I’ve spent a few weeks now writing guitar soundscapes, or guitarscapes. I hadn’t written for this genre before, but as a lifelong guitarist, I figured it would be a good assignment. And it was, but I was greatly humbled by the task. I learned a ton and I’d love to share it.
Here are some background reference tracks for guitarscapes that I saw in a recent TAXI listing. Note that these are not traditional soundscapes in that they don’t contain any actual environmental sounds, and they don’t move slowly enough to be ambient music. Even so, I consider guitarscapes to be a subgenre of soundscapes.
| Song (Artist) | Beats per Minute | Duration | Key | Structure / Arrangement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dramamine (Flawed Mangoes) | 112 | 3:25 | Ab (I think, it feels like it’s half a semi-tone off normal pitch.) | Multiple melodic voices with effects over guitar arpeggios with a pad |
| Dark Sky City (Amparo) | 105 | 2:37 | D | Guitar lead (w/slide) over fingerstyle chords with leading notes |
| The Only One (Random Forest) | 100 | 4:21 | A | Multiple alternating lead lines over multiple arpeggios with a light pad |
Sometimes, when you are looking at reference tracks, a bunch of trends pop out that make it easy to frame what you should write. For example, I need a 3 minute song at 125 bpm in the key of C with one edit point and a button ending. However, that is harder to do with a guitarscape, and in these references, the tempo and mood are the only thing in common. The mood is definitely one of melancholy.
More generally, I wonder if these compositions are most often composed in the keys of E, A, or G because those are where guitarists tend to gravitate. Ab is an unfavorable key, given where Ab is located on the fretboard. That is certainly not the case here. One of my compositions turned out to be in A for the previously stated reason – there was a wonderful fingerstyle rhythm available using open strings on the low E, A, and D, strings, and that forms the basis for the composition.
Anyway, on a more positive note, the listing is looking for 2 minutes, which is a hell of a lot easier than 4. So a moody piece at 110ish bpm that’s 2 minutes long. I can do that. And I did.
And with that as a setup, here are some things I learned along the way.
1. How do you define Guitarscape?
It can be challenging to find general-purpose information about the genre because a few guitarists have used this name over the years for other projects, but this search on Google did the trick:
guitarscapes -“Steve Howe” -“Ronnie Wood”
But you still won’t find much. Wikipedia doesn’t even have a page for it. There’s just one stub entry in Wiktionary.
My own definition is:
A guitarscape is a subgenre of soundscape compositions. Its distinguishing features are the use of guitars for most of the distinct voices, loose and wandering song structure, and a focus on overall mood and vibe versus a hook or chorus. Guitarscapes frequently use traditional effects like tremolo, phasing, reverb, delay, distortion and others to bring contrast, depth, and pulse to the composition. Unlike soundscapes, guitarscapes, especially those written for production music, typically lack environmental sounds (wind, water, crowds, traffic, etc.) that place them in a specific physically context, relying on the guitar sounds to invoke those images.
2. You are not writing a song
You are writing a vibe. It can be hard to describe the difference, but it’s there. A guitarscape tells a story with sound textures and motifs that evolve. A song uses structure, hooks, and lyrics to accomplish the same thing. I think we can all usually tell the difference intuitively. One of those differences is that the structure of a song allows the listener to anticipate when things like the chorus are coming around again. On the other hand, a guitarscape is taking them on a sonic journey that may seem meandering at times.
When you are not writing a traditional song structure, you can take a longer time to evolve concepts. Songwriting sometimes feels like it’s for an impatient audience. You need the hook in the first 30 seconds, no more than 3:30 in length, and so forth. But you can take 45 seconds (or longer) to develop an idea in a soundscape. It’s just a different way of thinking and for me, composing.
3. Seriously, force yourself to blow up any song constructs
If you look at your arrangement in the DAW and discover that it’s basically verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus or something like that, even if it’s labeled differently, stop and blow it up. That’s what I had to do. Every time I had a structure that resembled a song, my own internal biases drove me towards writing a song. And when I’d write a part and listen back, I could tell I was listening to a song and not a ‘scape, if you will. I had to retrain myself a bit to know that I don’t need four bar repeating structures, or a single, signature, melodic motif, or even to get around to anything quickly.
One thing that helped me a lot was to do audio visualization of the vibe I wanted, and then improvise over backing sounds to try to create a mood. This allowed me to record a bunch of loops and then remix them into a prototype composition. I could then pick and choose the sound elements I wanted rather than actually scoring a long, meandering, emotional lead line for the guitar, for example. Having said that, it was helpful to have a few musical constructs to repeat to keep the listener anchored. Little distinctive phrases, like a three or four note run that repeats. This is a pretty common tactic in production music as well.
4. Recording acoustic guitar sucks
I always start out with high ideals and an engineers mind when I record acoustic, but I still haven’t found a great formula for it. I had planned to use a Fender Acoustasonic for most of my acoustic work, but I have a relatively old model and the battery life is so bad that I can’t really use it direct. And while I really love that instrument, I would not mic it, in general. I’d use a more conventional acoustic for that.
Most of the direct out signals on acoustics rely on piezo electrics, and I just find that sound too plucky. I will sometimes use a Shure SM57 pointed at the neck/body interface, but this time I found the noise floor a bit to high. Lately, I’ve been using a single, large-diaphram condenser mic. It’s simple, gives a good tone, and has a nice low noise floor. I don’t have to have it super close to the guitar as well, so it provides more flexiblity. I also run this through a dbx 286s channel strip for the preamp and some really light processing (mild compression, etc.).
