【Original Song】 Moona Hoshinova - Taut Hati, A good slice of life song

 

Moona Hoshinova just released a new original song called "Taut Hati" or "Linked Heart". It's an ode for her friendship with her two genmates, Iofi and Risu. The song describes how they always support each other.

It's a feels good song. The song started with staccato guitar, a signature lightness in slice of life. Later, it would build up with piano, light drum play and finger flick as main snare.

Why is this so special and feels repeatable for me? It's because most of the instruments are real instruments! I feel need to appreciate the song because of that.

The bass random distortion, especially in the slide portion, feels really personal. I don't think this kind of bass can be reproduce with software. Rudy Zulkarnaen really played hard on this. I love how Ari Renaldi minimized the compression to allow the natural sound of the bass.

When I tried to compare with Tulus' Hati-hati di Jalan, the bass has less treatment. It has less reverb. For the production stand of view, I feel Tulus has more treatment on balancing in music production. May be a budget thingie...

It's not a bad thing. This song slaps. For majority of people who listen this song while doing other things, it is not noticeable.

My personal view about balancing is a delicate job. My church's album Haleluya Ministry was recorded in the 90s. Even though we have the original master tape, the re-released album feels different. As my memory served, I remember that on the original release, we sent the master to BASF lab for balancing while on the re-release I believe they only sent the master for production. 

Nowadays, we only producing music in DAW. It's a good thing because DAWs lower the cost multiple times. We can have so many takes and choose the feels right one. It is different when using 32 track tape, we really need to take the whole thing because we can't really predict the position of the song. I remember we need to re-take the whole song because the producer felt the singing better than the first take.

Everybody can record their own song now with affordable cost. However, Moona's "Taut Hati" gets elevated by the real string produced by Budapest Scoring. Nothing beats real instrument, especially the String section.

As Guruh Soekarno Putra said on the Sound Taste, the real string instrument elevates, makes the sound bold (rich). From my listening experience, Ari Renaldi seems makes the String sound tamer than Tulus' song. Again, may be because of the budget thingie. But it really is elevating the sound. You can feel the goosebumps starts at 1:11. It brings the sound dynamics to the peak.

Speaking of dynamics, there are different techniques which probably a signature for some of the composer. The purpose of them is to bring dynamics to the song.

On the other HoloID song like Bokura Ga Kuru Kara, Eka Gustiwana introduce bridge with lowering the tempo to reset the tension. On Zeta's You're Mine, Yusuke Nakamura introduce Rap. These are landmines because different part like that risks of making people thrown out from the song immersion.

On "Taut Hati", the song mood is elevating gradually until the end by adding the instruments. Ari Renaldi added layer upon layer of instrument to elevate the music. That's why the Strings felt earned. 

For Moona, I think she has produced a good sound here. I can see that she can go to higher level with her sound produced at 0:59. She is really talented.

Gosh, I feel like I'm bashing on Moona. But really, her vocal is good in this. It's just that I feel that her musical training regiments she can push her dynamics more. You know, that Asian father thingie, felt like A won't good enough because I see there is an A+. 

I like her backing vocal and her main sing here. So, there is not much I can tell you about that. I'm not really that good for describing vocal terms. 

Anyway,

This song is good and my ear will not bleed from repeat plays. Congratulations, Moona.