Take It or Leave It

Take it or Leave It - final

Demo Versions #

Take It or Leave It - Demo 3 (19 April 2024)

Take It or Leave It - Demo 2 (11 December 2023)

Take It or Leave It - Demo 1 (29 September 2023)

Creation #

I made this song using Logic Pro for iPad and MacOS. This song was finished two years after the last demo on my MacBook. Why is the track called “Take It or Leave It”? I don’t know. That is the name that I randomly came up with the day I made the first demo and I never changed it.

This song had no reason to have taken 2.5 years to make, but since 2024 I had no idea how to “finish” it. It sounded mostly complete to me since Demo 3 but it wasn’t until June 2026 I randomly tinkered with it and completed the track. I still in my mind wanted the track to be longer and more ambitious, but at the end of the day this is a simple little track and it doesn’t need to be overcomplicated.

Composition #

This song was inspired by the HOME song called Native. I was inspired by the arpeggiated into used in that song and wanted to try it myself. I then created the main arpeggiated riff that plays throughout the song and built the rest of the track from there. I intended this song to be background music for my YouTube videos so I avoided frequencies that would get in the way of my voice and make a track that is audible and distinct in the background of my videos but not distracting. The overall composition of the song is extremely basic, it mostly just switches between two chords for the entire song.

The changes I made from the final demo to the finished song are mostly just minor improvements. I added some reverb to the reversed crash to make it sound less robotic. I added compression to the audio and EQ’d the track as best as I could with my limited knowledge. I added some sorely needed drum fills to break up the monotonous repetition of the track, and I slightly increased the pitch of the song to make it sound more bubblegum-like. This is sometimes called “sweetening” the track and is common on many 80s songs such as Last Christmas by Wham!, if you are curious what that track sounds like in its original tuning it can be seen here. Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears For Fears is another track that was also sweetened using a slightly higher pitch.

Artwork #

The artwork I used for the track is actually a video I recorded at Sea Life in Mooloolaba, Queensland. It is some underwater ocean creature that I recorded back on 16 June 2022. I chose it because when I finished the track I thought the song in my mind needed an electric blue coloured cover and wanted something that matched what I saw in my mind, randomly going through the photos I took this was the closest. Since it was also a video I could animate it too for the YouTube version (which can be viewed from the embed on the top of the page).

This is a photo of the night sky I took on 29 October 2023, I thought it matched the vibe so I used it for the artwork of the song during its Demo stage.

Trivia #

• This is my first “single” since Bedroom-Bound Dreams which released on 27 December 2022. It feels good to finally finish something again.

Started: 29 September 2023

Finished: 3 June 2026