Jack Hsu
Jack Hsu

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Xue Hua Piao Piao

Xue Hua Piao Piao

July 13, 2020

I did a cover version of A Spray of Plum Blossoms (一剪梅), which is perhaps better known as Xue Hua Piao Piao Bei Feng Xiao Xiao.

Motivation

  • This oldie Chinese song has become really trending in English-speaking countries, so I thought it’d be cool to cover it in my own way.
  • My dad is a big fan of the original singer of the song and enjoys singing this song a lot. I thought it would be really cool to cover this song and show it to him.
  • I just started to learn DAW (digital audio workstation), so doing a cover is also a great opportunity for me to learn DAW.

Concept

I use this virtual singer called AiKO, who is basically the same as Hatsune Miku (初音) except that AiKO sings in Chinese. I bought the AiKO sound library for USD $60.

AiKO

I did some rap in this song to add more color to this song. The rap lyrics is basically just rearranged lyrics of the original lyrics.

My wife recommended me to feature our daughter Valentina, who is 4 years old, in this song. I thought that’s a really good idea, so I did it! In this cover song, you can also hear my daughter “rap” the signature phrase “Xue Hua Piao Piao Bei Feng Xiao Xiao” throughout the song. It’s pretty fun!

Production

Here is a brief summary of how I produced this song.

Music

  1. Get a instrument MIDI online and import it to my DAW — Logic Pro.
  2. Speed up the tempo (70 bpm => 90 bpm) and change and the key (A♭m => E♭m).
  3. Edit the drum track as the original drum is too busy for my taste.
  4. Export the melody instrument MIDI track and import it to Synthesizer V.
  5. Load up AiKO sound library in Synthesizer V, and enter the lyrics.
  6. Create vibrato with Synthesizer V pitch editor. Vibrato is used a lot in this song.
  7. Render the AiKO’s vocal to an audio file (.wav file) and import it to Logic Pro.
  8. Record my rap and my dauther’s rap and add them to the project.
  9. Add effects like reverb, EQ, and compression.
  10. Finally, bounce all the tracks in Logic Pro into one .mp3 file.

Video

  1. Import the .mp3 audio file to Final Cut Pro.
  2. Import background images (the snow photo is from upsplash).
  3. Enter lyrics and credits.
  4. Finally, export the music video!