Blog 7: Recording the Backing Vocals

DRATTED SWINE FLU. I feel like a sitting duck, waiting for it to hit, as most of my friends and their children have had it! It's like every morning I wake up and go: "still ok today...". I really hate having fever of any sort, let alone HIGH fever! And I cannot STAND seeing my little kids feeling sick! I am also scared the WHOLE household will get it all at once and then what do we do? I just wish they'd invent a cure for flu and all colds. That would be amazing! Imagine forgetting about those expected 3 or 4 colds per winter (and consequent voice drops that are deadly for singers!). Obviously there are more dangerous diseases that need to be cured but certainly eliminating all colds forever would be GLORIOUS!

Ok, now that I've gotten my useless protest against flu out of the way ;-))), back to Backing vocals: the plan was to have these done by Chris, Kate and myself. I booked Britannia Row Studios for 3 subsequent days and had arranged for Chris and Katy to come in and do their vocal magic. I would then do my own backing vocals the following week. The night before session 1 Katy sends me an email saying she had a family issue and cannot make the session the next day!On top of this Chris arrives with a massive cold (back to my rant above) but says he can still manage to sing...this is turning out to be a BAD day. Katy promised she would show up for session 2 the next day so we just worked with Chris (and his cold) all of day 1 hoping to make it up with Katy on day 2. Morning of day 2 she sends me another message saying she will not make it! At this point I am feeling pretty depressed as I can't seem to figure out how I'm going to get female backing vocals (other than my own) on the recordings.

Fortunately it turns out Chris has a friend, Kim, who not only is an amazing session singer but who just happens to be available for two half day sessions and can arrive within the hour! She arrived and did an amazing job almost recovering the time lost on day one completely. God provides.

Aside from the initial issues, It was great fun recording the backing vocals and cool to see how my vocal arrangements (jotted down in paper and dictaphone) actually sounded when recorded and stacked up! We made some last minute adjustments as Chris and Kate had a few good ideas they tried out and we liked so it paid to stay flexible and open to different ideas. The 3 days ended with 3 songs still missing female (non Odette) backing vocals which Katy ended up doing at Metropolis studios while we were mixing the album! Phwew!!

Here's a couple links that show some scenes from recording the backing vocals including the producer catching me out using the 'talk' button as if it were a microphone! Some of it is in Italian. Enjoy!!

Chris and Kim

Katy

Hugs and Kisses,


Odette