Unique sounding among mainstream songs, I enjoyed "Wicked game" for a long time. After my vocals teacher's suggestion to work on this I gradually built up all the instrument tracks while we were practicing the vocals throughout many weeks. There's a lot of feel in the song and it challenged me in many ways.

Lead guitar

I found this guitar part to be truly beautiful: not super complicated but consistently present throughout the whole track. I got to practice and record for the first time with the tremolo bar. The stock PRS SE tremolo bar was a bit too long so I cut off an inch of it and this seems the sweet spot for me in terms of usability. When mixing I made sure to apply lots of reverb.

Rhythm guitars

I recorded two acoustics to give width to the rhythm section by hard panning left and right each. Steady strumming was my focus and trying to minimize the string buzz from the real acoustic.

Vocals

This is the latest song I worked on with my vocals teacher. There's a lot of emotion in it and in the chorus going in and out of head voice was a really good practice.

For backing vocals I got help from my muse.

Bass

A minimalistic bass line to maintain the airy feel of the song.

Drums

Light but steady drums to keep the rhythm flowing. I used the ride cymbal instead of the hi-hat for a more chimy sound.

Mixing & mastering

For the backing vocals we recorded 3 takes for a sequence of two "This world is only gonna break your heart" parts then I copy & pasted the takes to all the places where it's reoccurring and switching between takes.

Video

I wanted to add more colors and visuals to the recordings. The smoke machine and ambient lights helped for the drums part and an LED bar for the lead guitar.