Chapter 13: One-Take Recording
While Chen Xiunan was talking with the sound engineer, Chen Qiming had already gathered his emotions. He gave an OK sign to the control room, then put on his headphones and waited for the accompaniment to begin.
The sound engineer, who had been listening to Chen Xiunan, cast a pained glance at him, pressed the buttons on the console, and started playing the backing track for the recording.
Chen Xiunan also picked up the monitoring headphones, put them on his head, and listened to Chen Qiming's performance.
"Oh..."
Accompanied by a melodious prelude hum, Chen Qiming began to sing.
*The swaying red wine glass, lips stained like fresh blood*
*That unusual beauty, an unpardonable sin*
*Whoever follows loyally can at best act as a bodyguard*
*Stepping on roses underfoot*
*Returning a kiss as consolation*
*...*
Listening to Chen Qiming's voice through the monitors, the sound engineer grew increasingly peculiar in expression, unable to help casting a glance at Chen Xiunan.
In his line of sight, Chen Xiunan's face was dark with speechless frustration, quietly watching Chen Qiming singing inside the recording booth.
"Looks like you just got slapped in the face!"
After listening for a few more lines, the sound engineer couldn't help muttering softly.
How was Chen Qiming's singing?
Undoubtedly, in the sound engineer's view, even if it couldn't be called flawless, it was definitely extremely good.
The sound engineer used to be a professional at New Genre Records. In March of this year, after New Genre was acquired by Rock Records, he didn't join Rock; instead, Ge Fuhong poached him over to Fulong Records.
Having served as the sound engineer for New Genre's ace group, the Chuchu Chorus, he had his own set of standards for evaluating a singer's strength.
In his opinion, Chen Qiming's performance was absolute top-tier strength.
From the very first line right up to the present, the song was almost finished, yet he simply couldn't find a single flaw or reason to re-record.
*[I even want to use a wall of stones to isolate the world]*
*[My Princess, I want to conquer your beauty]*
As the final lyric faded, Chen Qiming took off his headphones and looked out toward the control room.
Outside, the sound engineer gave him an immediate thumbs-up.
As for Chen Xiunan, he still had his monitoring headphones on.
Just as Chen Qiming began to wonder how his performance had actually turned out, Chen Xiunan took off his headphones. After a brief silence, he picked up the microphone and spoke to Chen Qiming in the recording area: "Let's record it one more time, just to be safe?"
"What?" Chen Qiming looked bewildered.
Just to be safe? This wasn't a film shoot!
Seeming to realize his phrasing was indeed problematic, Chen Xiunan explained, "Let's record it one more time, then compare them and use the most perfect one!"
Fine! Actually, Chen Xiunan was just covering up his own embarrassment.
Before the recording started, he had been chatting with the sound engineer about wanting to make Chen Qiming suffer a bit so they could have a good laugh at this so-called big talent.
Yet the moment they turned around, Chen Qiming delivered a flawless recording, leaving him utterly unable to pick a single fault from the session.
It wasn't that he was flying into a rage from embarrassment, but to diffuse the awkwardness, he decided to have Chen Qiming record it again.
"All right!" Hearing this, Chen Qiming didn't press the matter. He gave a signal to the outside and recorded it once more.
This time, although his performance had a tiny flaw, it was insignificant and still constituted a perfectly completed recording.
When Chen Qiming came out of the recording booth, Chen Xiunan was no longer in the studio.
The sound engineer told him that Chen Xiunan had gone to arrange the post-production.
"You're amazing! You're the very first singer I've ever seen complete a recording in a single take!"
Looking at the handsome young man standing before him, the sound engineer couldn't help praising him.
"Thank you!" Chen Qiming said somewhat sheepishly. "It's mainly because I'm very familiar with these songs myself, so singing them was a lot simpler!"
After chatting with the sound engineer for a bit, Chen Qiming left the studio.
He checked the time.
It hadn't even been an hour.
His actual recording had taken only about an hour, and most of that time had been spent by the sound engineer and Chen Xiunan setting up and testing the equipment.
If you strictly counted his singing time, it was probably around ten minutes.
Chen Qiming didn't have much concept of this timeframe.
He had never seen anyone else record, so he didn't know if he was considered fast.
But by his own estimate, he probably wouldn't fall too far behind others.
After all, a song was three or four minutes long anyway, and recording it twice would still take eight or nine minutes.
However you calculated it, his recording time had to be considered fast.
Emerging from the recording studio, Chen Qiming stood in the hallway feeling somewhat dazed.
With the recording ending ahead of schedule, he suddenly had no idea what he was supposed to do.
As for post-production on the songs, that wasn't his job.
The company had a dedicated post-production team to handle mixing and processing; those matters had nothing to do with him at all.
Therefore, once the recording was done, he basically had nothing left to do.
After a moment of thought, Chen Qiming took his pager out of his bag and checked the phone messages stored on it.
He hadn't had time to return them earlier, so he could take advantage of this free moment to make the calls.
No sooner thought than done, he left the company's recording area and walked toward Liu Ciwei's office.
Although the company had several phones, those were primarily work phones and weren't convenient for returning personal calls.
So whenever he called home, he always used Liu Ciwei's phone.
When he reached Liu Ciwei's office, Liu Ciwei was not inside.
Without standing on ceremony, Chen Qiming walked right in and dialed home first.
His family didn't have a telephone; the call went directly to a small grocery store not far from his house.
That grocery store was where people without home phones went to make and receive calls.
Whenever she got the details of who was being called from the store's proprietress, the woman would shout at the top of her lungs for the person in question to come over and answer.
"Little Chen girl! Your big brother is on the phone! Come take the call!"
The familiar, booming voice of the proprietress came through the receiver, bringing a smile to Chen Qiming's face.
This Aunt Li's voice was like a loudspeaker; whenever she yelled, everyone in the neighborhood could hear it clearly.
When they were little, several neighborhood kids had even given her the nickname "Megaphone Aunt."
After waiting about two minutes, the voice of his younger sister, Chen Quirui, finally came through the other end of the line.
"Brother, why are you only just calling back? That older sister couldn't wait and already left!"
The moment she opened her mouth, Chen Quirui complained.
Hearing this, Chen Qiming was puzzled. "Who was looking for me?"
"I don't know her either. She said her name was Bowie Tsang and that she's your classmate. She came to the house looking for you, and after we told her you'd gone to Taipei, she even had me call you to say she was looking for you because she has something to discuss," Chen Quirui said.
"I get it!" Chen Qiming nodded and began asking about how things were at home.
After learning that everything was fine at home, he chatted with his younger sister for a little longer before hanging up.
After ending the call with his sister, Chen Qiming thought for a moment and then dialed a number for Bowie Tsang.
He was a bit curious about what Bowie Tsang wanted with him, to the extent that she had even tracked him down to his home.
Bowie Tsang did have a phone; she came from a wealthy family and always carried a brick mobile phone in her schoolbag.
Thus, the call was connected very quickly.