PG Music Home Forums General Discussion User Showcase Cast the First Stone (Original)

Thanks, people. You never know how these are going to go over. I mean I like it … it's an honor to hear compliments from this community.

There are some minor adjustments I will probably (definitely) go back and make... a lot of the cymbals stand out a bit too much, there's an overenunciation in one spot, and underenunciation in another … and a couple other weak spots in the vocals.

The harmonies are good, but not quite where I want them to be. Anybody else have trouble getting these right? I kinda don't know what I'm doing, I'm just going off of "feel" from listening to lots of music all my life.

My process is basically, write the song with my guitar, get a BIAB backing track that will do for now, record some vocals, and listen to it a lot over the next few days. Then I get better ideas how I want it to sound in certain places … awkward lines that need to be smoothed out, better phrasings, melody tweaks.

Originally this song's verses all went like the first one, melodically (and I even threw an extra note into IT right before I published it) … but I ended up singing the verses to one of the harmony lines instead of the original melody line because … well it was boring.

I liked what it did. It really opened the song up. I've never quite "let loose" this much on a vocal (still getting used to thinking of myself as a singer).

About halfway through the process, it went from being a purely acoustic song to adding the lead electric guitar. Before that it sounded more like an old church hymn from the 1970's. The electric guitar gave it more energy. But the drums were still basically a simple brush style, and I needed "drummier" drums. I found this RealDrums track and tossed it in.

I added some cymbal crashes I have recorded. Like I said I think they're a bit strong in the mix at the moment. See, every time I make some changes I listen to it for a day or two and pinpoint things I think could be better, and I'm not QUITE done with it yet.

I tend to just replace the song as I go along with the new changes so the original link always gets you to the latest version of the song. It won't change much. Most of your average listeners probably wouldn't notice what I will do. They may notice that it sounds "better" but won't know why. But a lot of you would know.