Hi Mike, I love all the Background Vocals work on every Mutt's production.

Can you Share some BV secrets with us?

I mean, long time a go I heard that he dubbed every background vocal several times and that every number of takes he asks the singer(s) to go back off the mic so it sounds like there are too many people in a room. Is this true?
How many vocals overdubs he does?
When you mix all this BV how do you deal with so many Pans and levels?
And last, do you make comps, or do you mix every single take?

Thank you.

Armando Avila
www.cosmosproducciones.com

I'm also interested in your methodology on the "Lots-n-lotsa vocals" approach.

I have a female singer coming in to have her demo produced and I'm considering this approach for her.

Do you find certain tried-n-true methods to getting that big swanky sound?

Is keeping everything organized a PITA?

We only ever did the moving away from the mic thing , for a rock aproach. For all the pop BV's that Mutt would do on his own , would be just stacked up 20 or so tracks per harmony, sometimes more , sometimes less. We would bounce them into 4 tracks per harmony and as for panning , we'd pan them pretty much wide all the time. Having used a ridiculous amount of eq to get the right sound. A lot of level riding is also used as is editing all the "S's" and hard consonants to line up to stop the flamming .

THANKS MIKE!

I'm really looking forward to trying this.

I figure the level riding to tame the S's, I can do in the PT edit window.

The panning...I'm already a slut for wide panning backing vox, as well as finding creative ratios. Like panning one set of harmonies 90%, another 70%, and so forth - or even flipping the sides, like having the higher register wider on the left and the lower register wider on the other right..

As for the EQing, with backing vox, I find myself cutting lows. A LOT. Same with you guys?

Mike, thanks for your reply, do you think that the "S" Problem can be resolved with a deesser per track?
I think that you (and Mutt) are having good time with all the technology now available, I mean, in Def Leppard days, maybe a Vocalign could be a god send.

Again thanks for this unvaluable info. Those BVs. are Mutt's trademark, so its good to know this stuff.

Armando Avila