The Mirror Home / Process
The Mirror Home is lyric-first. The subject determines the form, Derek and Mei make the creative decisions, and technology helps them finish the work across the distance between them.
Working Principle
Genre isn’t the starting point — it’s one of the tools we grab once we know what the song is actually about.
Working sequence
The sequence is consistent, but the work inside it remains flexible. Stages overlap, repeat, and reopen when the song requires another pass.
Reception
It usually starts with something that won’t leave us alone: a memory, an image, a line, a joke that’s suddenly not a joke anymore. Genre comes later. The first version of a song might be a voice memo, a blurry photo, or three chords hummed badly into a phone at 1am.
Transcription
We rewrite the lyrics until they can carry the idea on their own, without us standing next to them explaining it. Meaning, rhythm, rhyme — all edited together, not in that order. We don’t think about how a part will be performed until the words themselves hold up.
Arrangement
Once the lyric is steady, we figure out what kind of song it wants to be. A quiet confession and a joke about beards don’t get the same treatment. The arrangement stays loose until the emotional shape of the song is obvious.
Human Record
This is the part that’s just us. Derek: guitars, drums, piano, spoken word, arrangement. Mei: bass, violin, extra guitars, vocals, vocal guides, atmosphere. Everything here is played, sung, or spoken by an actual person in an actual room — just not the same room, or state.
Transmission
We use AI in production — to test arrangements, try out ideas fast, and, when a song needs it, to render the male vocal. Every generated pass is a take we listen to and either keep, junk, or send back for another round. Nothing gets used just because a computer made it. The lyrics, the arrangement choices, and every final call are ours. We want the lyrics and music we made to be as clearly ours as possible.
Preservation
Once a song’s done, it goes up along with whatever else gathered around it while we were making it. Some of those connections are obvious right away. Some don’t make sense until later.
Remote Collaboration
This whole thing runs on Zoom calls, dragged-and-dropped files, 11pm voice memos, and the occasional attempt to explain a chord change over a connection that’s already dropped twice.
Record A
Record B
Shared Work
Production Transparency
It helps us test ideas, render performances, and — since Derek’s voice was not built for this — provide the male vocal when a song calls for one. It doesn’t write the songs, and it doesn’t make the final calls. That’s still us, arguing over a shared doc at midnight.
The next Signal may require a different sound. The method remains.