Songwriting - finishing your songs - a blog series

[adrian_k]

I think if you're genuinely writing something that is personally meaningful (rather than writing to order or to formula) then there is a degree of courage required, because you're putting yourself on display. If you want to make a human connection to someone it requires exposing your own humanity.
I reckon.

Assuming you would ever let anyone else hear it! I think there is a place for writing extremely personal stuff as a means of “getting it out and looking at it” (oo-er matron). Don’t necessarily need to inflict it on others.

[Drew Stephenson]

Absolutely, just because it's finished doesn't mean it has to be shared!

[Drew Stephenson]

Dammit, I've had this instalment ready for a couple of days but my head has been mush today and I've literally forgotten it's Wednesday.

Part 12 - Production

I've gone back and forth about the order of these next two chapters several times, I'm still not sure they're in the practical order, but I think this is the right order for the finishing-your-song flow.

What is 'production' when we're talking about music and home recording? In the 'good old days' the music producer was someone who would work with the band to help them establish and execute their vision. They would cover things like artist management (making sure everyone was happy and productive), label liaison (making sure everyone was getting paid and deadlines are hit), session management (making sure the engineer and artists were on the same page), but they also had a hand in the arrangement of the track, the composition of any supporting parts and that all important job of taking the vision out of the artists' head and getting it on tape.

Sounds like a fascinating job, but how many people here can afford to pay a professional to do all that?

Yeah, me neither.

So it's just another of those hats that we, the song-writer, performer, engineer, marketer, promoter etc etc etc have to wear. Add it to the list right?

But if we just review that non-exhaustive list of producer jobs above, as the bedroom artist the thing that still needs doing is the bit about getting the vision out of our heads and onto the tape / DAW.

Production is, you'll be getting the hang of this now, another can of worms that we won't be delving deep into. Guess what, there's another book for that (The Producer's Manual by our very own Paul White), but I do have a short list of theoretical devices that can help you avoid production paralysis and actually finish your song.

Establishing a vision - Carrier & Signal

This is another of my two-part tools that I introduced back in part two with Space and Permission; this time we're looking at two core components of the song but not in the 'writing' context that we’ve been focused on so far.

Carrier and Signal is an expression I have shamelessly stolen from the world of telecommunications. A carrier wave is regular periodic wave (think of dialling in the frequency on your radio) that is modulated by an information signal (the thing that you listen to).

For the purposes of producing and finishing your music, it can be useful to think of it in a similar way. The signal here is the core bit of the song that you most want to stick in your listeners brain. The 'what have you got to say' bit that we've talked about previously. In a typical song this will be the lyrics and the vocal melody, but in an instrumental it will be the hooks or themes that you've developed to tell your musical story.

If that's the signal, the carrier is then the thing provides the platform for that signal. Let's illustrate that with a couple of examples, both from Iggy Pop (because they're what popped into my head): Lust for Life and The Passenger.

In both cases the signal is the vocal, ask someone to sing them to you and that's what you'll get back. But I'll wager a good proportion of people won't go straight into the vocal, instead they'll take a moment to remember the track and they'll do a little mental (and possibly audible) repeat of that infamous drum beat (Lust for Life) or chugging guitar part (The Passenger) first. This is the carrier, it sets the scene for the piece and takes us on through, giving the structure for the signal to hang off.

Here's a couple more examples: Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now, again the vocal is the signal but this time the strings are the carrier. Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed is another easy example; again the vocal is the signal but this time the carrier is the bass.

I don't know why I've gone all retro with these examples, let's get a bit more up to date with an instrumental example: Just Us, one of the themes from Pixar's Soul by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Here the carrier is that arpeggiated piano with the higher register piano and the synth sharing the signal duties.

And that highlights another key point, neither carrier nor signal need to stay constant throughout the piece; these burdens can, and I would say should, be shared. But we'll come back to that in a future update.

Getting back on topic then, what does this mean for finishing your song? Well firstly, are you clear on what these two elements are for your music. You're probably pretty clear on the signal(s) but it's the carrier that will define the feel and vision of the piece. Or rather, your vision will define what makes the carrier the carrier.

