Nightwalker is a revived and rejuvenated version of an earlier arrangement which I produced about three years ago. The original, which is on my SoundCloud, is largely a Weeknd-inspired beat. In the original, the intro piano motif serves as the main melodic hook throughout the tune. However, this new rendition has completely stepped away from that approach, relying mostly instead on a new progression.
 

I decided to whip up this song as the fifth installment in my 10-in-10 songwriting challenge. It was originally intended to be a submission for a songwriting contest, though I quickly realized that songwriting contests are all pretty much scams. This instead became on opportunity to test out my songwriting, production, and engineering skills under a time crunch. It was a grind of a week to finish- an extreme grind for 6 days- to take the project from start to finish.

This is the most number of tracks I’ve had on a project for any of my recent releases. This is also the first track which I’ve programmed drums for- which means that I had individual tracks for the kick, snare, crash, ride, hi-hat, and toms. I also had individual tracks for piano, bass guitar, flute, group violins, solo violin, cello, tuba, trombone, group trumpets, and a synth bass, bringing us to a total of 16 tracks. I know that pales in comparison to some modern pop tracks. But compared to recent works like the piano version of The Queen’s Waltz and March of the Rabbit, which only have a single piano track, it was a lot to work with.

Needless to say, this project presented so many opportunities to learn about the processes of recording, mixing, mastering, producing, and creating the visual landscape of the music.

The last night of my final day of mixing, my fiancee and I went out to downtown Santa Cruz from about 10:00 PM to 1:00 AM to do a shoot to get the cover photo. The idea I had in mind was to capture a scene of a woman running through the night, with an element of fear and confusion present. I knew I wanted the stark red light against the dark of night. But when we went out to shoot, it took us a while to get anything close to the vision that could really work. After playing around withe camera in different locations, lightings, and techniques, we were just about ready to give up. But as we were walking down the street, I started to shoot while holding a red filter over the lens while cars drove back her. The headlights of the cars backlit my fiancee, and the red filter made the whole thing look like a scene from some crazy dream. Eventually we got enough photos and went through them later to find the shot which would later become the cover.

Nightwalker became a huge creative push and a nice break from working on the different versions of The Queen’s Waltz. It provided me a chance to showcase a new side of my musical character and my creative instincts. It’s my hope that listeners can have as much fun listening to Nightwalker as I had making it!

Nick Sax

Now live is my second installment in The Queen's Waltz series: Electric Ensemble. In this project, I've begun multiple different instrumental arrangements of one single composition. So far, I've completed the solo piano rendition, and now the electric rendition.

This track went through multiple different versions. As I began the arrangement, I knew that the primary instrument would be the electric piano (a modern Wurlitzer electric piano). I wanted to imagine how this piece could be played in a band format, so naturally I had to include the electric bass. Rather than emphasize each movement of the waltz, I used it sparingly, only to emphasize the main melody. And finally, I chose to use the jazz organ to provide a nice water-like atmospheric texture to the track. The bridge provides a nice moment for the organ to poke through the mix, and it's actually playing a melody which I ripped from another arrangement of mine for this song (which will be released in about two weeks).

At one stage, this song featured an electric guitar. But after spending more time on it than I should've, I realized that it simply detracted way too much from the vision for the song. So, the guitar was eliminated. Once I finished the first mix, I found that the original piano had way too much effects going on (reverb, phaser, etc) which translated horribly to the phone speakers. This exposed an issue in my mix and forced me to return to square one. I then stayed up until 3:00 AM completely redoing the mix until it sat right…. I fell asleep that night on my sofa listening to the Electric Ensemble on my Air Pods. That next morning, I perfected the master (though it could be a bit louder), uploaded it, and scrambled out the door to pick up merch and head to a rehearrsal with my band Empire Grade.

To me, this arrangement helps me visualize the composition better. If the Queen is the electric piano, the bass is the ballroom, and the organ her dancing partner. The picture has expanded, and with it, the story. Though the original piano has a purity to it, this piece, having two melodic instruments, has more voice and detail. My favorite moment is the bridge, when the organ rolls through the silence to present a whole new melody. Enjoy this new arrangement of The Queen's Waltz, and standby for two more arrangements being rolled out this month.

Nick Sax

We’re live! The Queen’s Waltz (Piano Version) is up on all streaming platforms and available for download for free on my website.

What makes this so special is that it is a revisiting of an old song that I wrote for my now fiancee two years ago. The original recording was my first attempt at miking and recording piano, violins, cellos and clarinets, as well as mixing and mastering live instruments. Needless to say, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, and the final product sounded terrible. I can’t even get through the intro of that old version.

But when recording this track, and considering the chamber arrangement, it occurred to me that I could actually produce two versions of the same song: one solo piano, the other piano with a chamber arrangement with it (violin, cello, and maybe even a horn… foreshadowing). Later, when I went to play it on my electric piano, I found that I actually really enjoyed it with a rhodes or wurlitzer tone. Thus, a third version for me to arrange and record. And finally, I rediscovered a version I played which departed from the waltz, taking on more of a swing- a fourth version for me to arrange and track.

Realizing that I could produce four different versions of the same song is extremely exciting to me. Having set a goal of releasing a song a week, it makes accomplishing that much easier (though I do not consider it to be a loophole). Instead, that project has taken a new form: a four-song EP, each piece a new variation of the same composition, with this piano version as the first track. One song, four arrangements. 

It’s a great joy to have this new version, recorded, mixed and mastered with far more thought, care, and experience than the 2024 version. It is my hope to share the world of blissful joy, peace and romantic love that is The Queen’s Waltz.