This is a song I wanted to in this morning’s service. Originally, the plan was to play it live but I decided that it was kinder to show a video version since we are presently encouraging our congregation not to get carried away with sung worship.

For this one, I started with Logic’s drummer and an acoustic guitar track laid down with my Variax guitar (single pass, although I did do one copy and paste operation towards the end). Next came the bass which, in this case, was my Washburn XB-600 fretless. Normally I use my Sei Flamboyant but it was in its case so laziness took over.

Vocals were next – a lead vocal, which I doubled with another take, panning them partway left and right, and a couple of backing vocals, panned even further left and right. I wanted a bit more going on so added the Variax’s Les Paul model, with a bit of distortion and some volume swells. This one took the most takes as my first run through was a bit choppy and I went back and reworked it, section by section.

The last bit of recording was adding some keyboard parts – a Fender Rhodes type electric piano and a Mellotron drone. Finally, I drew in some effects to finish it off – all standard stuff, like gain, compression, EQ and a bit of reverb mixed to various levels on different channels.

Then, of course, there was the video side but I kept that simple, drawing on various flame photos I took in my early days of owning a DSLR. To add some movement, I used a couple of layers, with the top, translucent ones slowly rotating. Finally, lyrics… and job done. A good afternoon’s work, I think.