Songwriting Habits - Solarcoaster - A songwriting process.
Solarcoaster is an Australian Indy Rock band, based in Sydney. They have just released their new song Seattle.
One of the band members, Jarrah Purcell-Smith , spoke to our students about the process of songwriting and the challenges when releasing an album during lockdown.
What are the Steps?
Write
- Get your ideas down. - Lyrics, chords progressions, musical ideas.
- record or jot down all you musical ideas and lyrics
- Sharing those ideas with other members of your band so then it starts developing into a song that you are all happy with.
- Develop all the layers from drums, keyboards, guitars and vocals
Record
There are a number of software that you can use to record:
GarageBand
Free Voice notes
Logic
Ableton
Reaper
In their case they used Logic and by the end had 68 different tracks.
Drums - Digital Drums - used the software drums in Logic and decided against recording with a live kit which can be a challenge because you have to mic up all the parts of the drums and ensure you have really good levels
Guitars - effects - recorded twice to give the riff a bigger sound
Bass Guitar - effects
Synthesizers/ keyboards - midi files
Vocals - doubled the vocals, effects, harmonies
To overcome the lockdown situation members recorded their tracks at home and then emailed them to Jarrah who then mixed them all together, in Logic.
We spoke about the difference between midi files and audio files. Singers usually record using an audio file because the voice needs to be captured. When you are recording voice or guitar, it’s important to get the volume levels right before you begin. This can take some time, but once finished it makes it an easier to mix.
A midi file is an electronic signal from a software instrument like a keyboard. These types of files are really helpful as you can easily fix any mistakes, change notes etc. and are very easy to record in any DAW.
MiX
The mix took some time to do as essentially you have to take all the tracks and individually mix them together:
Balance all the sounds
Check the volumes so other instruments don’t dominate each other during the mix.
Add different effects like reverb, delay etc.
Mastering
The final mix was then sent to an audio engineer who did the final Master. Mastering means you work on the whole song rather than individual tracks.
Makes it all sounds louder
From this final master all other copies, mp3’s, records etc are made.
Distribution
Solarcoaster then paid a distributor who then accesses platforms like:
They used GYROstream which is an Australian based company.
There are free apps you can also use like:
YouTube
SoundCloud
Promote
The last step is promotion. Here, Solarcoaster is using different platforms to promote their music. These platforms help drive people to listen to their music.
To promote your music you can use:
Instagram
Family and friends
Community radio stations
Other social media
Here are some tips on how to get started in songwriting:
Start by listening to songs and all the different layers you can hear.
Listen to how they put all the musical ideas together
Let go of the need for your song to be perfect and just get it out there. Put something together, finish it and let it go!