Fall Back Into Place

A “Space Song” cover by The Ririverse

May 23, 2025

TLDR: I’ve made a cover of “Space Song” by Beach House and as my first experience of the kind it was quite a challenge. SCROLL ALL THE WAY DOWN FOR THE COVER ITSELF!

A thumbnail to my first ever YouTube video, you guys!

Ok, I’ve been teasing this more than what can be considered humane and finally, FINALLY - today’s the day. Today I’m releasing my first ever cover song together with the first video I’ve ever finished by myself. Yes, you can definitely see from the quality of it that it is my first one but I thought: screw it, everyone started somewhere!

Today I’m launching a YouTube channel for my solo project - The Ririverse - and I’m nothing if not excited and terrified.

Making this inaugural video took me so much time, anxiety, self-discipline, procrastination, fear and pretend-competence that I repeatedly caught myself thinking: this cannot be sustainable. But looking back on it now, I think I’m slowly starting to see the way forward, which is to me the point where excitement starts to dominate the emotional ravel I’ve described above.

Just to put it in perspective: this cover took me a little bit over three weeks from start to finish. You know as much, I’ve been teasing you all along after all! And I can already hear your silent, unuttered question: but Riri, why so long?

Let’s break this baby down then!

PREFACE. I listen to “Space Song” on a loop like crazy, trying to get to its bottom and distinguish every sound I can make out with my utterly untrained ears.

DAY 0. I’m on a call with my friend

Gosha Pinchuk

. I share my findings with him and get additional input from him on things I couldn’t quite make out in the song. I create the Ableton session and structure it with all the tracks I think I’ll need.

DAY 1. I spend most of the day trying to set my studio up for recording a “Making Of” video. This includes finding a good spot for the lighting and the camera stand, cleaning up my studio, marking the equipment placement on the floor, downloading the software to capture my screen and figuring out how to record the sound from Ableton and my microphone separately. I spend the rest of the day making the beat for “Space Song” on video.

I also decide that if I film it this way, I’m gonna have to edit the process video alone for the rest of the year. I ditch the idea and decide to shoot it once the song is done - in more of a show-and-tell format.

I post the progress snippet to Substack: here!

DAY 2. After my day job, I sprint to meet my friend and borrow his acoustic guitar for my recording. I come home and spend a couple of hours recording a live bass part with my more than humble bass skills. I cut together the best takes. I then design the two arpeggio sounds for the song and program them in MIDI.

Finally, I post the progress snippet to Substack: here!

DAY 3. After yet another day at work, I record the solo on the electric guitar. Somehow it works pretty much on the first try! I’m flabbergasted! I also find and adjust some patches for the main synths of the song. I go on to record said synths.

I post the progress snippet to Substack: here!

DAY 4. More synths! During my lunch break, I design and save the remaining synth patches on my Korg Prologue. In the evening, I first play the acoustic guitar and then program the MIDI for the last two synths.

DAY 5. Vocals! The easiest and the most difficult part at the same time. This song is not quite in my range but what can I do - I adore Beach House so here we are! Main vocals and harmonies are down!

Plus a little demo on Substack: here!

DAY 6 - DAY 13. My friend Gosha and I slowly mix the song on Zoom. I don’t understand a lot about mixing and I’m super grateful to have him by my side - so that’s that. He also masters the cover and sends me the final version on Day 13.

DAY 8. Video shoot for the cover. I had finally gotten all my equipment, prepared a backdrop and recruited my amazing roommate to help me with the shooting. We wait until it gets dark (which is pretty late in May) and spend hours filming all the different scenes with my new (used) camcorder. We hope it’s enough because there’s no way we’re building up that backdrop again anytime soon!

DAY 9 - DAY 11. Shooting days for the “Making Of” - a detailed video on my recording process that I will post several weeks from now. To be quite honest, I’ve severely underestimated how nerve-wracking it is to speak your non-native language on camera. It’s VERY nerve-wracking! So nerve-wracking in fact that it took me three full after-work nights to shoot the footage for what’s going to be a 10-15 minute video. I did cry on several occasions but it also seems like I persevered in the end. We will see in editing, I suppose, ha-ha!

DAY 14 - DAY 18. These days I spent being afraid of starting to edit the video. But at least I drew a bunch of animations for the title cards of both the cover video and the making of video in Procreate.

DAY 19 - DAY 24. Editing the cover video - and that with zero knowledge of editing. I had to do everything from setting up the editing software to converting the old camcorder format so that the software can read it, to setting up the session, to the actual cutting. In this, I do certifiably suck! At first my cuts looked like absolute and utter garbage, abrupt and exceptionally tasteless. I sighed, and cried, and clenched my teeth and restarted, and restarted, and restarted. Slowly, the video started to take shape and now here it is in front of you!

It’s definitely not perfect but after years and years of sitting on a bunch of music material against my will I’m completely done with perfect. This cover video is gonna suck and I’m gonna love it!

And here it is! Enjoy! Or don’t :)