However, even after having said all that, all of the final guitar was electric, which is much, much easier to deal with if you record direct in, which I did.
5. Use traditional effects
The composition I ended up submitting used a lot of traditional effects. I used reverb in two contexts – both to add presence and depth to the sound as well as to create a pad, but there’s more on that below. But reverb is pretty basic. Here are some other effects:
- I used a mild phase effect on the rhythm guitars. Just enough to provide some color in the stereo image and give it a little intrinsic motion.
- Chords that detune with the tremolo bar. I’d strike one chord, hold it, then gradually lower the tremelo bar to get a natural detune effect.
- I order to get a wide sound on the rhythm guitar, I duplicated the track, added a little bit of harmonic distortion, and adjusted the EQ to match. Then I hard pan the original track to the left, and the other to the right.
- Vibrato for a cool vibe sound. I set the depth really high, mostly wet signal, and the frequency to be a multiple of the bpm. You end up with this great choppy sound as the vibrato cuts in and out.
And there are plenty of other sounds to experiment with, especially if you have a decent amplifier simulator.
6. Izotope/Navitve Instruments is a game changer
Izotop RX 11 is a great de-squeaker, but it’s really Guitar Rig 7 that I mean. Sure, the purists in us would love to run around chasing tone all day, but there are so many out of the box sounds that work great with a well recorded DI signal from your instrument. This also frees you from most noise situations, like open microphones, 60 Hz buzz, and so forth.
Even better, you have way more sounds available than you could get on your pedalboard. In production music, we are not chasing our perfect tone, we are chasing the tone that works correctly in the mix. That is a hugely different thing, so here’s where I go heavy into amp sims. You get speed and flexibility that are unmatched. And you still have the original DI signal, so you could always re-amp it at some point.
There is a lot of power in this idea. Rather than ceding control to the magical tone you hear in your head, you can take control of the sound that is best in the mix with speed and agility. The mixing and mastering tools in Izotope are nothing to sneeze at either.
7. Use sparseness to separate instrument voices
If you create a song similar to the references above, you may encounter an equilazation mess. If you have guitar parts on top of guitar parts, they are going to compete with each other. The more parts you have playing at the same time, the bigger the problem. You can use panning, playing the piece in different positions or on a Nashville tuned guitar, or adding effects to help separate them.
If the piece can be sparse, though, write parts that don’t play at the same time. Pick a few voices (arpeggios, very soft pad, maybe a light bass line) that are consistent through the song, and then bring the other guitars in and out in concerted way to avoid them stepping on each other too much.
This will bring a different EQ challenge, which is reducing the noise floor and getting a really clear, cohesive mix with that spareness, since you can really hear any imperfection prominently. But when it comes together right, it’s super powerful. And it saves you from having to start using sidechain compression, or EQ cuts, or other mixing tricks to duck the arrangement behind whatever the lead voice is.
8. Add very gentle bass or a pad to tie it together
When I add bass to the track, it’s usually very gentle. I’ll hold the note for a bar or two sometimes. I’ll add a leading note only when I need it to provide some motion to the composition. Used very sparingly like that, it really helps bring contrast and depth to a guitarscape in a subtle way. I’ve been thinking I should do this on a baritone guitar, although they tend to bottom out at B, I think. Regardless, I add some compression and sustain so that it functions like a low pad. Speaking of pads…
Here’s an awesome way to make a pad with a guitar. We are going to add a hellish amount of reverb to this, so there is no point in putting a huge amount of finesse into this performance. It just needs to have the right chord tones in it.
- Compose a simple set of arpeggios for the chords
- Record it twice and don’t worry if it’s not perfect
- Pan one side hard left, the other side hard right
- Sum both sides into one stereo channel
- Add a reverb stereo effect to the channel
- Set the reverb/sustain to be at least 10 seconds
- Set the output to 100% wet signal
What you should end up with is a shimmery pad with the chord tone you want. The ultra-long reverb and sustain ensure that any playing mistakes are so far down in the mix they sound like generic movement. This technique brings a lot of motion to the pad without adding a noticeable effect like a phaser or something. If you really want to make it extra bright, do it on a Nashville tuned guitar and you’ll get something really heavenly.
9. Have some kind of pulse, but if not, add a really light percussive voice
I try to chose rhythm guitar parts that are busy enough to provide a pulse, but there are other guitar parts that can function the same way. Most notably, fingerstyle chords with leading tones and arpeggios. Both have a natural rhythmic structure that can provide a pulse for the composition. Strumming chords can serve the same purpose, but that would have been challenging in an emotionally down composition like this. If more is needed, it seems like a very soft kick or floor tom is enough. I think less is more here, and the percussion is really just to orient the listener as to where the pulse is to make it easier to experience the music.
Conclusion
You know, if I could have come up with another one, it would be a nice round ten, but in the end, I could only find nine, which is enough.
Writing guitarscapes is very freeing, in a way. You can throw away traditional song structure and focus on a more dynamic journey. This requires very different composition and arranging skills than songwriting. It can also create some mixing challenges given all the similar voices competing for EQ. The result can be really powerful compositions that convey and engender strong emotions in ways that are very different than a conventional song.