Reply by mcallister
If you get a choir to do it great. If you get one guy (or the band) to do it great. Whatever works.

However, do everyone a favor and write out the parts BEFORE you start tracking. Nothing is worse than getting into overdub #4 and hearing “wait, lemme figure out what to sing.” Similarly, you would never say to a choir, “here’s a part. . .” and start singing it to them.

If going the choir route, you’ll need to write it out, all of it. No mistakes. Mistakes will either a) cost you time (money), b) prove to everyone that whoever wrote the ‘score’ is musically illiterate, or c) both.

If going the one guy/band route (presuming that their reading/writing music skills are scratchy at best) have a demo done first; jot down ideas; have a game plan before diving in.

Reply by Fletcher
As long as we’ve strayed from the original topic… this weekend I’m going to be working on the desk that was used to cut Bohenian Rhapsody. Had my choice of that desk [a Trident A-Range] or an 8078…

Reply by murray
I’m coming in here way late, but wanted to answer the original question. I know RTB, and have worked lots with engineer Mike Stone (RIP), who recorded about everything Queen did up through “News of the World.”

Anyway, they did the same thing on all their records - all sang the low part together (three times on three tracks), then the middle part (three times, three tracks), etc etc. Freddy would keep a finger on the piano and hit a note for pitch before each take.

Later, Roy (with engineer George Tutko) did the same with the Cars (same stacked treatment even though Cars weren’t on pitch). Also, Queen worked in “deadish” studios. I think Bohemian was done at some funky place in England (Olympic?).

Mike had a stack of snapshots of them recording there, real retro, cramped control room, console tiny. I’ve messed around with Roy’s Stephens-40 (which is actually small, portable) but very cool lookin’. As I recall, he just used it for show and conversation piece, almost positive he never used it for Queen.

By the way, I have a Stephens 8-track and love it. Roy still has his. If you listen to the chorus on Bohenian, it’s actually quite dry, might hear a bit of room. They recorded dry then usually added a bit of Lexicon 224 at mixdown. If you recorded that in your church, it wouldn’t sound tight enough.

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