Producing Stems for Elevation Worship Song with Jay Taylor

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Let's welcome Taylor, an Alabama-based multi-instrumentalist and music director at Love City Church in the Birmingham area, who shares how he started on drums, was pushed to learn organ in church, developed strong ear skills, and later expanded through formal training at UAB in music technology, classical, and jazz. The episode then shifts into a hands-on arrangement session where J demonstrates building a live arrangement for “Jehovah” by Elevation Worship in Logic Pro, covering workflow tips like custom metronome clicks, key command layouts, low-latency mode, BPM alignment, markers, dummy keys, pads/drones, Omnisphere and Roland Cloud sounds, layering leads and bells, and arranging choices to support dynamics and direction. The session ends due to time, setting up Part 2.

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Welcome to the Worship Keys podcast. My name is Carson Bruce. We talk all things music theory, gear, industry, and ministry for your worship keys playing. I'd like to thank Aerospace Audio for being a sponsor of this episode. They create unique incredible high quality atmospheric drone pads to be used for your worship services, productions, songwriting sessions, whatever it may be. They have an analog physical drone pedal that they call atmosphere. There's actually a version three out. They also have a MIDI end capability, so you can work in tandem with Ableton Live or any other dog that you have to be able con to control everything through that ecosystem. Or if not the physical analog pedal. They also have an iOS app that you can run the pad straight from your iPhone or iPad. It's called Aero Pads. Definitely check them out, aerospace audio.com and let's get into today's episode. Alright, j Taylor, welcome to the Worship Keys Podcast, man. Thank you man. Thank you. Thank you. It's an honor to be here man. I'm glad to be here man. It is. It's great to actually have you in person. 'cause the first time I met you, I was running sound and you were on the Keys, bro, and you were killing it. Uh, CJ and the fellas. Yep. Or actually later known as CJ and the Fellows, but just CJ O'Neill, Corey O'Neill Junior, is where I met you and it's probably, it's been probably seven or eight years ago now, man. It might have been even longer than that. Even longer than that. Yeah. I think, I feel like I met, you're a teenager, right? I was probably like. 16. Well, yeah, 16. And I turn, I'm turning 25 this year. So. Amazing. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's been a long time. Amazing. Well, everyone welcome j Taylor to the Worship Keys Podcast. If you're on YouTube and you know, this guy, say, hey, I know him. He's an Alabama boy. He's from, Gadsden, Alabama, if you know, and he, you play at Love City in Birmingham, is that right? Yes, it's in office. It's gonna say Forestdale, but yeah. Okay. Pretty much it's Birmingham. Okay. Okay. A little outside. A little outside. Mm-hmm. I hear you. Tell us a little bit about, um, love City, what you do there, your role. Okay. I am the music director at Love City. Um, I've been in the seat since about July of last year. Um, we just moved locations, I went into a new church. Yeah, as a md new name, very fresh. Um, it's an adjustment, but I'm, I'm loving it. Yep. That's awesome, bro. Mm-hmm. It's a great church and I, I've, I've seen a lot of the technology that you guys use there. A lot of the videos, the LED wall, musicians are really dialed. Y'all are locked, bro. Like you, Trey Robinson, Derius up there. And I'm sure all the others. But you guys are incredible. I love Trey. He's hilarious on Facebook. If you don't know Trey, he is amazing. He is hilarious though. There's a lot of funny stories with that guy. But he's been on the podcast before. And it was the same weekend actually when he proposed to his girlfriend. Wow. In Nashville. So Jaylen and them, but now they're married, so. bUt yeah. And Derius, which is Chris Brown's brother, right? Yep. Chris Brown. Not that Chris Brown, but, but yeah, Chris' brother Ari is incredible drummer. At at Love City, who's still, who's playing there? So anyway, Jay, tell us a little bit about when you started playing keys, how you learned keys. Are you more by ear, traditional? Tell us a little bit about that. Okay, so, um, of course I started playing keys in church. Yes, I was probably about maybe about 12 or 13. I started out on drums as most. Yeah, church musicians do. There you go. But my uncle actually threw me on organ, the organist we had graduated high school, went off to college, and my uncle was like you gonna learn how to play organ? Okay. Yeah. I was scared and I was like, I'm not trying to learn how to play organ. I wanna play drums. Right? So I sat on the front row like the next week after the guy that was before me went off to school and he came in church. He was like, what you doing? He supposed to be on this organ. I'm like, I don't know how to play. So I was made to sit there until I figured it out. So I never had the chance to get into transposing any of that. I had to literally just play, Hey, it's best that way. Yeah. Right, right, right, right. No offense to anybody that has to do it like that and or does it now? No offense. Yeah, but I didn't learn that way, um, when I was about. 