How I Did It
Tools I Used
1.Guitar
2. Voice.
3. Piano
4. Ableton
Process
This was just over 4 hours start to finish. I don't think that's difficult to do these days with the Daw tech around.
The first thing i do with any `song' based remix is pick up the guitar and play along with the pella to find out what key its in and what chords might work and how difficult the melody might be to get it to fit.
Here for instance its in Cmin. Not a good start for open folky like strings. So i detuned the whole guitar a semitone.
Then after a while i forget the original pella and sing it myself to see what i would like the melody to be.
The advantage of this is your voice can change the delivery faster than any work in a sequencer.
I work out 8 or 16 bars and then i stop go back to the pella and play against it again.
If its got a chance i then build those whole 16 bars without any vocals in Ableton or whatever.
The reason this works for me is that i am free from the vocal to just play. I improvise my chord changes with no regard for the original vocal notes just to achieve a performance.
Once i have that, i paste in the vocal and see what its all doing. That will be the point that i eq and any Fx to the vox to get it to sit in with what i have created. For me thats when i starts to get a glimpse of the finished sound and to be honest keeps me interested.
Only then will i make changes to my perfomance, strengthening things that are working well and changing those that don't.
So now sonically the picture is correct, i then adjust say 16 bars of the main vocal to re time or edit them to a constant drum track with no music.
That way i have the vocalist doing what i want in the timing i want and it builds the ability to have your vocalist under control. Again it inspires me when i hear just 8 bars working.
With the vocals now timed, I am free to switch all the music tracks off and try other chords as the timings of the vocals are locked down.
Often there's a note in the vocal on a bar that does not work. I just leave it and move onto the next part that is working. I like to enjoy what i am doing and fighting with a part that doesnt work so early on is frustrating .
So I will then have 70 per cent of the song happening.
Next is to consider the lyrics and delivery. That affects arrangement even chords. How it will all start, how it builds ect.
With a mix like this i look at it like a landscape. Here possibly you start at the gateway, enter some sunny field, walk up to the foot of the hill climb it and drop down to the next valley.
The bits that don't work will be annoying me by now so its time to connect the parts of the arrangement that don't work. Often then they become the most interesting as its building a connection from one chord section to another. So do you just go there, add two more chords or what you never know till you try something.
As was here with the line Moving with the Season those chords came from the four bass notes. I put a chord on each bass note and it worked leaving Shannon's line exposed as a title.
Then its control c and v to quickly get the second verse and chorus happening.
I often find that when do this bits go missing in the copy and paste and sound differently next time around, odd notes reconnect in a different way and sometimes do better things.
I will now play it back from the start and arrange it dropping out parts by deleting them and judging how bare or awkward it all sounds when they come back in.
It also reveals to me if its getting boring as its the first time i will sit back and listen to Shannon sing as if its live and shes in the room.
The final section is always a struggle as i get bored by know and i usually rely on song writing formulas at that point either by employing them or trying to avoid them.
So here, where a bridge might get bigger in a traditional sense, i go against that and go quiet and unplugged so when the chorus comes back it doesn't feel like just a repeat.
If after all this it doesn't work, I save the file as the work will fit something else in the future.
If i like it, i will mix it and upload it.
Believe me there are lots i have that don't make it.
Jobs a good un :-)
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