I recorded, mixed, and mastered a cover of the song Drivers License by Olivia Rodrigo.
Sometimes I’ll hear a song a few times and start to get a strong desire to take a swing at recording a cover of it. The most recent hit to grab my attention like this was Drivers License by Olivia Rodrigo. It had been a while since I’d spent a lot of time in Logic Pro, and I wanted to challenge myself to take what seemed like a simple composition on the surface, and try to match the depth and fullness of the original track.
Investigation and Instrumentation
I started by working out the BPM of the original, then recording a scratch piano track to follow while recording the other instruments. It took quite a bit of work (and quite a few synth tracks) to get the various swells in the chorus and bridge to a place where I was happy with them. Since I created the cover in a lower key than the original track, I also put a lot of effort into correctly transposing the original melody correctly. I also recorded about a dozen extra vocal tracks to add harmonies and depth to the vocals.
When it came to mixing the track, I spent a lot of time trying to get everything dialed in just right. Over the course of the project, I ended up exporting over 30 different draft mixes of the track to listen in the car, on HomePods, and in various headphones. By the time I was finished, I’m pretty sure I had replaced every audio file from the early mixes at least once or twice.
Finishing Touches
I was able to lean a bit on Logic Pro’s new ML mastering tools, but did find that I needed to make some adjustments beyond that. Once I was happy with the final output, I wanted to make sure the presentation felt polished when listing the track on various streaming services, so I also spent some time creating album art as a nod the album SOUR, on which Rodrigo’s original track appears (and because it’s a cover song, I also purchased the appropriate licensing before publishing my version on streaming services).
I’m really proud of how the track turned out, and I’m looking forward to working on more music projects in the future.
You can check out the finished song on Spotify and Apple Music.