Posted on Thu, Aug 16, 2007
Something about releasing CDs and cleaning the slate gets my creative juices flowing. Here's the first in a series of new songs that should be out soon. I'm trying to challenge myself to grow as a songwriter, and this song is one of those rare Josh Woodward love songs without a hint of sarcasm or irony. Granted, there's a little dose of goofiness thrown in. But it's not sarcastic or ironic goofiness. And nobody dies. :)
There are a number of oddities in this recording, since I'm testing out some changes in my studio. The electric guitars are straight into the Pro Junior on a low volume (4), and recorded with an SM-57 (!). The acoustic guitar is my neglected 12-string beauty, single-tracked with a narrow stereo spread. To give it a woodier tone to fit in the retro-sounding verse instrumentation, I miced it behind the saddle.
The bass guitar was treated fairly normally, except that I used a pick and palm muted most of it to give it that tone. A compressor with a low-ish threshold and a medium attack lets the "snap" at the start of each note really pop out.
I used a z3ta+ hack to give the crazy filtered synth sound in the verse (and in the background of the bridge). And a SF2 violin ensemble kicks in during the last chorus to kick the song into full-blown tweepop territory. Belle & Sebastian - watch your backs.
Vocals are fairly straight. I added a light doubler for the bridge and last chorus to give it some extra body.
Oh, and the shaker is a giant gourd shaker that I found in Mexico. It gives a very different tone than my usual egg shakers, and works really well when it's the sole source of percussion.
Afterglow: (