Kalafina 18th single "One Light" for Arslan Senki [confirmed]

Thanks, @ritardando and @Daiima for the clarification.

I am reading a lot of thoughts regarding Mahiru, saying it is too basic and plain and repetitive. I would like to say that it is in the simplicity that I fell in love with the song. Reminds me of when I showed my friend the song "you are in love" by Taylor Swift (on the deluxe edition of her album), and she criticized it for being too simple. I then responded that that is the beauty of the song - so simplistic, as how love should be. A simple love song is all I need, sometimes.

As for their voices being too nasally, I agree. That is the characteristic of KEIKO's voice that initially turned me away from the song (sample). However, WAKANA's "nasal" voice really heavily impacted me because it added to the emotions dramatically for me, as if she were struggling to sing from the pain. There is no pain depicted in the lyric translations .... It seems really happy and optimistic, actually. But coupled with the melody of the song, I can infer that it is a song of nostalgia, a song about something in the past that no longer is.

Interesting observation though: Kajiura seems to like releasing songs about summertime sadness during the summer single releases... "Yane no Mukou ni" is a classic example, and now "Mahiru".

Regardless, Mahiru has touched me. Sure Lapis and Gloria were great ballads, but I love this song equally. I respect everyone else's opinion about it being too basic and blah, because I agree; at the same time, it is in this simplicity that I fell in love.
 
well pretty much agree with whatever ritardando said.

Almost every single note, therefore the whole composition, is a recycling of older songs. Singing is mediocre. Too much filtering. Unbearable instrumentation. Kajiura better be working hard on an ost!

Despite the filtering, if I have to choose, I'd pick Wakana as the best of all three. She seems to be doing good but again not as good as expected. Keiko ? We keep saying you should sing with your jazz-style voice but this is going downhill. Hikaru is a big no, again.

Everyone join me in the hopes of getting a grand soundtrack from Kajiura. (?)
 
Well, I've listened to it.
I know One light is not their best song, and it's generic and blah blah blah, but although I didn't like it at first, I actually enjoy it
now and find myself singing it randomly. Passionately (?) Maybe because I like Arslan Senki.
Mahiru is really nice. I agree with Atlas: being simple is not a bad thing per se. Sometimes beuty exists in simplicity, and that's what happens here for me. As with lapis, I feel like being sung to sleep. In a good way, huh? I especially love Wakana in this.
Samidare is not my cup of tea, but made me strangely happy. I mean, it left me with good feelings (thank god, because today I'll receive my grade from a nasty test and I'll need a lot of good feelings). This does not sound like a Kalafina song, but it's such a bad thing to have one song that sounds that different? I mean, I've read you (general, non specific you) saying "I hope we get something different". I KNOW this is not what you expected, but still is something we are not used to in Kalafina. And it's just a b-side, I don't believe we'll see it sung in a lot of opportinities *cries for all the b-sides that are unfairly forgotten*
This is not their best single, absolutely, but I think I'll still enjoy it at some point.
I know what being disappointed by a band is. It has happened to me a lot of times, really. Recently, with Within Temptation. I guess the best thing you can do is take some distance and from time to time check if they have something you like. All the old songs are still there.
 
I just got confirmation that my vinyl's been shipped, if that helps anyone else who ordered a copy and are wondering whether to expect a dispatch confirmation for theirs.

I've been busy IRL in the past few days and the weather's doing something horrid to my head, so I'll wait until it arrives before listening to any of it. I'll have to plug my headphones into my parents' record player though, since my hi-fi's still in storage... :wai:
 
Kowz said:
You're going to trigger grunty-kun~

But anyways, I disagree. Their album stuff is pretty varied and good. It's their anime songs that tend to follow the same formula.
Click to expand...

<3 ALIPRO. Though I disliked their last arrange album, I still can't wait their new original album in September - Ryuukou Sekai was great. :D
 
Ok, I'm back.

One Light: I like it. It's vivid, I love all girls in this song. Verses of Wakana before refrain are strange and don't fit to song (too melanholic). But she is great in refrain.

Mahiru: Wakana rocks the song. I don't like voice of Hikaru here - it's similiar to ARIA in Budokan... It's really nice song-calm, relaxing. Keiko was good as always.

Samidare: It sounds like from old anime! It's so joyfull, nice... Hikaru sounds sweet. Maybe a little boring.

Songs aren't amazing for me like magia, HnS, manten, eden... But it's good I think. But I hope that quality of FOW songs will be better. The best track of single is: One Light - I miss song like this (main vocal-Hikaru, light, rock style)
 
One Light sucks. The end. Nothing else to say here.

Lmao. I'm finally listening to Mahiru and was expecting to be blown away by Wakana because of what all of you are saying but its the same ol' stuff. There really is nothing special here.
Hikaru's part was just some trolling from Kajiura...nothing new.

I actually like Samidare. The harmonization was A+ and I just like that its reminiscent of 90s anime ending themes. Best song on single. I also don't hear a filter? Are you guys talking about when Keiko and Hikaru sing the same part in the same melody? They did the same thing in TetoTetoMetoMe...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
lapis said:
I also don't hear a filter? Are you guys talking about when Keiko and Hikaru sing the same part in the same key? They did the same thing in TetoTetoMetoMe...
Click to expand...

