Ooh-aah (It's So Easy) - AndyR Original

[launched]

That didn't sound easy - It sounded like it was a lot of hard work!  

Excellent results from your new toy - You must love the capability to put a bunch of vocal parts on one V-Track bank. Four just ain't enough on the MBR...

Pro work, and great music, too! Sounds fantastic!

Mark

[Ferryman]

Great stuff Andy, please let's hear more. It may be a bit of fun but it sounds great and all your production skills are in great evidence. Fabulous sound and a very Queen-ish vibe.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Geir]

SOOOOOOO great to hear your wonderful music again Andy! If this is a sign of what is to come from your 1600 we're in for a good year !!!

I hear some Queen and some Glitter-rock vibe and some 80s power-pop and most of all i hear  ANDYr !!!

More please !! More !!!!!!!!!!!

[Facemask93]

Really does what it says on the label (A huge wall of glorious sound) , this is fabulous Andy , too short by far , but excellent


Rob

[Krasi]

Wow, sounds great. Lots of Queen vibe, yes. Great harmonies and really think of the many hours you put into this. To me it sounds really complicated but beautifull.

[RMO]

this is really epic, loved it at all, it sounds like a combination of the flaming lips with the beach boys, and some beatles too, this is pro, and i think that the fact it's short makes it special, simply awesome!!

[AndyR]

Thanks folks!

Yep, all the references mentioned are in there.

It started out as a little bit of Marc Bolan boogie, similar to the Get It On rhythm, just to check out how to record some guitars.

That suggested to me the Ooh-Aahs, to see if I could do the "Flo and Eddie" type of backing vocals - the answer turns out to be "yes, I can, almost", but I decided to put more lower parts in because these were going to be "lead" vocals.

By the way, the vocals at the start were a late decision - there weren't there originally. I was finding that the Ooh-Aahs weren't prominent enough with all the guitars that got added. This made giving it this title slightly suspect. So I checked out the first one and discovered that it was clean enough to go solo... so I just copied those two bars over the front (and again near the end).

The chorus lyric really was an expression of how easy it had been to record the ooh-aahs and getting them sounding how I wanted! (each of the eight voices was a first take, I was expecting to take hours, I was actually rolling around in hysterics after I'd done them).

I deliberately set out for three lead voices for the chorus, left, then right, then centre. I was particularly pleased with how they all combined on the last line.

When I'd recorded and mixed the chorus, I decided to start learning/checking out the effects, and I found that flanging the chorus was quite interesting (phasing it was even better, but didn't sit well with the track). I ummed and aahed for a bit, and then realised I had two choruses to play with, so copied chorus 1 to 2, and flanged the hell out of the 2nd!! It doesn't really show that much now, what with the wall of guitars that arrived later

All the extra guitars really did come about because I thought I was going to put a single solo on and have done with it. But the minute I plugged the Red Special in, it became apparent that something else was going to happen.

I've had this guitar for just over 3 months now, and I have to say I'm rather fond of it. The missus got it for me as a "novelty" guitar, but it's far more useful than that. I've done a lot of "Brighton Rock Guitar solo" type stuff, and playing/relearning lots of other Brian May riffs/licks, but I hadn't actually tried this guitar against any sort of backing until now.

I did several things with it on this track:

A: All the way through, 4 rhythm guitars playing solid chord work with no reverb (this was to dry the track up a bit - the earlier guitars and vocals are drenched in reverb and I didn't want to remix them).
Turned up, these 4 produced "instant Brian May rhythm tone"... so...
B: I decided to experiment in the final chorus on trying to produce those guitar harmonies we all know and love. I came up with two distinct orchestras, 4 guitars following the "It's so Easy" parts, and then several doing a a rising thing on the chord at the end. Pan them left and right, and job done. I copied the first lot to the first chorus, but the second lot don't fit, so I had to do something else.
C: In the first verse, did some "hawaiian" harmonies, but they didn't work so well. They're still there, on the left I think, contributing to the general disorientation you feel when the band first comes in. Because of these, I think, it takes you a few bars to figure out that there's a boogie going on... seeing as the whole track was an experiment, I decided to keep this uncertainty, it reminded me of going to see rock gigs when I was young - you'd be down the front, and the backline was so loud that it took half a verse before you realised what the song was!
D: Initially to counter the previous guitars, I put a "Duane Eddie" type guitar part all the way through. You really only hear this clearly at the end when the lead guitar joins it momentarily, but it's been there all along. If I was working this thing up into a song, this riff would be the important one.
E: Lead guitar - decided to go the whole hog and get the sixpence out!

I learnt a lot, and had a lot of fun doing this. One biggie I learnt is this - "Brian May harmonies", to get them sounding cute, concentrate on your phrasing and vibrato across the parts, then mix them quite close in the stereo image - this means you need two "banks" of them if you want stereo from them. But most important of all is EQ and compression - rip all the bottom end off each track, and compress them to hell (1:INF), suddenly they sound all smooth and breathy...

Oh yeah, it's Broadway, not Bec, Flash Harry

[Gritter]

Awesome!

[djbride]

Nice job on this one. I love the voca harmonies and the guitar work is excellent. You have a lot going on in there but it all meshes together well,  nice job on mixing. Real catchy tune.

[OsCKilO]

Wow.........

Easy?


Gulp....