If you’re reading this post, congratulations! In the past 3 weeks we wrote rhythm and lead guitar, bass parts, maybe even keyboard parts and programmed drums. Last week we worked on recording our track, and now we get to the final week which is all about mixing and getting your song out into the world - this is exciting!

I want to talk about some of the trials and tribulations I’ve faced when mixing my own song, and some tips I’ve gathered over the past couple of decades of mixing music.

Wow, it has been a super busy May! This Song Challenge has taken over Chasing Sound for much of the month. In week 1 we talked all about how to spark inspiration and get rhythm ideas down. We picked our key and quality, and started brainstorming ideas.

For week 2 we worked on finalizing our chords and developing leads over the chord changes we wrote. We tried recording a simple rhythm scratch track to practice our ideas over.

This week we’re going to focus on a basic recording primer - how to really record your song, before we head into mixing next week. There already are a number of great articles on how to record guitar. If you want to find the best I’ve ever seen, you should check out this post from one of the best engineers I’ve ever met in my life (RIP Tim!). It’s hilarious, NSFW, and incredibly informative.

Welcome to week two of the Chasing Sound Song Challenge. Last week we focused on getting the basic idea of our song down, and I gave you some ideas on how to spark new song ideas. If you missed that post, you can check it out here.

This week we’re going to work on making sure our rhythm section is solid, and how to compose lead lines on top of our chord changes. I’ll show you some smart ways to get your song going quickly, and what pitfalls I ran into myself.

Welcome to week one of the Chasing Sound Song Challenge for 2023! If you’re not sure what the challenge is, recently in the Six String Sunday Club newsletter, I asked you to join me in writing, recording, and mixing just one song in the month of May. I’m going to share my progress with how it’s going, and I’d love you to share your progress too. I’ll be posting information about the challenge here, on Twitter, on YouTube and more!

Here’s how the weeks will work: Week One (this week) we’ll go over how to get the base structure of your song down (the “bones” of the song so to speak). Week Two we’ll work on getting lead lines, bass and drum parts done. For Week Three we’ll focus on recording the song, and adding any final elements (maybe keyboard, cowbell anyone?) Finally, Week Four will focus on how to mix your song and share it for people to listen to.

Back when I was doing the Amped Up! podcast, I talked about 50 of my favorite guitar players for the 50th episode of the show, and why they were so influential. I wanted to bring back that list today, and share 50 songs you should check out - 1 for each guitarist. Be on the lookout for an “honorable mentions” post, as I couldn’t bring myself to stop at just 50!