Too Many Thoughts

This song started with lyrics from Gill. I then wrote melodies to fit the words, then chords to fit the melodies.

Vocals: Gill's vocal chain was an AKG 414XLS into a Yamaha 02R/96 mixing desk. Waves Vocal Rider was used to smooth out the dynamics (side chained by an instrumental sub-mix). Three compressors were used: Waves CLA-2A, CLA-3A and CLA-76 (Blue Stripe). For FX I used Waves H-Delay and the Lexicon Plate in the Lexicon reverb plug-in. For the reverb I also used the Abbey Road trick: low pass and high pass the signal before it gets to the reverb. For the vocal throw on the word "insane", I split the region containing the word "insane" into 2 regions then muted the first region (the "in" part). That track then goes to Waves H delay on a 1/8th note setting. Note that this can also be achieved using automation. Here it is isolated:

Lastly the lead vocal has parallel track run through Waves CLA-76 in “All Buttons in” mode to crush the vocal (this technique is often referred to as NY compression). A small amount of this is mixed in to help the vocal not get buried under the instrumental backing.

Backing vocals were constructed from lead vocal takes. In Logic Pro you can edit the pitch of the vocal after the fact. I try to come up with interesting counter melodies. Here’s a section of the BVs hard panned so you can here each part separately if you listen in stereo:

Vocal Ad Libs are Leena Improve loops included in Logic Pro. Here’s an example:

Drums are the Portland kit standard in Logic Pro

Claps are from Claps 2 running inside Kontakt

The Rhodes electric piano is Session Keys S running inside Kontakt

Guitar: I can’t play funk guitar for nuts. Here I used Virtual Guitarist 2 from Steinberg. This legacy plug-in is keeping me on Mac OS High Sierra!

Bass: I’m a sucker for the bass sounds from Sampletank (in this case Sampletank 3). To minimise low end mud it is high passed at 47HZ. To work better on small speakers I’ve added 6db of tube distortion using the Logic Pro Overdrive plugin.

Master buss has the Pro-L2 limiter from Fabfilter.

Coffee

The kernel of this song popped into my brain whilst I was out cycling.

The concept is a lament from someone romantically involved with a pretentious git. Sonically it takes influences from the late great Kirsty McColl. if you haven’t heard her, here’s link to my favourite song of her’s:

Lyrically I dithered over the 1st line of the second verse: “you rave about the cosmos, that Brief History Of Time.” Of course the title of the book is “A Brief History Of Time” but that would change the number of syllables in the line and thus not much the syllable count and rhythm of first line of the first verse. I also dithered over the type of coffee to be derided before settling on cold drip.

Guitars have 5 tracks routed to a bus which is high passed to cut mud from the mix. The arpeggios come from a plugin called Evolution Rick 12 running inside Kontakt.

Drums are from Addictive Drums (my new favourite drum instrument).

Vocals: Gills vocal chain was an Neumann TLM103 into the 02R/96. Waves Vocal Rider was used to smooth out the dynamics. The lead vocal has parallel track run through Waves CLA-76 in “All Buttons in” mode to crush the vocal - here’s what it sounds like:

For FX I used Waves H-Delay and the Lexicon Plate in the Lexicon reverb plug-in (again utilising the Abbey Road EQ trick).

Bass: is from Sampletank 3. To minimise low end mud it is high passed at 47HZ.

Master buss has the Waves SSL Compressor, Waves Kramer Tape and Waves Vintage Console EQ (a Neve clone).

Home

This the first song we co-wrote. The song started with lyrics from Gill. I then wrote melodies to fit the words, then chords to fit the melodies.

Vocals: Gills vocal chain was an AKG 414XLS into the 02R/96. Waves Vocal Rider was used to smooth out the dynamics. Two compressors were used: Waves CLA-3A and Waves RVox. The de-esser is Waves RDeEsser. For FX I used Waves H-Delay and the Lexicon Plate in the Lexicon reverb plug-in. For the reverb I also used the Abbey Road trick: low pass and high pass the signal before it gets to the reverb. The lead vocal has parallel track run through Waves CLA-76 in “All Buttons in” mode to crush the vocal then Logic Pro DeEss 2 and the Logic Pro Channel EQ set to cut the lows and boost the highs.

Gill’s backing vocals go through a Waves CLA76 then Waves RVerb. I layered in some other vocals using SoundBetter Singers inside Kontakt. Here’s a few bars:

Drums are from Logic Pro Drum Machine Designer.

There are eight guitar tracks (thankfully not all playing at once). Most guitars go to a guitar reverb channel that feeds through a Waves H-Delay then Waves H-Reverb then channel EQ to roll off the lows and highs.

Master buss has the Waves SSL Compressor, Waves Kramer Tape and Pro-L2 limiter from Fabfilter.

Sonically for the "space" I was inspired by The Church’s Under The Milky Way. Here's a link if you haven't heard it:

Lucerne

Our first instrumental!

Bass is a Rickenbacker through a Trace Elliott miced with an EV RE20. Compression is a Waves CLA-2A with some Overdrive to help with listeners using small speakers or earbuds.

As mentioned in the notes for Too Many Thoughts I can’t play funk guitar so I used Funk Guitarist inside Kontakt.

The electric piano uses the stock Wurlitzer 200 built into Logic Pro

Drums utilise BFD with the kick and snare in particular given a modern edge by a parallel Logic Pro Drum Machine Designer track. Here’s a couple of bars of BFD:

Here’s the same bars with Drum Machine Designer:

The main melody is using an Omnisphere patch called Classic Nylon String Guitar. Here’s an extract of the A section melody:

.

Here’s an extract of the B section melody:

We finish with a Coda melody that repeats over a fade:

Master buss has the Waves SSL Compressor, Waves Kramer Tape, Logic Pro Channel EQ and Pro-L2 limiter from Fabfilter.