Change

This is a somewhat darker track, both in terms of the themes but also the overall tonality. I had a period where I was experiencing some pretty big challenges and this translated into writing a lot of music which starts out very dark and brooding, but I’ve always tried to find a way to turn things around and end on a more uplifting, positive note. You know how everyone goes on about how Every Breath You Take is so dark and clever because the music never changes and the narrator remains trapped in his obsession? Well, this is the opposite of that.

In terms of gear this track is mostly my ARZ800 tuned to drop C. I’m not terribly impressed with the intonation and tuning stability of this particular guitar in a drop tuning, but it doesn’t sound or feel like anything else in my collection and some of the music I’ve written with it just doesn’t really work the same on any of my other guitars.

I used the Neural DSP Mark IIc Suite and Soldano SLO plugins for all of the guitar parts; they’re great for everything but I do particularly like the Mesa plugin with the EMGs in my ARZ800, which I suppose is a pretty classic pairing. The drums are the standard plugin included in Logic, which works well for pretty much every genre except for metal, while the bass is running through one of the included Logic bass amps.

I’ve been working on getting the bass and guitars to sit more comfortably in the mix with each other, but for this sort of tune there’s some merit to letting them intrude on each other more rather than keeping them super defined. It’s a difficult balancing act; I find that if I don’t give each instrument enough space then the track is fatiguing to listen to and loses its groove, but on the other hand if I EQ everything too much then it can result in a “smaller” sound.