Digital Editing or playing perfect?

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I think it depends on whether you're recording in a commercial studio or just recording at home. In the commercial studio you're paying, so you better be prepared or it will cost you. At home, you can take all the time you want, hell, even review parts the next day or next week.....

That's fine, but why not just take all the time you want *before* hitting the record button, just like you would for a costly studio? What's the hurry to hit the button if you're just going to wind up having to hit it a thousand times? Which way is there a better chance of getting a keeper performance, by practicing for 50 hours and then recording once you can do an A+ job in your sleep, or by trying to record for 50 hours and splitting your concentration between actually practicing the performance and playing around with the recording?

That record button tends to create an artificial difference in focus when self-recording. When the performer is concentrating as much or more on the process of recording as they are on the process of playing, it'll just take that much longer to get a savable performance.

You could say that it doesn't matter because no one will ever know.

The performer will know, and that's debatably just as, if not more important as how the result sounds to Joe Schmoe. Sure there are thousands of folks out there that don't really care if they actually know how to perform well or not as long as they can Frankenstein together a recording. But frankly, those folks have no business stepping in front of a recorder.

It's like doing bodywork on a car - if you need too much it's better to start over and get a new one!

Truth.

G.

 

[nate_dennis]

The other thought is to learn to live with your imperfections. You are what you are, and there's nothing wrong with your reordings reflecting that.

+10000000000

Play it perfect...and then edit to make it even better.

-1000000000000





I'm a huge fan of recording performances. I am just one guy, so I can't play everything at once. But . . . . If I mess up a part, I do it again. 98% I do the WHOLE take again, not just the part I flubbed. I want to capture something REAL. Now, If I'm playing a "complicated" fingerpicking patern (complicated in quotes cause I'm not great at fingerpicking) I may re-record one small section if I flubbed it and then do a comp. But I record on tape, so punching is a whole different ball game.

I just fully believe (and this has almost become my artistic mantra) that . . .

Art depicts humanity, either as it is or as the artist wants it to be or sees it.
Humanity is flawed.
Therefore, all art is flawed.

if something is edited to "perfection" i don't believe it can be real and if it's not real, I have a hard time calling it art. I know I'm the minority on this. I know that a lot of people love to have a perfect recording. But to me it goes back to something that Ani DiFranco said in a song once . . . .

People used to make records, as in a record of an event. The event of people playing music in a room. Now it's all about cross marketing . . ..

So that's my take on it. (and I did it in one take . . . no punches.)



Sorry, bad joke.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

As a home recorder, I think it comes down to two factors - the law of diminishing returns, and how good the rest of the take is,

If a performance sucks, it gets trashed, no questions asked.

If it's pretty good, then I ask myself two things. three, actually, come to think of it.

1.) is it consistently pretty good, or does it by and large own face except for one or two little goofs? If the later, then I might save it and do another take just for kicks, but unless that next take is on par or better, I'll probably punch in a fix for the one or two little issues I want to clean up.

2.) If the former, then I'll probably do another take anyway, because I have the time so why not. If that next take is a lot better, then great. If not, then I ask myself, "is it probable that if I keep trying to nail this part, will I get something in a reasonable number of takes that I'm happy with? If yes, then I keep going.

3.) if the answer to THAT question is no, then I face a third question. How important is the part to the song? If we're talking a rhythm part in the background somewhere where a slight hesitation here or there won't really call attention to itself, then I'll either contemplate trashing the part alltogether and going on without it or, if that doesn't seem to work, take a decent take, patch in the most glaring couple hiccups, and just go with it. If however we're talking about a very prominent part, then more often than not this means I'm just not ready to record the piece and I should move onto something else and keep woodshedding.

I don't see anything wrong with a few punch-ins to clean up a part a little bit, but if it's something you just can't play without help and it needs to be in the song, I get a little uncomfortable about "constructing" a performance that couldn't exist in nature.

Think of it this way - imagine if you were the guitarist in your band, you had this seriously cool signature riff on a song of yours, and you couldn't for the life of you play it cleanly. If you edit it together into a clean performance in the studio (yours or someone else's), then you have a great sounding record, but what if suddenly your band takes off, the song becomes a hit single, and you're asked to go on tour with a national billing, and hundreds of thousands of people come out every night to hear you play your signature riff that you can't actually play? It's not a question of ethics for me, it's a question of not making an ass out of yourself.

