Do you guys use solid takes of your tracks, or do you cut and paste?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Whoopysnorp
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I do a bit of everything. One take out of hundreds, cut, copy and paste, punch in/out, ...
Sometimes even to the extreme when we record a song synced with a sequencer (then it's really easy): from inserting a chorus in between 2 solo's, to editing solo's (just take out the bad licks), or taking one take of some backing vocals/instrument for one verse/chorus, and just copying it to the other verses/choruses.

Worst it ever got was a funky guitar lick, play one chorus, pick out the best lick (1 measure), and copy/paste this over all the choruses in the whole song...
 
I Live for Cutting and Pasting...

I don't know what I would do without it...... Actually I recorded my first album without it... but now that I have Pro Tools, I would love to load up that album and firm everything up a bit...unfortuantely am too lazy... to dive back into that one..

For instance a song where the chorus repeats about 4 times during the song, I would take the chorus with the best vocal performance and paste that over all the bad choruses...

Some people call it cheating.. But I feel Im giving my "Fans" (the 2 that I have) a much more solid product and would feel guilty if I didn't dress things up...

It's second nature now... A part of the process...
 
I also try to get several good takes, during one session preferably. I try to choose one "main" take that I'm going to lean toward for most of the final track; I find that this gives the track a purer character. When I've found myself going back and forth repeatedly trying to mix together eight different takes into one decent track, it occurs to me that the performance (or set up) is sucking and I should start over.
 
Re: I Live for Cutting and Pasting...

VOXVENDOR said:
I don't know what I would do without it...... Actually I recorded my first album without it... but now that I have Pro Tools, I would love to load up that album and firm everything up a bit...unfortuantely am too lazy... to dive back into that one..

For instance a song where the chorus repeats about 4 times during the song, I would take the chorus with the best vocal performance and paste that over all the bad choruses...

Some people call it cheating.. But I feel Im giving my "Fans" (the 2 that I have) a much more solid product and would feel guilty if I didn't dress things up...

It's second nature now... A part of the process...
Click to expand...

Pro Tools makes it way to easy to cut and paste. I love it :)
 
Similiar boat Whoopysnorp, I usually do vocals, bass and guitars.

Vocals: Lead, usually 2 punch ins. Set up two adjacent tracks and then proceed to try and finish it. I set up two tracks, because working alone, it's easier than setting up preroll/postroll punch out stuff. If the first verse is good, and happens to have some sustaing vocal, I don't have to worry about cutting it off, so no need to bother setting up a punchin. Just enable the adjacent track, change the start location hit record.

Drums: On occasion if there is a long enough break.

Bass: Very rarely

Guitars: Rarely, song depending.

I'm a little confused by the 'cut and paste' concept. I know what it is, but I've rarely found much use for it. Occasionaly, somethings will line up further up in the song and sound 'right', but most times it just isn't correct. Depends on the style of music I suppose though. If your doing super-tight techno funk or something I could see it being useful. But then you probably wouldn't need to. I don't know. If you mean cutting pasting dragging etc... man that's too much work, easier/faster to just re-record it. But whatever works is the ticket.
 
Cutting and Pasting isnt too much work.... Much easier than re-recording.... Say you got 2 choruses and the guitar in second chorus is a little off.... Sit and Record again..? Or spend 5 seconds copying the part from the first chorus?.. I choose the pasting.. much easier...

Some people say Cutting and pasting is false and not a real representation of performance..... and I do see their point.. BUT....... Then and again the parts im pasting and copying are my own performances... It is all me, so I guess it's fair to do it...:)
 
I guess what I was trying to say is that cutting pasting doesn't work very well for me, because I find the parts don't 'fit' in right. Drums change subtly, feel changes subtly throughout the song. For non critical parts, ones that don't affect the 'feel' of the song, It can be useful. Again, all depends on the style of music and whatever works. I certainly don't regard it as cheating. All useful tools.
 
Practice, practice, practice.

