The first original song

Two days later.

Tristan had the melody and the lyrics. He even composed a piano track for the song, although he could only hear it through a synthesizer.

Now he was walking inside the sound recording studio, preparing for the final trial of this—recording.

The cover he recorded previously had a really shitty sound quality for a professional song. Even for an amateur song, it was barely there.

Tristan needed better sound recording equipment, and it was easier to rent a block of time in a recording studio than buy these things.

Not to mention, they won't fit in his small apartment.

For $400, Tristan rented a block of four hours.

Also, thanks to lifting weights and doing stretches in the gym, his strength and dexterity attributes had grown yesterday, giving him 200 PP to spend, which he put into music production, increasing it to 508.

The studio was worth the money—Tristan immediately saw that the recording gear was of the high quality. After a brief tour by the manager, Tristan was left alone to deal with all this.

Four hours. Tristan hoped that for a three-minute-long song, it would be enough.

The first twenty minutes were spent just setting everything up to Tristan's liking. Not only Tristan had to perform guitar and song tracks, he had to deal with all the technical parts of the recording.

This was hard enough that usually there would be a separate sound engineer sitting at the Digital Audio Workstation. But Tristan didn't want to depend on strangers for this.

The DAW looked like a spaceship control station, with endless incomprehensible buttons, knobs, and screens. Just two years ago, Tristan only recognized half the markings on these buttons.

However, now, thanks to his high music production skill, they were all clear as day to Tristan.

He tweaked a few of the knobs, setting them in the position that felt right to his intuitive understanding, then went to the actual recording part of the studio.

That was five more minutes.

Then Tristan set up the microphones, checked the sound, and tweaked DAW's settings some more. There was a tablet for remote control of the DAW, but it was still inconvenient, and Tristan often had to walk to and from the thing. 

This was eating more time. More than an hour had passed, and Tristan only began to record his guitar track.

At least, the melody by now flew easily from his fingers. The first try was already great, but Tristan had to be no less than perfect.

He knew that hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people would send their songs to the contest. He had to assume that his competition was going to be even more prepared and ready to do and re-do their songs until perfection.

Plus, Tristan planned to publish the song online later, since it wasn't prohibited by the contest's rules.

Tristan re-recorded parts that felt like not quite enough, sometimes improvising new versions of them right on the go, and listening to them to check which was actually the better one.

Even after an hour of work, he still felt like there were things to do with that guitar track. For example, record it on a better guitar!

However, the time was ticking. Tristan had to record the lyrics.

In front of the microphone, Tristan took in a deep breath.

Although he knew he was going to cut that part from the recording later, he still said it.

"This song… This song's name… 'Dragonfly'."

A song about an ugly, sad larva that grew into a shining, powerful dragonfly. Originally, Tristan thought about a butterfly, but those were too gentle for his liking.

During his research for the song, Tristan found that dragonfly larvae were ugly, but also just as powerful and deadly in water as dragonflies were in the air.

But that fact interfered with the song lyrics, so Tristan ignored it.

What mattered is the feeling. The song, the lyrics, they all echoed within Tristan.

When he started the recording and began singing, with every word of every verse, Tristan's soul poured into the song. It was not just because he was purposefully trying to, or because he loved singing, but because the song itself resonated with him on a deep level.

"Dark and below, I am no more!

Find the light, break the night!

Take flight!

I soar toward glass dreams,

Dragonfly!"

Tristan was shouting this line each time he sang it in the refrain verse.

When he finished singing and stopped the recording, he was panting. Not just from exertion, but from pure excitement.

Just listening to the recording again made a feeling swell in Tristan's chest, which he couldn't understand… But it was certainly a feeling.

There were some imperfections in the recorded sound. The emotion even made Tristan's voice wobble at a few places, although it was very slight.

He decided to not change anything. This recording was perfect as it was.

And thanks to that decision, Tristan had almost two hours to review the recorded tracks, mix and edit them.

He used them to the fullest. After an hour, he had a rough mix of the sound—already great for an amateur.

When his 4 hours were over, Tristan's song was basically ready to be published.

That was as productive as it got.

And only then did Tristan bother to check his notifications.

[Playing guitar skill increased by 1. Reward: your CP increased by 10.]

[Playing guitar skill increased by 1. Reward: your CP increased by 10.]

…

[Charisma attribute increased by 1. Reward: your CP increased by 100!]

[Music production skill increased by 1. Reward: your CP increased by 10.]

[Music production skill increased by 1. Reward: your CP increased by 10.]

Tristan closed all notifications.

'Yeah, I will deal with that later.'