With the tuned lead vocal in place, Issac heads back into the live room to lay down the vocal doubles on the chorus.
See how Vance Powell:
Explains how vocals were tuned with an Eventide 910 or 949 before computer-based tuning was possible
Plays back the tuned vocals for the band
Explains the plan for the vocal doubles to Issac and Gabby
Adds the copper phone to the vocal double blend
Sends the recorded doubles back up to Mike Fahey in Studio B for pitch and timing correction
This is your chance to join Nashville legend Vance Powell and The Weird Sisters at the world-famous Blackbird Studio and watch them craft "Live And I Learn" from Start To Finish.
00:00:22 The band is back,
we're back from lunch, we had hot chicken.
00:00:26 Our lips are burning.
00:00:28 And their ears are burning.
00:00:29 We've gone through, Mike has nudged around
the vocal a little bit here and there.
00:00:35 What you guys saw.
00:00:36 I just wanted to talk to Izaac
and Gabby a little bit and say:
'Look, records get made this way
these days because we have these tools'.
00:00:43 But back in the day
when people couldn't sing
quite in tune or get quite the note
how did they fix it?
Well,
basically,
they used
this piece of gear.
00:00:56 Right
here.
00:00:59 The Eventide 910
and 949.
00:01:04 And they even got so serious about these,
they made a little keyboard
so you could actually hit
the notes and things like that
but they would take and
pitch up
or down a little bit,
play the track back,
listen to get it in-tune
and then
they would patch it in
and punch it into the tape.
00:01:23 Wow!
And tune it up and down
with the Eventide.
00:01:29 So,
that's kind of what we're doing.
00:01:31 More or less.
00:01:32 And some of these notes a really low.
00:01:35 Well I'm no Al Green.
00:01:38 For better or for worse.
00:01:39 But the track sounds really good.
00:01:41 So we're gonna just take a
listen here and let you hear.
00:04:13 Yeah, kind of great.
00:04:15 Awesome. You dig?
You dig, you dig? Dig?
Alright, cool.
00:04:19 So let's do some doubles.
00:04:21 We're gonna do some
doubles in the chorus.
00:04:24 And I'm curious if you would do
the last chorus,
we'll do it as a double, but not up high.
00:04:33 We'll do it down the octave.
00:04:36 OK, regular style.
00:04:38 We'll just put that up underneath it.
00:04:40 Try to go to the E-flat this time,
instead of the C.
00:04:43 -Yeah.
-Because, maybe, you know...
00:04:45 Yeah.
00:04:46 It's way down there.
00:04:48 Alright we're going to do
a little vocal double here.
00:04:51 Are you ready there young Izaac?
Would you be able to put
my OG vocals kind of
Yeah. So, your new vocal
will be in...
What knob there young Mike?
I marked them, so... 2 and 3.
00:05:05 -Knobs 2 and 3.
-BGVS 1 and 2.
00:05:07 The background vocals will be on 2 and 3.
00:05:10 -And your OG in 1.
-Gotcha can I pan with this thing?
You can.
00:05:14 Right above it.
00:05:15 OK, cool I see.
00:05:17 Here we go.
00:05:19 Cool.
00:05:19 Yeah.
00:05:21 Here we go.
00:05:40 Do me a favor,
just sing it a capella for me.
00:05:43 I'm gonna maybe add a little bit
of this distortion microphone in.
00:05:47 So hang on one second.
00:05:50 That's cool, I'm still trying to...
00:05:52 Got that.
00:05:56 Cool.
00:05:58 OK, let me hear that chorus now.
00:06:00 Alright.
00:06:10 OK.
00:06:11 Still...
00:06:12 I'm still dialing in my
little mix box over here.
00:06:29 Can I hear it with the track maybe?
Here we go.
00:06:32 Alright.
00:07:04 It's pretty great.
00:07:05 OK.
00:07:06 OK. Let's do something stupid.
00:07:08 Do you like doing stupid?
Yes.
00:07:12 Yes, so do I.
00:07:14 Hold on one second.
00:07:15 So what I'm gonna do here
is we're gonna do a doubled double.
00:07:21 Doubled double.
00:07:23 That's what we're gonna call it,
the doubled double.
00:07:27 Alright so now on your other knob,
there, on BGV 2 or whatever,
we're going to do a doubled double.
00:07:37 So now, hard pan those.
00:07:39 Or whatever.
00:07:40 OK.
00:07:41 You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
00:07:42 Yeah, here we go.
00:08:15 It's pretty cool.
