When I was young—which was a long time ago—I of course wanted to become a pop star, like any reasonable young man. So I learned to play the guitar by playing Beatles songs, got into a band at some point, which mostly played CCR and Deep Purple covers, and sometimes even got on stage in front of an audience—but my big unfulfilled dream was to record my own songs in a real studio. Life had other plans, a lot of them, but the dream wasn't dead yet, as I discovered when I stumbled on GarageBand on my first Mac and later came across Band-in-a-Box. Except that today, anybody can have a studio at home if he wants to. And except that it's still difficult to produce a good song.

During the first lockdowns of the pandemic, I was not only equipped with all the necessary gear, but suddenly had a lot of time on my hands again. Music became an anchor during this emotionally turbulent time. This is how the following song, among others, came about.

The title is »Silent World«.
I started in Band-in-a-Box with the style P_PHIL_C.STY, 65 bpm, in the key of A minor.
I took out all the tracks as MIDI files, put them into REASON, and used the instruments I had available there. The drums were played by the MT-Power-Drumkit, an add-on I miss dearly since I had to replace my old iMac with a new one that unfortunately no longer supports 32-bit-software. The bass was the built-in "upright bass", the electric piano the built-in "Wurly piano", and as far as synth voices were concerned, I had to choose from the huge variety that REASON overwhelms you with in this regard.
Finally, the vocal parts, that’s me.
I mixed all this with REASON’s plate reverb, its compressor, etc., and it was the first production where I used a loudness meter.

So, here’s the link to Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/opur-music/silent-world

and here are the lyrics:

VERSE 1
We are not safe
anymore
We have to hide
behind doors
Don’t move, don’t weep,
don’t shout
We have to wait
this out

REFRAIN
We never thought that the world could be so silent
We never thought that the world could stand still
We did not know that a flu could be so violent
We didn’t know the whole world would get ill

VERSE 2
How long will this
go on?
Will it be over in
twenty-one?
How many of us
will die
despite everything
we try?

REFRAIN

BRIDGE:
Our days are endless
we don’t keep track of them
we live so friendless
the silence make us numb

Essential: Band-in-a-Box. DAW: Reason (formerly GarageBand). Interface: Focusrite.
I only wish I had had all this stuff available when I was young …