January Songwriting Postmortem / Nard Life

January Songwriting Postmortem

This past month went great.

I spent the entire time back at home in Oxnard with the sole goal of releasing four songs by the end of January and I DID IT!

There are a few phases in my life when I’ve worked pretty hard towards something and this is one of them. Other times include

  • leetcoding to get into my current company

  • studying for my algorithms class so I could meet the 3.0 gpa requirement and declare my major

  • practicing my acting scenes with the arbitrary goal of “becoming the best actor in my class”

  • beyond that I guess I haven’t applied myself toooooo many times

My point is that it feels good to work hard again.

What I did right

  • Setting expectations/deadlines. The whole idea of releasing 4 songs this month was a huge driving force

  • Setting up my workflow. In the past I would “produce” by opening my daw and scrolling reddit/instagram. This time around I installed SelfControl and blocked out hour sessions where I wouldn’t get distracted. Should probably set this up on my phone too.

  • Generally better discipline. Better sleep habits. Cut down on my habit of watching TV on my iPad in bed

What I could do better

  • Singing / recording continues to be one of the harder parts of this process. The most tedious part of my flow has been

    • singing the song properly in a way that sounds good enough

    • comping. I haaaaaate comping. Probably because I end up doing 20+ takes per track in an effort to get the “perfect” one

    • the fix: practice the song before recording instead of practicing while recording. Do the bad takes off mic so I don’t have to spend hours comping

  • Messing around with finding mixers

    • I regret hiring mixers. Unless you’re willing to pay good money ~400+ per song I think it’s hard to get a pretty good mix.

    • I also find it difficult to convey exactly what you want. Things I could change easily on my own took multiple back and forths with my mixer

  • Mixing

    • I’m going to mix my next two songs. Balancing the mix is still pretty hard BUT I want to get better and save money and ultimately I think I can do better compared to a budget mix

    • The fix: probably watch some more mix tutorials. The hardest part for me is setting the gain so it doesn’t peak. Also carving out space in the mix for the most important elements

    • The other fix: use reference tracks. Why oh why didn’t I just find a reference track. Helps so much with balance and it’s easier to figure out when a mix is “done”. Biggest issue here is finding the right reference track

  • Mastering

    • I want to experiment with the mastering for my next songs.

      • Plug one into a robo-mastering service like Landr

      • Hire someone to master off Soundbetter

      • Compare the two

Next steps

I’m aiming for two songs by the end of February. Listening to my last few releases—they’re all so sad or angsty. This time I’m focusing exclusively on happy songs.

Have yet to finalize which songs I’m going to make but I want to explore something city pop sounding. Also would like to explore a bossa nova song someday but probably not in February.

My biggest concern is keeping up the momentum and not getting distracted. Being at home was a big advantage because there’s so little to do beyond staying home and making music. Will the hold up when I leave Oxnard?

Nard Life

In the time since the last post I

  • Hung out with Yang. We played Starcraft Battlefront II and watched a pretty good anime movie called Belle. A Japanese interpretation of beauty and the beast set in both modern day Japan and a virtual world. Really interesting concept. Beautiful art / colors. Would recommend

  • Hung out with Erika. Got burgers / boba and caught up on the new stuff (it’s been months since I last saw her)

  • Made weekly family meal. First week: Doobydoobap’s Gochujang pasta. My pasta to sauce ratio was off but that sauce was D E L I C I O U S. The cream tempered the spiciness of the gochujang so you had this really mellow, warm, spicy, creamy pasta sauce. 8 / 10

  • Second week: okonomiyaki. Came out way better than expected. Substituted Chik Fil A sauce since I was missing Kewpie. Next time I’d thin out the batter a bit and cut the cabbage thinner but overall delicious. I added some spam into my version. 8 / 10

That’s about it. GOODBYE!