of millions of them.' The song was a secret confession disguised as a boast.
'Slumped over like a dead man...'
'Red and black, 'bout my bread, man...'
'I'm the answer, never question...'
'Practice, this shit just happens, know y'all can't stand it...'
This line felt good. To the world, his future success would seem like luck. But he knew it was practice, that it was knowledge.
He finished the last take of the chorus, his voice fading with the beat.
'Saucin', saucin', I'm saucin' on you...'
He stopped the recording. He stepped out of the closet, the fresh air of the room hitting his skin.
It took him only two hours. Two hours of fluid, fun, and stress-free work. It was the polar opposite of the agony of trying to record 'crybaby'.
He listened to the full recording. The voice fit perfectly. The mix of arrogance and melancholy was addictive.
He had just proven to himself that creation didn't always have to hurt. Sometimes, it could just be cool.
Michael spent the rest of the afternoon mixing the song. And it was a relief. It was an easy mix. Unlike 'Ghost Boy' or 'Sodium', where he had to fight to create a dirty or lo-fi atmosphere, 'White Iverson' was clean.
Everything fit perfectly in its place. The melodic 808 bass sat in its own pocket, without fighting with the kick. The vocals, with their soft Auto-Tune, floated perfectly over the watery synth.
He realized that his growing skill with Ableton was paying off. Now he could make things sound "professional" and "clean" when he wanted to.
In a single day of focused work, he had the song almost finished.
He leaned back in the creaking chair and listened to the final product, over and over again.
The mix sounds incredible. It's catchy.
It wasn't a dark lament. It wasn't a raw confession. It was a vibe. It was a song you could play in the car while driving at night. It was a song that could play at a party and make people bob their heads.
He realized what he had created. This wasn't a lo-fi cult song. This was a hit. This was the song that could play on the radio.
He knows he has a "hit" on his hands.
And with that realization, a strategic idea formed in his mind. He exported the file. White_Iverson_Final_Mix.mp3.
But he didn't upload it to SoundCloud.
Instead, he dragged the file into a new folder on his desktop. A folder he named "WEAPONS".
He saves it. It is a "bullet in the chamber". He knows this song could change his career. It could take him from being an underground phenomenon to a real star.
But he knows it is not the one he must fire first.
The world, his small cult of fans, wasn't ready for this yet. And neither was he.
Releasing this now, after 'Sodium', would look like he was selling out. That he was abandoning the lo-fi sound for something commercial. And his core fans, people like Chloe and Victor, wouldn't understand.
First, he had to be true to them. First, he had to give them the war cry he had promised them.
He closed the 'White Iverson' project. The technical detour had worked. His palate was clean. His frustration was gone, replaced by the confidence of a creator who knew he had just manufactured his first bomb.
Now, he was ready to return to the emotional battle. Now, he was ready to finish 'crybaby'.