14 ish, I would say. I started taking organ lessons for a brief period of time, but I was mo I was growing fast. Mm. Uh, playing by ear. I didn't know how to meet any, uh, read any music yet or anything like that. So the guy by the name, uh, this guy by the name of Chadrick Edwards, he's from Gaden Killer Organist. Um, he just helped me figure out some things and piece some things together, um, that I was struggling with along the way. Then when I turned 16, I was playing at this church in gadsden called Abundant Life under Jaylen Shout out to him, and Jaylen was the first person that I was around that he started doing things musically and I was like, what is going on? Yeah, dude, I've been living under a rock. Like I'm supposed to learn how to do this and that, and I just stuck with it. When I got to, uh, when I moved to Birmingham, I went to UABI. Moved to Birmingham in 21, and for a semester I did music technology, which required me to have to do classical training and um, jazz, all those things. Jazz combo, just being proficient in piano. And that required me to have instructors that I had to meet goals with every week. So there was the demand for me to learn things technical way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, there was no more church theory. You learn real theory. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, not that church theory doesn't. Teach you how to play, um, but it will only teach you as much as you dig into it. You know what I'm saying? Right, right. Um, so once I got to UAB, I would say like musically, my ear opened up, uh, drastically because there was a demand for me to listen to different genres of music or just listen to the other students and all that. So it made me wanna get better. It made me dig in, it made me learn how to play my skills. Um. Um, in the octaves, um, ascending, descending, contrary motion. All the things. All the things, man. But I was really interested in it, um, because it was different. And I, I'm a nerd. I love to read books, uh, all the things. Uh oh, do you really, man? Didn't know you're a big reader. I'm a big reader. Um, so you were some of your favorite authors, not to get on that tangent, but Adam Grant. Okay. Adam Grant, he has a book called, he has a couple books that I read. Uh, he has a book called Think Again Originals. Um. Let me see. There's a, he has a couple, but I read probably about three or four of his books. But yeah, as far as intaking information, having to learn things the appropriate way, uh, theoretically, um, it wasn't a challenge. It. Well, it, well, it was a challenge because it was something different. Yeah. But it wasn't a challenge that I shied away from, um, as a musician. 'cause I wanted to get better and I wanted to understand what I was playing. Mm-hmm. So that when I sat down to create, or when I sat down with other musicians that wanted help for me, I could explain it and what I was doing because sometimes I've asked people what they were playing and they couldn't necessarily explain it to me. Right. They were showing me. But application wise, you need to be able to explain it Totally. So I would say that, um, growing up, um. Like I said, I started out in church and then it has led me here, uh, crossing different territories, um, being in diverse rooms. Totally, man. Yes sir. Mm-hmm. So good, Jay. Well, for real. Um, I'm so glad you came up here to Nashville to record to took a whole day just to really show us what you do in logic, what you do for kind of pre-pro, what you do for preparing for a Sunday. Mm-hmm. What you do for maybe preparing for a live. Session, a studio session, that kind of thing. Layering multi-tracks. Today we've had a few episodes like this. We've had Josh Brown on, we've Marcus Perry, who's at, uh, Mount Zion in, in Nashville. Um, a lot of good connections. I know, um, you know, you know Josh and mm-hmm. Uh, and Marcus as well. Just incredible. Also, we've had Roger Ryan kinda do a similar thing. Uh, and so today's no different. Guys, this is a jam packed episode. I hope y'all are ready for. Uh, an incredible episode ahead. Mm-hmm. Uh, whether you saw some reels on Instagram, which shout out to your Instagram, Taylor Made dot itt. Yep. Taylor made do it. Yep. It full of arrangements. What you'll see, come on. Um. As far as today goes, Carson has me on the time limit. That's right. So the product you get, do not judge me too harshly because That's right. I don't typically create that fast, but I will make sure that I leave some of my best. Whatever I can give you, I'm gonna leave it all out there in the given time. Come on, make sure to thank him in the comments. If you've enjoyed any of this, um, or got some inspiration or whatever, if you took anything away from today throughout this whole episode, it's gonna be great. Jehovah By Elevation Worship, right? Why did you choose Jehovah? Um, I chose Jehovah because I wanted to make sure that I came on here to feed anyone that was looking for something. So I wanted to make sure I chose a song that, um. Demographically was befitting for everyone. Oh yeah. And we love Elevation Man. Yeah, yeah. Everyone knows Elevation, like Yeah, yeah. You know, you want to be able to walk into a store and, and know the song, you know what I'm saying? Um, so I wanted to make sure that I left something for everyone that could tune into the episode. So, uh, that's awesome, bro. And also insert myself in how I would do things. Yes. Uh, arrangements are subjective. Um, some people. Go with a more subtle approach to arranging. They don't really do too much because they may feel like it's taking away from the actual song, or it's taking too much focus away from the worship leader or the worship team. Right. Um, I think it's subjective, you know? Totally. God gave the musicians gifts as well, and we wanna display ours sometimes on. Yes. Yeah. This arrangement will not necessarily be the most conventional arrangement, but. It will still have great substance. That's true. Very, very true. And by the way, speaking of time, we, it, it is a time constraint. Mm-hmm. Uh, and this stuff does take a lot of time. I want people to realize that maybe if you're, you're brand new to arranging, um, obviously we listened to songs on the radio or at church or whatever it might be, 3, 4, 5 minutes, whatever. But