Don't worry, we have a framework.

How we collaborated to get these first 6 tracks down.

Time is flying by, and here I am again as promised sitting down to tell you more about how we put these tracks together, but, oh no! I haven’t got a list to keep me on track. Oh! oh! its ok I’ve written ‘a rough framework’ we’ll be fine….

So, if you are continuing from the previous post it’s so good to see you again, I hope you’re good. If you’ve crash landed here for the first time don’t worry we’ll wait here for you while you go and read the previous post, won’t we people? What? we need to crack on, ok you can come with us then, don’t worry about going back (but you can if you want there’s no hard and fast rules here).

We established last time that Daniel J Logan and Peter Wilson are musical awesomeness and I (Mike Willacy) have seconded them as collaborators and colluders for this music project Owls That Talk. We’re here to answer the last part of this question

• Who collaborated on the first six tracks with me and how we worked together.

So the process in a nutshell is, I write lyrics put it to a simple melody so I can get a feel for the vocal direction and then this is used as input to my R.I. system. Right, we can all go about our business, nothing more to see here, yesyes! move along! move along! Sorry, what R.I. system? oh yep Real Intelligence system, it’s like A.I. but so much more fudging awesome because you get to see the cogs moving inside as the R.I. processes your idea. Ok I’ll explain….

So I have given an outline of why and how I write songs in an earlier post which is here. Don’t worry if you don’t have time to read that skip to the next video and you can see me working through a song which I rediscovered recently. It’s definitely from an earlier me, and says a bit about where my head was in the late 90s early 00s and I’ve decided to make the demo and I’ll be feeding it into the R.I. system soon

The video is a bit long but if you stick to the end you get to see my moves which is obviously worth the wait (disclaimer: It may not be worth the wait…)

So this is a rough guide and I’ll tidy it up, then next, my current process will be to record a tidied version into GarageBand and put it somewhere the R.I. system can access like a private Soundcloud listing.

Ok now we have the input ready for the R.I. system. You’ve probably guessed, the Real Intelligence system is Dan and Pete and so it’s time for me to head up North to see the guys and present the tracks to them. As Dan was producing, I also gave him a link to the Demos playlist in Soundcloud so he could think who would be the right session person or persons we would require and any kit he might need ready in the studio.

This time around, myself and Dan got together first and we recorded guide tracks of me playing and singing.

From this guide track, Dan works out the BPM and I would explain the vibe I’m going for or play my GarageBand demo to him if he looks confused by what I’m trying to convey and then he does his thing, which is his flavour and interpretation of the idea. Real Intelligence cogs at work here.

Here’s Dan doing awesome things with symbols, not to be confused with Symbolism, we’ll have none of that here, thank you.

At this point we have a guide track of acoustic guitar and vocal and a guide drum track to keep everything in time.

What I didn’t explain earlier is that for this particular project as I now live 5 hrs + away from the studio I had planned to stay for 3 days as that was all the time I could fit in, and we were trying to record what I thought were five tracks (We ended up with six. Bonus!).

That was day 1, guides for five tracks.

Day 2, Pete arrives and we setup in the control room, Dan plays him the guide and Pete makes notes, then I either play the chord progressions I have or play the demo track to fill in any gaps on the arrangement. From this, Pete picks his weapon of choice, Piano, Synth, Gibson Electric, Fender Electric, Taylor Acoustic and we do a run through and bounce ideas of where the song is going to go, where to drive it, where to pull it back. Sometimes they transform beyond all recognition from my original idea in an amazing way (for me) and sometimes we end up really close to my GarageBand demos, in time and recorded at proper levels. Again the cogs of Real Intelligence processing the input, it’s great to witness first hand.

Here’s a typical back and forth and working through of one of the tracks. (My apologies for the profanity in this video at the very end, thought I better warn you in case there are kids in the room).

By the end of day 2, we had most of what we needed instrument wise recorded for these tracks, so day 3 was about listening, overdubs if required and putting the vocals down.

I finished the final vocal at gone midnight on day 3, we started around 09:30 that morning so they were long music, laughter and coffee filled days and I loved every minute of it.

I am so in love with the process of using an R.I. system to write songs, you can stick your A.I. songwriting right where the Suno doesn’t shine…

That said I have a complicated relationship with A.I. There is no doubting the Genie is not going back in the bottle, and it touches my working life all the time as I work in the Tech sector, but that discussion is for the next post on the list where we can look at it a bit deeper and where it may or may not touch this project.

You made it! Yes you reached the end of this post and I appreciate your time so much I’d like to share a bit of the finished song myself and Pete were working out in that last video. The full song will be released early next year, and we look forward to hearing what you think.

Don’t worry I have already written down a ‘more specific framework’ for the next post so I don’t get sidetracked. Look it’s here… look forward to seeing you again.