THE SONG: Hard to talk about this song. I'll try though. It's about the best and worst of me and how they battle it out every day... Some days more than others. The closest I could get to naming these sides was as a Lion and a Lamb... stupid me; I wasn't really thinking in terms of any biblical symbolic meaning of those animals at the time I wrote this...they just seemed to fit as I was trying to sort this stuff out in my head. There's this tough as nails, driven, determined, almost stoic, perfectionist side of me... and there's this gentle, measured, thoughtful, vulnerable side. Both are 100% real. What I didn't realize until later was that both have their good and bad sides. It's not as black and white as their names suggest. Like anything that involves the collision of thought and emotion, it's not simple.
In some ways it feels like it's that classic image of the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other, each whispering in an ear to influence the poor helpless human:) It's not exactly that though. The closest I can come to understanding this duality in me is that the Lion is primal, instinctual and the Lamb is reflective, spiritual, overtly emotional without acting on it until there's understanding... the Lamb is careful... the Lion has a fire in it's belly, the Lamb cries.
I don't know.
THE RECORDING: I started recording this while I was writing it. It started as one song, for one purpose and kept morphing until it became this. The piano came first. It's my 100 year old Steinway Upright which starts out being filtered through HP and LP filters on an SSL Plugin. This piano has so many great harmonics/textures in every register so it's cool to hear those come out when it's filtered.
Next came the drums. Which are a blend of highly tweaked electronic drums from this amazing little keyboard called the OP-1 (made by Teenage Engineering). This thing is crazy cool. Super small and weird. Google it.
Then I laid down a blend of a few different stereo synth basses (Omnisphere and Vacuum etc.) that I tweaked and distorted and also stereo widened. I do this by bussing them to two mono aux tracks and then I time delay one side by about 1200 samples; instant WIDENER... frees up the middle of the stereo spectrum.
Then I added real drums. I wanted this song to sound organic, but have that sense that under the earth there were ominous gears, steam engines, machine arms and pistons (hence the synth basses and electro-drums). This song is all about what's under the surface so those layers were important to have reflected in the track... I should mention also, that this stuff (while I'm doing it) tends to be very "Lion"... instinctual and not all that conscious in the moment. I trust that when it feels right, it is right... I guess there's a Producer Lion & Lamb thing going on too:) Weird. Back to the drums! So, I doubled what I had on the electro-drums, then added this syncopated groove for the chorus... I then hard panned each and had them battling - Lion Drums on the left... Lamb Drums on the right:)
There are layers of bells and other orchestral elements in there as well. I wanted a legato cinematic thing happening over all the driving rhythmic stuff. Contrast was important in this.
Vocally, everything is semi-doubled as well. Sung on a great new mic I bought at Namm called the Helios by Sontronics (England). Great mic... and only about $800... as opposed the $7500 for my U47!). It does something all it's own... more clear and open.
All of this goes through my NEVE Summing Mixer, then to a HAMMER EQ by A-Designs and a Stereo Bus Compressor called an Obsidian... which I love (hear those Jensen Transformers juice it all up).
Enjoy!
:)Adam