Meeting My Producer

In the last week before the Christmas holidays, I met with my assigned TORS Producer, Iain Mahanty. I will be working with him on two tracks but this meeting was focused on To Kill or Die For. We chatted about the process and about muscial influences, and most importantly, Wales (we both originate from the Land of Song)! I really liked his approach and despite me being a small fish in a small pond, he treated the project seriously and with respect. Iain has ‘proper’ musical credentials - he’s a songwriter, composer and producer as well as a key member of the Welsh band Kids in Glass Houses. Needless to say, after meeting him, I’ve listened to a lot of their music.

First Draft

True to his word, he reached out at the end of the first week of January with two versions of the track - talk about value for money! We had discussed the ‘Cool Cymru’ sound and I really wanted to rock-up the track a little - my original demo (which is still available to listen to on Soundcloud) has a jazzy vibe. The files were sent to me as .wav files available on Highnote. This is my first time using Highnote and it looks like a brilliant and easy way to collaborate. I literally only had to set up a log in and could add comments / feedback along the timeline of the song. I will be using this moving forward on any collaborations - the great thing is that it’s free (at the time of writing) for the first 15 works!

Weekend Work

I spent much of the weekend listening, processing, pondering and analysing the draft. I was really happy with what I was hearing - this was pretty much what I had asked for. The trouble is, I’m not sure my steering was correct. I think on reflection, this is a jazz-based track and should be influenced by indie-pop and not a fully fledged guitar-driven song. I commented on everything I liked (and there was a lot) and some of the areas I liked less. I also sent back comments via email including the bits (timestamped) of the original demo I would like to retain. Immediately, the track has improved however - the tempo has increased and it’s a simple but massively impactful and positive change. The drums and elements of bass guitar also are much improved. It’s so interesting to hear the evoluation of the song.

Happy As Larry

The TORS process is very straight-forward: you form the track with the producer over two or three drafts and then the musicians are called in for the actual recording. The process should take around three or four weeks. If each revisions brings me the amount of positivity and hope the first has, I’m going to be a very happy customer!

[14.01.25 / CT]