Crossroad - Lead Single
I first got inspiration for this song when I was browsing through a Spotify chillhop playlist and found a song called 5:32 PM by The Deli (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADp9P3p85w0). This song is an instrumental and solely relies on strong instrumentation for its melodies. The main bit that caught my attention in this song was the drum beat. The first drop enters quite abruptly and unexpectedly and I found it very intriguing. It gives the song great dynamics and hooks you instantly. To start off with i just listened and appreciated the song for what it was. I then decided to try and "freestyle" as such over the top of it to see if i could think of any good vocal melodies. I managed to write a few different melodies which i really liked so decided to write my own track.
I started off by watching a video demonstrating some techniques on layering guitar tracks. Even though the guy in this video is playing a completely different genre to my music, all the skills are transferable to my music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8-iqB3o-jw). I decided to use a chord progression which I had written a while back. I recorded it into logic using my Focusrite midi interface with my Gibson Les Paul electric guitar. Doing this allowed me to experiment with the sounds on logic after it had been recorded as i didn't know exactly what sound I wanted at that point. I then dual tracked my guitar, panning one track to the right and the other centred but slightly louder than the other. This meant I was able to push the main sound I wanted through the lead track and have different effects coming through the second track. As I planned on having more layers build up through the song, this also left space on the left side to introduce another guitar melody.
Before now I've always had trouble creating quality drum tracks so this was something in particular that I wanted to hack and gain good knowledge on. I am also in a separate project called A Place You Like which is a duo consisting of myself and Jax Anderson. As Jax is a highly talented producer i was able to watch and learn the techniques he used to create midi drums. He used a technique where you just drag and drop when you want each component to enter and this seemed to be the best technique for me as I allowed me to create swung, jazzy, hip hop drums with ease.
As seen in this screenshot I have panned the different drum components again to create space. I also sent all of these channels to a bus which had a slight reverb on it just to make them feel less dry in the mix. For the high hats, I dragged the file I was using into a sampler and then used a midi keyboard to play when I wanted them. I changed the velocities of the individual hits to add some dynamics. In addition to this, I used a stereo delay to relay the sound and to exaggerate the change in velocities. As the main focus of my new style of music is the instrumentation, for this track I added all the parts I wanted through different guitar and base, and then added the vocal line after. This meant I had a good idea how present I wanted my vocals to be.
A big challenge in this track was getting the right sound for the guitar solo. I wanted it to stand out in the track whilst complimenting everything else. The vibe I was aiming for was a jazzy, twangy guitar vibe and to get this I added these plugins. The amp had the biggest impact as when I increased the tremolo setting, it really gave the sound some character and made it have an instant impact.
My inspiration behind the lyric writing of this song was the picture you can see at the very top of the page. I had already written a melody when singing over the top of the track but needed lyrics that flowed with it. The line "meet me at the crossroad" was one of the first thoughts that came to my head and it fit right in with the melody line I had, hence I wrote the track around that premise. I generally tend to write lyrics that involves two people, usually a boy and a girl, and their point of views on situations.
When recording the vocals I did three recordings panning one left and the other right, both with their volumes down considerably. When a touch of delay is added it to these tracks that are a lot lower in the mix, it creates a very warm sound and compliments the lead vocal line perfectly. This video explained that if I was going to do this, I should compress and EQ the tracks so that they don' create a chorus effect (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo-131eIGm0). However, at some points in the song I actually wanted that chorus sound so I automated the left and right vocal up slightly.
Even after I had mixed everything together, I felt like there was still something missing at the beginning and end of the track. I tried adding some light keys but it felt like too much and was a bit overpowering. I then added a sample of some vinyl cracking and put it low in the mix. This was exactly what it needed as it just filled out space whilst still allowing the main melodies to be pushed through.
Overall as my first song in my new genre, I was very happy with the outcome. The writing, recording and production side of this song has increased my skills dramatically and has enabled me to do the same process quicker and to a higher ability for my next songs.
I started off by watching a video demonstrating some techniques on layering guitar tracks. Even though the guy in this video is playing a completely different genre to my music, all the skills are transferable to my music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8-iqB3o-jw). I decided to use a chord progression which I had written a while back. I recorded it into logic using my Focusrite midi interface with my Gibson Les Paul electric guitar. Doing this allowed me to experiment with the sounds on logic after it had been recorded as i didn't know exactly what sound I wanted at that point. I then dual tracked my guitar, panning one track to the right and the other centred but slightly louder than the other. This meant I was able to push the main sound I wanted through the lead track and have different effects coming through the second track. As I planned on having more layers build up through the song, this also left space on the left side to introduce another guitar melody.
To get an idea for different sounds, I experimented with a few presets from the logic library. For the lead guitar, I ended up creating my own channel strip. It contained a channel EQ, compressor, some slight echo and then all looped back through an amp. I boosted the mid to high-end frequencies to exaggerate the treble sound I was aiming for. This resulted in a clean sounding guitar that sounded pretty, but not too full leaving space for other instruments to fill.
Before now I've always had trouble creating quality drum tracks so this was something in particular that I wanted to hack and gain good knowledge on. I am also in a separate project called A Place You Like which is a duo consisting of myself and Jax Anderson. As Jax is a highly talented producer i was able to watch and learn the techniques he used to create midi drums. He used a technique where you just drag and drop when you want each component to enter and this seemed to be the best technique for me as I allowed me to create swung, jazzy, hip hop drums with ease.
As seen in this screenshot I have panned the different drum components again to create space. I also sent all of these channels to a bus which had a slight reverb on it just to make them feel less dry in the mix. For the high hats, I dragged the file I was using into a sampler and then used a midi keyboard to play when I wanted them. I changed the velocities of the individual hits to add some dynamics. In addition to this, I used a stereo delay to relay the sound and to exaggerate the change in velocities. As the main focus of my new style of music is the instrumentation, for this track I added all the parts I wanted through different guitar and base, and then added the vocal line after. This meant I had a good idea how present I wanted my vocals to be.
A big challenge in this track was getting the right sound for the guitar solo. I wanted it to stand out in the track whilst complimenting everything else. The vibe I was aiming for was a jazzy, twangy guitar vibe and to get this I added these plugins. The amp had the biggest impact as when I increased the tremolo setting, it really gave the sound some character and made it have an instant impact.My inspiration behind the lyric writing of this song was the picture you can see at the very top of the page. I had already written a melody when singing over the top of the track but needed lyrics that flowed with it. The line "meet me at the crossroad" was one of the first thoughts that came to my head and it fit right in with the melody line I had, hence I wrote the track around that premise. I generally tend to write lyrics that involves two people, usually a boy and a girl, and their point of views on situations.
When recording the vocals I did three recordings panning one left and the other right, both with their volumes down considerably. When a touch of delay is added it to these tracks that are a lot lower in the mix, it creates a very warm sound and compliments the lead vocal line perfectly. This video explained that if I was going to do this, I should compress and EQ the tracks so that they don' create a chorus effect (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo-131eIGm0). However, at some points in the song I actually wanted that chorus sound so I automated the left and right vocal up slightly.
Even after I had mixed everything together, I felt like there was still something missing at the beginning and end of the track. I tried adding some light keys but it felt like too much and was a bit overpowering. I then added a sample of some vinyl cracking and put it low in the mix. This was exactly what it needed as it just filled out space whilst still allowing the main melodies to be pushed through.
Overall as my first song in my new genre, I was very happy with the outcome. The writing, recording and production side of this song has increased my skills dramatically and has enabled me to do the same process quicker and to a higher ability for my next songs.
Comments
Post a Comment