Stelios Phili – LOLO ZOUAÏ “HIGH HIGHS TO LOW LOWS” Inside The Track 33 TUTORIAL
We’re delighted to bring you our first video release with songwriter and record producer Stelios! In this series, we explore the entire process of writing, producing, and mixing the song ‘High Highs to Low Lows’ by the artist Lolo Zouai. After an overview of his professional background, how he got involved in the project, and the roles undertaken, Stelios describes how the song was written, the basic setups used to record, and changes made along the way.
We then take a close look at the Ableton multi-track session, from which he plays the parts and reveals his simple yet effective methods of building and manipulating sounds to create ear-grabbing tones and textures. The true beauty of this project lies in the organic way in which it flourished and the success it garnered despite a low budget, stark arrangement, unrefined edits, sonic artifacts, and basic digital mixing and mastering all done by Stelios!
PART 1
Professional background, project roles, song cultivation, writing methods, aesthetic, synth, vocals, beats
PART 2
Ableton session analysis, structure, lyrics, ‘music onomatopoeia’, scene changes, vocal & synth processing
PART 3
Sound manipulation workflow, artificial harmonies, tracking & treatment of piano & vocal, loudness, hindsight
About Stelios Phili
Stelios Phili is a Cypriot-American songwriter and record producer based in New York After studying journalism and psychology, he landed a job at GQ magazine and created music purely as a hobby.