001 . . . please stand by

We've got to start somewhere, don't we?

I'm not really sure what to say. As I told Rae, it's been over seven years since I last blogged on any regular basis, so I'm not sure how good I'll be at this, but I've noticed that I've... got a LOT of stuff to say when it comes to dubbing. So why not? Maybe I talk too much, maybe I'm going to be ignored and shoved off into this little corner of the internet to chatter myself all the way into a mental hospital, but at least I'll be amusing myself with my unnecessary opinions, right? After all, opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one, and they all stink.

So let's not start with opinions. Let's start with introductions instead.

My name is Kappa. Sort of. Clearly that's not my real name, but for all intents and purposes, we'll just go with that. I started dubbing in November of 2008 after I saw some--to be totally honest--REALLY shitty covers of songs floating around YouTube and thought 'okay wow, even I can do better than this.'

So that's what I did.

I started off with Sera Myu before being introduced to the world of Hello!Project, the latter of which is the bulk of what I dabble in now. Now mind you, prior to that November of 2008, the only singing I'd ever done was in choir class in 5th grade, so despite my embarrassingly musically talented family, and personal experience with instrumental music and music theory, I was very.... VERY green. But despite all of my suck, I adored what I was doing. It was fun, it was exciting, it was something new I could jump face first into and discover. And somehow. some very kindly, suck-forgiving groups took me in so that I could explore even further. Among those wonderful souls were such groups as Color Project, Sugoi Girls, Superstar Project, and Japan Star Project (no longer existant on YouTube).

Looking back, the dubbing world was a different sort of place back then. The quality standard across the board was painfully low. Singing halfway in the right key would get you comments like 'oh my god so EPIC!!!' and 'JUST LIKE TEH ORIGINALLLLZ!!1' and any mixing in which your speakers weren't totally blown out was 'SO PROFESH~'. When I came to start Hana Project in February of 2009, despite my shitty, inexperienced mixing and the fairly weak soloists in the cast, our first single absolutely blew people out of the water. Hell, it blew US out of the water--no one knew any better, that there was a way for dubs to sound NOT completely shitty.









The quality was absolutely deplorable, but at the time... hey, no one knew any better.

I'm not complaining, though, I swear! Had I started any later in the game, had HP started any later in the game, I don't think either it or myself would be where we are now. Not that I really KNOW where we are, mind you...

It's a weird thing. I never came into dubbing wanting to be the best, and I never started HP with the intention of making it a 'high-quality' group (as so many new groups are calling themselves these days). It kinda just happened. We all learned together, we all grew together (we still are, of course!), never really stressing over beating anyone or being "epic"--whatever "epic" really is--and bam. Wake up a year later and you run a project that's got 350 subscribers and that almost 100 people are vying to make it into.

It's kinda trippy, man. Wouldn't you think?

I'll write again later. For now, my loquaciousness meter is lowering with my eyelids, and I think I ought to just... get.. to bed.