 

[miroslav]

...If I mess up a part, I do it again. 98% I do the WHOLE take again, not just the part I flubbed.


............................


I may re-record one small section if I flubbed it and then do a comp.

HUH?


So you don't but you do.

 

[RAMI]

HUH?


So you don't but you do.

He never does. Except for the parts where he has to.

 

[dintymoore]

I think what it boils down to is that there's two basic types of recording:
1) where you record an event
2) where you use the studio to make something "better than life"

Great music has come out of both ways, and most music is a hybrid of both.

People like Joe Meek started recording toilets and then the Beatles did songs like "Strawberry Fields", where the studio (like film FX) can do what reality can't.

I remember reading that the Beatles stopped touring because they couldn't play their songs on stage, stuff like "A Day in the Life". How you gonna do that live?

Another saying I love is "sometimes you have to do something wrong to get it right" and that's how I really feel about this punch in stuff.

 

[miroslav]

Not that I'm a fan of Steely Dan (I actually don't care for them)...
...but Roger Nichols use to edit the living crap out of their stuff. Apparently Donald Fagen was so anal...they would compare Snare hits, and if one sounded a bit different than another...they would edit replace it...and they were doing a lot of that shit BEFORE the DAW era!!!
Nichols even built one of the first samplers/drum beat replacement tools so they could do the more complex stuff without having to cut tape.

A few of the Steely Dan records won Grammys including ones for engineering.

Now I'm not saying winning a Grammy proves anything (though it does to a degree)...but some of the better singers would have their vocals edited down to the vowel!
I believe Whitney - BC (before crack) would have her takes edited like that, and she had a fantastic voice!!!

So let's not get all holy about being total purists!
We all know when we’re editing good takes VS total crap.

I love how everyone...admits that they just do it "sometimes"...
...when in reality, no one know what goes on behind the closed studio doors.
I mean….we comp, EQ, add FX, pan and mix….etc....and all of that happens AFTER the performance.
So, nothing wrong with editing and comping tracks. THAT is what IMO makes digital worth using!!!

 

[miroslav]

He never does. Except for the parts where he has to.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

The line in the sand for me is editing when you want to vs. editing when you have to. The former is OK in my book, the later is not.

This keeps in mind the thread topic which is asking about the difference between playing a performance versus manufacturing a performance. It's really not talking about when the studio becomes another instrument, making sounds that cannot *humanly* be done by anybody, like Strawberry Fields. That's a different story.

But if one has to edit to make it sound like the guitarist or drummer or singer can actually play their instrument when in reality they couldn't carry a tune in a backpack, then I say forget it...unless the engineer gets credit for playing that instrument instead of the guy in front of the mic. I'm not talking about punching small mistakes, that's fine. I'm talking about whether the performer is actually worth recording or not - digital editing or not.

Question @ miro: Do you really think that the anal editing made a significant difference in those Steely Dan albums' popularity? Yeah they won Grammys, but would they have lost them if they didn't get the anal editing they did? I don't think it would have made a hell of a lot of difference to anyone but us engineering geeks. That's like saying that people buy Playboy because of the typeface they use and the type of paper they print on.

G.

 

[miroslav]

The line in the sand for me is editing when you want to vs. editing when you have to. The former is OK in my book, the later is not.

Mmmmm....want….sometimes is the same as have to.
Like if you do a near-perfect performance and you flub 3 notes...but you want the performance to be flawless.
Then you have to make the edit to achieve that, but that doesn't necessarily mean you propped up an otherwise crappy performance.

Hey...in the studio, it's easy to justify every action we take...
...but I do get your point and agree that taking a totally talentless player and editing him to a level of perfection he cannot achieve on his own...is bogus.

Question @ miro: Do you really think that the anal editing made a significant difference in those Steely Dan albums' popularity? Yeah they won Grammys, but would they have lost them if they didn't get the anal editing they did?

I doubt it...but my point was that even bands that do not need to edit...still edit.
So that purist attitude that some guys try to toss out about playing it over and over and over …until it's a perfect take...is a bit silly IMO...but hey, it's their time and effort, so I don't particularly care what they do, though I know that EVERYONE with a DAW…edits some of their takes to some degree.