And then Punch, Cut & Paste!:D
 
It's funny cause now that I've made a serious departure (ha) from more "organic" tunes (ie real guitars, bass, etc.) to more electronic stuff (very little/no MIDI) I've actualy become much more apt to try and nail it on one take and not cut and loop anything, except the drums that is.


Laj
 
cutting and pasting drums is tough, and doesn't really work most of the time.
as for the other instruments, it's just a matter of getting used to it.
it's a good thing to make you improve your skills too, contrary to what many people think. for vocals i used to record a zillion takes, and take the best parts of each one, listening carefully to each take until i decided what part was best.
now that's a tedious process, but the results are the best you can get with the skills you have at the time you're recording. now that i have to reproduce that performance live, it makes me practice a lot harder to live up to the recording. and that's a good thing in my book.

adriano
 
I use cycle record

In Nuendo (and Cubase) There is a tracking mode called "cycle record" I have everyong play the song or part over and over again until they think there enough takes to "cut and paste" a perfect take.

I then open audio track in the "part editor", slice it up and mute the sections I do not like. It works really really well.

I posted my latest project in the MP3 mixing clinic

https://homerecording.com/bbs//showthread.php?s=&threadid=43115

The lead vocals have about 16 splices and the lead guitar has 4.

When I am certain that the take is really really what I want to hear, I bounce it all down to a single file.
 
postalblue said:
cutting and pasting drums is tough, and doesn't really work most of the time.
as for the other instruments, it's just a matter of getting used to it.
it's a good thing to make you improve your skills too, contrary to what many people think. for vocals i used to record a zillion takes, and take the best parts of each one, listening carefully to each take until i decided what part was best.
now that's a tedious process, but the results are the best you can get with the skills you have at the time you're recording. now that i have to reproduce that performance live, it makes me practice a lot harder to live up to the recording. and that's a good thing in my book.

adriano
Click to expand...


It all depends on what you're doing. In Pro Tools cutting and pasting is incredibly easy to do, cuts the amount of time it takes to do a track in half at least...
 
i'm talking about any recording/editing software. editing drums or even punching in during tracking is tough business, but it's possible nonetheless. better than cutting tape, at least.
now that i've tracked with the help of cutting and pasting for some time, and gigged in support of these very same recordings, i've learned to get things on tape/disk faster without so much editing. mainly because i became a better musician.
so what i'm saying is cutting and pasting is not cheating, and contrary to what it might seem, it won't make you lazy. it has the potential to make you more proficient.
it only depends on your attitude.

adriano
 
It is so refreshing finding eveyone admitting to doing what I also do.

"Hi, I'm Matt. And I'm a cut and paster."

(Everyone): "Hi Matt."
:D
 
i once had a problem with a .wav file getting corrupted or something like that (there was an audible click/pop/stutter thing in one part), and i couldn't go back and mix it down again, so we got it into sound forge, and just copied a similar part over the defective one, and nobody noticed. i guess it came out better than if we had done the editing track by track.

adriano
 
postalblue said:
so we got it into sound forge, and just copied a similar part over the defective one, and nobody noticed.
Click to expand...

Yup, been there done that :)
 
As for me

I find I have a lot less problems cutting and pasting when I over lap the parts and cross fade. That almost always takes care of any pops or clicks.

If you are not recording with a click track. It seems it would be very hard to cut and paste because of time variations?
Right now I am trying recording next to home made drum loops and then putting in real drums later. That way It is rock solid. It's easy to cut paste then. After that I plan to just put a count in at the begining for the drummer and let him play with the music. I am hoping that will keep him tight enough that I can cut and paste drums if I need to, but i don't think I will have to . I may have to punch in at some point perhaps.

I find regular click tracks very distracting. Just not enough audio meat to sink my teeth into. I spend to much time second guessing weather I am in time with the click or not.

Oh Ya:) Save raw, cutt, paste, cross fade. If need be.


F.S.
 
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