My Panasonic video camera captured the footage that was used for the video. This is of me performing the song and recording the audio – the same idea as for the solo acoustic guitar and vocal version of The Debt (song from Common).

It’s a simple video of me performing the sound, with just a touch of vignette to create a bit of intimacy. My performance is a bit ropey in places, but hopefully I have pulled it off sufficiently.

As can be seen in the background, Logic Pro on my iMac was used to record the audio – at the same time as the video was shot – again, the same process/idea as for the solo acoustic guitar and vocal version of The Debt (song from Common).

Where The Heart Is departs from the other recording in that only the Røde NT1-A microphone you see in the foreground of the video was used to capture both the vocal and guitar. I was looking for a faithful recording of the singing and guitar-playing and that can only be achieved by one microphone being the listener’s ‘ears’. The drawback, though, is that the tone and perhaps some of the detail is not as full as close mic’ing of vocal and guitar. It should also noted that the Ovation sound you hear is not the customary plugged-in Ovation sound, but the guitar’s natural acoustic sound. This is often regarded as inferior to the Ovation’s electro-acoustic sound, but I think it is a credible alternative.

When it came to producing the track in Logic, I used a light touch to enhance the natural sound and to end up with as professional-sounding a track as possible. Eq’ing rolled off the very low frequencies to deal with any stray booming frequencies and I slightly lifted the high, percussive, frequencies – as did a touch of Logic’s Exciter plug-in. Small amounts of vocal and ambient reverb were added, and ‘medium’ compression and limiting were used to produce a track that is ’loud’ enough to stand alongside today’s recordings.