I’ve figured out that you don’t need a
thousand elements to create something big.
It’s more of like, highlighting those important
things in the song.
Everything has its own part and not crashed
with something else.
When I started working on “REMEDY,” I
was in Greece just you know, traveling, touring.
What I was thinking while I was there in Greece
and making the song is like how great the
summer is.
Everyone is longing for the summer the whole
year and towards the end of the summer, you’re
kind of sad.
All these great memories that you created
in the summer is coming to an end.
So it’s a very melancholic feeling.
You know, it’s happy but sad.
I always strive actually for that in my songs.
I think what really catches your attention
with “REMEDY” is the piano melody in the
beginning.
I think what’s important especially when
it comes to piano…
It really is about what kind of melody you
play on it combined with what kind of piano
you’ve tweaked.
So this is just you know, we’ve recorded
different vocals.
Me singing a little bit to Jake the demo singer.
You stack them up, you know?
That’s when it becomes powerful.
There’s no rocket science man.
They’re just singing along with the melody
because that is the whole melody of the whole
song.
That’s the lead melody.
I usually like to add the drums and stuff
more towards the end.
The first thing obviously is the 44 kick.
I wanted there to be punch in it but I didn’t
want it to take over the whole song.
This is honestly the first time I just took
a sample from…
I think it was, Vengeance or something and
just threw it in there.
It was really exactly what I was looking for.
What I always do is when I’ve tweaked a
percussion or something and added plugins
I export it to an audio file so there’s
not too many plugins on it while you start
working ‘cause obviously the product is
gonna get bigger and bigger.
Some Toms.
And obviously there’s more stuff happening
in the drop.
There’s more Toms.
Hi-hats.
And also when you layer them, they just become
more powerful.
And as you can hear, it’s nothing crazy
really.
It’s a rhythm you’ve heard many many times
before but it also was the only rhythm that
fit.
What really helps the drop in the song is
the Diva and Omnisphere combined like this…
That’s like the top melody in the piano
role and it’s the main melody in the vocals
too.
So they’re all playing the same melodies.
So with bassline, you can really create different
kind of flows.
On this one, it’s following the chord progression
but it’s jumping out a little bit to just
bounce a little bit more.
So I’m gonna play it with the kick so you
kind of hear where it jumps out.
Logic came out with a really cool plugin called
Retrosynth.
The LFO there is not on time.
When you have a 44, it’s good sometimes
to have things a little bit off beat.
So in the chorus, it’s the piano filter,
the pads, one that’s very dark, one that’s
a little brighter, and one that’s very bright.
Together with the gain vocal…
It really gives that epic feeling, I think.
Hands in the air moment, I think.
What’s interesting though is in the second
chorus, I actually strip it down.
Just two elements.
It’s the filtered piano and the bright pads.
When I work with vocals, I always somehow
try to combine it with the demo vocals.
In this case, there’s just a few parts where
you can hear Jake’s vocals, one of the writers
that plays along really well with Conor’s
vocal.
I’m just gonna first play Conor’s.
Now you’re gonna hear it with Jake in it
and you’re gonna notice how much wider and
bigger it sounds.
And obviously, through the song, there are
a couple effects there like sweeps and crashes
and three more added layers.
We got some horns in here.
And once again, it’s nothing crazy really
happening in this song.
I think the key to this song is the vocals
and the melodies.
The rest is pretty easy to make as you can
see.
And it sounds something like this…
As a producer, I always strive to find new
sounds.
In this case, I wanted to go the other direction
‘cause I’ve always worked the other way.
This time, I wanted to put sounds in there
that people recognized.
It really creates that warmth, that comfortable
nice feeling.
