This past week I worked with filmmaker Jason P. Schumacher to record his debut solo song, “Secret Selves”:

Secret Selves
by Jason Schumacher

I’m so lonely
You’re the only one I’ve known
The only one I’ve shown
The way I am on the off days

No one knows the ways
No one knows those days
Our secret selves, on shelves
Tucked away

Time with you
Nothing to do get it back
And your lack of regret
has it just not surfaced yet

I’m so lonely
You’re the only one I’ve known
The only one I’ve shown
The way I am on the off days

Behind the Scenes

When I first asked Jason what his song would sound like, he was prepared to answer; he gave me a backing beat, a synth line, and a 14-song playlist for inspiration. His mix was filled with Tom Waits, Lykke Li, David Bowie, Primitive Radio Gods…actually a lot of music I hadn’t heard. I’m glad he also introduced me to Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne”. What a beautiful song.

Jason and his funky (as in strange-looking) bass

So with the overall idea of the song in mind, we recorded everything in one day, and I spent a bunch of time mixing it afterwards. Electronic songs are great fun for me though. If this wasn’t limited to a week, I could’ve toyed around forever just trying out different synth sounds.

I don’t want to bore you non-audio-nerds with details about all the effects I cooked up, but I thought I would share one cool thing Jason and I did that makes a huge difference in the song. I’m not even sure what to call it, but something like “the reverse tail method” is the best thing I can think of. First, Jason recorded individual chords on electric guitar. Then I reversed each one of them to make it sound like a series of waves that crest at the first beat of each measure. This effect is great for creating suspense and momentum into the next measure.

Reversing the electric guitar in Ableton Live. The top two tracks are the normal electric guitar chords (stereo panned), and the bottom two tracks are the reversed chords.

Take a listen to the guitar by itself:

Then the guitar in context with everything else:

I had a great time producing Jason’s first ever solo song. I believe this is actually the start to an EP that he will be putting out at some point in the future. Until then, if you need a Jason fix, check out some of his videos.