After the composition and songwriting was complete, I started arranging the song on LogicPro. The pre-production stage is very difficult. With my study workload, I had to put in late nights just to put together the draft track. I toyed and tinkered with all the sounds I could find on Logic because I needed to find exactly what the song communicated. It took a long time and I redid almost a 100 different parts. Sometimes I thought something sounded great, but the next morning I had to admit it was a terrible idea. The whole process inculcated a religious self-analysis protocol because I knew it was important not to rush to release. I couldn’t do a half-hearted job like some forced homework task. I had to put all my effort in, and this whole pre-production process pulled that out of me.
When I was finally satisfied with the draft track, my father introduced me to distinguished guitarist, songwriter and producer, Shital Kulkarni. Mr Kulkarni has been in the music business for more than 30 years and he has released albums with his band Tungsten before going solo. He has won several industry awards for his music and also runs a famous music academy, Institute of Modern music in Pune. I met him at his studio, where he sat and listened to my song, gave me a realistic evaluation and spent almost two hours discussing how we could take it forward, what changes can be made, where I should get it professionally produced and mastered. I realised that what I produced to my best abilities hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface of professional quality. But it was good to know that the song had enough potential for us to consider a professional producer. It was Shital Kulkarni who suggested three producers and recommended the ones he thought would suit my approach and personality, and help me the most at this initial stage of my career. That is how I eventually met my producer, Onkar Tarkase.