Josie, thinking of what Spector was going for and how things are 50 years later, the "quiet mode" is pretty effective for creating tension and release. Phil produced with a very deliberate "in your face-ness" and it worked great. be My Baby was the best, but the clips of (was that?) Nellie Furtado were not the genre that Spector turned out and needed a more deft touch like what was described. The difference when quieting a backing track is quite subtle yet very effective. Easiest way I know to get dynamics into songs. Just the little bit I played with it last night made me think down a different path.

One of my songs (from almost 2 years ago) was SO MUCH LOUDER than the others and I didn't know how I was going to fix that withoug sacrificing parts. Watching the clip that was the topic of this thread didn't necessarily fix it, but it got me thinking about how. I went in and did a bit of gain cut across the board, took of all the effects, and started vanilla. Removed one backing track that is not missed, did some panning, slid the BGV to line up with the lead, did the singing again because the original was recorded with outboard reverb that I could not erase. In verse 2 I cut out 2 of the backing instruments for the first half of the verse, did a cresecdo on the drum fill leading back into the 2nd half of the verse, then brought the rest of the instruments back and the song took on a whole new flavor. Much of it had to do with me being 18-ish months wiser, but those tips from Graham's videos are outstanding.

As I start getting better results, this is becoming fun again. Hooking up with people to do tracks and not being a one trick pony is awesome, particularly since those other people can do those "tricks" better than I can.

I am totally juiced to hear what Josh does with one of my songs. Totally.