So how do you want the piece to sound? And does it have everything it needs to sound like that? If yes, good, move on to the next stage. If no, what's missing? Find that and fix it.

Single vs EP vs Album

Production, and establishing your vision, are obviously more complex that just Carrier and Signal of course, and one question you need to ask and answer is how this bit of music sits with a wider release. Perhaps it doesn't? It's a one-off single for a playlisting world. No-one listens to albums anymore dude, etc. etc. etc. Cool, you can work on this in isolation and it can stand on its own two feet however it so feels.

But what if you're one of these old-fashioned people who still writes and creates albums or EPs? Old timers like, I dunno, Beyonce or Taylor Swift? Because then your production has to factor in how this bit of music fits with all the other bits that go with it.

We are no longer in the days of sticking a bunch of tracks together to make up a 45 minute chunk and lobbing them out as a release. If you're planning on releasing an EP or an album these days there has to be a coherent reason for those songs to sit together, and there has to be a bit of sonic gel to make them work as a collection. Otherwise all you're doing is trying to make someone's playlist for them.

Have a listen to Beyonce's or Swift's recent albums and you'll hear a clearly established sonic signature that works with the songs' signal to establish that overall vision.

And just as it does with your individual songs, an album has to say something as a collective work - so your production job isn't finished until you understand not just how the song works, but how it works as part of the collection.

I reckon.

One final thought on production then, that looks at one of the inherent tensions in music production.
Ear Candy vs Honesty.

I like to think of this as a production continuum. At one end we have the world of chart pop; I've heard it said that if you want to trouble the charts then your music needs to introduce a new or different element every seven seconds to keep your listener interested. That element doesn't need to be a whole new instrument, it might be a guitar lick, a synth swell, a delay repeat, a dropped sound, it doesn't matter. This is the Ear Candy end of the spectrum and if you listen to anything in the charts you'll hear these things constantly popping in and out to keep things evolving and interesting. Let It Be by Labrinth is probably one of my favourite examples of how to do this well and the video does a nice job of highlighting some of these elements.

At the other end of the continuum is probably a classical recording. Your job is not to start getting creative with the autopan and flanger, it's to give (or give the illusion of) an honest reproduction of the sound in the concert hall. The 'ear candy' is all in the composition thankyouverymuch.

Now have a think about your music, your references and your genre styles, and think about where you sit on that continuum. If your style is a three-piece punk band in an 'as live' scenario then you're going to be pretty close to the 'honest' end of the spectrum - it's about the power and the energy. But if you're playing in the more refined waters of the pop ballad, or EDM then you might be surprised at how much Ear Candy there is going on in your genre.

What might seem like a simple production often has a lot more going on under the skin. It wasn't until I started really listening to Good Man by Josh Ritter to do a cover version that I realised how much more there was going on than the simple piano, bass, drums, guitar and vocal that I'd noticed up to that point.

So line up those references and have a proper listen to all that stuff that's happening at the edge of the stereo spread and hiding underneath the lead parts.

Right, so that's you sorted for setting out your vision, next time we'll talk about what we need to do to get there.

Full blog and links etc here: https://roughtorelease.blogspot.com/202 ... ction.html

[alexis]

.
The thought pops in my head now and then that the honesty/vulnerability aspect of production is as critical as it is in the song-writing process. In other words, there has to be a match between the style and the message.

I guess, as in all matters of taste, one listener's match is another's jarring clash.

These are just musings, droppings more like it, from one wanna be songwriter, performer, producer. I've kind of stopped trying to mix and produce like Quincy Jones, or George Martin, or whoever produces Taylor Swift's albums (I've missed the boat on doing them for 10,000 hrs to to develop even rudimentary skills); instead I'd be happy just to create some things that touch people on the inside.

Anecdote here that highlights a target of mine: In the 60's the Nashville sound was uber-produced, lush strings, myriads of back up singers, almost the Country sonic equivalent of Spector's wall of sound. On top of that it was very formulaic, which I guess is an unnecessary clarification of something called the Nashville Sound.

