Every musician has their own personal process for putting together a song. If you're like me, that process often evolves throughout time, sometimes almost as if it has a life all its own. I have always found it interesting to read about another artist's process, and since I happen to be in the last stages of finishing up an album as we speak, I thought maybe I'd share mine. Like I said, my process has changed with pretty much every album I've done, so this mainly applies to how the songs for this particular album came together.
THE IDEA
Even when I'm not formally working on an album, I keep an "Ideas" folder to sketch out ideas as they come to me. Inspiration strikes when it strikes, which may not always be the most opportune time to sit down and bang out a complete song, so keeping a folder where I can quickly record an interesting bassline, chord progression, melody, or rhythm ensures that when I am ready to begin work on an album, I already have a nice selection of potential "seeds" for new tracks.
SEPARATING THE WHEAT FROM THE CHAFF
Let's be honest, not all ideas are winners. So I further sub-divide my ideas folder into "Definite", "Maybe", and "Probably Not" folders. As time goes on, songs might migrate from one folder to another, but the important thing is that I save everything, even the stuff that I decide sounds like crap. Sometimes an idea that seems useless at first, might end up working perfectly in the context of another track, or you might be able to salvage it with a small revision that comes to you later. Regardless of the outcome, you're never going to regret hanging on to every idea you come up with, so you might as well do it, right? Once I have a good selection of potential songs for the album, I start work on transforming these raw ideas into proper songs. I like to be working on several tracks at once so that if I hit a dead end with one track, I can continue working on a different one. I don't know many musicians with extra time to spare, so anything you can do to increase your efficiency is a good thing.
BUILDING THE BASIC STRUCTURE
My ideas usually tend to come in small chunks... a chorus... a verse... maybe just a vocal melody. So the next stage is filling in the missing pieces. I usually try to build a single verse and chorus first, so that I have something that flows together well. I'm not talking about building the full arrangement at this point, I'm usually just working with a bassline and a basic drum beat or loop to play over. Once I have a verse and chorus structure that seems to be working, I arrange these into a full song-length structure, experimenting with where to have these portions repeat and change, where to put bridges or breakdowns, etc. This can take some time to work out, and can even change again later in the process (thank you, cut and paste!), but the sooner I can figure out the basic skeleton of a track, the sooner I can get down to the meat and potatoes of putting the song together.
LYRICS AND VOCALS
In the past, I always saved this part for last because, for me at least, it was the most difficult and least enjoyable part of putting a song together. This time, however, I tried to at least start this process fairly early on. There were several reasons for this. First, because I find it difficult and therefore the most like actual "work", getting it finished early on meant I would get the hard part out of the way and could approach finishing the song in a more enthusiastic and energetic way. Secondly, I wanted to concentrate more on improving my arrangements on this album. I've always liked to include lots of layers in my songs, but in the past, I feel sometimes my arrangements were a bit cluttered and muddy. By building the songs around a vocal, I was able to concentrate on getting everything to fit in its right place. Your mileage may vary, but I really found this helped me arrange the additional synth parts much more effectively. The new album is more layered than anything else I've done, but this time you can hear each part with a clarity that was missing before. Or at least I think so. I record several takes of each vocal track and once I have a few takes I am happy with, I build the composite. You can read more about that here.
BUILDING THE ARRANGEMENT
For me, this is the most fun part of making a song - fleshing out this basic drum beat, bassline, and vocal into a full, proper song. This usually involves looping sections of the song and jamming over it, trying different sounds and trying to find the melodies, chords, hooks, and riffs that will put some meat on the bones of my basic demo. At this stage I am not too concerned with finding the perfect sounds. I just want something that fills the basic role the final sound will fill. So if it's a string or pad part, I use something in that vein, if it's a lead, I use something that falls into that general category. What is most important here is that I am conscious of the frequency range each part occupies so that I don't have parts stepping on one another or competing for space in the mix. It is at this stage that I also program the drums. With the snare parts, at least, I like to play in the parts in a linear fashion, from start to finish. I think this makes the drums sound a bit more alive and natural and results in fills that fit the transitions better. On this album, I used drum pads for this purpose, which I found to be a lot more fun and spontaneous than tapping it out on a keyboard. I usually have to go back and do some edits for places where I screwed up or for fills that just don't work, but most of it is as it was played (with quantization, of course... I'm no drummer!)
