Chapter 46: The Mountain Top
Monday, November 23, 2015
The chapter begins with Michael in his professional studio. The rain from the night before had ceased, leaving clean, cold air.
He had spent the morning reviewing the reception of 'Ghost Girl'. Just as he expected, his original fans were delighted. It was a resounding success in its niche.
He leaned back in his Herman Miller chair, feeling satisfied. He had closed the circle of the "ghost theme".
With a sense of finality, he summoned the System interface. Cyan light filled his vision. He looked at his balance. Thanks to 'Ghost Girl', his total now touched 115,000 IP. He had more than enough for what was coming.
But most importantly, he looked at his Milestones panel. The progress was clear:
CREATOR MILESTONE: 9/10 SONGS PUBLISHED
He was there. Just one song away.
One more song and he would unlock the Milestone Roulette for 25,000 IP. The next arsenal. The next phase of his career.
There were no doubts about what the last song would be. It had to be a grand finale. A graduation.
He opened his inventory. His eyes passed over the golden cover of 'Runaway'. 'No. Not yet,' he thought. That song was for another time, for another Michael.
His gaze settled on the guide he had been avoiding. The one he knew would be the hardest.
'Drugs You Should Try It'.
He prepared himself to make the last song. He selected the guide. This time, what appeared in his vision wasn't a simple list of guitar chords or a drum pattern.
It was more complicated.
It was a genuine production blueprint. The System guide was intimidating, even now with his professional gear.
PRODUCTION GUIDE: 'Drugs You Should Try It'
ATMOSPHERE: Hazy, psychedelic, dreamy.
INSTRUMENTATION: Multiple layered synthesizers.
KEY TECHNIQUE: Reverse reverb on the main chords to create a "swell" effect.
VOCALS: Heavy use of Auto-Tune as an atmospheric instrument, not as correction.
BEAT: Slow, crisp trap, but mixed "underneath" the atmosphere.
Michael read the list. This wasn't a lo-fi beat. This was sonic architecture.
He remembered the original song. The sound was incredibly lush, complex. It was a soundscape.
He smiled. This was exactly the challenge he needed.
Suffering with the guitar on 'Star Shopping' had been elementary school. Producing 'White Iverson' had been high school.
This... this was his final exam. It was his graduation from the "SoundCloud Era".
He closed the System interface. He opened a new blank project in Ableton.
drugs_v1.
He wasn't going to rush this. This wouldn't come out in a day. This song deserved his time.
Monday, November 23 - Friday, November 27, 2015
Michael spent the next week locked away. It took him a week just on the beat. It wasn't an easy process like 'White Iverson'. It was a technical struggle, a battle against the limits of his own knowledge.
Day 1: The Search for Sound.
He spent the entire first day just looking for sounds. He didn't search for "drum kits". He searched for "atmospheric sounds", "ethereal synth pads". He downloaded a pirated pack of an analog synth from the 80s, the "Juno-60". The sounds were warm, hazy, and imperfect. They were perfect.
Days 2-3: The Reverse Magic.
This is where the real difficulty began. The reverse reverb. He had seen a tutorial, but doing it was another thing. The process was tedious and technical.
First, he recorded a single note from the synth. Bwaaah. Then, he exported that note as an audio file. He imported the file back into Ableton. He applied a "reverse" effect. Now the note sounded backward. Haaaawb. To that reversed note, he applied massive reverb, an echo tail almost ten seconds long. He exported that again. He imported the new file, the one with the echo. And he reversed it again.
He hit play. And there it was. The whoosh sound. The sound of a synth inhaling, growing from silence to the main note.
It took him two whole days of trial and error to create that texture for every chord in the song. It was the most frustrating work he had ever done. But the result was from another planet.
Day 4: The Drums and the Atmosphere.
Now, the drums. He wanted the beat to hit, but to feel distant. He programmed the slow and crisp trap rhythm. A deep kick. A sharp snare.
But then, instead of leaving it "dry", he processed it. He added reverb to the snare to make it sound like it was hitting in an empty gym. He ran the hi-hats through a phaser so they would subtly "spin" between the ears.
He started stacking more layers of "pads" (sound cushions), almost inaudible secondary melodies that drifted in and out, creating the hazy atmosphere.
Day 5: The Mix.
On Friday, he spent the whole day mixing just the instrumental. It was a balancing nightmare. The beat had to hit, but the synths had to feel dreamy.
He used equalizers to "carve" spaces, making sure the bass didn't eat the melody. He used compression to "glue" all the synths into a single sonic cloud.
Finally, on Friday night, November 27th, he finished the beat.
He leaned back in the chair, exhausted, and listened to the result.
It was the best production he had done in his life. It was lush, professional, and didn't sound like anything playing on SoundCloud. Not even anything he remembered from his future.
It was a perfect fusion of his knowledge. It sounded... unique.
He was ready for the next step.
Friday, November 27, 2015
Michael leaned back in his Herman Miller chair. The 'Drugs You Should Try It' beat played on a loop on his Yamaha monitors. It was, without a doubt, the best production he had done in his life. It was complex, atmospheric, professional.
