Recording My Song

I recorded the song using Cubase, which is professional recording software. For the vocals we used a Shure SM-57 microphone which is a dynamic microphone with a cardiod polar pattern – meaning the area around the microphone picks up sound.

Bon Iver recorded the whole of his ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ album, featuring the song ‘Skinny Love’, on an SM-57. It’s a good microphone because it has a large frequency range, from bass up to vocals. The guitar and microphone were fed through an M-audio fast track 2.

The vocals were gated and then equalised before we compressed them and finally ran them through a reverb effects channel. Gating them removes unwanted sounds at quieter parts of the track but still lets main audio through. Equalising removes unwanted frequencies, bringing clarity and tone to both the instruments and vocals. Compressing ensures the audio doesn't peak and create digital distortion.

The song is entitled ‘Real Love’ and is about realising the strengths of a relationship during an argument and deciding to make it work. It is in 3/4 timing. The tempo increases throughout the song as the lyrics get happier. It also ends on a key change and altered chorus.