that took. Hours and days and weeks and months. Really. Sometimes, sometimes you close a laptop and you come back to it 'cause Yep, yep. You know, you wanna make sure you're getting your best product out, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And speaking of time, we're actually, this is gonna be a two part series and we weren't sure if we're gonna do a two part series or not, but I think this, this warrants it. Mm-hmm. So you guys are about to see him. Um. Uh, start from the bare bones, literally just like dragging the song. Find the BPM, get a loop going, and then start, start layering. Start making arrangements. Yep. And you'll find out along the way too. I think you'll probably, um, try some things and then decide to just scratch it. Yeah. Try something all the time. Scratch, that's a part of the process. Like sometimes I'm like, okay, I got ideas and I'm like, I don't really like that idea. It's not. Really meshing with the ideas that I had already laid and committed to. So sometimes you have to go back to, to the drawing board and nothing's wrong with that. Yeah. Um, because you as a creative, you're gonna have millions of ideas and you have to put 'em all together. Yeah. And sometimes ideas don't quite connect. Right. With the prior leading idea. But you know, stick to it and you'll get something. You'll get something out of it. Just don't shy away from recording what you hear. Trust yourself. A hundred percent. Well, Jay Taylor, music director of Love, city Church and independent producer, keys player, organist, bassist, drummer, multi-instrumentalist. So talented. Thanks for being on the podcast. Thank you. Um, I'm about to get outta the way and you take it away. So guys, y'all enjoy, it's gonna be a long ones. Day as long as you'd like to, and then definitely tune in for next week as well. So let's get into it, bro. Yes, sir. Like, I like either the miso fear or. The Troposphere. Yeah. Troposphere seems to be a really popular one. Yeah. It's, it is not too heavy, right, but it's, it has enough weight to where you can leave it by itself or it can make you feel like something's present. You know what I'm saying? Today we will be making a live arrangement to, uh, Jehovah by Elevation Worship. Usually before I start my arrangements, the first thing that I do is I would always make my own metronome. Um, just use the logic. Cowbell. Nothing's wrong with logic's. Uh, metronome. I just prefer to hear my own. So we will do that first. Yeah. One essential thing that I would say, buy a, uh, key command layout for whatever doll you work out of. It helps you get things done quicker on the fly. Very essential. Drag it up here. Get it out the way. We will start with a, um, a drone. Uh, Carson has this. New gadget that, uh, he told me about. It's my first time using it is, is, it is real cute. It has a look to it. Nice black. Uh, you can change the keys, change the volume. Um, they have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 different settings that you can use. So we're gonna use that. Um, it won't be necessarily in the arrangement, but it's just to give me something, you know what I'm saying on the side while I record. So engage, let's turn it down a little bit. We gonna pull a loop up. Right. So Jehovah, um, you know, the song starts on the one. Hmm. Do we want to do a intro? You wanna keep it like the record or keep it simple? Let's see. It's low latency, especially if you're about to do a big project. Go ahead and turn that on, so you wanna deal with any delays or anything while you're recording. Makes your life easier. See what we got. Let's do a riser, uh, some type of suite to get us in. Let's stop for a second. We gonna go over the omnisphere. I don't know if y'all have Omnisphere three, but. You know, here lately they have changed all the libraries in these updates. Uh, logic 12 so far I don't like it because they changed the layout of the library. I can't find anything. Omnisphere. I'm getting used to it 'cause it's been out a little bit longer. Uh, I actually airdropped myself the old logic off my old laptop after I updated so I could have both versions 'cause I did not wanna fight with the new version. So there's a trick for those that may not be feeling the new logic. Um, let's do, uh. A power. Let's see what that sounds like. I can deal with that. It has a after effect as well, so I don't think I like that one. That's cute. That's cute. Not too aggressive. It stopped when I needed it to. Yeah. All right. Let's record a dummy keys just for the intro. Um, we just gonna play record. To start. See what we got later. The Lord actually just gave me that guys. Gonna leave that alone. Um, one thing that I do a lot when I am recording is I run into where if you start recording on the same piano track and you stopped in a weird place, it will sometimes the sustain will add on, like you still have held it down the whole time. So I don't typically keep recording piano on the same track, um, especially when it's dummy keys. Of course, you wanna get one good run through at the end, but. It saves time if you just go ahead and download another track. If your laptop can handle it. Hopefully you have enough Ram. Um. Instead, listen to the whole intro. We. So that'd been the first. Um. That been the first verse? Um, first verse goes through twice before you go back to the chorus. Um, did I? No, I did not record shift R. Anytime you play and you did not record, 'cause a lot of times you'll play good stuff and you won't remember what you did. I do it all the time at home. Shift R has saved my life. So, yeah. Um, as you can see that I did not record that whole thing. I just pressed shift R and I got it all back. Um. That was intro to verse. We got the whole verse done. Let's go ahead and drag out that so we know where we are in the song. Save you time