Song Prod. & Write Up

Task 1: Three Minute Song Production (70%)

Task 2: 1000 Word Write-Up (30%)

When approaching this assignment, I decided to involve my friend and contemporary Leeds Conservatoire student Chloe Jacobs due to her songwriting and vocal style which is overall incredibly similar to the current popular genre of indie folk, reminiscent of artists such as Adrianne Lenker and Phoebe Bridgers, who gained their fame from this stye of music, and are now incredibly prevalent in popular culture through many platforms such as social media sites like TikTok and Instagram.

When I first began with this project it mainly consisted of me and Chloe collaborating to create the song and deciding how to creatively use a sampler as stated in the brief. We prepped for this by having multiple sessions beforehand just writing the track with the sampling element in mind to make sure it all came in cohesively later on. We ended up with a guitar and vocal duo, and I decided to sample some vocal one shots from Chloe and using the sampler I creatively turned those one shots into a synth. (sampler images pictured below)

To create the sound i would go on to use as a background and layering synth, I first cut up the vocal one shots and applied them to different keys in the sampler so they could be played as either individual notes or a chord through the use of a midi controller. I then looped the samples and applied heavy amounts of reverb and a small yet noticeable phaser to give it more character. this all put together gave me a synth sound that was very airy and gave the vocals and guitar some much needed context within the track whilst also providing an interesting synth line to follow along with the vocals. (Phaser and sampler settings pictured below)

the multiple filters on the sampler was used to differentiate the sampled synth sound from the original vocal and to avoid frequency fighting between the two of them

When it came to recording the guitar and vocals, we recorded them at the same time, I used an Sm7B with a cloudlifter and a pop filter for the vocals, and a c414 for the acoustic guitar these two mic choices allowed for a somewhat dark and vintage sounding vocal tone whilst also having a bright, midrange heavy acoustic guitar sound. I also placed dampening around the guitar and vocals to minimize room noise and get a very clean sound. I did this after researching the recording techniques of the producers behind albums like ‘Stranger in the Alps’ by Phoebe Bridgers and ‘songs’ by Adrianne Lenker. Philip Weinrobe, producer behind ‘songs’ describes how he recorded the album in his personal studio ‘Sugar Mountain’ which has a very small, dampened, cozy live room, I tried my best to emulate this with the heavy dampening and due to this I chose to record in studio 109 for its small size.

I also applied a light channel EQ to both the vocals and acoustic guitar to make them sound even more like they were recorded in a small scale, almost bedroom like environment. (EQ’s pictured below)

The midrange boost on both instruments allowed all the warm tones to come out clearly whilst not frequency fighting, and the hgh and low pass filters on the guitar boxed off the sound as there was a lot of low range clutter in the sound that had to be removed.

I also applied reverb to them both for a light ambience that allows the main to elements of the song to mix in with the synth much more smoothly and cohesively, this worked with the theme of the track, being a greek mythology inspired ballad, a cavernous reverb lent itself incredibly well to the themes of the track and the timbre of the vocals. (Reverbs pictured below)

I also implemented the use of two different compressors on both the guitar and vocal tracks as the song can variate in volume in quite a lot of sections for example when the vocals cut out and the guitar is on its own at the start of the song and the break after the chorus, in this case the guitar got louder due to Chloe strumming harder while not singing. The compressors allowed me to lower the dynamic range of the track and give it a much more cohesive feel (Compressors pictured below)

This track has a large amount of commercial potential, with artists like Phoebe Bridgers last peaking at number 43 on the billboard hot 100 charts and the vast majority of her music floating around top 200-100 on the same charting system showing that this genre and style of music is currently extremely popular and is commercially extremely successful. This lends itself to the track as most aspects of it from the way it was recorded to the composition to the effects and processing on it are geared towards this style of music and they all come together to create a cohesive track reminiscent of famous tracks such as ‘Scott street’ by Phoebe Bridgers and ‘Not a lot, just forever’ by Adrianne Lenker.

Overall the track ‘Pandora’ is an indie folk ballad with high potential in the commercial market by capitalising on a currently popular genre, the longevity of such is not known yet, but it looks that it will be continually successful for a long time, this is evidenced by the releases of the aforementioned reference tracks being around 5 years ago and them being as popular right now as they where when they were initially released.