Cover Song Recording & Production on Garageband
- 2011545
- Jun 6, 2022
- 7 min read
Updated: Jun 9, 2022
For my project I chose to record two songs that are meaningful to me, both by Lil Peep, 'Star Shopping' & 'nuts'. I recorded everything in Garageband on my Macbook and recorded the instrumentals myself, with the exception of the latter song, which I used and edited someone else's sample for (with their permission of course). Personally I am not a big fan of Peep's music in general, but I felt that the songs were meaningful to me and truly encapsulated how I felt about Jane, the character in my film. They were both songs that she loved.
My recording of 'Star Shopping' is from bars 1- 60 and 'nuts' from bar 60 - 92. The entire duration was just under 4 minutes, as neither of the songs are very long. Ideally I want to be able to post my short film onto YouTube to share it with others, which is made possible by YouTube Content ID.
Copyright Laws & YouTube Content ID
To clarify, it is not legal to use the same recording from the actual song unless you have obtained permission from the label/artist (breach of copyright), however you are allowed to imitate the sound. YouTube covers are uploaded every day because of YouTube Content ID.
The way it works is that Content ID detects whether there is material on your video that is copyrighted. If there is, this means that your content will get a copyright claim; which isn't a bad thing; it means that the original copyright holder will receive ad revenue generated by your video
Copyright claims are different from copyright strikes; claims simply mean the original copyright holder will be able to generate ad revenue, in exchange for permission to post your video; strikes explicitly mean that they want to take your video down. Content ID obviously is not 100% reliable but it offers an easier solution for artists.
Star Shopping & nuts (re)production
Star Shopping
To record this song, I listen to the original a few times so I could imitate the instrumentals. For me this song was something I could already play on my acoustic guitar so recording it was easy for me; I knew the beat as well as the strumming pattern etc. Funnily enough, I actually played it for the real-life Jane for Valentine's Day, which is one of the main reasons I picked the song actually. The pace of the recording was the challenge for me, but vocally I knew it so well I just sung it through.
Vocals
Recording the vocals on 'Star Shopping' came so naturally to me as I had sung it many times and knew all the words, so I simply recorded it all the way through, omitting lyrics I thought did not match the rest of the song and the feeling I was trying to convey. That actually was a personal choice of mine, not to include some parts of the lyrics, as they were either too explicit and/or just didn't resonate with me as much, hence the gaps.
I created three different tracks (highlighted) for the vocals part, one for the main bit (star shopping vocals), and two different backup tracks I used with different volumes to create a slightly different effect (vocals and backup vocals).
Instrumentation
There were lots of instruments that I did not have available to me other than the guitar, so I used a royalty free pack from Surge Sounds which has 808 bass samples. As well as this I searched around the internet to find other royalty free samples for the short kick and hi-hat, which were available in the public domain. This includes all of the orange bits as well as the channels below the first acoustic guitar channel; which I duplicated a few times to keep the same volume settings as well as sound quality for different layers.
For the vocals on both songs in this project I recorded them using my Behringer XM8500 mic, and also a Behringer U-Phoria audio interface which were both plugged into to my Macbook to enhance the sound quality as opposed to using the Macbook mic itself.
In the picture adjacent you can see the equipment I used to record this piece. This equipment is what I use to record my own music too, and I have also had a bit of practice playing the song on the guitar because of previous projects where I tried to make a similar film, but did not have the timescale to make the standard as high as I wanted it to be.
nuts
This song is a lot newer to me so I tried my best to imitate the beat as well as the rhythm in my recording attempts, but none of them even came close to the sound of the original.
After some doing some research into the song This was because the original producer, Willie G, used a sample from a 2006 song - 'Bright Lights' by Force Theory. Instead I had to come up with a different solution.
I got permission from a producer on YouTube - Bearcub! - to use and modify his sample as part of my own production (shown right). I messaged his Instagram (@prodbearcub) and he seemed fine with me using it.
In order to use the audio, I used the website Offeo to convert the video into an mp3 file, which I then dragged into Garageband and cropped as shown above. I then recorded layers of my own vocals whilst recording it myself, so that I could use the vocals in Garageband, whilst also using the footage in Premiere Pro as part of my film. This is shown below; which is the full recording of both songs, which I cropped, edited and used in Premiere.
Vocals
Recording vocals for this song was probably one of the more challenging things. The quality of my voice is very different to the original singer, as it is a lot deeper and hits barely any treble parts. This actually affected both recordings, but mainly this one, due to its distorted nature. The voice of Lil Peep is rather nasal and raspy, where as the featured artist, rainy bear, has a very singsongy, androgynous voice. My voice has none of those qualities. In a way I saw that as a good thing because it sounded more original and not too much like the song.