later, once you go back and start adding your layers. Alright, so, so chorus starts there. Let's go ahead and make that marker. So, you know, we call the name, those of you that know the song. Hopefully a lot of people know this song. I try to choose something that everyone could get with, 'cause it, you know, you just wanna be effective. You know, you never know who's gonna watch a video. So we picking up at the chorus right here. Yeah, that was cool. Uh, we'll do that to get back, to get back for the second verse. So we had chorus called a name. Um, coming outta that last chorus, uh, I don't believe the original does the, all I praise, uh, does that at 7 1 5. Um, the first time I heard it, they did that. So I just considered that to be correct the whole time. But I don't actually think that's the record. So we, but we gonna have that today. This is gonna be correct today. So there we will be back to the top on the music interlude with the line. Um. Let me see. Let's see. What can I'm thinking since would it be easiest? Keep moving. Go ahead and lay the rest of the song. Then we'll go back and add layering, and then we'll record the actual key part at the end. So if you're watching this now, this will not be the key part. There will not be all these rushes and flubs in there. The patient. Yep. So we got two tho, two of those, and then we're back in the verse. Let me see. Let's say no bridge first. So I may need to listen to the record so I don't tell the lie real quick. Actually, line it up on the click stem split. If you wanna know if you're, if it's lined up on the click, when you can't necessarily necessarily tell that the click is on, it's on the click. If you can hear the click and you can hear the beat of the drum beat as well, you might be a hair off. So I just kind of have to hedge it over until I get it lined up directly. And if I can't get it, I don't worry about it. 'cause some songs, um, sometimes the BPM counter seems like it's struggling to count the BPM. You know? Yeah. So when, when I see that struggling, I just, I just go ahead and head over to Ableton and soon as you actually place the track on the Ableton, um, uh, do whatever, like it will find it. And sometimes it'd be some type of crazy decimal, like 0.73, but I just drag it back out, throw it in logic. And set the BPM correctly, and we are good to go. We got our stem split down, um, for sake of trying to make sure that we are on the correct format of the song and not adding or taking away any parts that are supposed to be there. Of course, if you're doing arrangement for your church, you can, you can go in whatever order you want to, you know, but today we're gonna try to be correct. Back to verse. Okay, so we're in that second verse. Uh, say for instance, we want to give the band a little moment, the record is gonna go back to the one, uh, so the melody in the song is, uh mm. What could we do? Uh, not that six. It's a little too jazzy for me today. Uh, so say we. Uh, yeah, I like that. What did I just do though? I don't remember. Um, we should have recorded. We can't shift record that one 'cause it's gonna be in the weirdest spot. Um. It'll come back. That one. 6, 4, 3. That's like in my head. Theoretically, I'm kind of thinking like a minor four. But I just moved my base up to that, moved my base up that third in that court, 1, 3, 5. So bases for that. And then we're going back down. So that's a flat six nine. Six nine. So coming out of that. Then we gotta get outta Jehovah. Uh, yeah. Okay. We'll do that. I don't think I recorded record. Jay, let's see if a shift R will save us. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Alright. Yeah, I like that. Um, so what I did there, uh, four, three, and then that played a major three. I didn't add Don't add that. Don't do that. Go to six four. We did a line from the five to a five using C sharp scale still. Oh, no, no, we did. To the four. I'm sorry. Then I think we did a six three. Back to the one subjective, subjective, that might be too much for song. Um, I like to play what I feel giving respect to the song. Give a little space where it's due, of course, because the song is not about the musician or the band ever. You know what I'm saying? It's about Jesus. But you know, Jesus gave us gift, gave us a gift too. So sometimes we want to, you know, show, Hey, this is what we did with our talent. Okay, so we'll go back. Incomplete thought 'cause it came to me right there in a moment. Well, we gonna clean all that up though, especially when we get to the layering. Um. Three line. 4, 5, 6. Line six four. Alright, so we'll do all that to get to the bridge. Yeah, sometimes I just start playing and stuff. Just come to me. Um, shout out to Chris Brown. That is like one person that I have seen. Just call random numbers on the fly, like keep your head up. If you're ever on the gig with Chris Brown, he's MDN because he'll call something that you didn't think of and you better know the chord or you gonna sound amis. So shout out to my brother. Uh, fight your battles. And I'm not gonna say no more lyrics 'cause I'm gonna mess him up. I think I like that. That was a good setup for the backgrounds to come in. As far as arrangements go, um, I'm always thinking of setting up where I'm going or what's happened to happen, what's gonna happen next. Um, so if your praise and worship leader is not really that familiar with the arrangement for that Sunday, maybe they didn't study their music, you know, um, sometimes you can save them. However, comma, it is their responsibility to know their tunes Come Sunday morning. But um, you know, sometimes the band can set up what's happening next to let everyone know, Hey, something's coming. Like sometimes, you know, as a background vocalist, they might get into the song, start bobbing they head, say The drum doing this thing, the bass