> Intro > Finding a Groove & Tracking Guitar and Voice > Customising Beats & Arranging > Autozap > Tracking a Bassline & Exporting the Song
Introduction
In the Songzap Artist Series, we feature a number of short films with exciting contemporary songwriters, harnessing the power of Songzap to capture ideas and make demos of their songs. The films revolve around interviews with the artists, letting us in on the sources of their inspiration and breaking down the workflows of how they craft their songs.
The artists get down to some fascinating song-craft, tracking amazing performances, layering them and exploring different aspects of Songzap – from shaping their arrangements with tasteful drum programming, to experimenting with the app’s AI session players to bring additional keys and bass textures to their vision. We couldn’t fit all the amazing footage into the films, so here in the Songzap blog, we’ve put together some extra ‘behind the scenes’ videos that take you deeper into the stories of how their songs came to life.
In this post, we provide a breakdown of Claudia McKenzie‘s ‘Rain Down Hell’ production – a song that she performs for us on acoustic guitar and voice, before recording herself using only an iPhone, adding bass and leveraging Songzap’s Arrange feature to beautifully shape the song’s narrative. Watch the ‘making of’ video below and enjoy Claudia’s dynamic performances as she gets to grips with Songzap’s many production features.
Finding a Groove & Tracking Guitar and Voice (00:15 – 02:17)
00:15 – 00:34
With a bit of guidance from RT60’s CTO, Prof Rob Toulson, Claudia calls up a simple drum groove preset to help her lay down the first layer of her arrangement – a bluesy and catchy acoustic guitar part that will become the foundation of the whole song. Claudia decides on a tempo, selects preset A from Songzap’s Preset Beats menu (in the ‘Beat’ pane of the Groove page) and tries out her riff.
00:34 – 00:49
She then puts on her headphones, arms Track 1 in Songzap’s Tracking page and, after a two-bar count-in, records the full guitar part – from beginning to end – just using the iPhone microphone. The sound you hear in the video is the result of that recording!
00:49 – 00:59
As the guitar recording plays through, we see Claudia switching to Songzap’s Mixer page, for a quick rebalancing of the drum sounds (kick, snare and cymbals) and the guitar layer. She adjusts the snare drum level, pushes up the kick and brings down the cymbal fader. She then gives the guitar a healthy amount of reverb to create an inspiring space in her headphone mix, as she prepares to lay down her vocals. With the lyrics open on a second iPhone in front of her (using the Song Info / Lyrics page in Songzap, which you can access by tapping on the song’s name at the Home screen), she’s ready to track the lead vocal part.
00:59 – 02:17
Claudia arms Track 2 in Songzap’s Tracking page and, again, uses the iPhone mic to record. This time, she’s holding the iPhone in her hand at a good distance and angle from her mouth. Her consistent mic technique ensures a healthy vocal level being captured, which is represented by the (red) waveform on Songzap’s Track 2. What you’re hearing in the video is the unprocessed sound of her vocal recording! We then witness Claudia making a few further mix adjustments using the Mixer page, to balance the developing vocal, guitar and drums mix.
Customising Beats & Arranging (02:17 – 06:18)
02:17 – 02:47
Claudia switches to Songzap’s Arrange page to begin structuring the song’s arrangement and modify the drum grooves for the consecutive song sections. She taps on the first of the repeating ‘Basic Groove’ segments in the Arrange page and selects ‘Intro’ from the available Segment Types in the menu; then taps on the Number of Bars button toward the right of the ‘Intro’ segment and selects ‘4’ (bars) from the menu. She taps on the ‘Intro’ segment and switches to the ‘Beat’ pane, where she uses the Notation screen to edit the basic drum groove (what was preset A). Claudia taps on the cymbal and snare notes to delete them and then taps again to input a ‘four-to-the-floor’ kick-drum pattern – she plays back the song from the start to check how the new kick pattern works with the intro guitar riff.
02:47 – 04:13
Claudia then shapes the ‘Verse’ and ‘Pre-Chorus’ sections following similar steps. She lets the 8-bar Verse unfold using the same kick-drum pattern as the Intro, then initially uses the drum groove from preset A for the majority of the Pre-Chorus section (first 5 bars). Claudia realises that the Pre-Chorus she recorded is actually made out of 6 bars, and she wants to add a variation to the last bar. She uses the Notation screen to mirror the Intro and Verse kick-drum pattern for the first 5 bars of the Pre-Chorus, but adds quarter-note hi-hats over the kicks; and then calls up a 1-bar ‘Bridge’ segment, where she adds eighth-note kick drums to create a ‘gear-change’ and drive the song into the forthcoming Chorus. At the very last beat (quarter) of the Bridge section, she intuitively taps in some kick and snare notes to create a fill – which end up sounding great as she plays the song through from the Verse to the end of the Pre-Chorus to check how it all works together.
04:13 – 05:15
Claudia selects a (6-bar) ‘Chorus’ Segment Type for the next section and plays it through a few times trying out different Preset Beats. She lands on Preset ‘I’ which mirrors the guitar syncopation nicely, but then uses the Notation screen to tap out a superfluous kick drum, making the pattern less busy. She adds a 1-bar ‘Chorus B’ segment right after, where she edits the drums from an eight-note kick drum build-up to a half-bar stop, mirroring the Bridge programming but also creating a welcome stop before the song returns to another Verse.
05:15 – 06:18
As Claudia reviews the arrangement so far, she switches to the Advanced Mixer page to shape the sound of her developing production. She beefs up the kick drum using compression and low-end EQ, before switching back to the Arrange page, where she copies and reorders the song section segments to create the full basic structure. (It’s wonderful to witness how Claudia keeps going back to the Mixer page as she develops her song arrangement to shape the sound of her mix.)
Autozap (06:18 – 07:43)
This is a good time to have some fun with Songzap’s AI function. With a little help from Prof Rob, Claudia taps on the ‘Z’ (Songzap AI) button and selects Linear Track 1 (her guitar recording) to enable Songzap to proceed with Chord Analysis. She then chooses to Generate Bass and Pad parts [not Beat(s), as that would overwrite her drum programming]. Songzap then rapidly analyses the guitar recording for chordal information, populates a chord chart – behind the scenes – for all the different sections of the song, and triggers complimentary basslines and keyboard pads (simple held keys patterns) that match the guitar performance!
Claudia is not too interested in the generated basslines (as she’s an accomplished bass player), but has some fun with the different keyboard sounds (from the Select Pad Sample Pack menu, in the ‘Pad’ pane of the Groove page) as she reviews the patterns. She starts with the Hammond organ patch, but also tries out the String Machine and Piano sounds, before tapping on the ‘Treble Clef’ (Chord Chart Editor) button in the Groove page to review Songzap’s chord analysis.
Tracking a Bassline & Exporting the Song (07:43 – 08:42)
Finally, Claudia places her iPhone near the bass amp, plugs in and records a driving, grooving bassline on Track 3 using Songzap’s Tracking page. Again, what you hear in the video is the unprocessed sound of her bass amp tracked in Songzap, just using the iPhone mic!
With the song in great shape, Claudia taps on the Export and then Share buttons to export an ‘m4a’ (compressed) file of the whole production, which is ideal for sharing on social media and messaging ups. As the export completes, Claudia taps on her WhatsApp profile to send the finished song to herself.
Check out the exported mix below – a fantastic record of Claudia’s songwriting craft, performing ability and experimentation with Songzap.
And if you haven’t already, watch Claudia’s full interview below as part of the Songzap Artist Series films.