He was exhausted from the week of work, but he felt incredibly satisfied.
His phone vibrated on the desk. It was a text message from Jake.
Jake: Dude, what are you doing? We're bored. Jake: We're coming to your house. Bringing pizza.
Michael smiled. His house had become the group's official headquarters. It was the only place where they could be calm, without parents around.
Michael: Alright. But I'm working. Jake: When are you not? See you in 20.
An hour later, the house was no longer silent.
"Dude, I swear he cheated! You can't use Oddjob!" shouted Sam from the living room.
Michael laughed. Sam had insisted on bringing his old Nintendo 64 and a copy of GoldenEye.
Jake, Sam, Nate, and Leo were in his living room, eating pizza off the floor and arguing about video games. It was a chaotic and familiar scene.
Michael stayed in his studio, door open, listening to the noise of his friends while he tried to decide how to record the vocals for the new song.
He opened Instagram on his phone. The amount of notifications was, as always, overwhelming. Thousands of new followers, hundreds of messages. And a constant request on all his posts:
"Do a live!" "Talk to us!"
"When is the next song coming out?"
Michael looked at his friends in the living room. Then he looked at his laptop. And he had an idea.
He got up and went to the living room. "Hey, I'm gonna do an Instagram live. Do you guys want to be in it?"
Sam almost choked on his soda. "Seriously? Live? For your... how many... hundred thousand followers?"
"Something like that," said Michael.
Jake fixed his hair instantly. "Hell yeah, brother! Make me famous!"
Leo just rolled his eyes. "Great. The circus has arrived."
Michael sat on the sofa, between Nate and Jake. He opened Instagram and pressed the "Go Live" button.
He went live on Instagram.
Instantly, the viewer numbers skyrocketed. 1,000. 5,000. 10,000.
"Hello," Michael said to the camera, his voice calm. "I'm here, sick. Well, not anymore. But I'm tired."
The chat exploded.
Michael turned the camera. "I'm here with the gang. Say hello, idiots."
Jake waved at the camera enthusiastically. "What's up, world!" Sam flashed a nervous peace sign. Nate just raised his hand, impassive. Leo hid his face behind his sketchbook.
It was the first time his fans saw his "tribe". The chat went crazy.
"WHO ARE THEY?" "Jake!! The guy from the party!!" "The big guy looks scary." "The notebook guy is cute!"
Michael laughed and focused the camera back on himself. He started answering questions from the chat.
"When is the next song coming out?"
"Soon," said Michael. "I'm working on it."
"Why was 'Paris' so dark?"
"Because that's how I felt that day."
"Are you going to make more songs like 'White Iverson'?"
"Maybe. Maybe not."
The conversation was casual, relaxed. He was joking with his friends, eating cold pizza. He was humanizing himself, showing them the kid behind the music.
And then, he saw the comment he was waiting for.
"Play the new music you're working on!"
He saw the chat flood with the same request. "NEW MUSIC!", "NEW BEAT!".
Michael smiled at the camera.
"New music?" he said, pretending to consider it. "I don't know... It's still very raw."
"Dude, show them!" said Sam, nudging him. "Show them the crazy beat!"
Michael laughed. "Okay, okay. But just a sneak peek. I'm telling you, I have a new beat I'm working on."
He got up from the sofa. "Come with me."
He turned his phone camera and walked down the hallway to his studio, his friends following him, all huddled behind him, entering the small room.
"This is where the magic happens," said Michael, sitting in his Herman Miller chair.
He pointed the camera at his Yamaha monitors. The chat went crazy seeing the professional studio again.
"Like I said, it's not finished. It's missing the vocals," he said. "But... here you go. Just showing the intro."
He opened the Ableton project: drugs_v1.
He hit the spacebar.
A silence. And then... the sound.
The sound of the psychedelic synths and reverse reverb filled the live audio.
It was an ethereal whoosh that grew and grew, as if the sound were inhaling. Then, the first chord hit, hazy and dreamy.
He let it play for thirty seconds. Thirty seconds of pure atmosphere.
It was something completely new and different. It wasn't the raw lo-fi of 'Ghost Boy'. It wasn't the aggression of 'Paris'. It wasn't the commercial vibe of 'White Iverson'.
It was... from another planet. Something no one had done yet. It was a soundscape.
Michael stopped the music. The reaction in the chat was pure confusion and awe.
"WHAT WAS THAT?" "SOUNDS LIKE SPACE" "WTF DUDE THAT IS BEAUTIFUL" "IS THAT RAP?" "I FEEL HIGH JUST HEARING IT" "DROP THAT NOW!!!"
Michael smiled. The hook was set. He hyped it up more on the live.
"It's song number ten," he said, focusing the camera back on his face. "The last of the era. And it will be the best."
He watched the chaos in the chat for a second longer.
"Okay," he said. "That's all for today. I'm gonna finish this. Thanks for stopping by. Take care."
He ended the live.
The room fell silent, broken only by Jake's murmur. "Dude, what the fuck was that? It sounded... weird."
"It's the future, Jake," said Michael, already turning toward his microphone.
He had created massive anticipation. Now, he just had to record the vocals.