player's doing this thing. They really digging the band and they forgot, Hey, I need to pull my mic up and get ready for this next part. Maybe something in the arrangement can set them up and let them know, Hey. This is the part where I come in and sing. Yeah. So that would be that section. I did not record it, so we gonna shift record again. I always do this when I make arrangements and I don't apologize because logic created something for me to not have to worry about when I do that. Set up was, uh. B Major seven, I think I did to the six, but I played it like, like a SLS four chord over it, so, so. And you can do anything on that. You could literally, uh, instead of playing at b in the base, you could uh, uh, you could 5, 4, 2, 6, 1. You know what I'm saying? But we not here to, to do all that today. We making an arrangement. I ain't gonna get too technical on what. It's happening, but you know, there's some, some context for what I, where my mind is going, I would say. So background. Okay, so there, that was a, another setup, uh, in my head. Backgrounds are going to three parts. The first setup was for them to come in unison, second setup three parts. We here, um, from there. It's about the build. So when I start layering, that's when you may pull up those arpeggios that are happening in your background or anything, whatever, however you create it. You need to let me know that, hey, this music is building. We're about to get to the vent. You know what I'm saying? Something has to always be happening to bring the moment. Uh. Make sure that the moment is directional. Don't just play and I can't tell where you're going 'cause I'm going to get sleepy. You know, you don't want the crowd to get sleepy, but this is the part where I said you can make your own arrangement. So when we first got into the bridge, the worst bleeder went first. First set up was the background vocals to come in, in unison. Second setup was three parts. Um, let's see. Leave it open. Alright, now we in the. Five six. Like that. Probably won't keep it though. So we back out. All right, so got kind of crazy. I was thinking my mind was going everywhere, start just getting a lot of changes and stuff. But one thing about the dummy keys, it is meant for all your flubs. Always. Um, so like I said, don't shy away from when you listen to yourself and it does not sound that hot while you're creating because if you get stumped there, you might just scrap your whole creation. It's like, man, I'm not a good musician. I can't play clean all the time. Please stop. Okay. So now that we have this dummy keys laid, um, we will go and get ready to start layering. Typically I start with, um, honestly start anywhere I want to. Whatever I feel first today, I am feeling like. Okay. That one is kind of moving a little bit slower than what I needed to. It's turn to release down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you want that? We're gonna turn our, um, our handy dandy, um, atmosphere and be pad shout out to them, turn it on just for context and so I won't be irritated listening to these keys while I'm layering what we got. Oh yeah, I messed up. Oops. I'm not liking the way this is responding. Hold on. Let me, let me see. Yeah, it is responding late from when I'm switching the notes. We're not gonna use that one. Let's try, let's, yeah. Then I made a note to turn down layer B. Probably gonna end up going another route for the, the pad that is a little bit more dry. It has the weight. You want weight and then you want something to cut through your mix a little bit. 'cause really in the beginning of the song, you don't want keys dominant if you're going for authenticity. I mean, you know where, where you're at. It may vary as far as like your church and how y'all usually go about. Um, the sound that you're creating, but for me, if it was up to me, like at my church, I would say that if I was on main keys, I would not really be doing much playing in the beginning of this song once the, uh, verse starts. Of course. So we're gonna record this pad. Uh, just start over. I'm gonna mute this other one for now. All right. Cool. Um, I really still didn't like that Cut, but, uh, I'm not going back right this second, but I am gonna make one alteration 'cause I was jumping around chorus 'cause I was listening. So, really with, with your, um. Pads when they're moving in the front, you really want to try not to jump your chord. So it's like if I play, I need that the whole time. Well, I moved, you know what I'm saying? Just that one change. Nothing else needs to change because that's for support, so that's necessarily not going to be. The most out front thing in your mix. So for support, you need it minimal as possible because the keys will do the moving depending on how you play. 'cause sometimes keyboard players will literally just do the same thing. But, um, that's may not necessarily always be the case, but as far as your arrangements and what's supporting you, you wanna keep that outta your way as much as possible. So we're gonna go back and record that. All right. And when I do stuff like that, I don't sit here and just hold it out that long. I'm going to record how much I need and then we going. Copy and paste what I need. Well, honestly, don't copy and paste quantize it so you can make sure all your notes are changing correctly and all the things. Then loop it for what you need. Copy and paste sometimes can make your sound stop, but looping it can do it as well. Honestly, you just, it is just objective once you getting more accustomed with the sound. I actually have not used his sound, um, that many times. I kind of just found it when I was scrolling through trying to see what I was thinking about using. Yeah. All right, so there. Okay. In the middle of that lick here, that's fine, but when we get to, when we hit that two, we want the, the room to get still. You don't want your, your, well, particularly for me on this one, I don't want it to linger that long. