It's Love
Production Notes
Charles wrote a country song (from the perspective of a 45 year old no less) that he thought might be sellable to a pop artist, and so we started producing it. It turned out ok, but probably is one of the songs I'm least proud of that's listed. This could be because a) I didn't really like the song or b) I don't like country songs. Either way its a bad combination and I spent a whole lot of free time working on it and not liking it a whole lot. I do think it ended up ok though.
This was our first song to use melodyne, and we used it a lot. The vocals are all melodyned, which was nice. Additionally, we didn't do any backup vocals. Instead, we copied the vocal tracks and melodyned the vocals up a third (or a fourth depending on the note) until it sounded nice. I think that worked out ok, but we should have changed the EQing and effects for the backups (at least more than we did) to make them sound like they were sung differently. The resulting effect was a little too homogenous. It was nice to have the vocals be in tune and in time with themselves without too much effort though. The other thing we did with the backups is kill the tone modulation a lot as you don't really hear that in the mix, and it helps with leveling out the harmony's sound.
The drums took forever on this one. I programmed BFD by hand, and read as much as I could about drum compression and EQ. I ended up programming the drums on a separate project and tweaking all of the tracks to my liking (e.g., compressing and EQing the bass drum, snares, toms, hats etc. separately and then applying overall effects to the drum set). I didn't get a chance to set up the New York style compression (where you run the mix and a compression of the mix on the drums and mix them into each other) on this one as I discovered it too late.
Charles did the guitar parts (the electric is my MusicMan Axis running through a Line6 Pod Pro and then some plugs), and I played the bass (warwick fretless, through my bass pod pro). For the bass, I ran melodyne (to fix my tuning and rhythm mistakes) and bass compression and it came out pretty good I think. Finally, Charles played the piano (using The Grand 2).
This was the first attempt at running "mastering" plugins on the out bus. Its not really mastering though, as that is an abused term that should mean the process that makes a cd sound homogenous, so really this should be called pre-mastering or postmix processing. Or something. Anyway, I used Izotope Ozone, and picked one of their presets, but it didn't turn out great. That's 'cause I don't really understand how to use those tools yet (or at least didn't in that case, I've gotten a bit more sophisticated recently).
Lyrics
Oh our kids are all grown up now, we miss 'em all the time
I love it when they call home, the way it lights up your eyes
I still remember the day that they were born
you never looked so happy, I never loved you more
Well I sure as hell ain't perfect, I'm the best man I can be
and I will never regret, no, the day I fell to my knees
35 years in may, was the day that we first met
and yeah we've got our differences, but how can I forget
It's love, and I'm still holdin' on
I wanna see your eyes the day our first grandchild's born
Its love, and I need you to know
I will still be holdin' on, even if you go
I know it ain't always right girl, but it sure ain't ever wrong
and there's no question in my mind, why we've lasted so long
your eyes are the same color as the ones that said I do
and your touch is still as gentle as on our honeymoon
damn it's love, and I'm still holdin' on
I wanna see your eyes the day our first grandchild's born
Its love, and I need you to know
I will still be holdin' on, even if you go
and if you leave, I'll stay forever
just in case you remember, the way
we make love, and I'm still holdin' on
I wanna see your eyes the day our first grandchild's born
Its love, and I need you to know
I will still be holdin' on, even if you go
It's love, and I'm still holdin' on
I wanna see your eyes the day our first grandchild's born
Its love, and I need you to know
I will still be holdin' on, even if you go
please don't go...