hi everybody who records things ...

A

art_lessing

New member
I am Dan and i am new here.....greetings....so I have a debate with my friend/ bandmate,......he says that some recordings sound too clean and kill the vibe of the band...I recently recorded some tracks of a guitar and he thinks that we should dumb down the fidelity as to not make the recorded version sound like a canned version ... he mentioned a band that he loved to see live and when he bought the cd it was the same songs but the recording was "so clean that it killed all the life of the band"....So how does one go about recording a band and find that medium .... a realistic recorded version of the band with all its spirit and be able to maintain a certain professional fidelity....?


hope it wasn't too convoluted.....

I am glad to hear from you all
Dan
 
You could buy shitty preamps or birdsnest up all your cables so that you get some sweet sweet interference, use tape sim plugins, mixdown to mp3 at some shiteating resolution
 
a realistic recorded version of the band with all its spirit
Click to expand...
That's the "Holy Grail" for most recordists in the first place.

I'd suggest making the absolute best recording you possibly can. You can always "lo fi" it later. But you can't fix it later if it's too lo-fi in the first place.

You certainly don't need to quantize everything to the nearest sample and auto-tune everything...
 
Y'know, there's a good chance that was problem wasn't that the live performance was "dirty" and the recording was "too clean" but rather that the performance was raw and energetic, and the recording was dull and lifeless.

I've got a CD in my car right now that is big, clean and in your face--but it's very raw and energetic, like they're jamming right in my car with me.

So I agree with Massive--concentrate on recording clean, but focus on capturing an energetic groove.
 
I'm no expert, but did you try putting 2 guitar takes on at once? That will sound less 'clean' and more 'in your face' and heavy, from what I understand.
 
Never compromise on your music. Make your recordings the best you possibly can and tell your friend to listen with earbuds. (Kind of tongue in cheek, kind of serious)

Cheers,
 
No Less of Art:

All you need to do is COPY the SURGE volume when you listen to TV commercials; some stations can blow your soup out of your soup bowls. "Ouch, that's hot!"

I hear sounds that rise and fall with spectrums of unreal reality. I think that's an oxymoron somewhere.

I recently plugged in my Grace Design preamp directly to my recording unit. WOW! The sound is really CLEAR and brilliant. And, it doesn't have to get crash loud.

But, it all depends on what YOU want to hear and then try to promote.

Green Hornet:cool:
 
As has already been suggested - capture the best performance you can, as clean and precise as you can. If you are the engineer your primary job is to record the sounds sent to you as well as possible. If you act as a producer, one of your most important jobs if to coax the best performance out of the artists (hopefully that includes energy and conviction).

WhiteStrat hits on a very valid point which I've experiance on both sides of the glass and have heard on various studio recordings.

It is not uncommon that bands that are edgy, energetic and raw on stage suddenly lose that edge in the studio. In part it can be the band becomes intimidated in the studio (where every flaw can be heard), it part it may be that they need a smoke filled, stanky venues with druken fans to get in a groove and in part it may be that a producer does not know how to get the best performance from the band.

I don't buy into the theory that you need to dumb down the recording quality to capture a raw, edgy performance.
 
The energy and life of a band is determined by the quality of performance, not the quality of recording.

The posters above are on the mark with their advice in my view.
 
I wish my problem was that my recordings were "too clean".
Pile some other instruments on top of that guitar track and see if your friend still thinks it too clean.
My mixes usually end up clean as mud.:(
 
hmmmm

this is interesting...so my first recording that I did was this set up....ok wait I will start this in the appropriate thread site.....recording
 
Stick to your guns Dan, get the best recording you can.

Many musicians feed off the energy of a live crowd. The excitement of the crowd and the moment is what drives their best performance. As someone else already said, a studio environment is about as sterile as it gets. And the problem can be made worse if selected tracks are recording individually without even the energy of the other band mates.

No knob adjustments can fix this…

Ed
 
Sometimes it is better to record as a band (instead of recording all instruments individually) to get a "live feel". Just overdub leads and vocals.
 
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