Okay, need some vox advice, all you studio genies!

[stick]

I know you're done, but in my experience, unless the room really sounds good, you're better off just staying up close to the mic (4 inches at the most), putting the pad on the mic (does that Blue have one?), and just dialing back the mic pre until you can scream and not overload it. Then it's a matter of good mixing to just ride the vocal up and down as needed to level it off in the mix. Sometimes you'll even need two different processing chains... one for the loud, one for the soft. Recording digitally (especially with your great sounding Duet) you don't have to worry about getting tons of level at all times. When I'm setting levels for vocals, I have them sing as loud as they think they will for the tune, and I dial it so the meter isn't going much past half or 2/3 of the way up. Sure, the soft parts may only reach 1/4 of the way up the meter, but it really doesn't matter. You have to be WAY down on the meters before you're losing enough resolution to degrade anything. Rock on!