Like we already agreed....3 solid takes, and then you edit/comp...is perfectly acceptable in most studios.
No one will smirk at you and think: He can't play.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

So that purist attitude that some guys try to toss out about playing it over and over and over …until it's a perfect take...is a bit silly IMO...but hey, it's their time and effort, so I don't particularly care what they do, though I know that EVERYONE with a DAW…edits some of their takes to some degree.

This actually hints at an interesting point, and how much of this is perspective.

I posted a thread a few weeks back with a screenshot of someone's DAW project of a metal band they recorded, where litereally hundreds or maybe even thousands of punchins were done to each guitar track - it was recorded note by note, because the producer wanted everything perfectly locked into the groove and with a uniformly crisp pick attack, wanted to be able to retune each chord voicing so it was perfectly intonated, and didn't think the guitarist could execute the part cleanly enough on his own.

I think THAT is kind of silly. Is that any less silly than recording a part 75 times until you get a take you're happy with? I don't know. Personally, I'd rather do that (or, record ten takes and then make a few edits to the best) than I would either record a hundred takes to get one good one or make a hundred punch-ins to construct a take.

It's a slippery slope on both sides. There's certainly no harm in doing some editing, but there's also certainly no harm in being able to perfectly execute the part. Which side of that spectrum you're slightly closest to is a matter of personal opinion, I suppose, but I think we have to remember it IS a continuum between those two approaches, and we all fall somewhere along it.

 

[nate_dennis]

So you don't but you do.

He never does. Except for the parts where he has to.

What I said was 98% of the time I redo the whole take. Every now and then (I can only recal once in the last year) have I done a comp of two guitar parts, just because the whole of the original was a great take. I don't recall saying "never." This is just MY preference. I'm not preaching or telling anyone else they are wrong. Just what my personal stance is. But then again, the music I play and listen to is far from "mainstream" or what most people care for, so my perspective is different. I'm not looking for polished. I"m not looking for slick. I'm looking for real. Not that "slick" or "polished" are "wrong" just "different."

 

[RAMI]

What I said was 98% of the time I redo the whole take. Every now and then (I can only recal once in the last year) have I done a comp of two guitar parts, just because the whole of the original was a great take. I don't recall saying "never." This is just MY preference. I'm not preaching or telling anyone else they are wrong. Just what my personal stance is. But then again, the music I play and listen to is far from "mainstream" or what most people care for, so my perspective is different. I'm not looking for polished. I"m not looking for slick. I'm looking for real. Not that "slick" or "polished" are "wrong" just "different."

Hehe...OK, calm down. I got it.

 

[Greg_L]

I nail everything first take.

 

[nate_dennis]

I'm calm. I just don't like when what I say gets twisted around. But, no I'm calm.

 

[miroslav]

....hundreds or maybe even thousands of punchins were done to each guitar track...

....

I think THAT is kind of silly. Is that any less silly than recording a part 75 times until you get a take you're happy with? I don't know.

See...those are both very extreme situations...but somewhere in there is the reality of how most people work with a DAW these days, and that DOES involve some amount of editing, so I don't know why some folks feel they have to even *explain* their editing decisions, as though you get extra points for playing it perfectly on take 75…VS…the guy who did 3 “almost great” takes, comped them, and moved on.
I bet the comped 3 takes sound more real than the 75th *perfect* take.

Like it was already posted...bang out 3 solid takes on average, and move on.
You wanna be anal and go for 5-7 takes, OK fine...but as it's been mentioned, there IS a point of diminishing returns and it kicks in a lot sooner than 75 takes!
It’s more like maybe by the 10th take (usually sooner), and the "vibe" starts to fall off.
So while you may nail it technically at take 15 or 20...it's going to sound much more mechanical and probably not much different than that idiot who is punching it in note-by-note.

I don’t have a problem with people wanting to feel like they COULD play it without a single glitch even if it means doing 75 takes…I just don’t see that as really achieving anything at all….
…’cuz probably if you play it a 76th time you’ll possibly make yet another mistake….
…so then it’s more about getting lucky on the 75th take than anything else.

Practice it until it’s generally effortless and without mistakes…but if you flub a note or two on take 1…then just do a couple more takes and fix those notes…and move on.
That’s why many artists would rather keep an otherwise great take even if it has a couple of glitches or comp 2-3 solid takes…then kill all the vibe by beating on it for 3 dozen more takes...