Yeah, piggybacking off this post! @ritardando, you told me to listen to WAKANA's part in Alleluia. I understand what you mean - it is known as the "chorus" effect (in Adobe Audition, at least) that is used to mimick the effects of a full chorus, i.e. multiple singers singing at the same time. So one voice gets split into maybe 2 or 4 voice tracks, each one maybe a millisecond apart from each other so it sounds like multiple singers have participated, and is spanned across the STEREO field to give a grander, more dynamic tone to the vocals. It is mostly used for harmonisations (lower and, some times, upper). Another way to use this effect is for one singer to record a line twice, and then putting them together; one vocal track will be "left" track, the other will be "right" track. The combined effect will be this "chorus" effect.

I hear this effect being implemented for KEIKO's harmonisations. I don't hear it for any of the other vocalists. The combination of HIKARU+WAKANA in the first two refrains and HIKARU+KEIKO in the final refrain may sound like this effect, but it certainly is not. It is actually two singers singing the same melody at the same time.
 
Has anyone read the credits? I'd like to know who sings chorus for One Light. The beginning is obviously Kajiura, but I'm unsure on the bridge. At first I thought it was Yuriko, but certain parts sound more like Wakana.
 
Hmm, after listening to the other two songs in the single, One Light doesn't sound so bad now.

The 2nd song, Hikaru didn't have a decent voice control at the beginning of the song. I like Keiko's voice at the beginning~

The 3rd song, lolwut...
Well, it's such a happy song.... lalalalalala.... I can wave my hands to the left and right along with the song.
And.... that's about it :XD:
 
Nothing much to say about this single since I agree to those statements above XD. And about the PV, I found it funny that Keiko has the best shots though it was a Wakana/hikaru lead song, lol. (good job, SME XDD)
Maybe its another typical Kala PV but I found it very amusing, not to mention that Hikaru's fierce look scares me a little bit haha! XD
Tsss.. I kinda feel nervous for FoTW. >.<
 
just watched the pv. wakana looked flat and unimpressed the whole video. hikaru is sometimes scary. maybe she got way too engrossed with the song to the point of looking ridiculous sometimes. there are some cool shots of her, though. keiko looked fabulous, her expression is the most on point imo. her expression is in between Hikaru's and Wakana's, the most pleasant to look at. it's just the matter of who looked the best throughout the shooting and keiko looked best, no wonder most of her shots made it to the final edit.
 
Atlas Star said:
Yeah, piggybacking off this post! @ritardando, you told me to listen to WAKANA's part in Alleluia. I understand what you mean - it is known as the "chorus" effect (in Adobe Audition, at least) that is used to mimick the effects of a full chorus, i.e. multiple singers singing at the same time. So one voice gets split into maybe 2 or 4 voice tracks, each one maybe a millisecond apart from each other so it sounds like multiple singers have participated, and is spanned across the STEREO field to give a grander, more dynamic tone to the vocals. It is mostly used for harmonisations (lower and, some times, upper). Another way to use this effect is for one singer to record a line twice, and then putting them together; one vocal track will be "left" track, the other will be "right" track. The combined effect will be this "chorus" effect.

I hear this effect being implemented for KEIKO's harmonisations. I don't hear it for any of the other vocalists. The combination of HIKARU+WAKANA in the first two refrains and HIKARU+KEIKO in the final refrain may sound like this effect, but it certainly is not. It is actually two singers singing the same melody at the same time.
Click to expand...
I've been thinking about this a lot lately as far as recording's concerned (mainly because I'm trying to program vocals now...). Do you mean double-tracking? It's so common for vocals to be done like this that we probably don't even notice it*, which is why I was thinking so hard about it. I've not heard it used very often for the main vocals of Kala songs because I'm guessing Hikaru and Wakana are in a similar range so harmonise with each other while Keiko sings an octave down or something. On songs with one main vocal - FJ's Gaika for instance - I do hear the vocalist double-tracked sometimes. And of course for the backing chanting, which is often put through a filter or drenched with reverb to give that church-y choral sound. It all comes down to the effect they're trying to get from the song I guess.

There are a few ways of doing it apparently - you can do multiple takes of the same segment, or take one line and add a slight delay. Plus pan them left and right to make it sound fuller and 'bigger'.

*if you listen to Nirvana's Nevermind album, the vocals are double-tracked. The producer, Butch Vig, wanted a more polished sound while the band wanted a more raw, 'live' sound so it took some pursuading (plus the fact that Kurt wasn't a very well-trained singer, so often lost his voice if he recorded over and over for too long without resting). In their other albums the vocals are often done in one go and there's no effort to double-track them, so it sounds more 'live' and less overproduced.

Sorry for going off-topic - I find the technical aspects of the recording stuff fascinating, so when I get to hear it I'll probably be mentally picking it apart to see how it was put together! :hide:
 
Grrr. Not getting mine until tomorrow morning now. Which means I won't get to listen to the record until at night or Thurs. But the single I should be able to if I have time before leaving to go to my niece's. *sigh* Really wanted some new Kalafina today.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top