Eclipse – Episode Ten:  Vocals Part 2

How do I even come up with words? Honestly, it’s always different, but usually it takes a good bit of simmering. I’ll bury myself in endless loops of a song, humming nonsense syllables over and over, waiting to stumble into a melodic thread that actually feels right—something that flows naturally and pleasantly with the music. It’s a weird, slow-cooking process that demands patience (and plenty of false starts). Often, I have to step away, let the unconscious do its work, and come back later to see what’s bubbled up out of the witches’ brew.

The podcast clip shows a super rough verse and chorus. With the verse, I keep the processing minimal. Context is everything—where the vocal sits in relation to the music. For this take, I left it very dry, almost no reverb or delay, which is rare for me (and yes, I cringe hearing it in isolation, but hey—that’s part of the process). Keeping it bare like that helps the chorus pop bigger by contrast.

For the chorus, I stack things up: a lead vocal center stage (still fairly dry), surrounded by layers of background vocals. I build those harmonies piece by piece until it starts sounding lush and full.

I always run EQ and compression on vocals—brightening my voice to make up for my less-than-stellar mic, and gently squeezing the lows and highs so they sit just above the instrumentation. The goal is balance: standing out enough to be heard without bulldozing the mix. It’s a fine art I’m still figuring out. You’ll hear this example raw now, and in the next episode I’ll play it back with the full music so you can hear how the blending worked.

One quick note: you have to sing vocals isolated from the track if you’re not recording live. As a DIYer, I build songs layer by layer—no fancy vocal booth here. I’ve just got headphones and a mic, belting into the void while my family pretends to enjoy the show. (They don’t.) You’ll even hear a little headphone bleed in this take—not ideal, but it won’t ruin the final mix. The only real “sweetener” in the verse was a touch of delay on the phrase “deep blue.” The chorus gets more effects, but I’ll save that breakdown for later.

Fun fact: I actually wrote this song during an eclipse, which crept into the lyrics alongside my awareness of how we all shuffle through life half-asleep in a zombie-scroll trance.

This is song-building, folks. Messy, imperfect, brave. Just do it.

Article Top
Next Episode
Previous Episode
#Music Series