Is one take a thing of the past?

[5stringer]

"One take meaning - one track per pass"??? Not sure how to explain it.

Hello everyone! I was watching some mixing videos online and noticed a Dave Pensado project was filled with many breaks in his tracks. It appears as if the song was recorded in "pieces" instead on each instrument in one take. What I mean is, it seems as if a guitar passage was recorded for the verse, then another recorded for the chorus, then another for the 2nd verse, etc... (on different tracks). Is this typical work flow in the digital age? All of my projects are more or less "full tracks" - meaning, hit record and go until the end of the song. If editing / punching is needed, it is done on the same track. But for the most part, we try to capture the full length of the song for all instruments instead of focusing just on the intro, then focusing on the verse, then the chorus, etc... I could be completely off-base with my assumption of how his project is recorded - but thought I'd throw it out there.

Thanks

 

[Greg_L]

I'm a do-it-all-at-once kind of guy. I think it's pretty lame to go piece by piece, but whatever gets it done I guess. I'm of the opinion that if you can't play it all the way through, you're not ready to record it yet. A punch in here or there is fine. But you know, if someone is using, say, totally different guitar sounds from verse to chorus or whatever, then sure, do it on different tracks.

 

[miroslav]

It's not a "thing of the past"...it's just a myth.

Back in the day when they kinda had to do a lot of stuff as-it-falls, and "editing" was just a dream into the future....they would rehearse until it was tight, and then go for it. If it didn't work, they *had to* start the whole thing from the beginning, when multi-tracking was yet to be invented or become very common.

Once multi-tracks became the norm...the ability to do alternate takes, and/or punch in/out edits...became useful.
FF to digital recording, and the ability to edit and make changes ad nauseam pushed back the need even for lots and lots of rehearsing, so some guys sit there and record almost "one note at a time".

Not saying you shouldn't be prepared to record and be able to play something all the way through without stopping....just saying that the notion of doing 57 passes in order to get it down as a single, perfect take....is rather silly, IMHO.
Do 3-4 "best" takes, comp....then move on.

 

[5stringer]

It's not a "thing of the past"...it's just a myth.

Back in the day when they kinda had to do a lot of stuff as-it-falls, and "editing" was just a dream into the future....they would rehearse until it was tight, and then go for it. If it didn't work, they *had to* start the whole thing from the beginning, when multi-tracking was yet to be invented or become very common.

Once multi-tracks became the norm...the ability to do alternate takes, and/or punch in/out edits...became useful.
FF to digital recording, and the ability to edit and make changes ad nauseam pushed back the need even for lots and lots of rehearsing, so some guys sit there and record almost "one note at a time".

Not saying you shouldn't be prepared to record and be able to play something all the way through without stopping....just saying that the notion of doing 57 passes in order to get it down as a single, perfect take....is rather silly, IMHO.
Do 3-4 "best" takes, comp....then move on.

Ok - so I guess its possible that what I was seeing was "multiple" takes (on separate tracks) then the unuseable parts "cut out"? Thus leaving only the parts of each take that are worthy of keeping?

 

[GONZO-X]

a lot of times, when you see audio that is 'chopped up', it's not because of 'multiple takes'..

it's a simple matter of deleting unused audio on a continuous track.
i do this all the time.

it is easy (in sonar) to auto delete 'quiet' sections of a single audio track, using the 'remove silence' operation.

i usually always do this to a track BEFORE i apply automation envelopes and begin balancing a mix.

 

[miroslav]

Ok - so I guess its possible that what I was seeing was "multiple" takes (on separate tracks) then the unuseable parts "cut out"? Thus leaving only the parts of each take that are worthy of keeping?

Yes....DAWs make comping of tracks a breeze.

I'm with Greg....being just lazy and not wanting to learn a part all the way through is NOT the reason to use punch-ins and comping (though sad to say, a lot of people do because they are not able to record any other way).