Anyway, in the 70's Willy Nelson shows up with some tapes, and the record execs tell him these are beautiful songs, best demos they've ever heard, and they're going to kill it on the charts when they're all spiffed up and released in the best Nashville Sound way possible. At which point Willy says something like, "No you don't understand, I want them to be released exactly as I've presented them to you".

In the end, "when the battle stopped and the smoke cleared" ( ), Willy had won, his vision of honesty and simplicity in production to match the songs themselves came out on top, and Red Headed Stranger was released "naked". And the rest is history! https://altrockchick.com/2022/07/17/wil ... ic-review/

So, writing and singing, and recording and producing like Willy is one of my goals. Hahahahaha!

PS: Drew, fantastic body of work here ... I see potentially an SOS-endorsed Mike Senior-type book in the future!!

[Drew Stephenson]

I agree: production, message and song have to go together. I think it was an SOS article (unsurprisingly enough) where a songwriter said something along the lines of 'if you're singing about having a broken heart, I don't want to hear something pitch perfect, I want to hear that catch in the voice that tells me you're in pain.'
Beware the perils of over-production!

[James Perrett]

...there has to be a match between the style and the message.

I'd agree that both have to match - but I would also add that you shouldn't be too fixed on the style. Be open to trying things in a very different way because there may be more than one approach that works.

[amanise]

Here again, one size does not fit all. Sometimes a complete contradiction of style can be irresistible. I'm thinking of the Scissor Sisters' version of Comfortably Numb. If I tried to describe a disco version of that song you'd never get it, but it's brilliant! I do prefer the original (before my account gets deleted) - but their version sold lots and lots.

Contradicting style content is best used for comedic effect though IMHO. But again, that's another perfectly good way of doing things. Who doesn't like a laugh? Or - what if you just enjoy being weird? You're unlikely to sell much - but Zappa did. Here's to all the weird experimentalists!

[Drew Stephenson]

I think that's all part of the production vision though. Building interest through juxtaposition is just one of the tools in the box. Sad sounding songs with happy messages, and vice versa, are a pretty regular example of the 'spice' concept from part 2, but they still have to do it coherently.
That Scissor Sisters track works within itself, but if you were to take that vocal track and stick it on Pink Floyd's instrumental? Or even take that production style and try to apply it to the Floyd multi-tracks? Then I think you'd have a mess that didn't know what it was trying to be.

But these are, as always, pointers not rules.

[alexis]

...Here again, one size does not fit all...

Absolutely, hammer to nail head!

.

...Sometimes a complete contradiction of style can be irresistible. I'm thinking of the Scissor Sisters' version of Comfortably Numb....

Had to look it up - !
Another example that of mismatched styles and message is "Help" by the Beatles - all jangly and happy sounding, but a message from someone in emotional turmoil. (Assuming there was a real-world basis for those lyrics, I wonder how the songwriter felt about not being heard despite exposing himself so vulnerably to the public. "What do I have to do around here to let you people know I'm F'd up??").
.

...Here's to all the weird experimentalists!

Yup!!

[Drew Stephenson]

Part 13 - Demo Dub Delete - the capture and creation cycle

In the previous chapter we looked at production and setting out the vision for the song.

So now we have our spark and spice mixed together and our direction set, how do we go about turning that into a reality?

If you're a proper composer or you're just really good at thinking about musical parts, it might be as simple as writing down everything you want to play, hitting record, and playing it all.

If you're anything like me then you might be quite a long, long way from that.

So I have a 'Demo Dub Delete' cycle, and you might find it helpful too.

Demo

Firstly, and most importantly, capture the essence of the song as completely and accurately as you can.

For me, this involves practicing to a metronome a few times and then recording to a click. As well as being a bit of good discipline, this also makes it easier to add midi parts later if the baseline is solid.

It can get a bit awkward if you have a tempo or time-signature change, ideally work out where those things apply and set up your DAW accordingly. Otherwise just accept that at some point you're either going to be working off grid or doing a fair bit of corrective editing.

Depending on your set up at home, and how quick you're acting, these first parts may end up featuring in the final recording, so personally I always trying and separate out the vocal and instrument parts right from scratch, and always try and properly 'perform' them.

