After writing last week’s post about refining my songwriting process—treating song ideas like article ideas and putting them through a draft, edit, revise process—I realized I was making final decisions too early. I was thinking only about my tools (DAWs, amp sims, drum plugins, etc.) in their end state—the finished product—not how they fit into the various stages of the songwriting process.
Only after developing ideas do I need to make more focused decisions, such as which guitar, amp sim, drum plugin, or reverb fits the song’s vibe. If I make these decisions too early, they not only eat up valuable time and energy, but risk steering a song in a direction that might not be right. I’ve been so focused on getting to the end that I’ve forgotten the steps in between.
With the DAW, I focused on recording and neglected other ways to use it. Yes, I can use it to record, capture ideas, and record finished arrangements, but what about everything in between? After I capture an initial idea, I need to develop and evaluate it. I can do this in the DAW, or, as I discussed in a previous post, in a notation app like Guitar Pro.
I might initially capture an idea on my Telecaster through a Fender Tweed plugin; later, I might realize the part needs my Gibson SG with a Marshall plugin. In the early stages, I don’t need to choose between Fender and Marshall because any clean or overdriven tone will do; I’m not making a final recording, I’m just developing an idea.
The same is true for drums. I might capture the initial idea playing to a simple drum loop, only to realize I need a busier one to fill the gaps left by my simple guitar riff, or vice versa: the busy guitar part needs a very simple backbeat. At this stage, I don’t need to decide between EZdrummer 3 and Addictive Drums 2 when simple will do.
The same applies to the other decisions I’ve been laboring over, like which reverb sounds best on the aux bus. Just grab a reverb and move on—I’m not mixing yet. I might not even know whether the idea is worth recording, let alone mixing.
This week I took the ideas I had for my Sabbath-inspired song and played them over a drum loop to hear how they sounded in a musical context. I didn’t record. I evaluated. I made edits and revisions, refining each time. As the week progressed, the edits became fewer and further apart.
At first, I was discouraged by what I perceived as a lack of tangible progress, but I realized the printed Guitar Pro score I’d been referencing all week said otherwise. I had three distinct parts that had been slowly evolving over the week, one small edit and revision at a time. And I sensed a shift in my thinking. I focused less on the tools and more on the work. My previous emphasis on the tools—the right DAW, guitar tone, and drum loop—was premature. At this stage, any DAW, overdriven guitar tone, or simple backbeat would do. What I had wasn’t a song yet, but it was slowly evolving into one.