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Thanks!


I agree - I really like the guitar.

As a rule, I like a lot of change in my arrangements, and usually try to change up the instrument before my ear tires of it. But in this case, I left the guitar in until the end, when I wanted a large contrast.

As for the reverb, you're spot on.

You know the rule - turn effects up until you hear it, and then back down until you can't hear it. That's something I intentionally didn't do because I really liked the sound of the plate reverb, but I knew I should have.

I've gone back and taken it down a notch on the guitar.


Thanks! The Fame Studio effects don't just capture the sound on the room, but the mikes and processing added. So it does a bit of "re-amping" so to speak, which really brought out the low end of the cajon. And I adding some reverb effects to give a bit more "air" to the snare sound.


When my friend first suggested this song, I figured that BiaB would be perfect for it, and gave her a much more standard "country" sort of production.

But that wasn't what she had it mind, and she asked me if I could do something a bit more "contemporary". To me, "contemporary" that means simplifying the verses to a two chord song, but there's not really a chorus here to add contrast.

The change to 4/4 seemed a pretty obvious move, because otherwise there's not much space and it would sound too much like the original.

The first half of the song is just hanging out on two chords:

   Gmaj7 | F#m

The second half is one of my favorite guitar progressions with the descending bass line and a shift to the minor on the V chord:

   D |A/C# |Cadd2 |G |Gm |D

Once that was in place, it "opened up" the song, and it was just a matter of fitting the phrases to the chord changes. To my ears, the new melody sounds a bit too much like a harmony part, but it gave me the freedom to play around and adapt each verse to the lyric.

I figured it really wasn't what she had in mind, but my first swing was going to miss the mark anyway, so I should have fun with it.

And of course, with all those rests in the melody, there's plenty of room for harmonies. I added a really nice harmony to the first verse, but had to shift it to the second because it was a bit much.

I wanted something different on the third verse, so I just cloned the melody and shifted it up a sixth. It was too high for me male vocal, so it came down an octave, and then I started pushing notes around until I didn't sound that bad. I then tried to keep the harmony on the same note as long as possible, unless the melody was moving. It's that standard rule of harmony writing that I occasionally forget to use.

I probably should have swapped the harmonies in the second and third verse so there's a bit more build as the song goes along, but honestly I was too lazy and I'd already done the work of fitting it in.

There wasn't that much that needed to happen with the arrangement. I chopped out all the "snare" hits on the cajon so there would be a build when it was added in the second verse. Adding some shakers completed the arrangement.

I originally had an acoustic guitar solo on one of the verse, and worked it out using a BiaB guitar. But with four verses, it didn't seem like there was a place for it. I though perhaps I'd do a MIDI guitar part, but my keyboard wasn't talking to my computer, and I didn't feel like drawing in the notes by hand.

I tried other instruments as well, but the didn't really seem to add that much, so I figured I'd just do without. I then went through looking for FX that I thought would sound cool. And using Ozone really added a lot of punch to the mix.

There you go - even more than you wanted to know!

Thanks for listening and commenting!