The First Real Take

CHAPTER-8

The studio smelled familiar.

Coffee. Warm electronics. Something faintly metallic beneath it all.

I’d been in recording rooms before... smaller ones, cramped ones, places where the walls were scuffed and the equipment had stories older than me. Studios where you learned to make do, learned to listen, learned to trust your voice even when everything else felt uncertain.

This wasn’t that.

This place was bigger. Cleaner. Purpose-built.

Everything had its own space, and somehow that made me feel like I needed to earn mine.

I stood just inside the doorway, adjusting the strap of my bag.The room was alive with quiet movement, engineers setting levels, screens lighting up, cables coiled with practiced ease.

No one rushed. No one hesitated.

They all looked like they knew exactly what they were doing.

I told myself I did too.

This wasn’t my first recording session. I’d sung into professional microphones before. I knew how to warm up, how to breathe, how to find the note and stay there.

But this wasn’t a demo.

This wasn’t a track that was going to stay small.

This was the version people would hear. The one that would be dissected, replayed, compared…

not just to my past work, but to hers.

I shifted my weight, feeling the familiar tension settle in my chest.

I wasn’t scared of the studio.

I was scared of what it meant to be here.

I eventually made it to the recording room.

A soft click sounded behind the glass, followed by a voice through the speakers.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

Simple. Neutral. No pressure in the words themself which somehow made them heavier.

I nodded even though no one needed to see it and stepped further into the booth. The door closed behind me with a gentle thud, sealing me in. The air inside felt different. Thicker. Like it expected something.

I set my bag down slowly and slipped on the headphones. They rested heavier than the ones I was used to, snug around my ears, cutting the room into something smaller and more intimate. My own breathing sounded louder than it should have.

I rolled my shoulders once, twice. Stretched my neck. Routine motions. Muscle memory doing its best to keep my mind from spiraling.

You’ve done this before, I told myself.
Just another microphone. Just another song.

But when I looked up, the mic stood there like a quiet witness, polished and expensive, unforgiving in its clarity. This wasn’t the kind that hid imperfections. This was the kind that caught everything: the hesitation before a note, the breath you took too late, the doubt you didn’t quite bury.

A light blinked on.

Recording.

The instrumental faded in, soft and measured, filling my ears until there was nothing else. No room. No people. Just the music and the space it left for me.

I closed my eyes.

The first line came out carefully. Controlled. Too careful.

I could hear it immediately-

the way my voice held back, the way I was guarding it like something fragile. It was clean. Technically fine.

And empty.

Halfway through the verse, I stopped.

“I- sorry,” I said into the mic, my voice smaller than I wanted it to be.

The engineer’s voice came back, calm. “All good. Take your time.”

Take your time.

I swallowed and nodded again, even though my reflection in the glass looked unconvinced.

I tried again.

This time I leaned into the note just a little more, loosened my grip on it. It felt better. Warmer. But halfway through, doubt crept in again, tightening my chest, pulling me back before I even realized it.

I cut myself off.

Silence rushed in, louder than the music ever was.

I pressed my lips together, frustration blooming beneath my ribs. This was the part I hated the most.

Knowing what I wanted to sound like and feeling the gap between that and what came out.

From behind the glass, someone raised a hand, signaling a pause.

The door opened a moment later.

“Hey,” Akane’s voice said gently.

I turned to see her standing there, relaxed, unhurried, like this room didn’t demand anything from her at all. She offered a small smile, not disappointed, not impatient.

“Can I come in for a second?”

I nodded, stepping back to give her space.

She didn’t go straight to advice. She didn’t comment on the take. Instead, she leaned against the wall, arms crossed loosely, eyes thoughtful.

“You’re thinking too much,” she said finally, not unkindly. “I can hear it.”

Heat crept up my neck. “I was trying to get it right.”

“I know,” she said. “But that’s not what this song needs.”

She met my eyes then, steady and honest.

“You don’t have to prove anything here,” she continued. “Not to me. Not to them. Not to anyone listening later.”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

“This song isn’t about control,” she added softly. “It’s about trust. Letting the space exist. Letting yourself exist in it.”

I nodded slowly, the words sinking in.

She stepped back toward the door, pausing with her hand on the handle.

“One more thing,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “Don’t sing it like you’re afraid of being heard.”

Then she was gone, the door closing behind her, leaving me alone again with the mic.

I stood there for a moment longer, replaying her words.

Don’t be afraid of being heard.

I took a breath.

Deeper this time.

And stepped back up to the microphone.

The red light blinked on again.

And this time, when I sang, I stopped trying to disappear.

The first note came out different.

Not louder. Not stronger. Just… honest.

It wavered slightly at the edge, imperfect in a way that made my chest tighten, but I didn’t pull it back. I let the imperfect lyric pass through me.

I followed it with the next line, and then the next, trusting the spaces between the words instead of trying to fill them. My breath fell into rhythm with the instrumental, feeling almost in sync.

For the first time since I’d walked into the studio, I forgot about the glass.

Forgot about the people listening and watching. The comparisons waiting somewhere beyond these walls. The invisible scale I kept measuring myself against.

It was just me and the song.

When the chorus arrived, I felt it before I heard it, the lift in my chest, the ache beneath the melody.

I leaned into it, not pushing too hard, but not holding anything back either.

Letting the emotion shape the sound instead of the other way around.

I thought about the late nights spent doubting myself. The years of being told I was almost there, just not quite. The quiet moments when I wondered if I’d chosen the wrong dream.

And without meaning to, I thought of him.

The way his voice never sounded like it was trying to impress anyone. The way he listened.

Really listened like every word mattered. The steadiness of his presence, the ease of being seen without feeling examined.

The warmth returned, blooming softly in my chest.

My voice followed it.

By the time the last note faded, my hands were trembling.

This all felt like the time I went and recorded in the studio for the very first time, a few years ago.

When it was over, Akane pulled me into a brief hug and said, “You did really well. Good job.”

She sure knows how to read the people around her because I was definitely about to be feeling down with all this pressure on myself.

I didn’t know yet whether this would change everything… 

But only that there was no going back. 

END CHAPTER-8