Melissa Loretta is a small-town Canadian Singer-Songwriter with hits signed to major EDM record labels such as Armada Records, Kontor Records, Spinn'n Records, Flashover Recordings and Adjusted Music.
Melissa is the voice and lyrics behind the chart topping hit "Skyfire," (No. 4 of the ASOT Top 100 of 2011) with producer Shogun. "Skyfire" has been nominated for the IDMA 2012 "Best Trace Track" award.
Melissa Loretta also appears on the Gold-winning album "ATB - Distant Earth," which landed at #7 in the German mainstream Billboard Charts.
For information on Songwriting or Vocal Recording Services, please contact Management at info@melissaloretta.com
On Thursday March 22nd, 2012, Melissa Loretta will walk the red carpet and attend the IDMA’s in Miami as her joint track “Skyfire” with producer Shogun is up for an International Dance Music Award - “Best Trance Track.” This nomination, after so many years of hard work in songwriting, singing and recording, is such a dream come true experience in so many ways. Stay tuned to find out if the voters’ choice will make “Skyfire” the Best Trance Track of the year in 2012 ;)
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RIP my precious doggy “Daisy” - She passed away in April 2011, at only eight years old.
I was struck with so much sadness and grief in November 2010, when my family found out Daisy was very ill and would not live much longer. During that time leading up to her passing and in the time after, the only thing that gave me much comfort was prayer and songwriting. Through her sickness and passing, Daisy inspired the lyrics for a few of my songs, including “Halo.”
She was a precious loving pet, I will always love and miss her very much.
Visit the MELISSALORETTA.COM for song lyrics and more
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Most people I run into often ask me where I record, and they usually have this very false glamorous perception of my world when it comes to stepping into the studio.
“You probably go downtown Toronto or something like that and record in a high-end studio for your vocal work, right?” they often say. I usually smile and giggle a little bit.
“Well, no actually, not quite. I record in, well, my bedroom home studio” I reply. A lot of laughs will soon follow, accompanied by puzzled or unbelieving looks.
- I have to say, that while I record my dry vocals in a home studio set-up, the producers I work with are the ones who do all the magic of producing my voice with the track. Without their amazing talent, well, you would only hear dry vocal work.
The truth is I used to record in a professional studio a long long time ago, until I realized that for the price of studio time I could save up, purchase some recording gear and eventually learn the ropes enough to record my own work.
Once I learned enough about which patch cord plugged into which machine, which buttons to press to make the record button flash, and got past the ‘oops that was so wrong” frustrating moments, I soon found the flexibility for recording and songwriting to be out of this world. There was no time pressure anymore. It was just me, the microphone, the record button and endless freedom to actually enjoy myself in the studio. And when a singer is relaxed, so is her voice.
Was all of this easy to learn? Not really. Did it take a lot of time to learn? Yes it did. Can anyone learn it? YES YOU CAN! - that’s the good news ;) All you need is some determination. With that you can learn almost anything I always believe.
I used to drive a half hour each weekend to a music store and rent a recording console when I was in University back in 2005. I would get the machine on a Friday night, spend all my time with the recording manual well into the night, then plug away recording all of Saturday (and literally I mean ALL OF SATURDAY LOL). Sunday morning I would burn the song onto a CD, then erase all my work on the machine (so that no one would steal my song ideas so I worried haha) hop back in my car, drive a half hour back to the store and return the console. The following weekend I would repeat the whole process again, only to be met with the challenge of sometimes not being able to rent the same machine twice. And so I would have to spend all of Friday night again reading a whole new recording manual. *sigh* lol. It was work, but I loved every moment of it.
This was all before the days I realized recording songs on a computer was so much easier. And before I had high speed internet or high speed anything - I used to write my University papers on a very slow old computer, so the thought of recording my voice onto computer software seemed out of the question at the time haha.
Not only did I have to become a self-taught Sound Engineer back in those days but I also had to become an architect of sorts…I soon discovered I would have to build my own vocal recording booth to work on creating lots of dead air for the best possible result of pure sound to filter through. Was it challenging? Definitely, but through trial and error, I had found a solution…
Take all the shelves out of my closet and build a vocal booth with all sorts of padding inside that space! Did it work? I must say it was hilarious trying to explain to friends and family why I no longer had a proper functioning closet anymore, but it was well worth the sacrifice of having clothes scattered here, there and everywhere in my room - dead air was accomplished!
Would I have it any other way? Definitely not. I feel most at home in that studio space for recording, I feel like myself, which allows for freedom of expression and soul when songwriting and recording.
So now you know the truth, but shhh, it’s just our little secret okay?
I hope that up and coming artists will find this story encouraging. I would never have thought in a million years that my childhood dream of gaining international recognition as a singer-songwriter would ever come true. But when you love something enough, and you work hard and long at it enough, and find people who believe in you and who encourage you, you can be sure you’re always moving forward, no matter how small the steps or the journey may seem at first.
xx,
Melissa Loretta