Songwriting — From Idea to Riff
I “force” every student in their career to write their own song.
The most common sentence I hear is: “I can’t do that.”
But what none of them really know is that they’re only missing a small piece to actually be able to do it.
This “small piece” I just mentioned is the actual work process and the possibilities you have.
Nobody just sits down and records all the instruments at the same time and the song is finished. You build it up slowly, instrument by instrument, note by note, until it eventually sounds similar to what you have in your head.
In the process, you’re often surprised by your own mistakes, which chance brings with it. Whether there is actually chance in this case or it was just a mistake that simply had to happen, we’ll leave that up to the universe! 😛
But it actually happens often that you play a wrong note, a wrong rhythm, etc., and this initially conceived mistake sounds mega good and you then just incorporate it into the final version.
That was also the second possibility; namely, leaving a lot to “chance” and just trying things out until something is the way you can be satisfied with it.
I’ll show you the planned songwriting process now and let you know if something wasn’t planned! 🙂
The important thing here is to record the idea as well as possible. Like probably every other musician, I tend to write down the notes quickly. The disadvantage of this is that a few days later you have no idea what you actually wanted to do. All the other instruments, rhythms and continuations have disappeared and you won’t find them in your head again so quickly.
The Riff Idea
I just had an idea spontaneously and recorded it.
The tempo, the key and the way the riff should be played are now fixed in my head and in my DAW.
So that’s the basic idea of my riff.
But what do I do with it now? Is it enough to continue working on it in a few days or to send it to my band so they can continue?
No! Your band will come up with a million other ideas that have nothing to do with your ideas anymore. This is quite natural, as everyone makes their own picture of it in the first few seconds and these “pictures” are accordingly different.
The biggest danger here is also that the idea was played “clean”. So without distortion etc. If that’s the wish and the song should be “unplugged” in the end, then you can continue working on it like that.
But we want something more in the direction of rock or metal. Therefore, the second decision will be the right distortion:
### The Right Sound
The right sound in my case is definitely a distortion, without further effects like “Reverb”, “Delay” or anything else.
Here I didn’t do anything else than simply put a “distortion” over the recording.
There are many solutions for this, such as Guitar Rig, a plugin from Neural DSP. And for all those who are into hardware, the Kemper or the Axe FX. With the hardware — I’ll call it — effects units, you would have to reamp the already recorded riff again. With the software solutions or plugins, a simple push of a button in the DAW is enough.
Double Track
Very important for rock and metal are double-recorded tracks.
You also do this in acoustic songs so that it simply sounds fatter, but in metal it’s very common.
Here, the idea that has just been recorded is recorded again (don’t copy!) and you try to record it again as accurately as possible.
After that, we put one recording on the left side and the other all the way to the right. So you have a different recording from both sides, which moves towards you like a wall! 😛
It is important here that these two recordings of the guitar are positioned on one side each. If both sound from the middle, it sounds as if you are underwater or something.
Here is an example of two guitars from the middle:
A Second Track Over the First Riff
Of course, you could just leave it like that and play/program the other instruments over it. But why should I be satisfied with that when I have so many possibilities? 🙂
Therefore, based on the first idea, I recorded a second idea. Most of the time it’s exactly the same riff, but every now and then a different note comes out.
Also here, by the way, the exact same procedure with double tracking etc!
And together with the first idea it sounds something like this:
Bass and Drums
Finally, so that the whole thing sounds like an almost-song and not just like a guitar pose, we put a bass and a drum underneath.
For the bass I use an actual real bass. For the drums also a plugin; GetGoodDrums.
All Together
So that the whole thing can now also be heard as a whole, all instruments must now be played together. In a DAW of course no problem.
So the whole idea sounds something like this: (neither mixed nor mastered! Just a demonstration! :P)
Comparison:
Just a short comparison again, what you can do with a few ideas and elaboration of a few instruments:
Riff Idea:
Elaborated Idea:
