Smiling Savage Album Creation Podcast: Recent Episodes

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There are some parts about this song that I like, but it’s got problems and I had to step away from this sixth song for a while to avoid getting frustrated with it.

As the days went by my first thoughts were that I wouldn’t share this song as part of the album-creation process podcast — that I’d take it apart and put it back together into something different rather than show it as it is. Even today as I put together this episode I think there are parts that are starting to work, and parts that just need to be pulled out. That’s ok. This whole idea of podcasting about putting together a first album should cover the entire process, including mistakes and missteps.

To talk through this version of the song, I set out wanting to use voices and orchestral instruments to create atmosphere, put together with something more techno style to provide energy and drive. Trying it as an alternating verse chorus approach isn’t working that great in this draft. As you hear in the first transition from techno to atmosphere I started out looking at the juxtaposition as something to accentuate, and that’s not working for me.

By the third transition I think it goes better in part because there’s more a lot more going on by then — both with other layers of atmosphere, but also the beat doesn’t go away for long. There are parts here that will be fun to work with some more.

Constructing a song like this I’m reminded of working on a recent longer piece I wrote about the best computers for writing. As a piece there were enough different parts that the editing of it took a while, and ultimately changed the piece dramatically. Sometimes even great parts don’t make it to the final version, because they don’t help the piece be the best it can be.

I talked before about whether to keep writing songs or looping back to polish the song drafts I’ve already shared, and I’ve continued to err on the side of creating new work so that I don’t get bogged down. I think that’s been good given my inexperience with song writing and the software. There are still things that I’d like to achieve but don't know how. For example, recently I’ve had ideas for wanting to do quick bursts of guitar or drums as transitional elements.

A recent song I think that’s doing this well is Locus Laced by Sleigh Bells. I’m loving their use of the metal riff and slide, like you hear in the beginning of the song.

I’ve had trouble getting the results I want using samples, and like most things it will just take more practice. I think practicing those skills will be less frustrating in a green field of a new piece, rather than trying to nail an edit to an earlier draft.

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The first sharable draft of the fifth song has me thinking about next steps in the album creation process.

This is the longest and most complex song I’ve created yet. There are already 35 tracks, and the song is currently about 4:15 in length. Both stats reflect my getting more comfortable with the tools, and finding the layering of sounds to be a more interesting listen.

To describe this song in traditional structures, the verse and chorus are heard three times — twice at the beginning and once again at the end after a long breakdown. At the moment I like both the intro + verse + chorus, the breakdown, and the outro. As I post this I’m not convinced the verse + chorus needs to repeat twice at the beginning — regardless of there being some build between the cycles.

I took a fresh listen to the previous four songs and like each progressively more than the preceding song, to the point where I don’t like the first one very much at all. I now think it’s far too simple. I’m tempted to take a pass through the first couple of songs to create second drafts though I think there’s still more creative benefit to forging ahead with new songs.

I looked up the rules for an album, and there are slight differences between how Apple and Spotify classify singles, EPs, and albums. The bottom line seems to be that to release an album I’ll need have at least seven songs that are cumulatively more than 30 minutes long.

Then I did some more reading about all the other things to cover off when releasing music and I felt a slight panic. There’s a lot! For now I’m going to focus on creating a set of music I love.

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It’s time to show off the fourth song for the upcoming album, though the path to get here from the last song wasn’t linear.

I’ve been working on an idea inspired by some saxophone work by Tim Cappello on the track I Still Believe from The Lost Boys soundtrack. Cappello, the saxophonist for Tina Turner, also contributes rich sound to hits such as The Best, Private Dancer, and We Don’t Need Another Hero.

That mix of growling sax and drums is wonderful, and I’m chasing it up the learning curve trying to figure out how to achieve that in my software. I’ve learned a lot, but nothing has come together yet for a song. That said, I still believe there’s potential for what I’ll dub “techno sax” in some later song.

Part of what’s slowing me down getting sax integrated into electronic music is that I’m approaching songs like today’s Song 4 as mathematical patterns. To me they sound right when they look right, which might not make a ton of sense — but since I don’t read music all that’s left for my brain’s pattern recognition to latch on to are other details.

So far, sax notes with growl or sustain have fallen somewhere on the less structured, more organic side of my brain. And while the Logic Pro software makes it easy to transpose notes or MIDI-data between tracks — for example, so that something that starts out as a synthesizer or drum kit can be played on a saxophone — that hasn’t unlocked the type of sound I want yet. Here are some examples of synthesizer sounds transposed to a saxophone…

One can quickly achieve saxophone-like sounds that couldn’t actually be played by a real person — at least I don’t think they could. The thought reminds me of movie trivia from The Fifth Element: That the opera song was specifically written to be impossible for a human singer to achieve, and yet here’s a link to a singer apparently doing it.

In any case, for the fourth song today I’m sharing something completely different. Like all the other first looks, there’s more to come on this one, but I currently love the voices as interesting noise and various bass sounds in this first draft.

As usual, it’s good to lift up and share, which keeps me from polishing details that aren’t ready for a fine tuning. I’ve also found the feedback I’ve received on these drafts to be very helpful! Off the cuff, I’d say each x.1 version song gets 100% better quickly after sharing because the feedback from others is so insightful.

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The third song for the upcoming album proved that things get easier the more you do them. It made me wonder whether I’m still on the first slope of Dunning-Kruger effect, but honestly I think I was atop that first, brash peak when I decided to embark on this project as a means of putting my music-production course work into practice. I’m all too aware of how much I don’t know, but it’s fun to try and learn, and rewarding to have a song like this come together.

My goals for this song were that I wanted to mix classical strings and with pop percussion, and build sections by layering sounds to achieve more interesting complexity. Violins close and open the piece, and throughout there are layers of string sections over the top, along with drum sets and synths.

The synthesizers are both 80s dance and pop inspired with some trance-like bass. Late in the song the key synth sound disintegrates into an outro with some audio distortion effects.

Some things I liked in this version:

The doubling up of similar sounds to achieve interesting results.

The mixing of strings and percussion, including using some of the drumming notes in a strings track to achieve an effect that would be difficult for a human player.

Things I already know I want to consider in revisions:

Adding vocals. I’m writing some lyrics for a future version, and that may change the structure and duration of the song.

The breakdown section. I like it, but it might be there’s a different song that’s trying to get out instead.

In earlier songs I tried mixing and producing the tracks — at least a little bit — so they might share out better. I’m keenly aware that the songs don’t sound the same when played anywhere but my monitors, and that is a the source of some stress. However, purposefully, I haven’t done any mixing or production on this version of this song. I think I was getting lost in the process, distracted from what’s most important, and stressing about things that don’t matter yet.

I know the songs aren’t finished creatively, yet I was trying to move ahead into style and presentation. To use a writing analogy: I wasn’t just doing the equivalent of spell-check and grammar check. I was trying to format the document before I know the document’s length and tone.

If those things were constraints — In the writing world, such as 500 words maximum, double spaced lines, 1” margins, and AP Style Guide — they could be liberating to know and integrate into the creative process, but for now there aren’t production-oriented constraints. Eventually all the music will be produced in a similar way. But for now, like a good word processor, Logic Pro is capable of correcting the basics as I go, such as keeping things in the same beat, or quantizing the notes. Especially for these first share-outs of songs that are still being constructed, my goal will be to worry less about production.

Beside that, I hope that for anyone listening to the work come together I think it might be more fun to hear production added in as a later step.

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Bonus video of the song tracks playing in Logic Pro:

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.smilingsavage.com/subscribe

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This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.smilingsavage.com/subscribe