Try not to settle for just an 'OK' take because, as well as being potential material for the final thing, a half-decent take will also give you a bit of passion to work with when you're creating your other parts.

You might be surprised at how often demo takes make it onto the final release.

Dub

OK, you've got your core song parts recorded, the whole thing has a structure, and you've taken a few minutes to mark up the different sections of the song* in the DAW to help navigate things. Now you need to add those extra parts that will take you towards your vision.

At this point the critical question to ask is 'what does it need?' When you're working on your own, probably with templates and a set of 'preferred' instruments (virtual or otherwise), it's very easy to get into a kind of 'production formula'; especially if you're working on an album or EP where you're aiming for a bit of sonic consistency across the record. But you still need to ask this question every time. It will save you a lot of time in the long run if you only create what you need, not all that you can.

But, assuming that I've started with a guitar and vocal track, and that I'm working towards some kind typical-band-style production, then the first thing I'll typically look at adding is drums or percussion.

There are a couple of reasons for this, primarily because I find it much easier to fit a bassline to a drum groove than vice-versa, and secondarily it means I can get rid of the click track and play any future parts over the top of the drums. This feels more natural and allows you to naturally build crescendos, drops and the other artefacts of tension and release with each subsequent part.

Having got the groove, the rhythm instrument and the vocal melody sorted I'll then generally add the bass to give everything a solid foundation and a structure to hang harmonies and other melodic parts from.

And then we ask that 'what does it need?' question again. There is a school of thought that says to compete commercially a song needs at least five different melodic parts or themes that come in and out during the piece. Personally I think that depends a lot on the genre, but it's not a bad rule of thumb for anything that you're expecting to sit in the 'popular' or middle-of-the-road categories.

So let's take our hypothetical example above and assume that the vibe we're going for needs a bit of electric guitar to add to our initial acoustic recording, and a bit of Hammond organ.

Now the easy, and boring, thing to do - and the thing many of us start with - is to take that initial guitar part, maybe a chord sequence, and pretty much duplicate it on the electric guitar and the organ. Maybe add a guitar lick or two or a chord inversion on the Hammond.

And then everything sounds like a mush in the middle, so we pan the electric guitar and organ out to each side and that's kind of OK isn't it? Until we listen in mono** and it all becomes a mush again.

So instead of just duplicating my chords on the guitar I'll put some time in and come up with another melodic part. Probably based around those chords but with less cross-over and probably working in different areas of the fretboard. And then, because I'm not any kind of keyboard player, I'll then go through a heavily manual process of working through those chords in the midi editor, playing with different inversions, and cutting stuff out until I've actually got an interesting melody or two going on there as well.

Pop some backing vocals on the choruses and bob's your uncle.

Right?

Delete

One of the most common, let's call them 'problematic artistic choices' - because they're not really errors or problems per se - that I hear in songs and mixes is one of continuity. And by this I mean a song will typically start with one or two elements, and then things will be gradually added and added as the song goes on, with the producer trying to create an ever 'bigger' sound at the final chorus.

And when you listen to it, inevitably things are added but then never removed, there's too much continuity. So the intro starts with a bit of acoustic guitar, then the rhythm section comes in during the first verse, then the electric guitar and the Hammond at the chorus... and then all of these elements stay for pretty much the whole track. So at the second chorus we need to add more stuff. And then more still at the third. And even more for the repeater. And it all ends up sounding muddy and flat.

So here's another rule of thumb for you: nothing should play all the way through a track.

Even the carrier that we talked about last time, the thing that sets the scene, that can be dropped once the vibe is established. Doesn't have to be for long, but you have to let something out to make space to let something new in.

As we said previously, the easiest way to make something loud is to make the previous section quiet. The easiest way to make something wide and enveloping is to make the previous section narrow and focused. So before you think about what to add in, look at what you can take out.

Be ruthless, go back to the 'what does it need?' question and ask that of every musical part in every part of the song. Sure, your Hammond part may chime beautifully with your electric guitar riff, but it'll have much more impact if it only features a couple of times in the song; not all the way through every verse.

That may be a lovely bass riff leading into the third chorus, but would greater tension be established by dropping it out?

