Production Write Up
For this song, I originally decided on writing a song akin to something similar to that of the Madchester scene from the late 80’s to early 90’s, with the song going into a psychedelic sound with an afrobeat groove to coincide with that ‘Baggy sound’. I took influence from groups such as The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, with their blend of indie rock, acid house and dance music, but I instead decided to go with a more popular and recognisable sound from the current year, by leaning towards a more modern indie rock and ‘bluesy’ retro sound. This change came about when it came to time for the mixing process, when I wanted to go for something that sounds something similar to a song by The Black Keys, by aiming for a quite crunchy tone that is present throughout the whole track, making it sound quite vintage with its 60’s garage influence. (Mark Davie, 2014)
The lyrical content within the song doesn’t really carry much weight as other songs with deep meanings behind them. With this kind of style, lyrics aren’t a huge element of making the song, rather it is more about the instrumental backing it. For the lyrics, I wrote some phrases down that fitted with the melody I had in my head and then had someone else singing them, who had a voice that would fit this style of music. When it came time to record, I had the lyrics adjusted slightly, to make sure that they fitted with the melody and overall sounded better to sing, with it fitting in rhythmically. To play into that Black Keys influence, I chose to get a vocalist who had a similar tone to that of their lead singer, Dan Auerbach, which was a quite raspy sounding voice and had an overall rough feel to the vocal melody.
When it came time to mix, I aimed for an overall dirty sound with hints of distortion on different parts of the song, with one noticeable distortion being applied on the vocals. With the lead vocals, I aimed for that gritty distortion that is present in a lot of bluesy records today. I used the ChromGlow plugin that was part of Logic’s default effects processor library. I then adjusted the settings, to make sure the distortion effect didn’t affect the low frequencies of the vocals, making sure it didn’t sound really muddy. I used one of the preset settings, and ended up using the ‘squeeze settings’, which had that kind of tone I was looking for to put onto the vocals. I adjusted the amount of drive going into the vocals, creating that balance between clean and crunchy, giving the vocals that grit that can be found in some early records by The Strokes. With this aspect, it was helping me lean towards that Garage rock sound that had a resurgence in the current century, which fitted perfectly with the kind of track I was attempting to create in the end. (Richard Buskin, 2002)
Since the song needed a sampler instrument of my own, I took a sample of a guitar playing a G note, by using a pinch harmonic technique. I took a section of the recording and then placed it into the Sampler instrument on logic, editing the sample within the instrument, adjusting the settings, making sure that the notes corresponded with the keys that the sample was set on the sampler. Then I simply programmed the MIDI notes to play a combination of pad notes and little licks, to help fill out the empty spaces within the song. To make sure the notes played sustained until I let go of the note, I made sure to set the sampler to loop the sample, until the key was let go. With this sampler instrument, I created an organ like/horn sound, something that’s common in a lot of blues rock. While I could’ve used a preset virtual instrument within logic to get an actual organ sound, this approach allowed me to experiment and create my own unique sound that couldn’t be replicated without using the exact sample I used.
For the guitar, I recorded it through a real amp, rather than DI’ing the guitar and using an artificial amp, however the recording sounded fairly weak sounding during the solo section. To help boost the sound, I used the pedalboard plugin, to give it more fuzz and automated it, to make sure the fuzz pedal comes in during the solo. Additionally, I added a whammy pedal with the fuzz, giving the sound of the guitar a grander sound and giving the illusion for the listener to think there are two guitars playing at the same time. I left the whammy effect on after the solo finishes, while removing the fuzz effect, as I wanted to keep that double guitar effect for the last chorus. This helped create a dynamic change to the lead guitar, as the instrument both progressed in volume and playing, with the guitar filling out more spaces by the end.
The commercial potential for my track contains many factors. The main factor being that it is a ‘modern garage rock song.’ While it’s not something that is worthy of appearing on charts such as the Billboard Top 100 or the UK Charts. This style of music however was very popular in the early 2000’s, with the commercial peak coming to a slow decline at around 2008, when other genres became more popular, and band music wasn’t really gaining any attention as it did back then. (Sofia Najjar, 2025)
However, this kind of music is not unpopular anymore, as artists in that genre are still going strong, earning Gold or Platinum status in sales. This kind of music may not be as popular here in the UK as it used to be, but it still has a presence in the US, with the commercial appeal being very popular to a small, yet large demographic of consumers.
Bibliography
Mark Davie (2014) Brian Lucey: Mastering the Black Keys. Available online: https://www.audiotechnology.com/features/brian-lucey-mastering-the-black-keys
Richard Buskin (2002) Gordon Raphael: Producing The Strokes. Available online: https://www.soundonsound.com/people/gordon-raphael-producing-strokes
Sofia Najjar (2025) The Strokes and the revival of Garage Rock in 00s New York City. Available online: https://vinyltapmag.pages.wm.edu/digital-content/revivifying-rock/#:~:text=The%20first%20wave%20of%20garage%20rock%20was,backing%20simple%20lyrics%20with%20sloppy%2C%20upbeat%20delivery.
