New fangled recording, grumble grumble...

G

geekd

New member
I use technology. I'm a software engineer, fer chrissake. But when it comes to music, I'm much more traditional. I'm in a band. We play songs. We play them in the studio exactly the same as we play them live. No loops. No drum replacement. No click tracks.

During the recording phase, I view Pro Tools (my DAW of choice) as a very handy tape machine. No need to rewind, and I can mark my punch in and out points beforehand. Very easy. Huge improvement over actual tape.

During mixing, I'm not against the occasional auto-tuned word here or there on the vocal, and I'm all for it on the back-up vocals. It's great having EQ and compression on each track. I remember the "old days" (in my home studio, that was 2002) when we only had a few EQs and a few compressors, so the tracks they went on had to be important.

Hell, the mere fact that you can save where you are at, and go to bed and take it up again in the morning, without losing your place, is a huge deal.

But.

This incessant vocal auto tune. The "pocketing" of the rhythm section. Drum replacement. Click tracks. I call it the "perfection" of music.

You know what? "Perfect" music is boring as hell. Drum loops suck. If there is not a real drummer on your track, then I don't want to hear it. Real tempo varies. It slows down, speeds up. It has emotion.

"Perfect" vocals have no soul. It's the imperfections that make me feel it. Make me happy, make me sad. Feeling is what music is all about.

Music is audio emotion. Machines can not make emotions. Machines can not feel, and they can not make ME feel. People make emotion. Real, imperfect, people.

Old man rant over.
 
So you embrace technology only where it suits you, seems fine. But you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you enjoy the technical ease of Pro Tools over old analog tape and the ability to add all kinds of fun effects to tracks and not worry about prioritizing, you just have to accept that with that technology comes all the other stuff you dislike. Personally I couldn't give less of a damn, let people use what they want to use, real music will always rise to the top.

I'm with you on Auto-Tune but mostly because it's so overused as a blatant effect, it's annoying.
 
If you're so old-school why aren't you recording to wax cylinders or lacquer platters with a lathe? No punch-ins allowed.

And PT is probably the biggest digital cliche of all time.

If it doesn't have to be perfect why are you punching in anyways?
 
You guys are missing my point.

PT and other DAWs are a godsend. BUT, if you take it too far, you lose the soul of the music. Fix the big mistakes, yes. (or, even better, overdub them). But the little imperfections are what make music have emotion.

Too many people use PT or other DAWs to make everything perfect. The main culprits are pocketing the rhythm section to the click track, and of course, auto tune.

Don't process the song so much it loses it's soul. Leave the little mistakes. I guess that's what I'm getting at.
 
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