The First Spark

A while ago, I saw something in the news. A Japanese salaryman dating a virtual character. He lost his girlfriend after the company went bust. Something like that. I thought it should be devastating for him. A perfect theme for a Theatre of Tragedy song. Wish they were around… pfft.

Then I thought, they may not be around but I am. Let’s do something about it. The year is 2025. You don’t have to navigate 5 people’s circumstances these days. I sat down and wrote 6 Fingered Valentine. It’s a tragedy of a man captured in his own platonic love for the virtual character. Why 6 fingers some may ask. In the early days of generative AI, digit count was one of the key giveaways for an AI-generated image. They couldn’t handle that well. Nowadays they are much better with that. But still, there is a knee-jerk reaction to count fingers when you are suspicious that an image is generated by AI.

Anyways, I came up with a prompt about how it should sound like, and Suno nailed it at the first time. It did the chorus exactly how I mumbled it while I was typing the prompt in. It was almost uncanny.

BTW, when you are dealing with AI-generated stuff, I have a 3 take rule. If I cannot get what I imagined in 3 takes, that prompt or my input is off. It’s better to give up and explore other things.

Then I did Rendered Love and I Yearn. Rendered Love is kind of similar to 6 Fingered Valentine, I Yearn is more from the perspective of the virtual character. At this point, I had no intention to turn this into a “project”; I was just trying out stuff. After three songs I felt it was going derivative, so I stopped.

The Second Spark

After like 2-3 months, I sat down again. At this point, Suno v5 and Gemini 3 were available. I wanted to try out what the new engine was capable of. I gave Gemini my 3 songs, and we came up with ideas for 3 more songs. These were Aria of the Algorithm, The Beast in the Baud, and The Sistine Simulation. I came up with the concepts, i.e., a song about Phantom of the Opera, Beauty and the Beast, and the Creation paradox, alienation from your creation, something like that. This time, I didn’t use my prompt for 6 Fingered Valentine. I asked Gemini to create it with some general direction. Also, I wanted it to create Suno structured lyrics. These are extremely important to direct Suno to do your liking.

I was very happy with the new batch too; they were all first takes. After that, I added a song, an outside perspective (Witness in the Gap). And finally, Let the Prompt Consume, where the creator/engineer gets consumed by his own creation.

Contemplation

After that, I was not sure what to do. I have some stuff to listen to and enjoy. But I was not sure about releasing it. Because in its current state (direct export from Suno), it’s not really release-worthy. It needs some mixing and mastering. And I didn’t want to invest too much time into it.

Mixing and Mastering

So I consulted Gemini. He told me it sounds great and could be release-worthy with some EQ surgery and mastering. I thought to give it a go. At first, I tried a mix. More out of curiosity. I downloaded stems from Suno. Tried to separate the tracks a bit because it was muddy when drums and guitars came on top of each other.

Unfortunately, it did not turn out well. Suno’s stem separation is not perfect, and I realized I am looking into a month-long job of correcting and modifying stems. I quit that approach after a couple of attempts.

Then I consulted Gemini again and did some EQ filtering on Audacity. The problem is the files Suno presents are already kind of mastered, almost no headroom. And when you master them again, there is not much room to play with. So we boxed the mix with some HP and LP, applied some dynamic filtering to curb some muddy parts (I used TDR Nova, great free plugin, works with Audacity). Then lowered the mix to -6db to give the master some headroom.

After that, I sent them to LANDR for mastering. I chose a low, balanced preset to be gentle. And I was happy with the result. I think probably we reached the best point we can do without proper mixing.

If I did the mix again, I know I will try to re-record some parts myself. Recording a clean guitar is probably easier than fixing a crap Suno guitar part. Same with bass. If I break out the DAW I might as well record the vocals (male). I knew where that hole was going and decided to avoid it.

In the unlikely case if this release actually turns out successful, I may do that though. Record an analog version, much cleaner. With just Ophelia’s vocals from Suno. And maybe some synths.

Release

Well, after all that trouble, it wouldn’t make sense to hold this back. So I made some research (asked Gemini) about releasing this with the minimal hassle. Decided on DistroKid + Bandcamp. Still waiting on Spotify to create an artist page so I can claim it.

The Design

I am not a designer, so this was totally unexplored territory for me. I created basic AI images before but just for fun. So it was intimidating, but I went about it with Gemini’s assistance. We created the characters (talciron.d is based on me, well, me of 15 years ago let’s say, Ophelia.wrl is purely AI generated), cover design, Bandcamp page and header, and some extra stuff to use as extra art.

Disclaimer

I don’t want to be confused with AI sloppers who do this for a living and flood the distros. I am not doing this for money, I am doing this for myself, so I wanted to add the following disclaimer to answer some people’s concerns.

THE DECLARATION OF INTENT
Regarding the Nature of "The Seventh Shadow" and the Rejection of the Algorithmic Flood.

Let it be known: Alienation by Design is not "slop." It is not a prompt fired blindly into the dark. It is a mirror held up to a dying world.

I do not use machines to bypass effort. I use them to amplify alienation. The algorithms are cold, but the turmoil they process is mine. Every glitch, every scream, every dissonance is curated from the deepest pits of my own intent. The machine is the instrument; I am the ghost haunting the code.

We exist in an era of infinite garbage—cheap renders, soulless loops, and the endless vomit of the content mill. The Seventh Shadow refuses to participate in this race to the bottom.

THE OATH OF SILENCE Scarcity is the only currency left. Therefore, I hereby declare:
NO FLOOD: There will be no daily uploads. No "content strategy." No algorithm chasing.
THE YEAR OF SHADOW: The Seventh Shadow will strictly adhere to a minimum dormant period of one year between major releases.

INTENT OVER OUTPUT: If a track does not carry the weight of my soul, it will be deleted.
We are not here to entertain the feed. We are here to haunt it.

The Future

Well, as I stated I will not be doing any Seventh Shadow stuff for a year. If I keep my motivation maybe I can think of something for Dec. 2026. But we will see.

Let the shadow hide you