CHOOSING THE SOUNDS
This is my other favorite part. Now that I have all the parts of the song recorded as MIDI, it's time to formally choose and commit to the sounds that will be used in the final song. This is also one of the most time-consuming parts. When I'm not working on songs, I'm usually sampling or programming synth sounds so that I have lots to choose from when it comes time for this stage. Even with this pre-built library of sounds, finding the right one can be really frustrating if, like me, you have a pretty large number of synths and softsynths. So try to figure out what each synth you own is best at ahead of time and you can speed up the auditioning of sounds significantly. Also ask yourself if you really need all those synths. The answer is probably "no". But, like me, you probably won't get rid of the ones you don't need either. It's a disease, I tell ya.
RECORDING THE SYNTH PARTS
At this stage, I bounce down each part to audio. I usually record everything dry to give myself the most flexibility at mixdown, so if a synth has built-in effects, I usually turn them off when recording. Chances are, I have a better-sounding dedicated effect plug-in I can use on it anyway. I did a lot of layering on the new album, so often at this stage, I'll copy MIDI tracks and assign different instruments to it to find what sounds the best to my ears. This is sort of like building an arrangement on a smaller level. You want to choose sounds that compliment each other, not step on each other. One layer might provide the low end balls, one might provide a nice, metallic bite, etc. This applies to drum sounds as well. I rarely ever use a single drum sample for a drum part anymore.
FILLING IN THE DETAILS
Once I have most of the song put together, I build any ambient effects in the intro, any edits for a breakdown, or any other 'small' special details that help bring the song up a notch.
MIXDOWN
Once I have everything pretty much where I want it, it's time to do the actual mix. I bring all my faders down and start bring them up one at a time with the kick. Then I bring in the other drum and percussion parts and get their levels sorted, compression, EQ, and other effects sounding right. Next comes the bassline, then the vocal, and then everything else. During this whole process, I get the effects set up properly, and usually go back and forth changing the volume levels until things sound right to me. The more you mix, the better your instinct gets for this sort of thing, but it never hurts to have a reference track by an artist you respect in your general style to compare your mix to.
INITIAL BOUNCE
When I have something I am reasonably happy with, I bounce the track down to a WAV. I'll burn it to disc and listen to it on my computer, my car stereo, the speakers on my television, my iPod, and whatever other playback systems are at my disposal. If you've never done this, you'll be surprised at how different the same mix can sound on different systems. You're never going to get a mix to sound perfect on every system you play it back on, so what you're listening for here are the big, obvious things you can tweak to make a better mix that "averages" to as wide a variety of systems as possible. I recommend you do at least one listen on headphones or earbuds as well, as this can often reveal mistakes or things that need tweaking that may not be as obvious on speakers.
TWEAKS
You may be a much more skilled mixer than I am, but I've never done this initial bounce and not heard things that needed adjustments. So, this is the time for those last minute adjustments. Once you've done them, re-bounce the parts and repeat the evaluation on different systems again to see if you got it right. If not, go back, tweak, lather, rinse, and repeat until it's right.
PUSH THAT MUTHA OUT
Once everything is as perfect as you can get it, it's time for the final bounce so you can send it off to be mastered. This is the hardest part for me, as I am always convinced there is something I've missed that will be obvious to everyone else and I'll be exposed as the fraud I am, my career will go down in flames, and I will die penny-less and insane. But, much like proud parents seeing their child off to college, at some point you just have to let go and have confidence that your song will blossom into everything you dreamed it would be once the listeners pop it in their stereo.
So there you go. That's my process. Do you follow a similar path, or do you do things a lot differently? Any tips that you've personally found useful in your own work? Let us know!
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