However, when you feel you have that guitar track learned as good as you can...drop one track....then two...then three...in quick succession. You are just doing three passes of a well rehearsed part, and then you sit down and comp to a single "best" track if needed.
I often end up with one track that stands out...that becomes my "foundation" track to comp from. Then if I feel that on measure XXX, there was a slight glitch for a few notes (or words with vocals)...I look at my other 2-3 passes to hear if that same spot was any better. If I find a much better version of that chunk...I cut it into my "foundation" track.....though actually, I always like to comp to a clean, empty track rather than into one of the existing tracks...that way I always have the untouched tracks right there in case I want to quickly go back and redo something.

That is a standard commercial studio SOP....ain't no shame doing that or if you prefer, punching in JUST the glitched section...though I prefer to do my few passes in quick succession from start to finish...and then sit down and comp, rather than stand there and punch-in....though if it's just one small spot, I can punch-in, but because I track to tape, I just prefer to let it roll, and then do the comps in the DAW after the tracks are transfered.

Comping isn't just about fixing mistakes...it's also about matching the right intensity, feel, emotion...etc.
You can often play it almost the same way 3-4 times...but then, there might be a spot where you just hit the chords a bit harder, and they kind of stick out from the rest of the track....so you comp to adjust for that or whatever else you need.
IMO...comping/editing is no different than tweaking EQ, adding processing, etc...etc...to make a track sound better.

 

[Seafroggys]

It really depends. On the album we just finished with my band, I tracked my drum parts really well and quick. Between 1-2 takes each song (maybe one song took 3 takes), absolutly no editing, the parts were actually pretty perfect (even tempo is pretty good, and I didn't even use a click!). There was one small drum lick in one song that I got perfect on the first take, but messed up on the second take, so I ended up comping that in, but probably would have got it on the third take. Regardless, the drums were definitely one take for sure, and high quality.

Everything else took dozens of takes and punch-ins and edits. Probably 80% of the recording time was spent on vocals and guitars.

If the musicians are good and know their material and are rock solid, then you can definitely still get the killer one take. And worst case scenario, you can do 3-4 takes, and comp them together, and still be 'pure'-ish like miro says. But the other way is definitely pretty common these days, as this album production proved to me.

 

[5stringer]

a lot of times, when you see audio that is 'chopped up', it's not because of 'multiple takes'..

it's a simple matter of deleting unused audio on a continuous track.
i do this all the time.

it is easy (in sonar) to auto delete 'quiet' sections of a single audio track, using the 'remove silence' operation.

i usually always do this to a track BEFORE i apply automation envelopes and begin balancing a mix.

I use Cubase, though I never knew of this function. I'll have to check it out. Is this preferred to gating...say on a tom track or snare track?

 

[5stringer]

It really depends. On the album we just finished with my band, I tracked my drum parts really well and quick. Between 1-2 takes each song (maybe one song took 3 takes), absolutly no editing, the parts were actually pretty perfect (even tempo is pretty good, and I didn't even use a click!). There was one small drum lick in one song that I got perfect on the first take, but messed up on the second take, so I ended up comping that in, but probably would have got it on the third take. Regardless, the drums were definitely one take for sure, and high quality.

Everything else took dozens of takes and punch-ins and edits. Probably 80% of the recording time was spent on vocals and guitars.

If the musicians are good and know their material and are rock solid, then you can definitely still get the killer one take. And worst case scenario, you can do 3-4 takes, and comp them together, and still be 'pure'-ish like miro says. But the other way is definitely pretty common these days, as this album production proved to me.

Thanks for the Info Seafroggys! Did you "remove silence" on your drum tracks as GONZO-X does? I'm guessing you had 30+ tracks of drums if you did 3 takes. Did you remove the unused tracks, or "mute" them?

 

[DM60]

It's not a "thing of the past"...it's just a myth.

Back in the day when they kinda had to do a lot of stuff as-it-falls, and "editing" was just a dream into the future....they would rehearse until it was tight, and then go for it. If it didn't work, they *had to* start the whole thing from the beginning, when multi-tracking was yet to be invented or become very common.

Once multi-tracks became the norm...the ability to do alternate takes, and/or punch in/out edits...became useful.
FF to digital recording, and the ability to edit and make changes ad nauseam pushed back the need even for lots and lots of rehearsing, so some guys sit there and record almost "one note at a time".