Above as you can see I actually used four different channels (highlighted above) for my work vocally, to make the song sound slightly more distorted like in the original recording. Each of the channels have different volumes as well as different intensities. I actually sung at different volumes. In the first 'nuts vocals' track you can see how I sang quietly and softly in contrast to the second 'backup vocals' track which is ironically the driving vocals in the whole recording.
Another thing I did as you may have noticed was, instead of using all four channels the whole time, I muted them for different bits by cutting them out here and there. For the most important parts that related to the film specifically (bars 74 -80) I actually took away the rest of the layers and built it up layer by layer. The 'woah' bit between bars 70 and 71 was actually one of the main bits where all the layers come together in unison.
Adjusting the EQ
When using a sample from another audio you may have to play around with the EQ - meaning adjusting the higher notes and lower notes so that the overall composition sounds balanced; not too bass-heavy, nor too high up there which can ruin the recording overall. This is what I did in Garageband to play around with the frequencies of the higher, mids and lower notes. Unfortunately in these screen recordings I wasn't sure how to capture the audio, but visually you can see what has been done in the EQ bar below.
The sample I used by the producer Bearcub that imitated the original song was very good, but when I played it back, the bass part hit far too hard at the beginning (after the reversed bass drum) and essentially distracted from the rest of the song. So essentially what I tried to do is reduce the bass (bass drum) and accentuate the treble (which includes the hi-hats and the Bright Lights sample used in Bearcub's recording).
This can be seen on the bar below, by dragging each colour coded part either up or down by adjusting the gain (which is the plus or minus in dB (decibels)). If it is positive, for example +2.0dB, this means that this selected audio level is playing 2dB louder than normal, and vice versa for a negative value.
This one the left is just a final playthrough to just check the levels are sounding okay. As I am not a professional, it obviously did not sound perfect, and the bass when it came in at bar 54 still sounded too strong in contrast to the weaker build up. In order to fix this, I decided to re-use the riser sample I had used earlier on over Bearcub's sample, to create a stronger, sound rather than just a sudden bass drop.
Exporting
After I had finished the recording I exported it to the disk as an mp3 and saved it. However I actually ended up doing this a number of times; as shown below. As a perfectionist, I listened to the track while importing into Premiere, and kept finding minor things I wanted to change in the recording, whether it was the audio level of my vocals, or the instrumentation, or using more or less layering of my vocals in different parts of the song because I thought it would sound better.
I even created a dedicated folder for the number of failed attempts. I got tired of renaming the same file over and over again as you can tell. The actual final version is the first one below on the screen shot named 'im so sick of renaming this.mp3'.
Reference list Anon, (n.d.). FREE 808 Bass - 100 Key-Labeled 808 Bass Samples - Huge Low End. [online] Available at: https://surgesounds.com/808-bass-808-bass-samples-808-samples-808-sample-pack-808-drum-808-drum-kit/ [Accessed 6 Jun. 2022]. Cole, C. (2022). Posting Cover Songs on YouTube: What Steps Do I Take? [online] Worship Leader. Available at: https://worshipleader.com/culture/music-business/posting-cover-songs-on-youtube-what-steps-do-i-take/ [Accessed 6 Jun. 2022]. Lickd. (n.d.). Can I monetize cover songs on YouTube? A guide for creators. [online] Available at: https://lickd.co/blog/music-licensing/can-i-monetize-cover-songs-on-youtube [Accessed 6 Jun. 2022]. OFFEO Download. (n.d.). Youtube to MP3 : Save Youtube Videos for free - OFFEO. [online] Available at: https://offeo.com/download/youtube-to-mp3/ [Accessed 2 Jun. 2022]. Pexels. (n.d.). Breathtaking Time Lapse View of Meteor Shower. [online] Available at: https://www.pexels.com/video/breathtaking-time-lapse-view-of-meteor-shower-5167233/ [Accessed 1 Jun. 2022]. WhoSampled. (n.d.). Lil Peep feat. Lil Skil’s ‘Nuts’ - Discover the Sample Source. [online] Available at: https://www.whosampled.com/sample/846687/Lil-Peep-Lil-Skil-Nuts-Force-Theory-Bright-Lights/ [Accessed 1 Jun. 2022]. www.youtube.com. (n.d.). LIL PEEP - NUTS FT. LIL SKIL FLP REMAKE INSTRUMETAL (100% ACCURATE). [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpnGUgEGosQ [Accessed 1 Jun. 2022].
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