Production Breakdown: Choices - by Project DIVIDE

An eerie sounding song with a dark message about the difficulty of the choices we must sometimes make in life, it was apparent that this track needed to have an unnatural sound for the end result. The source material pulled that off very well, so the production choices needed to reflect that. Here's how we got what we were looking for.

The beginning of the song is 2 acoustic guitars, a ride cymbal, and 3 vocals. The main vocal line is doubled, and a lower harmony is included in the mix.

We used Melodyne during the writing process to turn the single scratch track of the vocals into the multi-part harmonies we wanted throughout the song, though none of that made the final mix. It was all intended to be a scratch outline of what would be sung, and help us fine tune the notes that we intended to sing. Later, those scratch tracks would be replaced.

The acoustic guitars were both mic'd using an MXL990 that was mounted on a stand with an Auralex Mudguard. Though roominess wasn't an issue in the room we were in, we wanted a more direct sound and used the mudguard to help keep room sound at a minimum.

The drums were recorded using a Roland TD-5 V-kit that was triggering Steven Slate Drums. We used the V-kit to make quantization a breeze, keep phase at a minimum, and to allow us to get the velocity of our performance for the midi tracks. Keeping the velocity of an actual performance, the triggered samples have a more realistic quality and don't sound machine like.

After we recorded the acoustic guitars, and quantized the drums, I ran the acoustic guitars through Melodyne in Polyphonic mode. I wanted them to have an unnatural feel to them, which was an effort to create a soundscape that sonically matched the depressing and erie vibe of the lyrical content of the song. Using polyphonic mode, I was able to bring the acoustic guitars 100% perfectly in tune. This isn't something you can accomplish by tuning your guitar, and was used intentionally as an effect as opposed to a corrective measure. The guitars are so well tuned they are almost synth like, which isn't physically possible on a real acoustic guitar.

Another benefit of running the acoustic guitars through Melodyne in polyphonic mode was the shifting of the natural harmonics of the acoustic guitars. They were also moved to a slightly different place than they had been, which caused them to jump out more. The guitars sound like there's an ambient synth element blended with them, which is not the case. That's the result of fine tuning globally in polyphonic mode using Melodyne. It added a haunting element to the acoustic guitar sound, which was exactly what we were after. We also had a smearing of the attack of some of the arpeggiated notes, which was left in as part of the unnatural sound we were trying to create.

In keeping with the philosophy of making things sound eerily unreal on this track, we also fine tuned the bass and electric guitars in Melodyne using Polyphonic mode. These elements were processed through Melodyne before going into Amplitube 3 to get the tones. While being a "no rules" kind of producer who thrives on taking chances, I knew that the effect of using Melodyne in polyphonic mode after the amp tone would be unpleasingly unnatural and not what we wanted for this track. If you process in this manner before the amp tone is applied, you can keep the unwanted artifacts out of your signal while getting some really cool textures.

To keep the song dynamic, bass was only included during the chorus. Bass completely dropped out during the verses and the bridge. To reinforce the bass, I used a guitar equipped with the "Overkill" mod (a 0.1uf capacitor on the tone pot). This creates a much more extreme low pass filtering effect. Pairing that with the neck pickup of a guitar through gobs of distortion can create a synth like tone. Blending it into the background under the chorus, it reinforces the bass while not being very present in the mix. It's in there just enough to add to the low end of the frequency spectrum and make the chorus sound more full, while simultaneously not crowding the bass guitar and kick drum.

The vocals were fine tuned with Melodyne, in keeping with the overall erie landscape we were attempting to craft sonically. During the chorus you hear 5 vocal parts. 2 of the main melody, 2 of the lower harmony, and 1 of a higher harmony.

At the end of the song, the heartbeat you hear was intended to represent the stress a big life changing decision can cause. We got the heartbeat by using a kick drum in Steven Slate Drums, using a low pass filter on it, and slowly mixing in some reverb on it with automation.

Overall, the result was exactly what we were after. The fine tuning wasn't about creating a perfect take, but about creating an eeriness and unnaturalness to the tone. The end result is a very cool sounding track that is unlike anything we've done before. Enjoy.