Just because something is nice, or you enjoyed playing it, or it helps the mix balance doesn't mean it needs to be there. Or at least not there as much.

Here's a trio of examples from some of my favourite bands, really just so I have an excuse to go and listen to them again.

Public Service Broadcasting, Go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHIo6qwJarI

So much of the vibe for the song comes from that fast-strummed*** guitar, but even that really dominant carrier drops out around 2:30 to change the vibe.

The National, I'll Still Destroy You: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPp-3QSXf1g

That drum machine part is the thing that ties all the different parts together but still drops out at key points to allow that contrast and resulting tension and release. And the fact that almost everything drops out at certain points means that there's then plenty of quiet to go loud from.

And finally, a masterclass on dropping things out and going big with very little: Josh Ritter's Thin Blue Flame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHdEt1tQNFU

There are only four parts to this song; vocal, electric guitar, piano and drums, but even so he's not scared to drop stuff out all over the shop.

So delete, delete, delete. And then maybe some more.

Unless of course you're one of those lucky people who can just listen to a piece and say, "Oh this needs two bars of mellotron in the second verse and some taiko drums in the pre-chorus," or whatever else the song needs.

But if you've already got those skills you're probably not the target audience of this blog...

* Do get into the habit of doing this early on, it will make things much easier.

** Always check your recordings in mono, it will highlight all manner of issues that you can miss if you only listen in stereo.

*** Apparently this song is at this pace because that's as fast as he can physically play it.

Usual linkage: https://roughtorelease.blogspot.com/202 ... e-and.html

[BWC]

Unless of course you're one of those lucky people...

...But if you've already got those skills...

Skills rarely come from luck.

[BigRedX]

Unless we've been gigging a song regularly for more than a year and fine-tuned it during that time, I will always have a second look the parts I wrote/played once the vocals have been recorded, because at that point I find that often they need to be adjusted (usually by being simplified) in order to make the vocal the star.

I find that there is a strange reluctance amongst musicians who write by recording to revisit parts that have been laid down early on in the process, even though IMO the song would benefit massively. They might play with the EQ and level or mute some sections, but I find very few of them will go back and make a new recording of a part.

I can understand this if you are paying for studio time or if you are working on tape with a limited track count where changing something recorded early in the process might mean having to start from scratch, but for those of us recording at home with unlimited tracks that is not the case so why the reluctance? Even though I find that I can "hear" most of the rest of the song in my head once I have worked main themes, it may become more obvious that certain parts aren't working as well as they could once everything has been recorded, and if the there is no technical or financial reason to have to keep them as they are why don't they get changed?

Hopefully this will generate a whole load of posts from others who say that they always go back and change parts that are no longer working as well as they could once everything else has been recorded.

[tea for two]

Unless we've been gigging a song regularly for more than a year and fine-tuned it during that time, I will always have a second look the parts I wrote/played once the vocals have been recorded, because at that point I find that often they need to be adjusted (usually by being simplified) in order to make the vocal the star.

Tru.
There's nothing like gigging with a song to hear how it goes down with the audience.
Was like this for famouse composers musicians bands going back to Minstrels, Baroque era, Jazz.
We could write what we think is an earth shattering song that goes down like a lead balloon with an audience lol.

[tea for two]

PS: Drew, fantastic body of work here ... I see potentially an SOS-endorsed Mike Senior-type book in the future!!

Aye.
Fo Sho.

::

Sometimes a complete contradiction of style can be irresistible....
Who doesn't like a laugh? Or - what if you just enjoy being weird? You're unlikely to sell much - but Zappa did. Here's to all the weird experimentalists!

Last night I was listening watching a fairly recent 2023 performance Justin Hayward singing Jeff Wayne penned Forever Autumn. Justin on stage talking about it light hearted with jokes.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VgbXjYnCL ... l2ZQ%3D%3D
Reading the moving comments by people who now feel Forever Autumn.

When I was a spotty teen I first heard Forever Autumn around '88 I didn't understand still I loved it.
Nowadays I'm much older the melody accompaniment hits harder which means I wouldn't write such a hard hitting melody accompaniment at my older years.
I would keep the style of emotive lyrics butt put it to Whigfield Saturday Night style lol.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8DNQRtmIM ... F5IG5pZ2h0
I adore that song as do over 100million utuub views.
This way it would be lighthearted to handle listening to it instead of breaking down.

