Pat,

The following sequence of events shows how much more valuable is constructive criticism than just blowing sunshine:

(1) You and Floyd pick up something strange about the BGVs. But it's vague and I'm probably the only one who knows precisely what it is.

(2) I begin rethinking the entire method of how I created those harmonies, based as it was on a flawed understanding of how to operate a certain stomp box.

(3) I contact Sweetwater tech support and explain that the guitar is getting processed along with the voices. My only workaround was to take advantage of the memory of the chip in the stomp box. I strum a chord and immediately muffle it. But the box now has it in memory and I can sing "Walk, walk ... ": but then the chord changes and I have to stop recording, strum the next chord, muffle then sing as many words as the next chord allows, and so on. Then the pieces have to be pasted together to get one complete phrase.

In other words, my workaround is complete lunacy.

(4) The tech says he really doesn't know what to tell me, but try the following: Put a cable into the box's (previously empty and unnoticed) instrument thru jack and run that cable to anything, say, a turned-off guitar amp.

(5) It all works and I can now layer big, fat harmonies in real time with no bleed-through of guitar sounds. The new harmonies are in the upgraded version.

From here on, the steps become speculative. These haven't happened yet.

(6) Josie posts the new mix, and finally,

(7) Listeners who heard the original version notice a big improvement.

I think it's now clear why your critical insights have the value they do. Thank you. And thanks to Floyd as well.

Dean