Sneak Peek into the Process
Introduction
The Pretty Cure (or PreCure) franchise is an action and magical girl metaverse that has spanned 18 series in 18 years and has a much-dedicated fanbase. HeartCatch PreCure! is the seventh installment in the franchise and by far the best franchise series that developed a cult following. It was created by Izumi Todo and Bandai and produced by Toei Animation and Bandai. The show features two motifs based on fashion and the language of flowers. HeartCatch PreCure! is also one of my all-time favorites in the Precure universe, so I was ecstatic to have the opportunity to dub the opening theme song, “Alright! HeartCatch PreCure!” into English.
The process included the following:
- Translating the lyrics from Japanese into English.
- Re-writing the lyrics to flow smoother in English.
- Recording and performing post-production edits in Audition and Premiere.
Translating the Lyrics
Contrary to best practices, I used Microsoft Word (MS Word) to translate and perform edits to the lyrics. The reason why I opted for MS Word rather than Phrase, MateCat, Trados, or other CAT Tools is due to logistics and time constraints while working on this project. In MS Word, I changed the layout to two columns to mimic Phrase and Trados workstations. From there, I translated the lyrics into English verbatim and went through the translated lyrics notating any possible changes using MS Word comment function.
I determined what changes were needed—whether to replace, add, or remove words or phrases—by listening to the original Japanese song with words while singing the translated lyrics over the Japanese and by singing the translated lyrics over the instrumental version—also known as karaoke version—of the song.
Once I was pleased with the revised English lyrics, it was time to record!
Post-Production
I recorded multiple rounds in Premiere but kept only the best three versions. Once I chose which clip to keep, I processed it in Adobe Audition.
In Audition, I applied the center channel extractor effect. This effect pans the sounds to the center rather than to the left and right, predominately used when recording voice, bass, and lead instruments. I also used the dynamics processing effect. This effect is widely used in audio production, and it is the process of altering the dynamic range of an audio source to make it fit more easily in the overall mix. It contains multiple features such as compressors, expanders, and noise gates. The last effect I used was the hard limiter. Hard limiter reduces the effect of audio that rises above a specified threshold to help prevent the sound from distorting and possibly damaging speakers.
Once done in Audition, I returned to Premiere and added a little bit more processing using Essential Sound. I increased the vocal presence a bit more to distinguish the main vocals from the background vocals, added a touch of reverb to mimic a warm voice, increased the dynamics of my voice for clarity, and finally raised the clip volume by half a decibel. The next step is exporting the finished project!
Conclusion
This was a very enjoyable project to work on. One difficulty I had, however, was that although the song was off-vocal for the most part, I couldn’t find a way to entirely remove the Japanese background vocals from the song without distorting the audio and destroying the aesthetics, so I tried my hardest to try to blend the two languages together. I wished I had more time to do a deep dive session on the various audio effects that exist within Premiere and Audition and how I can use these two programs in tandem to perform audio production tasks.
Regina Dukes 