So I have a new release featuring two heartfelt love ballads. The first track, "Never Again," is a song I wrote in the 90s, at the time I was shooting for a soulful R&B song with its raw emotion and smooth vocals. I'll be the first to admit that smooth vocals aren't my specialty. My early recordings of the song were based around a keyboard riff I played on a '72 Wurlitzer over a drum machine, and then I added some dirty guitar. I never felt like I got what I was looking for and I'm sure a fair amount of that was due to the high falsetto harmony I was trying to add. You can find an example on
An Anthology of Sorts.
Fast forward almost 30 years from when I wrote it and I'm giving it another go. The first thing I did was start with 'Hip hop' drums from EZ drummer and a variation on the beat. In place of the Wurlitzer I used an electric piano sound. I started adding the guitars and this time I decided to go with less. Instead of a crunching heavy rhythm all the way through the song I went with a clean wah for the rhythm and less of it. At some point I thought some cello would add some sadness and depth and I started playing with that. I decided what it really could use was a full string arrangement. While I could have come up with this myself, I thought it would end up sounding more professional if I farmed it out. I found someone on
Fiverr that had a lot of good reviews and sent him my current demo with the one cello part and asked for an arrangement that starts at the same spot and goes through the rest of the song. I was pretty happy with what I got back.
Now I just needed someone to mix and master, quite frankly that's a weak spot for me. When I mix things down they end up sounding pretty amateur so I'm always looking for someone else to do this part. I found
another guy on Fiverr that again had good reviews and even a website with a couple of before and after samples. Mick was willing to do a few revisions trying different levels, different effects on the vocals, and I even sent a new drums track with a diffferent kick and snare. Given a few different versions I could release was fantastic.
The second track, "Nothing in Kerry," takes a different approach. It's an Irish Ballad I wrote after my last visit to Ireland. Sitting in pubs over there listening to story tellers spin yarns really felt like another time and place and I wanted to create something along these same lines. I've been playing the song live for over fifteen years but never got around to recording it. Knowing I wanted it to sound like a 'group' I started by sending my acoustic version to
Aerugo Productions, they've done three songs for me in the past which you can here on my EP
All The Time.
What William sent back wasn't exactly a traditional Irish arrangement, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I told him it needed a 'singing' instrument in addition to guitars and they added both accordion and harmonica which I think give it the small club/pub feel I was looking for. The drums are a little heavy but I love how they start the song. As I listened to it I thought it really needed some picking guitar during the harmonica breaks. I recorded a guitart part and sent it back to William telling him I thought it needed this and that he could probably do a better job than my quick improv. He sent the mix back to me using the same guitar track I sent him and it works. So I can say it's my guitar there in addition to my vocals, bonus.
William does a pretty decent job of mixing, but rather than a bunch of back and forth with him, I found
yet another guy on Fiverr to handle the mixing and mastering. Dgunz did a fine job, allowed for a few revisions, and in the end I said, "More accordion!" Maybe it's too much but I'm happy with it, and as with Mick I still have a few different versions I can put out there.
