Recording - April 2014 - 34

Much like a sculptor, chiseling away in
an effort to reveal the image that lies
underneath, you can add and subtract
these elements in an endless number of
combinations. Structurally, you can shuffle song sections, re-order lyric lines and
verses, add breakdowns and bridges, try
out intros, etc. In this way, the studio
becomes your willing accomplice, rather
than one more adversary you need to
contend with.
Grab that Ubiquitous chorus we were
working on earlier and follow your verses
with it for 12 measures. Using E minor as
your key, you can begin building the rest of
your 'beat' by adding bass, keys and other
instrumental loops, or perform them via MIDI
on one of the virtual instruments in your DAW.

Inspiring sounds
Now that you're ready to flesh out your
song and take it to the next level, you
might want to look for realistic sounds
that can inspire you. Guitarists can get
that big-stage sound for styles like Rock,

Punk, Metal, etc. from amp modeling
plug-ins; your DAW probably came with
a few already, and many more are out
there. Even the free Apple GarageBand
(apple.com/mac/garageband)
has
sounds that are perfectly suitable for commercial releases. Plus, you can get some
of the hugest, gnarliest tones imaginable,
riffing and wailing to your heart's
delight... without your neighbors ever
knowing.
Guitar slingers with iOS mobile
devices are also presented with some
great writing options, via guitar interfaces like the Sonoma Wire Works
GuitarJack (sonomawireworks.com) or
the Apogee JAM (apogeedigital.com).
These new interfaces connect via the
dock connector on your iPhone or iPad,
rather than older products that go
through the headset minijack and frankly
don't sound very good.
Once you're connected, you can open
a multi-effect processor app like Positive
Grid's JamUp Pro and BIAS (positive
grid.com) and get to rockin'! In addition
to being able to play through its faithful
recreations of many different amps and
effects, you can also dial in your own
tones, and when inspiration strikes, you
can capture it with the built-in 8-track
recorder and export your audio via email
or file sharing. This could even be imported back into the hook of your hip-hop
production, bringing you full circle!
Getting there in the end
Don't beat yourself up on days when
none of these tools work for you. There are
times when creativity is calling a time-out.
My mother is a painter. She once told me,
"Sometimes you paint, sometimes you clean
your brushes." So when it's not happening,
go for a walk, do house chores, tidy up your
studio and your computer's desktop, back
up some hard drives, play Scrabble (it will
give you ideas for lyrics!)-even though you
won't be actually writing a song, you'll still
be working at it, just on a different level.
Over time you'll go back to each
almost-finished song, listening with fresh
ears, tweaking a detail here and there,
until you know it's ready to meet its audience. When an audience trusts a song,
they can begin to believe that it has a
place in their own lives. They will let down
their guard and allow you the chance to
get inside their hearts. To move them. This
is the sacred covenant that makes our
efforts as songwriters worthwhile. This is
the importance of capture and craft.
Sven-Erik Seaholm (seaholm@recording
mag.com) is an award-winning independent record producer, singer and songwriter. His latest release is Seaholm
Mackintosh's Monarchs. Check out his
website at www.kaspro.com.
34

RECORDING April 2014

http://www.apple.com/mac/garageband http://www.sonomawireworks.com http://www.apogeedigital.com http://www.positivegrid.com http://www.positivegrid.com http://www.gracedesign.com http://www.gracedesign.com http://www.kaspro.com

Recording - April 2014

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