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 'cause we're going somewhere. We wanna make sure we bring the song down. And then also creating your arrangements out like that. When you send it to your band, it makes it more obvious. Whereas in your cues, you don't have to put like, you know, calm down or something like that. If they hear the intensity, the dynamic of the music change, they'll know, okay, I need to back off here. Music can talk without a talk back, without the cues in your track. If you're playing the songs how you need to play 'em, it's not too much leading you gotta do when everybody knows the material now people don't know the material, then you know, that's a whole different conversation. Those paths are getting in the way. Um, and what I typically do when I don't want to change the pad because I like it, but it's getting in the way of a certain section, I'll just convert it into a audio file and cut it when I need silence. And add whatever I need to, um, to make up that space so I don't lose weight in the arrangement. 'cause you want your arrangement to be, have enough in it. No enough layers, which I hopefully we get to demonstrate that today. You want to have enough layers to where you can turn the arrangement on by yourself and your band doesn't have to play. And your singers can sing with arrangement and feel like everything's there. Of course. I mean, minus you may not have drums or, you know what I'm saying? But for the most part you wanted to have enough in it to where. It's sustainable and everybody knows what's happening musically. Uh, okay, something's lingering. But what we'll do, let's go ahead and make this into a bus. 'cause I'm probably gonna put I bus all, I put all my arrangements in the bus. So to, uh, make a quick bus, you're gonna do shift command d. Summing stack slimming stack's gonna give you more control than the other option. I can't remember what it was right off the top of my head. I never use it. So we gonna put this as pads. All right, so. Yeah, probably would've gone and leave it open. We catch the one somewhere else. All right. Here we go. Yep. I like that. So, yeah, that one. So, okay. I'll typically drag my drones all the way throughout the whole track and cut 'em where need be. If I need to, if I need some space, need some silence or whatever. But typically I'm gonna, yeah. Ah, okay. Okay. I know what I gotta do. Mute those keys. I need a pad. I'm probably just gonna do some string stuff. Just call it a day. Uh, no. No, no. We'll do a pad. We can go back to Omnisphere, just record this 4 0 1. So we're gonna let this pad be our support pad, of course, with the drone, but that will cut out all that movement in the beginning from keys. Okay. So we won't bring that back in until we get to verse two or the band ring. I'm sorry. Okay, so here we're going to chorus. We're gonna record the paper chorus. Okay, cool. So since we're back at the music interlude, what you want to do is take those pads that you use, those, uh, pulsating pads that you use in the beginning of the song and add those back in because that interlude is for the band. So you're gonna want, you're gonna want weight there. Okay, cool. So same thing there when we get here for the setup, we have to cut. These pads. So, all right, so those are the setups there. We'll record the line from the record. Okay. Yeah, if you, if you're interested in the O'Neill patches, I do apologize. I don't know where you can find them. I have them. A lot of people have them. I don't know where they came from. Exactly. And I apologize to whoever created these because a lot of people have the sounds and they probably came out wrong, but hey. Okay, great. I'm sorry. Great, great. Okay. Keep doing. Okay. Cool. Alright, so we're gonna do another take of that. I couldn't hear honestly. Um, and then we gotta, uh, maybe that for that walk down. Lemme see. Yeah, I really do a lot of fancy ear candy stuff with my leads. Um. Just 'cause we got, ah, we gonna go back, do another take. It happens. It happens. So, uh, what do I wanna do? Something. We'll get it to this, this time around. Yep, that worked. This is a go-to for me. Um, sorry. It's a o it is another O'Neill can't help you out there, but we're gonna use that. It's called, uh, warm brass. Three. No, no, no one. Let's do one. It is real warm. I mean, giving the sound warm saw brass. You got? Yeah, just got back. I can deal with that. So we just leave, gonna copy and paste this and go with it? Yeah, just tuck that under 'cause it might be too bright for certain sections. All right, now we, we about to start cooking with fifth grease, fish grease. I just say fifth. All right. So I'm liking this section. I'm starting to like it. Um, let's add something that I do in like almost all of my arrangements. Sign delay. I didn't hear it, but I think I played it right. Uh, yeah, I can deal with that. And I typically double those. Send one left, send one. Right. So we'll go ahead and do that. Uh, so I gotta play against that line. I play against a lot of the lines that I create. Um, um, some say that it can make it sound busy. Uh, subjective once again. I couldn't hear once again. Let's see. It might've been cool though. One thing, one downside about, not downside. Let me not say that Someone that's a product. Turn your O'Neill sounds down when you first load 'em in 'cause they can be very loud. Yeah. All right, so in full context, that spot. All right, cool. Back to leads. That's a big line, um, there that walk up. So now it's time to bring out some of your more impactful leads. Sounds. How are we gonna stay with O'Neill? See, do I like those together? Nah, let's do just. Okay. I am actually not feeling that I