To quantize or not to quantize - that is the question

J

Jenny73

New member
Or should that be dirty word?

I never normally do it but I went and did it on a drum track recently and am regretting it ever since....

It just doesn't sound "right" now and I don't know why. Can't figure out what's wrong.
No-one else can hear it but I can and it's driving me nuts.

Not even sure how to revert back now as guitar and bass have been recorded on top of it...

Should I just scrap the whole project and start again or is there a way of sorting out?

I will try and get a soundcloud account going and post up on there what I mean.
 
Jenny73 said:
I will try and get a soundcloud account going and post up on there what I mean.
Click to expand...

Good idea. Right now, your message is so vague it's hard to even know what the question is, never mind the answer.

Acoustic drum track? Drum machine? Real drummer playing pads/triggers?
You're not sure what's wrong?

Why would you not have the original tracks separate from the guitar and bass?

It's all very hazy. :eek:
 
Apologies for the confusion....

Yes, real live proper drums played by yours truly.

It was quite a slow rythm (which I seem to have more trouble with than the quicker ones).

The guitar and bass are on other tracks but I've always been told that it's best to get the drums sorted out first before adding those layers.
Maybe it won't affect that much?! Dunno

I'll try and get it up on SoundCloud.

I can't explain what I think might be wrong. Just feels a bit "funny"

(haha - that's even more vague :o )

Apologies, I've only just really got into this home recording malarky so you lot may have either i) your work cut out with me, ii) your patience tried to the limit with me or iii) both :eek:
 
But which tracks were "quantized"? You probably processed yourself into phase problems between the overheads and individual spot mic'd tracks.
 
No problem, Jenny. We were all neabs at one time. For that matter, it's all relative and I'm still a newb compared to many.

Yup. Greg called it. The quantized tracks are full of phase problems. The un-quantized track sounds good, don't know why you felt a need to quantize it. I can 't hear the kik, but that's a mix issue. Personally, I can't see why you'd want to quantize live drums, you might as well program them. Keep it simple, more isn't always better. :)
 
RAMI said:
No problem, Jenny. We were all neabs at one time. For that matter, it's all relative and I'm still a newb compared to many.

Yup. Greg called it. The quantized tracks are full of phase problems. The un-quantized track sounds good, don't know why you felt a need to quantize it. I can 't hear the kik, but that's a mix issue. Personally, I can't see why you'd want to quantize live drums, you might as well program them. Keep it simple, more isn't always better. :)
Click to expand...

thanks for that!

I used to play with a really perfectionist guitar player and the slightest out-of-sync snare would mean re-recording the whole thing 10 times.
Maybe I was just being hard on myself then?

I'll try and revert back to the unquantized ones and remix.

I've heard "phase problems" being talked of a lot.
What are they exactly?
(told you - stupid questions, newbie...)
 
RAMI said:
I can 't hear the kik, but that's a mix issue.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's not come out too well once the gtr and bass are on there.
Will fix that - once I've fixed the original mess I've made of it :o

I don't really know what I'm doing to be honest at the moment. Reading a lot of this forum is helping though!

This is the first time I've ever quantized anything.
Just wanted it to be more precise I suppose...
 
Greg_L said:
But which tracks were "quantized"? You probably processed yourself into phase problems between the overheads and individual spot mic'd tracks.
Click to expand...

Snare, kick, high tom, floor tom.

Yes, that's probably it - even though I'm not 100% sure what phasing problems are!
 
Jenny73 said:
thanks for that!

I used to play with a really perfectionist guitar player and the slightest out-of-sync snare would mean re-recording the whole thing 10 times.
Maybe I was just being hard on myself then?

I'll try and revert back to the unquantized ones and remix.

I've heard "phase problems" being talked of a lot.
What are they exactly?
(told you - stupid questions, newbie...)
Click to expand...
Not stupid question at all. Phase problems occur when a signal hits 2 or more different mics at slightly different times, like milliseconds apart. This causes the sound to "phase" and thin out, sort of like what a phaser pedal does to a guitar. It's rarely a "good" effect, unless it's deliberate, as in the guitar pedal example.

As far as perfectionism, there's a limit. If you HEAR that snare being off every time you hear the song, then that's too much "humanity", and it probably should be corrected (you can always just punch-in rather than re-record a whole drum track). But if it's just slightly off and only apparent when you're "looking" at the music rather than listening to to it, then that's what a himan drummer should be playing like.

It comes down to how "off" it is and how "wrong" you find it.
 
RAMI said:
Oops....I meant "human". This is not the place to discuss hymens. :eek:
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ROFL, hmmm, no, wrong forum I think!

I know what you mean about stuff being off. It really does sound like that's the problem then.

I remember recording a track a few years ago and my fill (well, not really a fill, more of a transition really) was a bit off and that's all people seemed to hear.

When I say "people", I mean other members of the band.
Non-musician types (they exist) never noticed a thing...

(about 1:05 in on this : Mythical Arrangement Songs | ReverbNation )
 
Jenny73 said:
Or should that be dirty word?

I never normally do it but I went and did it on a drum track recently and am regretting it ever since....

It just doesn't sound "right" now and I don't know why. Can't figure out what's wrong.
No-one else can hear it but I can and it's driving me nuts.

Not even sure how to revert back now as guitar and bass have been recorded on top of it...

Should I just scrap the whole project and start again or is there a way of sorting out?

I will try and get a soundcloud account going and post up on there what I mean.
Click to expand...

I tended to quantize a lot back when in the days of horrible delay in my midi recordings...Now that I have a legit setup I rarely quantize notes, unless i've really messed up and don't want to re record it. Humanizing is a must in digital recording, as it's already too clean of a sound and robotic sounding. It's crazy that in the past they strived to get clean recordings and sounds, and now you almost want to dirty them up a bit to bring some emotion / life into the track. A little off topic but you get what I'm trying to say...
 
2infamouz said:
I tended to quantize a lot back when in the days of horrible delay in my midi recordings...Now that I have a legit setup I rarely quantize notes, unless i've really messed up and don't want to re record it. Humanizing is a must in digital recording, as it's already too clean of a sound and robotic sounding. It's crazy that in the past they strived to get clean recordings and sounds, and now you almost want to dirty them up a bit to bring some emotion / life into the track. A little off topic but you get what I'm trying to say...
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm with you :)

It is the odd notes... Sometimes I think it's just easier to re-record the whole thing than to try and move a note when you have multiple tracks.
Need to practice that....

Or just practice my drums and stop hitting bum notes :p
 
I think the biggest lesson is that whenever you edit drums (or at least 95% of the time) you always treat them as one track. Group your drum tracks and edit them as one unit. As soon as you start sliding stuff around individually, it goes bad very, very fast.
 
Or just play better.

seriously, if you have to resort to moving stuff around and doing a bunch of edits, maybe you're not ready to record your drumming.
 
Yes, that's what I said in my last post.

It's usually only one or two notes per track. Just gonna leave it as it is and see if people notice :o
 
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