Using the same takes for parts in songs that repeat

S

Stuvenator

New member
Hello!

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this question but basically I'm curious to know what you guys do and what is considered the industry standard in terms of using the same takes for parts in songs that repeat.

The most obvious example is a chorus. Do the majority of people use different takes for different choruses or do they use the "best" one and just put that into all the choruses? I have been recording choruses separately for a while and just recently tried using a line that repeats with just one audio take. It sounded good, but I kind of felt like I was cheating or something, or felt like it would be obvious and not sound natural.

Anyway, what do you guys do and what's your opinion on the matter?
 
you shouldn't use the same one. it becomes obvious and unnatural, lacking dynamics and subtly. if you have no choice and are in a pinch then go for it.
 
Sometimes I do it, sometimes I don't

Sometimes I copy and paste parts that have low significance, but rerecord more important bits. For example, I might copy and paste some backing vocals, but redo leads
 
I do it all the time when I'm trying to come up with a song structure. Chop up a verse, paste it here, cut a chorus, paste it there, etc. But when it comes to recording "keeper" takes, I don't see any reason to copy/paste when you own your own studio. Your time is free, the practice is good for you...might as well keep at it until you can actually perform the part more than once. Similar to what Nola and BSG say, the variety and idiosyncrasies keep the music feeling more alive and fresh.

If there's just one or two warts in an otherwise great take, I'll copy/paste a few notes from one verse to another and not feel bad about it. But if it starts to become an exercise in slicing and dicing and copying and pasting a bunch of bits and pieces, I'll step back and come to my senses. Just do another take and get it right. And when it comes to "second verse, same as the first", just plow through it and perform it like a human and not a word processor.
 
On my personal stuff, everything gets a fresh, unique take. No copying and pasting anything.

When recording other people, I'll copy and paste stuff with their approval in the interest of saving time.

The "industry standard" is to do what works within the time frame and budget.
 
I slice things up all the time if I'm writing something.

When I come to recording keepers I'll record the whole song. If I cock it up, I'll stop and start recording again. It should be fun playing along with your for a whole take.

EDIT: Once I've got it written and all the parts in the right places and arranged I'll re-track the whole bassline in a single take while leaving all the other parts on there to give the bass playing a full "band" to jam along with.

Then I'll just go over the guitars in turn, repeating the same process. I often use two tones (clean/crunched to quite heavy) though. If the transition is just through one click of a pedal/channel swtich I'll keep it in the same take. If the tone change is more complex (more than one pedal or knob tweaks), I'll play the song through re-recording all of the cleaner tones before I re-record all of the dirty tones.
 
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JDOD said:
I slice things up all the time if I'm writing something.

When I come to recording keepers I'll record the whole song. If I cock it up, I'll stop and start recording again. It should be fun playing along with your for a whole take.
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Agreed. For demo purposes I'll slice and move things around to sort the arrangement. For the keeper tracks, it's all pure takes.
 
Greg_L said:
Agreed. For demo purposes I'll slice and move things around to sort the arrangement. For the keeper tracks, it's all pure takes.
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Exactly - when I've got everything arranged and a full mix (minus the tracking part) in my cans I really enjoy playing along with it and recording the final take. It affects your playing too having that full track there and if its a quick song or a long song you can start to get a bit of fatigue towards the end that changes the dynamics of your playing - makes the whole thing sound more real!

Its just not rock n rock to copy and paste everything - that's Jive Bunny!
 
Background 'oohs' and 'aahs' in choruses I will c-and-p if there are high parts that I just can't hit consistently time after time. Like others say, it sounds better when everything is not copy-perfect. I'll never do it for instrument parts or lead vocals.
 
Just did an EP for a band who just wanted to do one pass of repeating parts then copy and paste it. It worked OK, but not my preferred way of doing things. IMHO, the live take of the run-through of the songs prior to "tracking" sound much better, more 'real.'
 
Greg_L said:
The "industry standard" is to do what works within the time frame and budget.
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^This. Whatever's cheapest is the standard, which means whatever uses the least of an expensive person's time.

