David Cook = 42 (Forums)

Awww. Guess I'm the only one that loves hearing Dave's harmonies.

Oh well. I enjoy Andy's and Kyle's backing vocals also, so I guess I win either way. ;-)

Nice to get some confirmation, though, as that leaves one less thing to speculate on.

Nah. Honestly, I'm hoping we get it both ways. I'll admit I'm thrilled to teeny bits to see the gang vocalizing, and I hope that Peek and Skibby and the gang do most of the backing vocals. But, surely, somewhere on this record there'll be a place where it seems like a good idea for Cook to do more than one vocal track. Having Skib and/or Peek sing backup would sound more natural, to me, and more in keeping with what I think of as their sound (having watched eleventy zillion live performance videos). But layering Cook's vocals might be an effect they want on some tracks. Like playing with scissors and spare change, I guess - it's nice to have options.

Yes, generally I think it actually highlights the resonances of Cook's voice to have natural harmonies, and some of the studio harmonies canceled each other out, IMO. I'm amazed that he can do them so easily, but that doesn't mean it was a choice made for aesthetics rather than by necessity. But they might use a subtle own-vocal layering effect here or there, and have the time to mix it so it doesn't seem so...clinical.

In the meantime, I'm just glad to see the boys all engaged in the process. I bet they sound fantastic.

And I may have finally figured out the mic. Because I am dumb and/or lazy, it didn't occur to me to actually seek out prized vintage mics even though I knew Serletic uses them. But one of the "holy grail" vocal mics is the Neumann U47. (Here's the official page, if anyone feels the need to read specs in German.) There are a bunch of clones that try to replicate the style and sound, but I'm not going to look them all up. But here are some swoony emails about the Wagner U47w clone, some of which are even in English. Warm, intimate, and proper "placement" of vocals in the mix are recurring themes.

And for the record, if I could code it into the forum, I'd have set up a "lost a bet...[shrug]" macro by now. Heh.

Since none of the other 4 can 'sing like a girl', they're probably not going to be able to do all the harmonies. I hope there are some of those very high harmonising parts for Dave; I still listen to that stripped version of 'Lie' that's on YouTube (sorry, at work, can't link)- it reveals almost a second song under the first one.

Um. I didn't get this far, and I'd been reading Mix last night for information on recording harmony vocals, yet didn't think to dig through its archives. (Were it in hard copy, I'd be about a week from hiding dog-eared copies under the mattress, except those purty, purty pictures of tubes and transformers from the rebuild guy may get there first.)


And that explains Serletic's fascination with the vintage: it's the analog "quirky stuff happens in the construction, and sometimes the results are splendid" as opposed to the digital and fully predictable and replicable. From someone who can appreciate the orneriness of an antique Steinway, I should have seen that coming.

Tech specs should always be in German. I am tempted to tackle the language solely for "ersatzlautstärke."

What the heck, let's do the Mix article on how four 2002-era CDs had lead, harmony, and backing vocals handled. Boyz II Men recording harmony separately, without hearing one another, is particularly counterintuitive, should anyone be counting her or his intuits.

I understand every word of those mic specs. And yet nothing. *facepalm*

Best as I can tell, they're supposed to be very accurate and able to pick up on tiny nuances, even at low volume, particularly with accoustic (!!!) performances.

I don't get the Jeopardy contestants who can come up with Fantasia Barrino but not Kris Allen, Jordin Sparks or David Cook. At least David can check off "be featured in a Jeopardy answer" from his bucket list. Wait, isn't this his second one?

Well, to be fair, none of the other three Idols had a Lifetime Movie about them entitled The Fantasia Barrino Story, starring Fantasia Barrino playing Fantasia Barrino. Maybe Jeopardy contestants are more Lifetime movie people than VH1 or MTV people.

ETA: sourwoodmtn and eilonwy, I am enjoying both of your mic geekiness (heh), especially as it relates to Serletic and the thought and deliberation that goes into properly capturing and highlighting The Voice in the studio. And now I must sign off because I feel a flail coming on. (Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! It's starting to feel more and more real everyday. Cannot wait!) Oops. Too late.

Looks like the boys had some revels last night after golf in the afternoon. Exhibit 1 Exhibit 2 Exhibit 3 I'm shaking my head at the PBR (I think even Brooklyn hipsters have moved on by now), but I'm wildly amused that they went to find a Sasquatch sign for a background. That's inspired.

I'm assuming that stepping out for some fun means that Serletic is busy mixing everything. Getting tracks patched and synced and all the tastiness can take several hours after the recording proper, so hopefully at least a few batches will be close to being done by the show next week.

It's also weird, because Google doesn't bring up any such 'national forest' (I can't really read the first word, but I think that's what it is). I was wondering if maybe that was where the golf course was.

It's not a national forest, it's a bar. A girl from LA I follow on twitter said this "Big Foot Lodge is where those signs ( and the guys) are. It's a cool bar on Los Feliz Blvd in LA."

Well, I guess they finished something today.

No idea what he considers a batch, but after a month I have to assume it's something closer to six than three. "Two-take Cook" has been at it for awhile, after all. (And I guess that explains why we didn't see a pic of him with a PBR last night. Heh.)

Also, apparently it was "follow all my RL friends whom I hadn't before" day. I admit to being slightly disturbed that Maureen Van Zandt uses her Sopranos character name as her Twitter handle, but it's her call. I wonder if they all hassled him enough to get him to make the change in one fell swoop. (Well, maybe not the comedians. They heckle, instead.)

ETA: And also, apparently, they accomplished more:

So, normal gambling, stunt bet, or merely using Serletic as a dupe because NT could do some bad-ass shit that the Emblem folks did not anticipate? Heh.

Heh, I too noticed the mass follow last night. Gasp! He even followed a friend that is a girl. Well Andy's GF. I noticed he didn't follow Neal's GF. He even followed Joey. He has done that before and then unfollowed and Joey has done the same thing. I guess fans have speculated that is the guys messing with the fans?

I wonder how they choose which songs to record in the first batch? Are they songs DC and the producer pick or does the label choose based on single potential?

With possibly 5 or 6 songs complete is a single announcement likely in the near future? This was supposed to be a late spring early summer release. Now it looks as if we will be entertaining an early Fall or winter release. Or perish the thought next year.

Hope it wasn't anything like the bet that Kris Allen's bandmate Cale made: can I eat 24,000 calories worth of food in 10 hours?

Thankfully (IMO), from what we can see here, the moustache is gone.