making the song
Working on this project by myself was a big challenge for me because last year I worked with a band to make an original song which was less challenging because all I hd to do was come up with a lead guitar part but this year I had to come up with everything myself that includes chord progression, Lyrics, Rhythm Etc.
I wanted to make a Ramones/The misfits inspired punk song from the late 60’s with The misfits themes of horror and sci-fi.
The way I came up with the chord progression was that I first chose what scale the song will be in and I used C# minor scale.
Then I used a number generator from 1-7 and I got the chords for the verse which are G# E C#. I had a forth chord but it just didn’t sound as good so I just repeated C# again. For the chorus I did the same thing and got E F# C# again I just repeat C# here because I wanted the song to be catchy so I used repetition in the verse and chorus.
The Theme of the song was Dantes Inferno based on the video game by Visceral games. In the game Dantes has to go through 9 circles of hell to rescue his wife (Beatrice) from Lucifer so that they both go to paradise (heaven)
Recording Process
Before recording I researched into how the Ramones recorded their song and I found out that they used the same techniques as The Beatles.
They used the same microphone techniques and used a 4 track recorder to give it that old school essence.
When I was recording the song I just wanted it to sound like it was recorded in the 60’s. I used a SM57 and a MD421 for my guitar, the amp that I used was a peavy amp that we have in college with the crunch distortion setting which made it sound like a mix between punk and grunge. For the bass I got help from Faye and I told her that day before that I want a fat bass sound.
We achieved this by using a Titan and a groove tube microphone which gave us the sound I was looking for. I made the bass to sound like this because I wanted to get that low bass sound you can hear outside of clubs, I got this from when we went to University of Huddersfield and there was a producer called D Ramirez and he was talking about how he made his song Yeah Yeah and he talked about everything he did to make that song. What intrigued me the most was the bass and how he made it and talked about how you can hear the bass outside of clubs and then when you walk in you can hear the whole song and I found that interesting and I wanted to use that in my song as well.
For the drums I got Evan to do some drumming because I can’t play drums and I didn’t want to use programmed drums because it would just not sound right with the type of song I was making and it would just sound robotic if I did end up using a programmed drummer. The drums I didn’t really mess around with because of the time so we ended up using the set up that was already there.
The kick and snare were really important for me and I wanted them to sound punchy and energetic. I wanted to capture that late 60’s punk essence.
Finally the vocals I got Evan again to sing and he just got it instantly. Me and Faye were amazed when he sang the chorus. The vocals were done in a couple of tries we really didn’t take that long to record the song I think we did it under 2 hours.
For the vocals we used Steve Albini’s vocal microphone technique he did with Kurt Cobain (Nirvana)when recording In Utero. We used a SM7, GT55 and a MD421.
We did this because It gave the song a Grunge tone with the vocals.
It also gave me the ability to mess around with the vocals when Mixing.
Mixing Process
When mixing I didn’t really add much to the song because it already sounded good when we recorded it. What I did was EQ pretty much every instrument to the way I wanted it to sound. For example I wanted the kick drum to sound punchy and energetic same with the snare drum.
For the guitar I took out the lows and added a pitch shift and took it down 12 octaves. I this because The Misfits guitarist uses an octave pedal so I wanted to get that same sound but the octave pedals on logic just didn’t sound that good so I ended up using a pitch shift which made it sound much better.
For the bass I boosted the lows to get that deep bass sound and to get that outside of clubs bass. I didn’t add much to the bass I just added a EQ and a compressor.
The vocals I didn’t mess with too much again I just added a EQ and a compressor. I also added a slight pitch shift too that down a few semitones not alot because it would of sounded like a demon trying to come out.
I didn’t mess with the recording to much because I wanted to capture the rawness of the track and wanted it to sound similar to the Ramones and capture that whole early punk scene.
What went well
The main things that went well was that I successfully wrote, produced and mixed my first song which I’ve never done before so I’m pretty proud of myself.
Another thing that went well was the recording process.
When I walked in to record I was a bit nervous because all I had was a guitar demo and lyrics that I came up with a week before recording.
I had no bass track or drum track to go with the song, I did make a simple drum beat on Ableton at home but it didn’t sound as good.
But everything went well after I told Faye the day before to play bass on my track, I gave her the chords to my song along with the demo.
I also got Evan to play drums on the track, I played my song in the recording studio and he just got it straight away when he listened after a few times.
Evan also did the vocals for the track, I didn’t want to sing on the track because I can’t sound grungy like I wanted it to.
I didn’t really know how I wanted the singing to like like at first but then I listened to Nirvana In Bloom and and the gave me the idea to have the song sound sound in a similar way. The low singing in the verse and the more aggressive singing in the chorus.
The recording didn’t take that long either I think we did the recording under 2 hours which if pretty good and we all just got along with this track.
Even Better If
What would change on the track is the mixing. I feel like I’ve rushed it and made the bass too overpowering, I think this happened because the headphones that I used didn’t have a log of bass on them so what I did was boost the bass so much the I could hear the bass on the headphones but when I uploaded the song on YouTube and listened to it myself with my headphones at home all I could hear was the bass and how overpowering it was. On the speaker system I have at home it sounded alright but on headphones there was just too much bass.
Evaluation
I had a lot of fun this project from coming up with chord progressions to recording the song.
I definitely feel like I have improved musically this project because last year I didn’t really know what I was doing because my job was to come up with a lead guitar part nd that was it but this time I was all by myself, I had to come up with lyrics, chords rhythm Etc.
Which was challenging for me at first but I just focused on getting this song done and I feel like I have successfully managed to that and the song isn’t that bad for my first track.
I think that with enough practice I can be a better song writer because I have the ideas but I just don’t really know how to execute that idea. Again when I walked into the recording room to record I was relying on the people that were there because I only had the guitar track and lyrics and nothing else so I had to get help from Evan and Faye.
My song ideas always come from what I’m listening and want to do something similar to that band. I wanted to do a Ramones/The Misfits inspired song because there aren’t that many bands out there today that still do song in that style. Its mainly pop-punk which is alright but they don’t capture that rebellious attitude or impact on music like the Ramones had in the late 60’s.
The one thing I didn’t enjoy was mixing he song because the recording was alright as it was it just needed a a few tweaks like the the vocals because they were clipping in the final chorus then Evan screamed “This is inferno”
so I added a compressor to stop it from clipping.
I also made the bass to powerful I think I went a bit overboard with the bass but it is what I asked for and I guess that’s what I get.
If I had to do another mix of the song I would 100% do it with better studio mixing headphones and probably another program like Ableton because we really haven’t used Ableton to mix but I’m going to give I a try and see if it would sound better with my now VST’s.