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Let People In is a song already in the works. I had a session booked in with my friend Ryan and a week before the session we jumped on a call. I proposed to him the concept of helping me to produce the track myself which he was all for! We finished of the session using an online Google doc and began to discuss ideas for the production

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From here, I used the feedback to make further adjustments and ultimately clean up the track, I then moved onto the live version…

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When thinking about the two types of songs that I would present for this module. I wanted to challenge myself to use two songs that I had already written, One with a more commercial appeal and the other with a folky infused heart and alternate tuning. These choices hopefully will allow me to show off my songwriting and also help me to learn new production techniques, used by some of my favourite artists.

Two of my favourite artists at the moment are Noah Kahan and Brenn! who both write folk music that is appealing to the masses. this felt very in keepng with my song ‘Medication.’ Before I begin to lay down any sort of track, I created a reference playlist, which can be found here…

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The live video was simple for me. The intention was to make it something that I would be able to use on my social media’s and for me that meant a basic video in my bedroom. 90% of the content that I currently produce is made in my bedroom so naturally this felt like a fitting setting. I explored different methods of audio but ultimately set myself on using my camera and a mic attached to create a raw and authentic feel with no touch ups to the audio.

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Having listened to a lot of folk / pop and creating this playlist, there were some clear mannerisms and characteristics of each track that stood out to me. They were all relatively acoustic in their nature and were all driven by a kick drum.

Upon starting the track, the first thing I did was work out the tempo (100bpm) and find a sample drum in splice which I felt could drive the song along. This helped to give the a heartbeat which also ties nicely to the medical nature of the song.

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From this point, I created a rough guide of vocals and guitar to build elements around. There weren't many ideas that I could hear in my head and naturally as an artist, the majority of my production is laid back. I played around with the concepts of percussion, including some cajon, tambourine and claps but none of them provided an addition without getting in the way of the mix. However, I began to play around with a shaker, adding another layer of percussion which became a mainstay in the final track.

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The track continued to build and I laid down the main vocal and guitar tracks, these had to be down many a time as I continued to struggle to stay in time with the metronome. This is something that I am becoming better at and ultimately just comes down to excitement as the song builds.

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After plenty of discussion over how we were going to produce the track we decided to keep it stripped and intimate. This felt like the best way to honour the story and emotional weight of the song.

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Naturally, the raw sounds of these tracks needed improving. This is when I hopped on a phone call with a friend of mine, Louis, who gave me some device on how to use EQ and compressors in order to get the guitar and vocal track to a point in which I was happier with. Here’s a clip of the work I did and sent to him to get checked over…

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We recorded the song live, with myself on vocals and Ryan on the keys. It’s simplistic in its nature but seemed to work well. From here Ryan taught me some new mixing techniques and also how to add the effects like the vocals at the beginning of the track.