I see nothing wrong with comping. Especially if I'm recording another band. My goal is always the best result possible. And I won't stamp my name on shit. It really depends on what your goal is. Most pros even comp. They'll play it "right" 3-5 times and the producer will pick the parts he likes best from each take and comp them. That being said, if you are talented enough to play your parts near perfect and feel that it's what you want after a single take, by all means keep doing what you are doing. But don't act like that's "right" or "standard" because it's really the opposite. If they had unlimited tape and tracks in the 60s and 70s you could bet your ass they'd comp the shit out of music. In fact, almost everything that makes a sound engineer's life easier becomes standard. Comping (and auto tune for that matter) is a tool to make great bands sound amazing. They shouldn't even be noticeable. If used as a crutch they will both make your music sound dull and make you a worse musician. You shouldn't have to punch every measure or so. That being said, I've seen many a band grow from playing takes 100s of times until it's right for the comping process.
don't throw away those "almost right" takes
- Thread starter swarfrat
- Start date
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
Join the club. No one else here did either.
Join the club. That's pretty much the consensus here. We simply go about it in different ways.
Sometimes. That has ebbed and flowed since the early to mid 60s. And going even further, as far back as 1964, whole songs were put together this way, part of take 3 being edited onto take 18 or whatever. Bands were tight in those days ! Or the session musicians were.......
It depends on the artist, producer, engineer, budget, genre, era etc
As stated earlier, as far back as 1964, they did. Many of the great solos in the heavy rock era were comped together from different takes, often of different actual solos.
But don't dismiss the fact that there was also a certain workmanlike pride in those days in the notion of nailing your parts in a singular take. In the studio, people knew they had to perform and often performed like this was the keeper take because often ~ it was.
Razoring tape was standard until the digital age. I doubt it made anyone's life easier ! Made for great songs though.
This seems to be contradicted by
because if they're not noticeable, then how can it make the music dull ? How would you know that's what has made the music dull ? Furthermore, a crutch is kind of another way of saying "standard" because you automatically apply it to the recorded sound to make it sound better {or to use the medical analogy, stand up}.
A purist could argue that you shouldn't have to comp.