Noticing that no one was speaking anymore, Reiji decided not to waste time. "Since we're on a tight schedule, let's head to the recording room and get to work."
"Ah... right," Kiara said as she snapped out of it. "Let's go, everyone!" She raised her voice, jolting the others into motion as they followed her.
When they arrived at the recording studio, Reiji immediately got to work while the girls stepped into the isolation booth, chatting among themselves as they waited. They were curious to see how Reiji operated, while Yagoo stayed quietly in a corner of the room.
Reiji opened both of his laptops and placed them neatly on top of the mixer before powering it on. He then opened the booth door.
"I'll need to make some adjustments to the microphones," he explained. "I'll signal with my fingers from one to five. We'll go from left to right, Ms. Gura, you'll be one." He pointed toward Gawr Gura.
"Oke!" she replied brightly.
"Ms. Ina, you'll be two," Reiji said, holding up two fingers.
"I am two-tally ready," Ina replied with a small giggle and a smug smile.
"And so on," Reiji added, giving a thumb-up. The others returned the gesture.
Just as he was about to close the door, Calli spoke up.
"Hey, wait."
"Yes, Ms. Calli?" Reiji asked, pausing as he held the door open.
"What style do you want us to sing in?" Calli asked. "More specifically... how do you want us to sing?" She looked like she was mentally preparing herself for a strict answer.
Reiji stayed where he was for a moment, surprised. It was the first time someone had asked him that.
"Any style you want," he replied honestly. "I don't really mind how you sing. As long as I can feel the passion in your voices, I can work with it."
"You're not going to regret saying that later?" Amelia asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Nope," Reiji said simply. "How someone sings doesn't matter to me as much as whether they can convey what they're feeling."
He closed the booth door. Inside, the girls exchanged glances, more than a little unsettled. Most sound engineers they had worked with constantly demanded specific styles, tones, and repeated re-recordings.
Reiji unmuted the microphone channels. He held up one finger.
Gura began to sing her part.
Reiji pressed the Pre/Post-Fader Listen, PAFL, button on the mixer, listening carefully. Her voice was naturally very high, so he gently adjusted the high-frequency knobs, lowering them just enough to smooth out the sharpness without dulling her tone.
After listening to the adjustments he had made, Reiji lifted his hand again and held up two fingers. Ina began to sing alongside Gura. Reiji clicked the PAFL button on Ina's microphone and listened intently. Ina's voice wasn't as high as Gura's, but it still sat in a similar range. Rather than cutting it down, Reiji decided to give her voice more space to breathe, gently boosting the high frequencies so it would come through clearer without clashing.
He raised his hand again, this time showing three fingers, Calli's cue. Calli began to harmonize with Ina and Gura. Reiji immediately noticed the contrast; her voice carried was deeper than the others, just as it had when she spoke earlier at the front desk. He reached for the equalizer and turned the 300 Hz knob down by about four decibels. He wanted to preserve her tone while preventing it from clashing with the bass once it was added later.
Kiara came next. Her vocal range overlapped heavily with Ina and Gura's, so instead of boosting her outright, Reiji carved space, lowering the frequencies already occupied by the others before raising the range where Kiara's voice naturally shined.
When he raised his fifth finger, Reiji realized something immediately; nearly all of them leaned into the higher frequencies. Amelia's voice, however, carried a noticeably nasal tone. He adjusted the EQ around the 1 kHz range, cutting just enough to smooth it out without dulling her presence.
Once the voices were tuned, Reiji removed his headset and stepped into the booth. The girls noticed and gradually stopped singing.
"Alright, thank you," he said with a slight smile. "You can sing the song normally now."
They nodded. Reiji closed the door, put his headphones back on, and took a slow breath. He raised his hand one final time, holding up three fingers, then lowered them one by one.
As the final finger dropped, Kiara, who opened the song, began to sing. Reiji immediately raised her volume, lowering the others slightly to let her lead carry through.
When Gura came in next, he eased Kiara's mic down and gradually brought Gura forward. When all of them sang together, he raised each microphone carefully, balancing them so none overwhelmed the others.
Yagoo watched silently as the girls sang and Reiji mixed. The voices were clear and natural. When they harmonized, he could distinctly hear each of them instead of a blurred mass of sound. He glanced at Reiji, whose eyes never left the mixer, his entire focus locked onto the controls.
Four minutes passed. When the final voice, Calli's, came in, Reiji slowly adjusted the volume, letting her delivery settle cleanly into the mix.
