Freedom

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Motown funk, Joe Dart, and a whole lot of bass

“Freedom” started as a love letter to the electric bass, specifically funk bass. I had been listening to Joe Dart’s playing on Vulfpeck’s “Dean Town” and loved the idea of having a through‑composed bass line on one of my songs. I wanted to capture the energy of “Dean Town” and the groove of classic Motown, but make it my own.

The working title was “Funkville” for a long time (a nod to Vulfpeck’s “Dean Town”, which was a nod to Weather Report’s “Teen Town”), but eventually it became “Freedom” – a name that felt right for a song about letting go and finding joy in the music.

This song was written completely from the bass part. I first came up with the bass line for the entire song and then figured out the harmonies and rhythms to use afterwards.

On the album, “Freedom” is the first track where the protagonist finds a sense of release. After the searching and moving of “I‑40”, this is the moment of surrender – not to anything in particular, but to the pure, unfiltered joy of rhythm and groove.

Special Recording Notes

  • Bass: My trusty Ibanez SR 400.
  • Guitar: My Fatfingers Jazzmaster, “The Duke”.
  • Drums: A Logic Drummer track blended with 2 Superior Drummer tracks.
  • Percussion: Logic’s Stereo Sampler, using the “Studio Percussion” preset.
  • Organ: UA’s Waterfall B3.
  • Horns: Session Horns Pro (had to watch Groove3 to get up to speed working with this one).
  • Backing Vocals: Mervyn Warren Choir.
  • Recording Challenges: The biggest challenge of this song (after I could play the entire piece in one pass without my hands cramping up) was getting the right tempo changes, so that it felt smooth and natural.

Special Mix Prep Notes

  • Clip gain: Adjusted as needed to get the tracks hitting the emulated processors at the ideal input levels (e.g., -18dB RMS).
  • Editing: Focused on tightening rhythmic parts so that everything gelled and felt like “one groove”.

Special Mixing Notes

  • Processing:
    • Logic Drummer: Brainworx SSL 4000E; Parallel Compression bus with LA‑2A Silver Compressor (“Drum Room Crush” preset); Parallel distortion bus with Black Box (“08 Black Wow” preset)
    • Superior Drummer (Ludwig Kit): Fairchild 670 (“More Room For Loud Drums”)
    • Percussion: Black Box (“05 Acoustic Sparkle”)
    • Bass: Brainworx SSL 9000J; dbx 160; Parallel Compression bus with UA A‑Type Multiband Enhancer (“Bass FAT‑22” preset) and Brainworx SSL 9000J (boost of 2.4dB @ 760Hz to get it to poke through the mix)
    • All tracks: iZotope’s Vinyl on intro to help give that “vintage” vibe
    • All Group Masters: Black Box
  • Mix Bus processing: Black Box (“17 Mix Bus 1” preset), SSL G Bus Compressor (modified Default setting), Fairchild 670 (Modified “Stereo Bus” preset), ATR‑102 (“Classic 250 Smooth Master” setting), plus a Pultec EQP‑1A boosting 2dB @ 100Hz and 1.25dB @ 10kHz.

Special Mastering Notes

  • Target LUFS: -15 @ peak
  • Ozone settings:
    • Vintage Tape: “Clear Character” preset
    • Equalizer: Slight boost of +0.9 dB @ 12.198 kHz (shelf)
    • Imager: 0‑182Hz = 0.0, 182Hz‑2.4kHz = 11.4, 2.4kHz‑12kHz = 29.1, 12kHz‑20kHz = 32.9
    • Vintage Compressor: “Smooth Opto” preset – threshold -18.6 dB, ratio 1.5:1, attack 28.6ms, release 46.9ms
    • Maximizer: IRC IV “Modern”, threshold -6.3 dB, ceiling -4.0 dB, Character 2.60
  • Dither: POW‑r #2 when converting from 24‑bit to 16‑bit.

Identity is now available on all streaming platforms (such as Spotify), or you can also listen to it on Bandcamp.