Why bother writing songs? Fast forward to the "Don't Laugh Challenge"

Chapter 25 Gambling Agreement
Zhou Yumeng is ready, so it's time to start recording the song.

After entering Xia Shen's studio, Zhou Yumeng carefully looked around, noticing the instant noodle bucket, takeout box, and leftover coffee cup on the floor.

"You usually live here?" Zhou Yumeng asked.

“Yeah, otherwise I’d have to make songs, and the company is quite a distance from the school, so I’m too lazy to go back every day,” Xia Shen said.

"Oh~" Zhou Yumeng suddenly realized, feeling slightly relieved.

Judging from this, he looks like a single guy. At least, his house wasn't raided while he was away.

Because if you just look into the trash can in the corner under the table, you'll easily find a lot of small crumpled pieces of paper.

Seeing these little crumpled pieces of paper, she instantly felt at ease.

As long as your base isn't raided, everything will be fine.

"Sit wherever you like, I'll do the debugging." Xia Shen was unaware that his "treasured" little artifact for wiping his nose had been discovered, so he put the bag containing the doll on the table and began to debug the computer.

Zhou Yumeng, however, didn't stand on ceremony. She sat down on the spot, grabbed a bag of potato chips, and started eating. She watched Xia Shen, who was busy pulling up project files, with an appreciative look.

To be honest, a man who gets serious is quite handsome.

Of course, the premise is that it must be the person who lives in your heart.

Xia Shen quickly made preparations and adjusted the mixing console to the appropriate parameters.

After doing all that, he said to Zhou Yumeng, "Come on, try out the sound."

"it is good."

Zhou Yumeng stood up, then stood behind the microphone, put on the monitoring headphones, and began to test her voice: "do re mi mi re do so——"

"Okay." Xia Shen nodded in satisfaction.

He selected the parameters that best suited Zhou Yumeng's voice, because he was very familiar with her vocal characteristics and could precisely adjust the sound to achieve the desired effect.

After that, we talked about the songs, which is nothing special.

After all, the songs he asked Zhou Yumeng to record this time were just so-so; basically, very few of them had any technical merit.

He can sing the whole song in one go, let alone Zhou Yumeng.

For example, the first song I'm going to record right now is "Don't Let Love Wither".

Zhou Yumeng doesn't even need to sing any lyrics, or even any lyrics at all; she only needs to sing the harmonies a few times.

"Come on, get ready, three, two, one."

Tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock—

The metronome started, and as recording began, Zhou Yumeng began to sing: "Ha~ha~ha~ha ah ha~ha~ha~"

This cycle continued until Xia Shen nodded in satisfaction: "Good!"

That's all for now.

It's over.

The main focus is on ensuring a smooth process.

What else could be done?
The subsequent recording work was basically the same.

Among the songs, "Mandarin Duck Play" is probably the most technically challenging.

But it was only a little bit.

This song has a traditional Chinese style and uses opera singing techniques.

However, in reality, this so-called ancient style opera singing is different from real opera singing. The way of producing the sound is also simplified. Strictly speaking, in most of the popular ancient style music today, the so-called opera singing can only be called half opera singing.

It's closer to a modified pop singing style.

This singing technique is not difficult for Zhou Yumeng.

But the song "Still," which followed these few tracks, was the most important. After recording several songs, Zhou Yumeng took off her monitoring headphones, looked at Xia Shen with a gaze that was both distressed and worried, and said, "Is this all you've been doing lately?"

"What's wrong? Is there a problem?" Xia Shen asked without turning his head, while processing the audio track.

"With your talent, it's a waste to do this."

"I don't think there's anything wrong with it." Xia Shen shook his head; he knew what Zhou Yumeng wanted to say.

But as I said before, he had long since stopped thinking about these issues.

"Whatever you do is still something, and sometimes entertaining the public isn't a bad thing. For musicians these days, being able to make a living is already the best outcome."

Xia Shen's words came from the bottom of his heart.

Because you not only have to see what musicians are forced to do by the market, you also have to consider how many musicians don't even have that opportunity.

To put it simply, not everyone has the opportunity to produce waste.

Moreover, after doing it for a long time, Xia Shen also figured out a lot of things.

Whether it's a catchy pop song or a classic hit with high artistic merit, they are all meant to serve the public.

As enthusiasts, they have the right to criticize you.

However, as a practitioner, you cannot blame your audience because of your own reasons; they are the ones who make your living.

Just like in the literary world, you can't look down on those who write online novels or those who read them just because you write traditional literature.

As long as we don't plagiarize or paraphrase, and just do our best, that's fine.

As for the others, the existence of the market implies its rationality; you can't force every audience member to spend their brains to appreciate things with profound meanings.

As for the rest, no matter how much the audience of high-quality music complains and criticizes the lower-tier audience, that's their business and has nothing to do with you as a professional; you can't get involved.

And
“I’m still making high-quality songs, aren’t I? For example, the songs I wrote for you, including my own albums, I’ll also put a well-produced song in as a test.” Xia Shen laughed: “It’s just that our development models and niches are different. I’m not a pure singer, I’m more like a music producer, so you don’t need to think too much about it.”

“Okay.” Zhou Yumeng nodded.

At the same time, she secretly resolved to sing the last song that Xia Shen had carefully written well.

When she received the lyrics and heard the music, her beautiful eyes widened in surprise.

Because, how should I put it?

Xia Shen's song
"It's exquisite, the production is superb, it's bound to be a hit!" Zhou Yumeng exclaimed in shock. "I told you, this is the kind of work that someone with your talent should produce."

"Is that so?" Xia Shen simply smiled faintly. "I hope so."

He might have firmly believed Zhou Yumeng's prediction before.

But now, he doesn't have any expectations.

Anyway, it was just one of his attempts.

He will continue to do so in the future.

“Okay, let’s begin,” Xia Shen said.

The recording work continued in full swing.

Time passed quickly in a flurry of activity.

When Xia Shen sent the demos of several songs to the company's mixing engineer, all that was left was post-production; all he had to do was wait.

Now that Xia Shen had finished his business, he naturally went with Zhou Yumeng to July Records, located in the Shanghai Stock Exchange Center.

To resolve issues related to Zhou Yumeng's new album, as well as the collaboration between Xia Shen and July Records.
According to Zhou Yumeng, she had already informed the company in advance, and the contract could be signed directly once Xia Shen arrived.

But when an agreement was presented to Xia Shen...
"A betting agreement?" Xia Shen was stunned, somewhat surprised.

Zhou Yumeng's brows furrowed deeply, and her pretty face darkened rapidly.

(End of this chapter)