Firstly, I recorded in the piano for the track. I planned to use the same chords throughout the verse and chorus, so it was easier to loop these rather than record the whole track separately.
I came up with a melody, and recorded that in too.
I chose to do a different chord progression for the bridge, as this breaks up the song.
To add some texture within the chorus, I added in bass and some additional keys parts. I plan to change the sound of the keys to a synth, as it will give the piece some more variety in sounds, and it won’t clash with the chords.
I started experimenting with different drum parts to see what style of drums fit the song.
I chose to record most of the piece using MIDI. Using MIDI makes it easier to change parts if/when needed. It also gives me more creative control over the sounds, and the tempo of the track can easily be changed.
To make a rough demo for the track, I asked Harry to help record in some guitar through the audio interface connected to the Mac.
I then automated the track so that the dynamics change a bit throughout.
I also experimented with the panning feature within Logic. I have never used it before and wanted to see what it was like to pan different instruments at different times within the track.
After getting the track to a point I was happy with, I took the lyrics and started to record vocals.
When we were recording in vocals, it was hard to fit in all of the lyrics, as the track was slightly too fast. Therefore, I changed the tempo of the track to make it slower, and so the lyrics were able to fit in perfectly. Luckily, it was easy to do this since majority of the instrumentation was recorded in via MIDI.
To add even more texture to the track, Abi helped record in some backing vocals to add to the chorus. We recorded some higher and lower harmonies, most of which were put in the final chorus.
Now that all of the elements were ready on the track, I started looking at different sounds. Nic introduced me to the ‘drummer’ feature on Logic. It was relatively easy to use and sounded much better than the MIDI drums I’d recorded in beforehand. There were a few drummers to choose from, all with different styles. I selected the style of drums I wanted to use, as well as the drum kit, and chose which parts of the kit I wanted to use. As there were sections that I didn’t want to have many drums in, I set the settings of the kit to simple, and for the parts where I wanted more drums and fills, I changed the settings to be more complex.
I (with help from Harry) also re-recorded in the guitar through two condenser mics. However, this time we recorded an acoustic guitar rather than an electric one.