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I doubt it...but my point was that even bands that do not need to edit...still edit.

I won't disagree with that. I don't quite understand the point of it, though. What does what someone else does matter?

Like we already agreed....3 solid takes, and then you edit/comp...is perfectly acceptable in most studios.
No one will smirk at you and think: He can't play.

You've never dealt with producers that have thrown musicians out of the studio? You've never had to go into the live room and remove the cymbals from the drum kit because the "drummer" refuses to quit bashing them like Animal the Muppet no matter how many times you admonished him to calm down and stop trying to showboat their way through the whole cut?

I agree that three takes is a good line in the sand, but I don't agree that it's automatically edit/comp after that. Sure if there's just a couple of errors, I *may* edit them. Usually it will be because of something outside the performance itself, like someone accidentally bumped a mic stand or sneezed or something, but usually any small performance errors aren't bad enough to need editing. I am not anal about performance perfection. If it's got the groove and the feel, it's a keeper. It's the best of the takes usually for me, and if none of them are usable, the session (or the part, anyway) is over until the guy is ready to actually record.

I gotta be honest here, and say that with the guys who's work I normally mix, there's very little in the way of performance editing that I ever have to do. Yeah, I'll do a lot in the way of mix arrangement, maybe muting a bar or two here, or flying it in again there, that kind of stuff, but the number of actual performance boners is extremely minimal. And before someone else says otherwise, I *AM* talking about home recording and not conventional "pro/commercial" settings. It's just that these guys hit the two big notes; they know how to play (or sing), and they prepare before they record.

I posted a thread a few weeks back with a screenshot of someone's DAW project of a metal band they recorded, where litereally hundreds or maybe even thousands of punchins were done to each guitar track - it was recorded note by note
...
I think THAT is kind of silly. Is that any less silly than recording a part 75 times until you get a take you're happy with?

I think they are BOTH equally silly. If it takes 75 takes to get a keeper, that means they started recording *at least* 72 takes too early.

And on the other side, if you are forced create a Frankenstein performance instead of just having a baby the natural way, you should take that as a clue that what you need to do is realize that while you may or may not be a songwriter, you're not yet a musician, and you really need to find a musician to poke the business end of that stick.

G.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

I think they are BOTH equally silly. If it takes 75 takes to get a keeper, that means they started recording *at least* 72 takes too early.

Glen - sorry for not being clearer - that was my point, that you can take it to either extreme and it's just as absurd, but that given a fair amount of talent or practice most of us would probably choose to fall in the middle.

 

[RAMI]

Hehe...OK, calm down. I got it.

I just read a Greg post in another thread where he said the exact same thing to someone. I knew it looked familiar when I typed it.



Don't you see what's happening here? I've become Gerg. I'm Gerg!!!!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Glen - sorry for not being clearer - that was my point, that you can take it to either extreme and it's just as absurd, but that given a fair amount of talent or practice most of us would probably choose to fall in the middle.

I agree, and I didn't mean to make it sound as though I thought you disagreed. Sorry for the miscommunication. (I'll blame it on the snow ).

You've been around here long enough now where you're probably familiar with my usual refrain: Why is everybody in such a hurry to hit the record button? It's things like this thread that remind me of why I always ask that question.

I know there's an attraction to the idea of recording as "fun", and it certainly can be; but where's the fun in recording 75 takes? Where's the fun in getting out the digital scissors and glue and having to slog through 75 bad takes and piecing together one performance out of them? And where's the fun of someone saying, "that sounds really good" and having to bite one's tongue because they privately know that's the computer they're listening to and not their own actual personal accomplishment?

What's "fun" in my book, is waiting to attack that recording until one can hit it with shock and awe performance by all involved, get stuff that sticks to disk and *sounds GOOD* doing so, and getting through the sessions at a clip where by the end of the day you sit there with your Chevas and spliff and listen to the two or three songs in the can and halfway mixed already by virtue of the tracking quality.

Of course, I can understand that if someone is afraid that "Palin 2012" will cause the world to end in an apocalypse of biblical proportions that makes the Haitian earthquake look like a fender bender, that they might be in a hurry. But when everybody is dead from the meteorite storms and instant ice ages, there'll be nobody to listen to their stuff anyway.

G.