A Journal of a Song Being Created
I thought I would take you through the process of how I made my latest creation, "You Need Love (Don't Throw Your Life Away)".
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For the last few songs I produced lately, I took partially produced things from 10-13 years ago on GarageBand and followed them through to completion, or I used midi tracks from Noteworthy Composer to begin a project. But THIS time, I decided to create something totally from scratch.
"You Need Love" was something I had written while the band was up at the Mellos in Vermont. I have a distinct memory of showing a group of them, and Chuck T. saying, "Ah, you get to all the cool riffs first!". Yeah, that's a pretty cool riff on that prechorus, Chuck! So simple yet effective. No idea how I 'got to it first'!
Standing So Cold in Your Winter Life
Don't know where it came from, but I know why; it was to reach out to our modern situation. The song's thought is to reach out to all of us awash in a culture that leaves us all drowning in stimulation, & simultaneously substantially isolated. This is FAR more true now than it was then, with our ubiquitous cell phones and such. The answer is, of course, THE Answer, Who is the Person of Jesus Christ, especially in the means He gave to solve this, Communion. Jesus is Love. Basic Good News in a time crying out for It.
Inititally, I was thinking that I was going to do all of this myself, with no outside help. My first step was to create brand new base scratch tracks on Noteworthy Composer for bass, drums and rhythm, putting vocal simulations over them to make sure I had them lined up, so it would match with what I heard in my head.
I then exported audio by making MIDI files for each of these elements and uploaded them as tracks into a fresh GarageBand project on my miraculously revived ancient MacBook. At this point I uploaded and transformed the rhythm tracks, assigning amps & tone settings for the bass, drums & rhythm piano. I then plugged in my Squier Strat knockoff and started creating guitar tracks. I created a 'Brit and Clean' rhythm guitar track and an 'Echo' track for guitar extras. I stereoized and doubled both and kept improving the blend and tone. In tone, these tracks remind me of George's guitar on "Nowhere Man".
Vocals? Are a real problem! We live in a tiny prefab trailer type place and there is rarely a moment when I can record in-the-air. But one day, the moment came; no machines were running, the dog was gone on a long walk, everybody was either gone or napping. I plugged the mic into the computer and just let her rip. I believe what you hear is a second take for lead vocal and just one take for the back vocal. Later I added that "Jesus is Love" you hear at the end, and was able to cut-and-paste a few things I needed. Thank the Good Lord I got it in!
I then created tracks from the GarageBand recordings by exporting mp3s. I then uploaded those tracks on my regular, non-ancient computer and uploaded them to the Audacity app where I can more easily mix and 'master', so to speak.
I then created a mix, adding some elements at this point in the process, such as limiting, amplifying, noise reduction, normalizing and compression for some things. At this point, Mike expressed an interest in doing something on this, perhaps with Greg, so I sent them a demo.
Mike & Greg - unlike retired me! - are very busy working men! So it took awhile, of course. After a few months, Mike was able to get me some sweet piano & synth tracks. It took me some tries but I got it mixed in. Mixing is hard! Lots of learning going on for me in all aspects of this.
I had been sending demos to my friends at AVA, and they expressed strong interest in getting it on there this month. Greg said, well, why don't you just send in what you got for now, and we can always add a lead from him and more live instruments later. Greg had sent me a play-along acoustic track at one point that I actually did mix in.
At the same time, I was inspired to create a matching video. My wife helped me design the cover.
You put all that together and what have you got? This is the result:
"You Need Love" Video
I actually think this is a crucial message for NOW.
