My Single "Trust Issues" Feels Like A Velvet Wrapped Dagger

My new single Trust Issues releases on March 13, 2026!

Its stark yellow and black colour scheme serves as a warning:

You've been here before, on the edge of opening up or shutting it all down. You've been through it too many times. And yet…what if it's different this time? Trust Issues is a song for when trust feels like a velvet wrapped dagger. 

 

After almost two months of writing, recording, mixing, and mastering, I'm thrilled to share how Trust Issues came together!

Songwriting

As my first release of 2026, and particularly as a single, I wanted Trust Issues to follow both thematically and sonically from my debut synthpop album Afterlove.

 

I guard my heart and don't trust easily. Reflecting on this inspired me to pick up my acoustic guitar and start writing lyrics. I had the faintest resemblance of a musical idea back in the first week of December 2025, just prior to Afterlove's release. I started strumming some chords and just blurted "I don't trust you!" 

 

Singing this phrase lit a creative fire. Not trusting, while also wondering how that might be possible again after so much hurt and betrayal, is the repeated idea in the chorus. 

I wrote Trust Issues in the key of F minor, so it's definitely melancholy and moody sounding. My strumming pattern changed completely when transferring from acoustic to electric guitar, which also changed the tempo. It's a simple down-up-up strum that inspired the drums. The riff has seven notes of the F minor scale: the first four riff notes ascend while the remaining three descend, which formed the basis of my vocal melody as well.

 

From the get go, I knew I wanted Trust Issues to feel foreboding. For the listener, there should be a sense of unease, like there's something wrong looming. And yet, the harp and violin strings I included deliberately contrast this with a feeling of hope, like sunrise breaking through dark clouds. I think the best thing about Trust Issues is precisely this emotional tension and contrast evoked by interesting instrumentation.

 

Getting this foreboding feeling across involved trying various things with production and arrangement!

Music Production 

One of the most ominous sounds in Trust Issues is the bell. It starts the song by immediately demanding alertness. I went through my compiled list of BandLab's instruments, trying synths, pads, basses, and percussion. While looking for symphonic instruments, I stumbled across the straightforward Bells instrument. The tone was just what I wanted right from the first note. After adjusting down an octave and adding reverb to give it deeper resonance, I definitely had that ominous feeling.

Next, I wanted the drums to come across as relentless. I liked the sound of four different drum kits but agonized over which one to actually pick. My solution was to mix all four!

 

As you can see in the left screenshot, I had these four drum tracks, including one track at the bottom that served as my riser building anticipation throughout the song. There were two acoustic kits and one electronic kit, because I thought they all sounded best together. The acoustic kits had a great dry kick and natural sounding cymbals that crashed, then faded really well with the reverb and delay effects I applied. The electronic kit contained lo-fi sounds, adding grime and dirt to every kick, snare, and cymbal. 

 

Mixing these four drum kits was challenging because of their drastic difference in volume. I managed to tame this with volume adjustments using the knobs as well as automation, EQ, and compression. On top of that, I had to be mindful of BandLab's sixteen track limit for free users. So once I'd mixed and processed the drums on each track, I consolidated them all into one WAV file that I then re-imported into the project to free up precious track space. This is one example of why I love working within limitations, as it keeps me creative and making only production choices that serve the song best!

 

Rhythmically, Trust Issues has a stuttered beat that is reminiscent of Afrobeat and funk. I actually didn't mean to do that, as I was only trying to find the best drums to fit the guitar riff I'd already come up with. Usually it's the other way around, but this time I wasn't willing to change the catchy lead. So the drums I programmed emphasize the first and third beats, lining up perfectly with the tension of the guitar riff.

When it comes to recording guitar, I always record without any effects applied. Sure, I do practice rhythm parts and riffs on electric guitar exclusively through the clean setting of my BOSS Katana 100 watt amp, adding just a little reverb. But I record directly through my Focusrite iTrack Solo audio interface which hooks up to my laptop, so it's a purely dry signal that I hear through BandLab. I do this because it's easier to catch my mistakes instead of slyly hiding them behind a guitar tone, and I also find I play rhythm better without other effects to distract me.

 

After I recorded the lead guitar, I was specifically looking for an unusual and attention grabbing tone to apply. The one I chose was called Distorted Ambience.

True to it's name, this preset sounded warped and alien, feeling like it's filtered through layers of distrust. I made some minor tweaks to it when I listened in the mix, but otherwise it's excellent right out of the box.

In fact, my lead guitar sounded so good and took up enough space all by itself in the mix because of the tone, that I ended up removing my rhythm guitar entirely. Originally, I had strumming in the chorus to accentuate the downbeats. But it was too crowded and distracting.

Instead, I replaced my rhythm guitar with synths throughout the verses and chorus. The synths are simply holding down the harmony, but they're stacked, have distinct weird tones, and are panned wide left and right. 

The bass synth sits low in the mix, anchoring the progression. My favourite aspect of programming bass is playing the riff right after the bridge where it's just the bass supported by the drum fill leading into the final chorus.

For vocals, I sang through my trusty RODE NT1A condenser microphone and used the same vocal chain I painstakingly crafted for Afterlove. Again, I made some small adjustments to the delay and reverb to better fit the unique mixing context of Trust Issues, but I found it's a great all purpose vocal chain I'll continue using. 

I had four vocal tracks for Trust Issues. The main vocal processed through my chain and the dry vocal right below it are kept right down the middle. The two harmony vocal tracks throughout the chorus are panned left and right both to widen the chorus when it hits, and also to give the mix much needed space. What makes my harmonies in Trust Issues interesting are the vocal effects: the left one has a gated reverb on it that gives the end of my phrasing an airy feel, whereas the right one has a distortion effect.

Mixing and Mastering

Ultimately, Trust Issues took up all 16 track slots in BandLab!

I mean, with the four drum kits separated the whole single is technically twenty tracks. The point being, there's plenty of tracks and effects that have brought this song to life.

Thankfully, mastering was a straightforward matter of applying BandLab's excellent Universal preset to bump and even out the volume. It was the mixing process that took longer. I kept going back and forth between my different reference headphones outside of my studio pair, mostly my dollar store earbuds with their essential flat frequency and my smartphone earbuds. I also referenced using my smartphone and laptop speakers.

Some of the synth parts sounded too quiet, which required me to go back and manually draw volume automation. Same for the string and harp. With this done, it was much easier to carve space in the mix for other layers. I'm always surprised how impactful something as simple as turning down the volume is, especially for naturally loud instruments like drums and vocals.

As layered as Trust Issues is, I also like to keep in mind that not every song must have this many tracks. Layers add up in my songs because I like to have different parts going. Or distinct instruments with panning and different effects. Arranging a song is just as important to me as writing, recording, mixing, and mastering it. Sometimes I just get carried away by the sheer excitement of it all and have so much fun being creative that I forget all about things like track limits and CPU usage from plugins, and that eventually, every song must come to an end.

Trust Comes With A Warning Label

What does it take to truly trust someone? 

And is it even worth it?

Trust Issues tries to explore these agonizing questions from a wary distance. 

After listening, I hope you come away from it more thoughtful about what trusting someone means to you. I also hope you feel that it's a relatable song, although broken trust isn't a nice experience. 

As I continue to release music in 2026, I can't wait to share more posts just like this that detail my songwriting and music production process, so stay tuned!