One of the online algorithms directed me to Mark Rebillet and I was immediately impressed at the variety of music that he is able to improvise on the spot, using a loop station that I first saw in Peter Bence videos.
Yes, his lyrics can be vulgar, but there is no denying that he has a musical fluency where he can piece together great sounding beats, basslines and melodies in minutes.
One of his gems, You Were There, first hooked me with the bass line, as at that time, I was focusing on finding nice bass lines that I could play on the new instrument. The rhythm section was simple, and the piano ebbed and flowed between two chords. The short lyrics tell a story of presence and at the same time convey the feeling of loss. Even though no one in the Lee family sang, I couldn’t help but put together a version of my own.
Rebillet’s father passed away a year before You Were There was released, and while he released another single called Goodbye Papa, You Were There was undoubted another tribute. As I worked on this cover listening to the song over and over, I couldn’t help but ponder what will happen to these video memories when I am gone, how the kids will remember their past, their childhood, and our time together. Will I also be “there” somewhere in the back of their minds?
I started making this cover a year ago, but it didn’t work out. The problem was that I was trying to record the whole thing rather than loop. Looping is so much easier. Especially with the kids too – you’re able to parse out the song into tiny piece and put them on repeat. The housecoats would have been awesome, but the kids don’t perform. I added some “outtakes” from around 6 months ago, when I tried recording for the first time. Since then, I also got a Sony ZV-1 my cell phone so I can have two 4k shots at the same time. Ableton 11 came out and released a new feature called comping which allows you to loop record a section, and afterwards go back and choose the best take, which was especially helpful with the kids, even though Sierra wasn’t able to nail the timing of the word “Somewhere”.
Technically, I’m certainly better at these multi-cam music collage videos, and in the second part of the video I came up with doing the video collage background effect to change things up. This was probably the most intense Ableton work I’ve done too. I’ve previously hired people to mix and master, but after getting tracks that sound kind of the same as the original, I just did this one myself. The added challenge was learning how to mix vocals, and I definitely got a fill of YouTube videos on that topic.