[Drew Stephenson]

Unless of course you're one of those lucky people...

...But if you've already got those skills...

Skills rarely come from luck.

Indeed, I think it was Gary Player who said, "The more I practice, the luckier I get."

Unless we've been gigging a song regularly for more than a year and fine-tuned it during that time, I will always have a second look the parts I wrote/played once the vocals have been recorded, because at that point I find that often they need to be adjusted (usually by being simplified) in order to make the vocal the star.

I find that there is a strange reluctance amongst musicians who write by recording to revisit parts that have been laid down early on in the process, even though IMO the song would benefit massively. They might play with the EQ and level or mute some sections, but I find very few of them will go back and make a new recording of a part.

I can relate to both parts of this actually. I do have a weird reluctance to re-do things, I think part of me thinks that I won't be able to do as good a job twice; self-doubt can be a real drag.
But I do do it when necessary. In fact, on the worked example song that I'll be sharing at the end of this series I've just gone back and re-recorded a part because the original wasn't working and it needed a change in voicing to fit with the worked up piece.

There's nothing like gigging with a song to hear how it goes down with the audience.

Absolutely, it is the acid test.

[MOF]

There's nothing like gigging with a song to hear how it goes down with the audience.

If we’re talking about the next single then I agree, but for the album type tracks that probably ‘connect’ more with the listener then I’m not so sure.
Live performances usually require an upbeat entertaining vibe so the slower, quieter tracks in general don’t tend to work in that context.

[amanise]

How many times have you been to a gig where everyone's leaping about to their bands favourite tunes, and then come the words "..and now we're going to do one off our new album!" - and the audience deflates for a song? When they've let that wash over them, that band had better bang out a major hit to get them back on side. This happens even when the entire tour is named after the new album.

Next time they tour, the last new album gets the same response as the old hits. And then the words come again... It's the age old story of bands wanting to play new stuff and audiences wanting to hear the old stuff they love.

In my case it translates as "we're going to do one of our own tunes now!" - (audience migrates to bar and bog). Opening chords to 'Brown Sugar' - audience back in the room. Not a great testing ground for new stuff in my experience.

[BigRedX]

There's nothing like gigging with a song to hear how it goes down with the audience.

If we’re talking about the next single then I agree, but for the album type tracks that probably ‘connect’ more with the listener then I’m not so sure.
Live performances usually require an upbeat entertaining vibe so the slower, quieter tracks in general don’t tend to work in that context.

IME you can never tell which songs your audience are going to favour. One of our most popular live songs is the slowest and longest song in the set (roughly twice as long as the average) and one that we have been playing constantly since our first ever live performance. If we weren't a band that gigged regularly it would have been stuck somewhere in the middle of side two of the album as a "filler" and by now would probably have been dropped live in favour of a couple of shorter and more up-tempo offerings.

However it's turned out to be a massive crowd pleaser. When it's announced on stage it always gets cheers from those who know us and I suspect if we tried to do a gig without playing it there would be a mini uproar! It has developed over the last 6 years so we're currently in the process of making a new recording that more accurately reflects how we play it at the moment.

[Drew Stephenson]

I suspect most folks here have more live experience than me, but in the genres I've played in I've found that a mixed set list fast/slow/happy/sad works better than trying to do 30-45 minutes of up-tempo stuff.
But I've never been trying to fill a dance floor.

[amanise]

Thinking about it - a good old open mic session (one with a good mixture of muzos and mere mortals) probably acts as the best kind of testing ground. First, you need to get your grammy winner able to stand on its own with an acoustic guitar or two (it's good preparation for that 25 years on 'unplugged' world tour). Then you sing it in front of a part critical and part LFP audience. They can hardly say it's too cluttered.

There used to be one just outside Shrewsbury where some bloke called Miles something used to go (said the band he was in was called the Wonder Stuff?). Him and his partner who played the violin used to go and take various bedraggled other members with them. He would always say nice things about your songs and liked it if you'd be honest with him about his ones. Then he'd be off on tour. His songs were always pretty robust - but he did always have his own desk operator there with him. Happy days, mostly ratted.