00:08:16 I added the tag at the end by accident.
00:08:18 Yes, we can take that out.
00:08:19 -One more time, alright?
-Yeah, let me do it again.
00:08:53 Yeah, man,
that's sounding really good.
00:08:55 Alright let's go to the next one.
00:08:57 We'll go back to the first track.
00:09:01 What I'm basically gonna do is
touch these up a little bit,
make sure they're lined up nice,
spread them out a little bit.
00:09:07 It's gonna be really nice.
00:09:08 Alright here we go, number one,
of chorus 2.
00:09:40 Yeah man.
00:09:41 Alright.
00:09:42 Do the doubled double.
00:09:43 Doubled double.
00:09:44 Double down.
00:10:15 That sounds really cool.
00:10:17 Cool.
00:10:18 Alright.
00:10:22 Let's go to the next one.
00:10:23 Is that the last one?
This will be the... Yeah.
00:10:26 This is going to be, yeah, the last one.
00:10:28 So when you go up high just
stay where you were on this
second chorus, alright?
I think that's a cool idea.
00:10:34 I think it'll be cool.
00:11:17 Would you be able to
cut out the high part?
Yeah.
00:11:22 Am I getting that low note right?
Like...
00:11:26 It sounds like it.
00:11:27 In the midst of all that.
Here we go.
00:11:29 Maybe we'll find out...
00:11:31 Well, we'll figure it out.
00:12:09 I got an idea, hold on.
00:12:11 We're just gonna pop out
of the grid here real quick.
00:12:14 And what we're gonna do
is... I'm gonna duplicate this track.
00:12:20 I'm just going to
basically take the original
first part of this take
and I'm going to fly it to the back half.
00:12:27 So he has something to sing along to.
00:12:29 Let me see if this works here.
Hold on one second.
00:12:32 OK.
00:12:39 OK, here we go.
00:12:40 So what I did was
I flew the first half,
I flew the first
Chorus basically, the third chorus
to the fourth chorus, so now you
have something to sing the double to
then we'll put the high part
back over the top of it.
00:12:53 It will be cool.
00:12:54 Alright, here we go,
from the top, two choruses.
00:12:57 Here we go.
00:13:52 That works.
00:13:54 OK?
Do the doubled double.
00:13:58 See, it's okay that these are a
little loose. I think that's alright.
00:14:03 Good.
00:14:58 Alright.
00:14:59 I had a little 'ooh' at the end.
00:15:00 Right at the end? Punch in just the end.
00:15:16 Cool.
00:15:17 Got that.
00:15:21 OK, cool,
I'm gonna send this to Mike real quick,
he's going to tweak them and
make them all beautiful and kick-ass.
00:15:27 And then we'll come back to the vocals.
00:15:30 I think it might be cool
maybe we get some
jangly piano on the end of this...
00:15:35 On the end of this chorus.
00:15:37 Yeah let's do that in the meantime,
I'll go find the lady.
00:15:39 It'd be cool.
00:15:41 OK, Mike.
00:15:42 Again, what we're gonna do,
other session,
real quick.
00:15:46 And then we're going to open the EVO
and then, up here,
I'm going to run this 'Clone'
and then Mike is going
to go pick up that file
up in the B room.
00:16:03 And he's going to run some nudge passes,
get all the parts to line up and get
these really tight and sounding cool.
00:16:12 Kind of like super pop production for
a band that wouldn't
probably normally do that.
00:16:18 But I think it's going to be
cool as a cool lower layer.
00:16:21 Groovy?
Yep.
00:16:22 -Alright.
-I'll go do that.
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Vance studied electrical engineering in Missouri and started his career in live sound as a front-of-house engineer. In 2002, he moved to Nashville in order to become studio manager and chief engineer at the legendary Black Bird studios in Nashville. In 2006, he co-founded Sputnik studios along with Grammy-winning engineer Mitch Dane, still in Nashville.
Vance Powell has won 6 Grammy awards working with rock artists such as The Raconteurs, Kings of Leon, Jack White, Pearl Jam, The White Stripes, The Dead Weather and more.
Powell's domain of expertise is definitely mixing and producing rock music. As shown in his pureMix videos, Vance likes to experiment and create new fuller and exciting sounds using all kinds of pedals, echos, analog outboards and plug-ins. Vance was used to recording to tape and definitely has an analog approach that makes him commit to fewer good sounding tracks rather than piling up takes in Pro Tools.
His goal is to make something new and warm that fits the band's vision with upfront snare drums and powerful guitars. Rocking.
