A few weeks ago, True Motion Pictures reached out to me to produce a song for them. So I sat down with my Hammond SK1, a notebook and lots of Starbucks coffee to come up with a riff, the melody and, of course, lyrics.
But writing lyrics and composing a melody is just one step of the whole production process. You have to arrange the song, which means deciding on tempo, key, style and instrumentation. You could turn a Beatles tune into a death metal song or Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” into a dance track. You don’t have to, of course, I’m just saying– that’s what ‘arranging a song’ means.
Once you know what you want the song to sound like, you wanna make sure you record with great musicians. I am lucky, because I am surrounded by quite a few badass musicians who are fun to work and hang out with. I also had my first Pop Tart ever while recording drums with James Applegate. Now, when you have recorded, edited and premixed the tracks (editing as in cut out laughters or nonsense talk about Pop Tarts) there is a slight possibility that you can’t stand to hear your own song for another time. That’s because you have been playing it for about five days in a row over and over again. Don’t worry, that feeling will pass! Maybe take a walk and meet friends who tell you things like: “Dude! You’re so pale! Do you ever see the sun?”
The final step of the production is the mix and the mastering. Besides great taste and excellent ears you also need a lot of experience for these matters so you might wanna hand your tracks over to an expert, which I did. Sal Ojeda has been mixing for film as well as for ridiculously famous artists (who we’ll not even name because we’re too cool to even bother).
All there is left to say is: I am really grateful for my wonderful team. Thank you for your passion, musicality and inspiration @ James Applegate (drums), Benjamin Krause (Hammond/bass), Mike Hernandez (guitars), Andres Fonseca Alfonso (percussions), Sal Ojeda (mix/mastering) and Alexander Papastawrou (True Motion Pictures).
High Five!
