Here is a rough mix of the third song for my forthcoming album Spellbound. Unlike the others so far, this one was mainly written by Martin, and the original version of this song was just him singing and accompanying himself on a single electric guitar with no other instruments. I didn’t sing or play anything, but I still get a songwriting co-credit because that’s what we agreed on for all the songs in the project. So for this version, my main task was to learn the song and guitar part. It’s not a particularly hard song, in fact it was probably the first song Martin ever wrote and the chords are very basic. But there’s alot of nuance that I wanted to be sure to capture.
The vocal was pretty straightforward. Martin and I have a similar vocal range and sense of phrasing, and this song was neither very high nor very low in my range. The guitar on the other hand, well let’s just say I’m learning alot about how to record electric guitars. Martin’s original take was just a six-string Ibanez thru whatever amp he had at the time. I don’t believe there were any effects on it other than the tone of the amp. So my first pass was using my PRS six string and my Roland Jazz Chorus amp, and it produced a warm and satisfying sound, definitely in the zone. Being such a sparse arrangement I wanted the gutiar sound to really shine. But it was a little muddy and the low end was uneven, so I got in there with some EQ and compression, and even added an amp modeler as a sidechain effect. Oh the joys of digital production and the endless tweaking it affords.
I added a second guitar track to give it some more depth. (I often double track my keyboard parts.) This one was a 12-string. Martin switched mainly to twelve string sometime in the nineties, and the guitar I used was one that used to be one of his. This time, however, I went direct inject and mixed it into the same sidechain amp effect. All in all it sounds pretty good but I’ll probably continue to tweak it. I might even try again using the 12-string as the main guitar.
But for the time being, here’s the song. Enjoy!
https://zingman.com/music/mp3/spellbound25/TheSlientHour08c.mp3