Song Writing

Hmmm so I want post about song writing, but its an extremely hard topic to talk about and explain, every songwriter and every song is written differently, some write lyrics first, some write the physical music first.

I will explain the way that I write, and believe me, in no way am I saying that "this is the way to do it, if you don't do it like this you are doing it wrong" there are so many ways to write songs, and each song writer will have their own way of writing. Back on track, my way of writing songs, has worked out reasonably well for me, I believe it is more of a "pop" sort of method, because instead of writing, exactly how you feel, you are more.. writing along what sounds good, you are still writing how you feel, but it is more about how it sounds with this method.

So, I'll walk you through my songwriting method, to start with, I like to start with little motifs (riffs) or just a hook, that will keep people listening, songs like Dammit - Blink 182, it has that intro guitar riff that is repeated throughout the song. So I find a nice sounding motif (riff) and then, get that sounding reasonably nice, then I will find a chord progression that goes well with the riff, and being into pop punk these chord progressions are generally easy to find, sometimes they are as simple as C,G,A,F and because I am writing a song that can have such a basic chord progression, I will let it have a basic chord progression, it has worked in the past, just about every Greenday song is a basic progression so why do I need to change it?

So, find a motif, or riff, and find chords. Record it! If you have your phone record it on that! but record it on something you can play back to yourself so that you can listen to it, then write lyrics! it helps so so much!!

:)

Our Gear.

So at the moment, me and my band are more a "studio" band as we have more of a fanbase outside of our own country.


I am the guitarist of the band, at the moment I dont actually have a guitar, I sold it to invest in professional recording equipment. I usually play a Les Paul (I have played/owned both the studio and custom versions) and on recordings these guitars sound amazing (even the Epiphones!) I play these guitars through two different amps, so far, I have only used one of these amps in our recordings and the amp that is used in our recordings is a Marshall MG100HDFX with a Marshall MG-412A cab. I have used this Head a Cab combination in all of my bands YouTube recordings and the amp sounds amazing! The second amp that I am yet to record with is a Jansen 150W Invader Series head and a Fender FM412SL in Grey. I have only ever played this Head and Cab during band practises as this is really the bassists own amp (not for bass obviously!) but this amp sounds amazing! I am going to try and record with the Jansen head and Fender cab tomorrow and see what sort of sound I can get!


As I am getting more into recording than live shows just at the moment, I am looking at selling my Marshall cab and head, to invest into something called the Eleven Rack, this is a very very cool piece of guitar equipment. Gun's n' Roses guitarist Slash uses this both live and in the studio, it does carry a reasonably hefty price tag of $899.00 USD. The Eleven Rack is designed by the same people that have created ProTools, so Eleven Rack and ProTools basically work hand in hand together. I have never had the chance to play the Eleven Rack, I have played something called the Line 6 Pod, basically the same thing, although the Pod is a more entrance level sort of "Amp Designer".


For bass, we have a Rockit 120 Head and a Rockit 115 Cab, I got this off of TradeMe for $300 NZD which is just over $200 USD and I have never really used this for recording, just live gigs, and to be put in black and white, this amp kicks ass! it is insane, I believe that Rockit is a New Zealand brand, and these would be extremely hard to a quire overseas.


For vocals and recording guitar we use a sennheiser E845 and for vocals and guitar this microphone has handled extremely well, very little clipping with any performances. We have gigged with this microphone several times and it has never let us down, it always comes off with a perfect sound! To record drums we use a Drum Mike Set from Samson 5 Kit, I have only had these microphones for a short period of time, and tonight I will do a very basic drum demo with them to show their sound (Im no drummer!).


We record all of these instruments and mikes through a M-Audio Fast Track Ultra audio interface which is hooked up to my Macbook running ProTools HD 9.

Pros of the Marshal Head and Cab: It can handle loud sounds perfectly
It has built in effects
It is a head and cab so it looks awesome on stage!


Cons of the Marshall Head and Cab: It is a head and cab so it is extremely heavy to lug around
It does not have a noise gate in it so feedback is an issue


I hope that helped you! Any more questions, feel free to ask!


:)