Let’s Go! is the new single from my long time collaborator and talented Dutch artist, Cas du Pree. I co-wrote and produced Cas’ debut album, ‘Getting to Know Me‘ in 2022 (you can read my review of that HERE) and we followed that up early 2023 with the pop-heavy single ‘London‘. Both were wonderful experiences so I remain pleased to continue working with Cas and his ever-expanding team of collaborators.
Let’s Go!
Let’s Go! was unusual in that it was the first time that Cas came to me with both the lyrics AND the melody of a song, already written. These were co-composed with Italian songwriter Esli Daniel Martinez and I then received a demo featuring the vocal, as well as a few guitars and a drum part. My task was to take this demo and bring it to life by reimagining and reinterpreting the song – and it’s one of my favourite jobs!
Don’t get me wrong – I love creating a song from scratch. Writing a lyric and marrying it to a beautiful melody remains a fulfilling part of my job. But sometimes taking someone else’s melody and building a song around that offers a different yet equally rewarding challenge. And in the case of Let’s Go! it was a great melody to play with!
Guitars, Guitars, Guitars!
Cas and Esli’s demo featured quite a few electric guitars and given that I started my career as a GUITARIST and the guitar remains my favourite and strongest instrument, I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to plug in my favourite 1957 Reissue Fender Stratocaster and build a big wall of sound in which to sit Cas’ voice! In the end I recorded a LOT of guitars – clean arpeggios in the intro, distorted rhythm parts panned left and right in the chorus, reverb and delay-soaked parts in the more ambient bridge section of the song, before a fairly rockin’, saturated guitar solo at the end of the song. You can see me recording the guitar solo in the video below, taken from my YouTube channel.
The Mix
Mixing Let’s Go! wasn’t easy. I like to record multiple guitars and lots of stacked voices – that’s normal and most of the tracks I co-write and produce for the different artists I work with usually feature, at the very least, stereo acoustic guitars and a few vocal harmonies. But this arrangement took this sound a lot further and there were NUMEROUS vocal tracks (sometimes Cas sang the same vocal part 3-4 times to add weight and power to a part) and as I’ve already said, there were a LOT of crunchy guitars! Therefore mixing that took a few efforts and a lot of listening back on various systems before I arrived at a sound I was happy with. As any good producer or sound engineer will know, the human voice and a guitar share a lot of similar and overlapping frequencies. If the guitars are too loud you start to mask the voice… but if you go too far in the other direction and the voice becomes too loud, then the track can lose power and the voice seems exposed. It’s a tricky balance to strike – particularly in a dynamic song like Let’s Go! where there are serious changes in volume between sections. I don’t mind admitting I worked with my friend and regular mastering engineer Russ Hepworth-Sawyer of MottoSOUND to arrive at the final mix I sent to Cas to be mastered in the Netherlands by Statinski. And this is the mix you can hear on Spotify or your favourite streaming platform now!
Cas du Pree
As always, working with Cas – even in this slightly different format of arranger and producer – was a pleasure from start to finish. Cas is highly driven and has a good idea of what he’s looking for; but leaves his ego at the door and always remains open minded to my suggestions. And unlike many artists with whom I’ve worked, never resorts to knee-jerk reactions if he hears something he wasn’t expecting or doesn’t like on first listen. He trusts my instincts and experience as a musician and we always seem able to arrive at a final arrangement which satisfies both of our tastes, without either of us feeling that we’ve had to make a huge sacrifice to the other. The EP we’re creating is going to be great and I can’t wait to share it with the world later this year!
Thanks for reading this post about Let’s Go! Please feel free to share or comment below and if you’re looking for a co-writer (a composer, lyricist or producer) for your project then please drop me a line via the CONTACT page of this website. In the mean time you can stay up-to-date with my Instagram page or subscribe to my YOUTUBE channel.
Take it easy…
Arron