When the song ended, Reiji took off his headphones. The girls stepped out of the booth, their expressions noticeably brighter. Yagoo approached him.
"Can I ask how you recorded this?" Yagoo said. "I didn't see you start the recording."
Reiji placed the headphones gently on the mixer before answering. "My system auto-records. It starts as soon as the microphones are unmuted."
As he muted the channels, a notification popped up on one of his laptops.
"I wanna hear it!" Gura said, practically bouncing with excitement.
"I'm not gonna lie," Calli added, crossing her arms with a smug smile. "Usually, it takes a few attempts when engineers tweak our mics... but you did it fast." She paused. "I wanna hear it too."
Reiji clicked the audio file, and it began to play. Since it had already been running while he was adjusting the microphones, he skipped ahead to the part where the girls actually sang. When he reached it, he tapped the back button once before letting the playback continue.
As soon as Kiara's voice came through the speakers, she could immediately tell the difference. Her voice sounded clearer, far more defined than it had in her other original MVs.
The girls listened closely while Reiji opened the applications he planned to use to synthesize the instruments. When the song reached the part where all of them sang together, each of them could hear themselves clearly. No voice was buried, none missing. They glanced toward Reiji, who was already scrolling through electric guitar tracks, his attention split between listening and preparing the next step.
When the track ended, Reiji opened another application and began cutting out the unnecessary sections, moments of silence, test takes, before adjusting the overall volume levels.
"Mr. Yagoo," Reiji asked calmly as he trimmed the portion where he had been tuning the microphones, "when are the others arriving?"
"Well," Yagoo replied immediately, "this was fairly last-minute. Would it be alright if the others come tomorrow to do their recordings?"
"That's fine," Reiji said without hesitation. "It gives me time to finish this song."
The girls and Yagoo watched as he applied the final edits to the audio, his movements precise and efficient.
Reiji put his headphones on again and began listening carefully, planning how he would layer the instruments. Seeing this, Yagoo quietly gestured for the girls to leave. He opened the door, letting them exit first, then followed, closing it softly behind him.
When he turned around, he noticed that Calli had stayed behind.
"Did you forget something in the room?" Yagoo asked.
Calli met his eyes before glancing back at the closed door. "Do you think he can really finish this?" she asked. "If what you said over the phone is true, that everyone has to redo their recordings, that means he has to redo twenty-two songs, right?"
Yagoo inhaled sharply before answering. "I hope so. I don't want to disappoint the fans by cancelling Holocon this year."
Inside the room, Reiji worked at full speed. He carefully adjusted each instrument, so none clashed the way they had in the mixes he heard earlier. He made sure the vocals remained clear and present. Once the piano sat at the correct level, he moved on to the next instrument.
He opened the application he normally used to search for drum tracks, but after some time, he couldn't find anything that fit. Without hesitation, he opened another app on his second laptop and began creating a brand-new drum track from scratch, shaping it to match the song before inserting it into the mix.
Once that was done, he moved on to the remaining instruments, the lead electric guitar, then the rhythm guitar, building the track piece by piece.
By the time he finished, he glanced at the clock. It was already 3:36 a.m. He had just enough time to sleep before starting again tomorrow.
Reiji clicked save. As the project began to process, he leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and fell asleep almost immediately.
He mumbled quietly in his sleep, his head tilting to the side as his weight shifted with it.
A sudden loud sound, the door swinging open, snapped him awake. The shock made him lose balance, and he fell off the chair with a dull thud.
He groaned lightly and looked up. Standing there were five different girls. One was tall, with two horns, one whole, the other broken. Beside her stood two girls who looked almost identical, the only difference being their hair colour, one blue and one pink. The remaining two were shorter, one with light purple hair, and the other dressed in a distinctly gothic style.
The shortest one in the group approached him and held out her hand.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
Reiji hesitated. For a brief moment, he almost didn't take it, but remembering what he had learned yesterday, he accepted her hand. She pulled him up with surprising ease.
"I'm fine. Thank you very much," he said, setting the chair back in place.
"Well... since we're in a bit of a hurry, there won't be time to introduce one another," he added as he sat back down.
"That's quite understandable," the tall one with horns replied before opening the booth door and letting the others enter.
Reiji proceeded much the same way he had the day before, adjusting the microphones, then having them sing the song as it was originally recorded. After they exited the booth, they quietly excused themselves while Reiji began cutting sections and layering in the instruments. Just as he started working on the electric guitar tracks, another group entered the room.