[James Perrett]

There's nothing like gigging with a song to hear how it goes down with the audience.

If we’re talking about the next single then I agree, but for the album type tracks that probably ‘connect’ more with the listener then I’m not so sure.
Live performances usually require an upbeat entertaining vibe so the slower, quieter tracks in general don’t tend to work in that context.

I don't think Steve Marriot would have agreed with you - seeing him perform All Or Nothing is an all time live music highlight for me. I've been to quite a few gigs at all levels where slower, less poppy songs have been the highlight of the gig.

[James Perrett]

Thinking about it - a good old open mic session (one with a good mixture of muzos and mere mortals) probably acts as the best kind of testing ground.

Exactly the sort of nights that I've been going to for the last few months. Initially I was checking them out for our project but now I'm just going because there's a great open mic scene around here where you might encounter the singer from one of your favourite 80s records on the same night as an unbelievably talented teenager. Every time I come away with the feeling that I've seen some great music.

[tea for two]

I'm stating the obvious.
Pretty much hinges on the vocal. If the vocal knocks it out the park then the accompaniment can be minimal sparse, bog standard even, which should help in finishing a song.

This is Uyangichomela by Shana, vocals from 37seconds.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dKSK7S3R0 ... FuYQ%3D%3D
I think not sure, Uyangichomela in Zulu means I adore you or You complete me.

[Drew Stephenson]

Part 14 - Arts and Crafts: Mixing <> Production <> Writing

OK, so we've written the song, established the creative vision, recorded all the parts, and deleted half of them. Now we just need to mix it all together.

Easy right?

Guess what, I've got another book recommendation for you... The companion to Recording Secrets is Mike Senior's Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio.

Now I'm obviously not going to attempt to summarise an entire book / career into a blog post, but for the purposes of finishing our songs, here are a few suggestions about approaches.

Lo Fidelity

I'll start with a mistake I made when I first started to think about my recording and mixing in a more detailed way than 'stick a mic in front of it and plug it into the 4-track. The mistake I made was in chasing fidelity. I reasoned that if I wanted to create a recording that sounded like a bunch of real instruments then I should start by making each instrument sound as much like the real thing as possible. Then mixing should just be a case of setting the volume levels and everything will be fine right? I mean, that's what happens when you listen to a live, unamplified band right?

Unfortunately not. Not right.

For a whole bunch of technical reasons that include the recording medium, the playback mechanism, and the way the human ear and brain work, it is not so simple*.

You have to consider how the sounds work together as a whole. And just as I suggested stripping stuff out of your arrangement, you will need to do something similar with the frequencies of the actual sounds** you're mixing.

Tools and tips

We're not going to get into deep detail here (read the book!) but here are two tools and two tips that might quickly help clean up your track and make it sound noticeably better.

Tool 1: High- and Low-cut filters (also known as low- and high-pass filters respectively). A high cut (or low pass) filter will reduce high frequencies, and vice versa.

Why are these important? Because when you record something with a microphone it picks up everything that it's capable of, including a whole load of stuff our brains automatically filter out in the real world (but we notice on recordings). Most instruments don't have a lot of useful low frequency content, but the microphone doesn't know that, it will pick up background rumbles and hums as well as any excess boominess from the instrument (or a less than perfect mic position). For anything that isn't the lead instrument you can low-cut an awful lot away from the bottom end without it impacting the overall sound (and it makes much more space for your actual bass instruments to play in.

You can do a similar (but somewhat less obvious) job with the high cut filter. Again focus on the supporting instruments first.



Find these in your DAW and have a play with them, ideally with some kind of visual representation so you can see what's happening as well as hear it.

Tool 2: EQ. This is a massive subject so I'm just going to give two general tips.

Cut the low mids. Just as we can use a low-cut filter to clear out boom and rumble, we can use an EQ dip at around 300-500Hz to clear out mush and mud. As we add our various instruments together this is a particular area that is sensitive to an over build-up of energy. Exercising some cuts in this area can really help with the clarity of your mix.

