Anticipation

As the other two songs on my EP are quite slow, I wanted to put a more upbeat track on it to grab the listeners attention. Also unlike the other songs, this one goes straight into a busy mix instead of gradually introducing the different parts.

I loved the drum track that I created so much for Autumn Rain that I decided to copy it over from that project and altered a few things just to make it sound slightly different. Also due to a faster tempo, it sounds like a completely different drum track. Like most of my songs, I started off by jamming to the drum beat. I stumbled upon a solo that I liked and decided that I would try and manufacture the rest of the song around the solo to see if that way of writing worked better for me. Unlike Autumn Rain, I structured the song with the intention of leaving room to add vocals in later as I didn't want this one to be an instrumental.

Like in the other two tracks, I recorded the guitar through midi and then layered it with each track having different effects on. Using the same technique for all three meant that the EP sounded consistent and hence very professional. When recording the vocals for this track, I did three different takes and automated them throughout the song to add dynamics. In the chorus, all three takes are playing at a similar volume. This gives clear distinction as to when the chorus comes in and gives the song a definitive structure.

One problem that I came across with this song was that some of my vocal takes sounded different. I realised this was due to the distance I was standing from the mic. Some of the recordings had a lot of low end on them which didn't fit in as the majority were quite breathy. This was because I was standing too close to the mic, hence I re-recorded some of the vocals to make them all sound similar. The reason why this was only an issue for this song was that in the chorus the tracks were all at a similar level so you were able to hear all of them instead of just the lead vocal track.

The vocal melody and lyrics in this song are quite poppy, however, I feel this will play into my favour. Having one track that is very commercial may mean that it is seen by a wider audience which will, in turn, attract a larger audience to my music.

For all three tracks, I sent the vocals to a bus channel that had a reverb plugin on it to make the track feel like it is been recorded in the same place. By doing this I am able to adjust how much I send from each channel to get a good balance throughout.