Talk about last minute things coming together at... well... the last minute.
I reached out to my friend Amy, who was the only one that could pull this off. She had found an awesome guitar track of The Sound of Silence in a Youtube video. She also found a nice nature sounds video as well.
She started with the nature sounds playing on one computer. Next she started the guitar track on another computer. And then she added her vocals singing into a GameBoy headset all recording into a third computer.
While the first one sounded good, the volume was low, so she finagled a few things and came up with one that was a bit better.
Later tonight after I had sent the audio off the Brian (Imelda's life partner), Amy told me she might still have the audio of the vocals only if that would do me any good. I told her yes, but only if there was a way to strip audio from Youtube videos.
About an hour of searching, and I found a free program that did just that. I sent her a text saying that I had managed to strip the audio and asked if she still had the vocal. About half an hour later, she sent it too me. (I didn’t know until much later that she had rerecorded it.)
So, it took me about an hour using N-Trak studio (the program I use to create my meditation CDs) to get a final copy. It starts out with about 10 seconds of nature sounds, then adds guitar and vocals. It all came out loud enough and perfectly balanced. I sent it off for the memorial tomorrow (er today as it was 12:30 am).
It will be part of the program for her memorial.