I just completed a rough mix of the session we did on Memorial day at
the Bunker.  Last night, Nicole Hurst and Daniela Bauer came over and added some
background vocals to the track.  Hearing 3 unique voices, timbres, and
feels come together is glorious.  Its always so moving to see real
pros work and make it look easy.  The great thing about background
vocals is that it instantly brings a track to the next level and even
the most casual listener can instantly latch on to the vocal
interplay.  That’s the great thing about being a skilled singer,
everyone instantly “gets it”, you could be the best guitarist in the
world and the majority of people wouldn’t notice…. consciously.
We tracked the two singers using a pair of c414s in cardioid
simultaneously which worked out great.  The c414 is a classic vocal
mic and the II version has an upper frequency bump for extra
articulation for vocals.  For the initial unison tracks, I used a
Hamptone tube pre.  I noticed that there was some nice distortion as
the girls were pushing louder in the chorus.  However what’s nice for
one track may not be nice for the many many layers (10 max at one
time) as we were doing.  After tracking the unison, I switched to a
faster pre with some more headroom, the SCA J99, Jensen Twin Servo and
got some amazing sounds.  Full, rich and larger than life.
During the rough mix, I ran Kelli’s vocal through a Sta-Level and the
background vocals thru a pair of LA2As.  These comps brought out great
detail and let the vocals sit nicely.

The musicians backing Kelli on “Come Back” were all good friends from
way back and the way they played and communicated showed that.  While
soloing a drum heart mic, I heard the drummer grunting (not sure what
to call it, sounded like “ungh ungh”) over a particular groove.  Even
though it will probably be inaudible in the mix, the communication
between the musicians will be audible.