From what I gather, this amounts to: studio musicians are expected to know their parts and nail it in very few takes. So if the recording is largely based on a studio backing band, they'll play their part through as solid takes and GTFO so they can stop billing as fast as possible.

If the "talent" (the songwriter or lead vocalist or whoever) can't nail solid takes, then the producer and engineer's time becomes be big sink. Thus, they're more likely to get short takes of chunks of the song and fly them where needed.

I do a similar calculus when recording my own stuff. My time as a performer is a lot less valuable than my time as an editor (i.e. editing sucks, and I hate it; playing the parts is kinda fun tho). So unless a part is way beyond my usual playing skill. I'll usually do solid takes of the entire song rather than try to frankenstein it together later. BGVox and other background stuff, I'll often fly tho.
 
There are some tracks/parts where a copy/paste won't matter much.
I've reused backing vocal tracks. It was quicker/easier to do that, and it frankly didn't make any significant difference than if I had record each section individually.
Actually...everything is recorded from start to finish...I always do that. I mean, I don't ever record just one section of something and then resuse it....but like with the backing vocals, it's more about creating a comp from the best portions of the track, and they are generally buried behind everything, that you wouldn't notice much differences from section to section anyway.

I maybe also done that a few times with other, less important tracks...simply because it was simple to do. :)

With most other stuff...it would be too obvious to reuse any sections over and over. A lot also depends on the music, the song.
I mean, lets say you have a synth part that plays some 4-5 note "ear candy", and that only comes up in a few spots during the entire song. I'll just do the one, copy/paste....or you;'ve done all your tracking...and during the mixing, you decide that you want that "ear candy" in a couple of more spots....then again, copy/paste takes like a couple of mouse clicks and a few seconds.
On the other hand, if that synth part is carrying a lot of weight in the mix, and it's playing a lot more throughout...then it's going to get played and recorded throughout.

Anyway...no one should lose sleep over this kind of stuff. You take it on a song-by-song basis, and it all depends on what the produciton calls for and what works and what doesn't etc.
 
Like most others that posted here, I've done it. I give it a day or two in the end and come back to listen if it sounds ok or not. Not really a rule on it, but if it works, it works.
 
andrushkiwt said:
Like most others that posted here, I've done it. I give it a day or two in the end and come back to listen if it sounds ok or not. Not really a rule on it, but if it works, it works.
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Yes....same here. When I'm recording my vocals I tend to do lines over and over again......so my ears are not "tuned" right after a while. Later........after my ears have recovered......I sometimes hear that certain parts of the same lines are different. If they bug me or are too obvious I go in and cut and paste.
 
I mostly record actual humans playing without together without a click (isn't that a Pink Floyd song?) so pasting whole sections in isn't really an option. I shoot for capturing whole takes, then punch and comp as necessary. I might paste a note or as much as a measure here and there but otherwise everything stays where it is on the timeline.
 
Mickster said:
Yes....same here. When I'm recording my vocals I tend to do lines over and over again......so my ears are not "tuned" right after a while. Later........after my ears have recovered......I sometimes hear that certain parts of the same lines are different. If they bug me or are too obvious I go in and cut and paste.
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Yeah my problem with it is that when I go in to dub lines, I'm starting from that point only, and not from the beginning of the track with the momentum and energy it would otherwise have. so i try to keep in mind where I am in the song and sing the final chorus, for example, like it's the final chorus and not the first, when I'm punching in.
 
Referring to vocals, it's rare for me. Let's say I have 4 sections of backup vocals (same or different words). I'll punch in 10 tracks of each section, move ahead do 10 more for the next section and so on. Then I comp each section into one (or two) backup sections. I do the highest/hardest ones last because I do the whole song in one sitting and I don't want to blow out my voice before it's done.

Lead vocals - I'll record 10 tracks all the way from start to finish, then comp it in sections as it's faster and easier to do it in pieces.

I do remember one time I forgot to do one of the backups sections. It happened to be the same words so I just copied and pasted one of the other sections where it was missing.

Rhythm guitars are never copied/pasted nor are leads for my songs.
 
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