This is a song that I wrote while I was trying to write another song, which itself turned into two separate songs. Sometimes compositions take a lot of effort to fit together, and sometimes they seem to just come out naturally. You’ll often hear from (actual, professional) songwriters that they feel like a particular piece of music already exists out there, independently, and all they are doing is condensing it into a listenable form. The really frustrating part for me is that the music which comes easiest usually ends up being better than the pieces I’ve really sweated over.
That said, there was quite a lot of work here in terms of composition, my own guitar technique, and mixing/engineering. Composition-wise this is absolutely stuffed with harmonised lead parts as I feel this both elevates the melody and makes it easier to listen to; it’s often necessary to use quite a harsh guitar tone to cut through a mix, and to my ear the harmonies can make everything feel smoother and fuller without relying on a lot of delay or reverb. I’m also rather pleased that there’s some counterpoint in there as well, which I believe is relatively unusual for rock and metal.
From a technique perspective there are a lot of three-note-per string lines. The lead parts in the post-solo section are quite twisty and I think they could make for a good alternate picking exercise. As well of a lot of five fret stretches, there are multiple position changes while playing at speed and the various parts span all of the strings across the fretboard as well. I had to work really quite hard to get this sounding clean.
I found it challenging to mix this many guitar parts. It’s very important to get this right, both to make each instrument stand out clearly and also because this many mid-heavy, distorted sounds all played together can quickly become very fatiguing to the ear. The main lessons I’ve learned are a) make room for the bass, even (especially?) if you are playing a baritone or extended range instrument and b) the idea that each guitar part should have “good tone” is completely irrelevant in a mix. Most of these parts, lead and rhythm, sound terrible in isolation because of the amount of EQ applied, but the result is a mix that is orders of magnitude clearer and easier to listen to.
Gear-wise I’m using the Solar A1.8 with Fishman pickups and my new/old Ibanez RG7620 for the rhythm, while the lead parts are my JEM and the RG7620. The RG7620 is….well, it’s a nineties RG, which is the absolute pinnacle of guitar manufacture from my point of view. The pickups on mine are pretty old and I’m planning to swap them out for something slightly hotter, but this thing is basically 90% of a Japanese Universe for about 10% of what a second-hand Universe goes for these days. Leads are the Soldano, Plini and Petrucci Neural DSP plugins while the rhythm guitars are Archetype Gojira and the Ampknob RevC. The Ampknob is really growing on me – it sounds good enough for a mix but it’s also really tight and responsive, making it good for monitoring parts while tracking.
Eminence is the name of a deep, purplish colour.
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