As predicted, yesterday's session started with vocal overdubs to the first verse to bring down the emotional pitch just a little and give the piece time to develop. While we were at it, we also overdubbed the first chorus, because the two were adjacent and the ear might detect a little difference between the sound of the tracks from the two different sessions. The vocalist recorded two complete passes of each and left for the day. The producer and I settled into comping (compiling) parts of the takes from the session into one performance and then manually pitch correcting them. The result is a very nice first vocal section.
Meanwhile, the timing of a figure played by the first violin was bothering us a bit so we dived into setting it straight. The first violin was playing long, legato descending lines and then had a quick little triplet figure to perform. As is typical of musicians, knowing he had this little florid thing to do, he "leaned into" he timing and hit just before the beat. We had doubled the passage and each of the copies was slightly off in timing. I pulled up hte click track as a reference and then split the two copies of the figure off into independent regions. I was then able to slide the whole figure and a few of the notes into time independently. Because we had the rest of the string section sawing along, the edits were nicely hidden.
Finally, we made a head-to-tail pass making little level tweaks for personal preference. The executive producer dropped by and signed off and then we called it a semi-final version. Then came "shopping" the mix to multiple monitor and playback systems. It's something I do about every day during the final stages, but I really lean into balance verification before I mark the mix "final."
By listening in the car and at home overnight I've already determined that somewhere along the line the strings were dropped a little low at the beginning of the piece. This morning I made that tweak and managed the EQ of the new vocals to make them blend with the old. Just for fun, I also made a personal "guitarist's/engineer's mix" that restored some of the little bits and bobs (hah!) of guitar sweetening I did that ended up on the cutting room floor. Engineer's privilege!
We're almost there.
Bob
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"It is said, 'Go not to the elves for counsel for they will say both no and yes.' "
Frodo Baggins to Gildor Inglorion, The Fellowship of the Ring
THE MUSICIAN'S ROOM (my website)
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