Poet- lyricist Connie Marotta contacted us, sending us a recording of herself singing a lyric she’d written (one of many to come). At first, she just wanted to hear it arranged, creating a setting for the vocal she sent. Our task was to notate the melody into Finale, create a tempo map to match the metric scheme, derive a harmonic scheme, create the arrangement around the audio track as it imported into Finale –
then produce it into a master recording in Pro Tools, adjusting vocal pitch and timing at the end to polish up the master.
Here’s her original recording of “In The Morning Light” –
and our production around the original audio:
Here’s a screenshot of the ProTools session, showing some AutoTune pitch correction, the tempo map, and the original stem sliced up and moved around a bit.
She sent another, which presented challenges of a sort that she felt more comfortable hiring a vocalist to sing. I recommended the great Alexis Cole, who found herself suddenly available as the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out her packed touring schedule. As production went on, I proposed adding other musicians (Marc Phaneuf on flute and bari sax, and later, Mike Eckroth on piano) to record remotely, layering over and replacing our original sample tracks.
After doing several, Connie decided to have Alexis replace her original vocal on the first one:
And, after doing a couple more, we added Mike Eckroth on piano – this is “Three Magic Wishes,” the latest one in the series.
The project became Imagesong Presents.
All titles are playable on Spotify.