The other thing to try is for your lead parts, typically vocals, a bit of a boost around 1-2kHz. Don't go overboard on this, it can be addictive, but used in moderation it can really draw the ear to the important stuff.



Right enough on tools, that's a rabbit hole that can be the absolute enemy of finishing anything so we'll quickly move on to a couple of tips. Tips, not rules.

Tip 1: turn something down before you turn something else up. If you have two sounds fighting in the same frequency area, and they both need to be there, and you can hear one over the other, it's often the temptation to turn up the quiet sound. Our brains are wired to think louder = better so this initially seems rewarding. But it can quickly turn into a situation where everything is getting turned up and you start clipping and distorting stuff and / or you find you've got no headroom left for your vocal to sit in. So balancing things by turning down is often the better starting point. After all, if you end up with a mix that is nicely balanced but a bit quiet, you can just turn the whole thing up.

Tip 2: if in doubt, cut it out. This is sort of a repeat of the 'delete delete delete' advice from last time but more focused on getting a working mix. You might have a part that has made it through the arrangement cut but when you're trying to mix it it's either stomping on other stuff or is practically inaudible. Cut it out. Remove it. Excise it. At this point, if it is not absolutely critical to the song, it's just getting in the way of you finishing.

Cut it out; no-one else will notice.

Artist vs Artisan

We've talked previously about the multiple hats we wear when trying to release our own music so this is a suitable moment to talk about two different mindsets that we need to jump between during this process.

Writing and composing are creative acts. We start with nothing and out of a process of magic we come up with something. To do that we have to be experimental, open-minded and generally receptive to the idea of 'what if?'

This is our artistic self at work.

When we've moved on to the mixing part of the process though, we have a different job to do. Here we are applying our skills and experience to something that already exists and needs to be fettled into its best state. There are creative elements to this, but there are also engineering and scientific principles at play. We are acting as craftsmen to support that artistic vision.

This is our artisan self, and it requires a slightly different set of skills and approaches.

If you want to delve into this side of things more deeply, Rick Rubin talks about this a lot in his book The Creative Act, another recommended read.

In an ideal world we would have a nice separation between these two stages of the process. But for most of us I suspect the waters are much muddier.

Because I am a songwriter (rather than a composer) I often find myself jumping between these artist and artisan roles as I go through the creation process. Cutting out a part here (artisan) means there is some space there, so the artist is called forth again to come up with something creative. This then needs to be slotted into the mix so back and forth we go.

In reality there's probably not much we can do about this (other than become better composers and producers), but we can become more aware of when we are in these different states and look at how we choose to apply our time and energy.

If you're feeling under the influence of the muse, but the only job on this song is some technical tweakery, go do something else! Start a new song, or come up with something new for another project. Because the time will come when you are feeling artistically stale but can still have the energy to apply your craft to the project.

We talked about space and permission right back at the beginning; this is another opportunity to give yourself permission to play to your strengths in that moment.

This has been a very, very light touch look at mixing just to help us get finished. If you want to learn more there are oodles of resources out there. If you have no interest in this side of things, the good news is that there are loads of people who are and who will happily do this job for you, priced on a sliding scale of practically-nothing to deposit-on-a-house.

Next time we'll look at working with other people and the finalising and distribution process.

* Unless you're just recording a solo instrument in a nice room.

** As an aside, applying the same principles can make a big difference to live band sound as well.

As usual, links and the rest of the blog are here: https://roughtorelease.blogspot.com/202 ... ixing.html

[Exalted Wombat]

I currently have two main 'pet hates' regarding the music world. One is the concept of 'borrowing' in harmony theory.

But let's talk about the other one - 'remedial mixing'. That's where you construct (I find it difficult to dignify it as 'compose') a piece where the sounds fight for attention in a sort of musical mud-bath which has to be rescued by radical eq and other soundboard tricks.

For goodness' sake! Choose sounds that fit together, play them in a way that is supportive rather than competitive. If something gets in the way, change it or leave it out. You know, COMPOSE the music!

(Oh, and throw that long intro away. If you've got nothing to say, don't say it.)