http://youtu.be/NAjr0xyyt0Q
I am a producer and an engineer. You would not believe what you can do in the studio to doctor things up. Truly! You would not believe it! I do it the old fashioned way. I sing every chorus, verse and bridge, one at a time. I sing every harmony each and every time. This is not standard folks. I am a freak in today’s recording world. Usually they pitch correct everything, and the singer sings one chorus and they do what they call “Fly In,” meaning they just take it and restamp it down the length of the song. They then do this with harmonies. Trust me, I know about this stuff! I live it everyday!
Imagine a clock in your mind. As we look at the music there is a definite 4:00 and a 8:00. Almost all lead vocals will be at 12:00. If you notice in the verses the lead vocal is at 12. Then there’s the harmony with Neil at 12. Then, during the bridge section Neil’s voice spreads out to 10 and 2. These are two separate tracks panned hard left and hard right. There is what they call a mono mix on the drums. I still employ these old ways in my recordings. I just love to put on headphones and listen to the separate artistry in the mix!
On those hard panned vocals during the bridge, they do what they call a “Mult,” short for multiple track. What Neil is doing is this, he sings the first track on either the left or the right, then sings the second one to match the first. They are never identical and both humanly flawed. It is a lost art. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were absolute masters at this. I, myself, still do this. Now days you can simply make a copy and then have it a millisecond behind the first, but it just doesn’t have the same quality.
– Andy Lindquist is a Minneapolis-based songwriter whose excellent tunes may be heard at http://www.jango.com/music/andy+lindquist?l=0
