Week #37 - Compassion

Yes, indeed, this is finally last week's piece. I am officially a week behind now. I'd really hoped to post twice this week and catch up, but it didn't happen, and the next month is incredibly busy so I'll be lucky to not fall further behind. Hopefully, by the end of the year I'll have time to fill in the gap

Even with the extra time, I didn't get it as far along as I'd hoped. I started on lyrics, but couldn't finish them, and mixing got away from em as I kept tinkering with the arrangement and adding a bunch of parts which I ultimately scrapped. So in the end it's just another rought sketch of a song...



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Description:

This song started out on acoustic guitar though I'd moved to the 12-string by the time I was ready to record. I progammed the beat and then just recorded a bunch of variations on the riffs and chord progressions I had. I cut these up and played with them until I got a decent arrangement. I doubled the 12-string and panned the two parts hard left and right, then added the synth bass. Once I had those in place I recorded a few passes of lead guitar the electric that I also cut up and placed over the top. Finally, though I didn't really give myself time to work on mixing the individual tracks, I spruced it up a tad with a simple mastering chain on the main output.

Tools:

Ableton Live 7
Presonus FireStudio
Audio Technica AT2020 condenser mics
sE lectronics Reflexion Filter
Washburn Oscar Schmidt 12-string guitar
Epiphone Les Paul Custom electric guitar
Studio Devil AMP
Togu Audio Line TAL-Bassline
de la Mancha Erratic 2
PSPaudioware Vintage Warmer 2
IK Multimedia T-RackS 3 Brickwall Limiter
IK Multimedia T-Racks 3 Linear Phase EQ

Notes:

- Chord progression:
Verse - Dm A Bb | x6 | Bb | x2
Bridge - Dm | F | Bb | A |
Chorus - Dm F | C Bb | x4
Middle 8 - Dm | Dm | Bb | Bb | F | F | A | Bb C |

- Tempo: 105bpm

- Key/Scale: it's basically F with a sharp 5th thrown in liberally on the lead part. The progressions are all centered around Dm, D Aeolian specifically, but I used the C# in the lead part to give it a diferent vibe.

- There's not much to say about the mix. As it was only a rough sketch for a song it didn't seem to warrant a lot of time making it sound great. Other than choosing a tone for the lead guitar, I basically just set the levels and threw the following over the master channel: a Linear Phase EQ with a slight shelving boost at 2kHz, Vintage Warmer with the Mix First Aid preset, and brickwall limiter set to give it a 3dB boost.


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