got you though. We are currently laying lead sounds for this live arrangement of, um, Jehovah by Elevation Worship. Just kind of just going in and seeing what comes to me as I go. Yeah, we are in the second verse currently. Let's turn it up a little bit. I keep messing myself up, not making sure I can hear. That was a good one. That was a good take. Yeah, that'll come compliment that pretty well. So we'll do golden Lead with this troll lead. Right. So that wasn't loud enough. So then another thing I do with my lead sounds is when I'm recording, I try to make sure, of course, make sure that I'm on the. Like all my walks up, try to make sure they're right on the grid. But another thing, another trick to make sure your stuff is connecting is just to go and expand the tales of these notes. Especially, I mean, when you're trying to move fast sometimes you tend to not hold certain notes long enough. Let's listen to that and see what it sounds like. I can deal with that. I'm about to give away one of my go-tos. Gonna head on over to our rolling stuff. Um, in the D 50, if you don't have Rolling. Cloud is a very good purchase. Um, very good investment you should make. Let's just keep going with this. So let's delete that slur. Rank you up. Yep. Okay. So we won't keep that one. Do I like this? Just to get some movement going in the background of the arrangement. 'cause we, we still, we still let the bones of it right now. See adding that one thing made it sound like I had did so much work, but it was literally something so small as adding the arc. But I try not to add my S too early because it can almost make it seem like your arrangement is more complete than it really is. If you cut your A off, you really don't have anything there, you know what I'm saying? So I try to refrain from adding. I just did it right now 'cause it made me feel better, honestly. And then another thing, I don't always move the same when I'm padding, when I'm adding my pads in, I don't always move the same as I did on keys as far as, uh, inversions and all that go because you really don't need it. Uh, you don't have to have it 'cause it's like, in a way, I only, the, the change I did was subtle, but the way I voiced it with keys made it sound like a wider progression. But it really was right there together. Lemme see. So we got, so I moved way more, but. For the pad, I only played a 6, 5 4, so then we pushed to the two, but I kept the same four chord. Um, because like the four and two share for my theory people. Yep. So actually I don't know how they recorded twice, but. It looked like this tape might've been cleaner. No, no, no, no. I'm fine. We'll leave it. That's when we started moving from the three to the four, to five to the six. I'm so glad that we're getting closer to the end guys. I really am. And then even when I got to, I think I'm gonna keep that. Three, uh, that major three, I pretty much was playing it, uh, one chord and I played, um, and then I inverted it up and then I drug, you know what I'm saying, kind of made it like a, uh, f augmented and then I went to the four. Um, but I would say when you recorded your pad. That's not necessarily necessary to go in. Correct? You can leave it because it's not gonna do anything but cause dissonance. For real, for real. Uh, I would say so. Like you can, lemme see. So, oh yeah, it works depending on how you voice it. So if you're playing a, if you don't have a one, if you don't have a route too far on the bottom, you can move up to the a natural without, with leaving. 'cause I still got the A flat up here. It doesn't really matter in my opinion. So we there. Okay, cool. All right, so we are going to go ahead and just lay it so I have a foundation for the rest of the song. I'm gonna go ahead and go to the vamp and finish recording this pad. I'll go back and add that in later. Okay. Nevermind. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We started doing a lot there, so we won't go back and add it in later. We need to go as we recorded it initially. See, I have so many. One thing that I struggle with. Uh, creatives. Let me know if y'all, uh, struggle with this too. Sometimes I have so many ideas going through my head that by the time I listen to what I did, I forgot that I did it 'cause I'm, my mind is completely in a different place. Um, I struggle with that in my creativity. That's one struggle I've always had since I was young. Um, when it came to creating, having so many ideas that it's hard to commit to one and. Then you start judging the idea and then maybe this idea isn't good as this one maybe isn't good as that one. And sometimes it just caused me to literally just not do nothing. I'll scrap the whole project. Like I probably have so many projects in my laptop that like, I'm like, I'm not feeling this idea no more. And I went on to the next one. Uh, I'm gonna tell y'all, like, people tell me I open the project up and finish it. I'm gonna make a decision to, to leave my pad alone. And, um, 'cause I still have my drum going, but because there are so many changes happening, um, in your chords, sometimes it's best to just leave a pad out there. Like, because when you're, when the band is moving, 'cause the base will have to do all these changes along with the drum setting it up. You don't necessarily need the support of a pad because you're not, you're literally not gonna remember that it was there. By the time you start doing all those changes, at this point, we having fun. You know what I'm saying? We getting ready to go outta the song, you know, everybody's leaving it all out there. You sweating at this point, you know, the way I work through my arrangements is very unorthodox. As you can see. I have a lot of space going on in here as a, I've just continued to went on to the next idea. It's okay to work like that. Uh, you don't have to work your