MIKU! MAKE YOU MOVE!
Dusting off this blog (Hi 2018 you were a very bad year!) to talk about my most recent music project because oh my god the things that have happened as a result are a bit surreal to me
So this song is what I submitted for the 2025 Miku Expo Song Contest, aaaand uhhh. It placed. I got "Honorable Mention" which was truly not what I saw coming at ALL, I was fully prepared to just have it be a one off moment and then move on (I don't think I was going to even upload the song if it didn't place.) It was a lot of fun to work on, and I wanted to talk about my thoughts and experience during the process!
So fun fact about "MIKU! MAKE YOU MOVE!" is that the skeleton of what would become the full song had already been written back in 2024. At the time I was on a Soichi Terada kick (if you've ever played Ape Escape 1 and 3 you know who that is), and was in the mood to write a very quick BGM for kicks, and this is what I conjured up after a few hours
As you can hear, the framework for what would become MMYM was already there, but I ended up putting this song away after finishing this beat, as I tend to do with a lot of one-off tracks. However, upon seeing the news of the Miku Expo song contest coming up, for some reason I thought to myself "why not?". Now, I hadn't produced vocaloid music since Dandelion in 2018 , so I wasn't sure how to approach this. HOWEVER, since that year I'd spent so much time making my own instrumental arranges for covers, as well as dipping my toe into Nerdcore with several songs I had written with OR3O, that I came into this with a lot more confidence and excitement that I could make something fun!
Originally, the concept for MMYM was centered around the idea of "MIDI CIRCUS" (that's what the title was before I settled on the one you know now haha), and that allowed me to go in the direction of "Musical Chaos" in terms of how many synths and bass melodies I wanted to put into the song!
I still hadn't settled on a title, but you can hear the interjection of the intro where the TV turns on to be something that started to bring together the idea of an excersize show to fruition. (Shoutout FLAVOR FOLEY for the inspiration of Miku on TV)
Now I want ya'll to know something, the sonic CD soundtrack has influenced my chord progressions for such a long time, and I think you can hear it in the verses of this song where, and let me get all Music Theory on you, it goes from a Dom7 to a Min7b5. I love the idea of chords that would usually be for a horror theme being juxtaposed for something happy and upbeat, that kind of flavor is something I want to put in all my music! I will never get tired of that, as you can clearly see by the midi roll here
Hearing it by itself, you'd think I'm writing something for a scary game huh? That's the beauty of context.
Moving on, as I continued to develop the song, I knew I wanted to try my hand out at programming guitars again, but I wanted something to sound like it had a bit of retro feel. Seeing as how this song was written inspired by my childhood, the guitar had to be something that felt like I grew up with it. AND THEN, AS IF BY FATE, I CAME ACROSS THIS VIDEO JUST A DAY LATER
Needless to say, I was sold, and after a few hours of trial and error, I had programmed a guitar section that the me of 2004 who had just gotten Sonic Heroes would be so proud of
As someone who just never was able to properly learn to play it by hand, it made so overjoyed that I could recreate one of my favorite guitar tones with just technology. The future is now!!
With everything combined, I finally had an instrumental I was happy with, and then began the hell..........
NOW, I don't know if it was stupidity, masochism, lack of oversight, or all of the above, but I chose to tune all of Miku English in Vocaloid 4.
Art by Miey
And thus began some serious pain and suffering.
"Don't fret! It might seem hard, but you gotta take a chance!"
Felt like she was mocking me the way it took 4 days just to tune her singing, and then I had to do RAP!!!!!!!!!!
Surprisingly though, the rap was a lot easier to tune than the actual singing, probably because I recorded a demo of it myself in order to have a frame of reference
Love her lack of energy.
Ended all rappers honestly, turn the fuck UP Ms.Hatsune!!!!!!!!
All in all, a lot of insanity when into this song. Since it was my return to vocaloid since 2018, I wanted to bring all the skills I'd learned in composition, arrangement, and also challenge myself to try tuning in a way I never have before (I.E. try a rap in ENGLISH!!! Oh my god it was a process yo)
Over a year of on and off work, but I really locked in around the month the Expo Contest had opened up! This is only for the instrumental, it isn't counting the time I spent tuning Miku and then doing all the vocal mixing (as that was done in REAPER), so I'd say the total amount of time worked on this would actually be closer to about 150 hours maybe?
Thank you to MA1NICHI (a 2018 original album project where I challenged myself to make over 30 songs in a month holy moly) and all the times I had to recreate instrumentals on a weekly basis in order to be able to make content to pay my hospital bills back in 2020 for making me so powerful wowowowowow
After fully mixing everything, then came submission time! I like, quadruple checked EVERYTHING to make sure I didnt misspell a single thing (imagine not getting an email coz I was off ONE LETTER in my address), and sent it off to fate! I had SOOOO much fun working on it that by the time it was finally sent, I didn't really care if it placed or not.
The weeks I spent on this song are something I cherish a lot, and really reminded me of the joy of Vocaloid production, even the parts that are very tedious. There's something very magical about being able to make Miku song whatever you want, and especially when you hear the whole song come together, that's such a rush I haven't quite felt since I spent 2019-2023 mainly producing music for human vocals.
Art by me!
When I got the email that I had gotten honorable mention, I can't describe it in words. It felt like something out there was telling me "hey, I know you strayed off for a while in order to pursue other things, but you should keep on this path!" I really didn't need that to tell me I wanted to keep making vocaloid music though, the feeling I got while working on "MIKU! MAKE YOU MOVE!" was something I knew I'd want to keep experiencing over and over again!
Something I said in private when the news broke and the official twitter page said my name. DONT LET YOUR DREAMS BE DREAMS!!!! FROM SOMEONE THAT'S BEEN MAKING CONTENT AND FAILING CONSTANTLY SINCE 2010, YOU CAN ABSOLUTELY DO IT!!!!
I've been producing music since 2014, so needless to say it's been quite a grind to get here, but I wouldn't change a single thing about my journey thus far. The joys, the pains, and the devastating losses, they all led to this point, and now that I'm here I can safely say I'm thankful for all of it.
AND NOW?? IM GOING TO BE PERFORMING AT DIGITAL STARS IN CHICAGO IN APRIL???
ABSOLUTELY FUCKING SURREAL TO BE IN A LINEUP WITH SUCH EPIC NAMES, AND SHOUT TO MY HOMEGIRL KAT IM SO EXCITED TO PARTY TOGETHERRRRR!!!
Vocaloid has always been something I've loved, and to get to make my mark on it in this way is something I could have never seen coming off just a simple "eh, guess I'll join this contest yolo" impulse decision.
More is definitely on its way, this journey has only just begun! Moving forward I'll be using this page to chronicle more stories about future songs. If you read this far, thank you for always supporting and cheering me on, I don't take any of your love for granted, and I'm so excited to share with you more pieces of myself in my music.
As a thank you for reading all of this, here's the very first beat I ever made in Reaper its so fucking funny to listen to this now hFHHJSFAJkfnlSGKLEMKLG:E
<hyperbole>I think I singlehandedly birthed the sound of Splatoon tbh.</hyperbole>
This has been your Ghost Dog Kuraiinu. Til next time 💜
Art by さかむけ