arrangements, uh, with any type of uni uniformity because. Like as the idea, as the ideas come, you need to go ahead and, and get 'em laid down because you're gonna forget. You could forget, you may not, but I will forget. So I just go ahead and just, um, I move through it as I see fit and then I'll go back and clean it all up and bring it all together. I kind of look at it like a, when I was young, I used to go to, we used to go on a field trip and watch a guy like paint and. He would be painting something, then he would totally mess it up. Just start throwing random colors everywhere and you'd be one of 'em. Like he was going somewhere, but I've lost him and this is not going to end well. And then next thing you know, you look and it's a full picture and it's beautiful and it's like, wow. But that's how I kind of go about my creativity and arrangements and stuff like. You know, just keep stay, stay locked in, stay dedicated to what you're doing in the moment, and you should end up with something great. Long as the intention was there. For every part, it's going to match at some point. So just, you know what I'm saying, hold what you got. Keep it in the road. Let it let the song breathe. Especially if you got all this stuff that's going on in the back end. It's best to give the song some type of space so people won't come back and say, well. Yeah, that was Jehovah, but I really didn't hear the song. Some people don't. This arrangement could literally be too much. For some it, it's very subjective. Create what you love. I always tell people to do that, but give respect to the way the song was originally made as well at the same time. But you know what I'm saying, insert you into the song. So, so, okay. We are, uh, in the bridge of. Jehovah by Elevation Worship. I'm just laying some lead stuff to set up some of these hits and lead ins. What. Okay. So same type of approach from the beginning. Yep. Okay, so I wanna set that up so we got that. All right. Mmm. Lemme see. Ah, I like that. Lemme see. Yeah, that's the other key that's coming in. That's bothering. Okay. I think I got that clean. I couldn't really hear. A little rush. How did I voice that? We gonna get ready to start laying some bells and stuff. Start bringing this together. We're gonna bring it home. I usually lay my bells last because. Um, I don't like to just lay bes all over a, a track. Uh, first bell I'm gonna lay is just this outro though, um, when we hit this one 'cause we're done. Okay, cool. Uh, let's see. Let's go ahead and go. We'll add that. Okay. I'm gonna add all the bells that I'm gonna use first, and then I'll record so I don't have to stop again. Yep. And let's do one more bill out of Omnisphere, back to O'Neill once again. Shout out to O'Neill, whoever O'Neill is. Lemme see. Yeah. Really loud. Um, there it is. Yeah. Nice bells. Lemme see. Okay. Let's just copy and paste this here. We will add in our sweeps right now as well. So. Yeah. Real pretty. All right. Yeah, that little space right there. That's a bell spot right there. Let's redo that. Yep. We can add that one in there too. That works. So I wanna go back here. And just use this sound. I like that. Right. Only thing I'm gonna delete is that. Last, um, one, two before the lick. So, okay, so, so, so, so I want to. As well. Command T, I wanna pull this here. Pull that art there because the room will kind of get steel on that first chorus. Um, well, I would make the room a little bit more still on that first course. The, the band wouldn't play here. Honestly, if you need something carry, see, it gives it a little bit more body. Mercy. Alright. Um, lemme see. We probably can record all of them together. Uh oh. Let's go back. Ah, okay. See, I forgot my own arrangement again. It happened. So here I probably would not suggest for someone to. Bail that section. It can be a bit much, so maybe you could, uh, just catch those hits, do it like a hit. But of course, the drummer wouldn't necessarily address that section with. With the, uh, rhythm of the bell, technically, ah, no. Let's do. I have to listen to that. Okay. Um, let's set up that sweep since we are here. Let's not go too far ahead. With that, with those bell, um. They like following bills. I would kind of say, I just copy and paste 'em. I don't keep recording them. Yeah, just so it'll line up. I'll just record it for now. Okay, so we'll do another. Then with your bells. I try not to slur any of my notes when I play bells. Like so for a context like, uh, like, don't do that. 'cause it's not meant for that. The bells is meant to. The bells are meant to punch through your mix. So if you slur 'em, it's just gonna make your arrangement sound very immature. Um, in my opinion now, you know, that's subjective. Arrangements are subjective. Anything that you create is subjective. Mess that spot up again. Drag that down. No, it wasn't. This, uh, that's all. Let's see. We need some movement there. Yep. Yeah, I like it. So let's go to the bridge. I messed up my doggone arrangement view. That's fine. Okay. So that spot, we're building a song. So. I like. Yeah, I like that one. One more take of that. Yep. In spots like that, I like to actually keep the same thing I did. No, no, no, not like that. So when we get back outta there. We are going back to the same section. So what I do is I copy and paste what I record the first time and I actually stack the sounds. We'll give away one more Omnisphere. Uh. I am going to try to challenge myself to one take when I record bass. Yep. Let me see. I think it's another one. Yeah, I wanna do that. So there we go. All right, so we'll use this sound for this walk down. Use that sound for the walk down. Let's take that. Turn your octave down on the right side. Okay. There's a sound in. Logic called sparkling stars that I like to use. All right, so instead of let's change that, um.