Not saying you shouldn't be prepared to record and be able to play something all the way through without stopping....just saying that the notion of doing 57 passes in order to get it down as a single, perfect take....is rather silly, IMHO.
Do 3-4 "best" takes, comp....then move on.

Plus, since they didn't have editing, they would hire session musicians (To me, this is the old days version of wave editing). I think sometimes our views of the old days are a little skewed.

 

[miroslav]

Thanks for the Info Seafroggys! Did you "remove silence" on your drum tracks as GONZO-X does?

+3

The first thing I do after all my tracks are in the DAW and I'm ready to start editing/comping...is to let each track play, and I simply split/cut along the track manually. Then I delete all the "junk" in-between the cuts that I don't want.

I don't bother with any automated "remove silence", since often I'm cutting not just the "dead air" between music sections, but also cutting up the vocals leads in-between smaller breaths/pauses/glitches.
This is all non-destructive...so there's no danger of doing a split/cut in the wrong spot or whatever. I can just grab the ends of the sections I keep, and extend them or make them smaller as needed. The audio is always there, complete.
I also like to control the type of fades get out on the tails of the cuts, so another reason I don't let the DAW do it automatically. Sometimes I want a linear fade, sometimes not....each split/cut could be different.
Sometimes I'm just taking out a small "click" in the audio that sits between two notes or two words...and then I want to do a crossfade between the remaining portions....so again, I like to manually cut up a track.

 

[5stringer]

+3

The first thing I do after all my tracks are in the DAW and I'm ready to start editing/comping...is to let each track play, and I simply split/cut along the track manually. Then I delete all the "junk" in-between the cuts that I don't want.

I don't bother with any automated "remove silence", since often I'm cutting not just the "dead air" between music sections, but also cutting up the vocals leads in-between smaller breaths/pauses/glitches.
This is all non-destructive...so there's no danger of doing a split/cut in the wrong spot or whatever. I can just grab the ends of the sections I keep, and extend them or make them smaller as needed. The audio is always there, complete.
I also like to control the type of fades get out on the tails of the cuts, so another reason I don't let the DAW do it automatically. Sometimes I want a linear fade, sometimes not....each split/cut could be different.
Sometimes I'm just taking out a small "click" in the audio that sits between two notes or two words...and then I want to do a crossfade between the remaining portions....so again, I like to manually cut up a track.

That's an approach to comping I never considered. Thanks for the great insight - this has always been a mystery to me. I've actually spent hours cutting out dead air, never
realizing that there is a non-destructive way to handle the this task. You must have one helluva powerful computer! LOL

 

[miroslav]

Well....most DAW work in a non-destructive way. Not sure how you were doing it, but in a typical DAW, when you "cut" a track, and remove a chunk from it....you DON'T actually cut the WAV file and remove a chunk from it. You're just doing a virtual cut.

There are destructive operations you can perform, and some that can only be destructive....you see that in some dedicated WAV editors....but the basic DAW multitrack app is pretty much non-detructive. Some DAWs just do track editing better than others.

 

[5stringer]

Well....most DAW work in a non-destructive way. Not sure how you were doing it, but in a typical DAW, when you "cut" a track, and remove a chunk from it....you DON'T actually cut the WAV file and remove a chunk from it. You're just doing a virtual cut.

There are destructive operations you can perform, and some that can only be destructive....you see that in some dedicated WAV editors....but the basic DAW multitrack app is pretty much non-detructive. Some DAWs just do track editing better than others.

I see what you're saying - the wav file in the audio folder remains untouched - the software "interprets" the cut /edit "virtually".

 

[Seafroggys]

I don't do any auto-silence removing. As far as drum tracks go, yeah I remove everything up until about 1/4 second before the start of the first note, and usually remove everything after the cymbals have finished decaying. I'm not too overzealous about silence removal though.

While Reaper can do multiple takes, often times I only keep a take if its good, so I no longer have the other drum takes if I did a second or third pass.

 

[Greg_L]

I don't do any auto-silence removing. As far as drum tracks go, yeah I remove everything up until about 1/4 second before the start of the first note, and usually remove everything after the cymbals have finished decaying. I'm not too overzealous about silence removal though.
.

This. I can see gating toms sometimes, but does anyone actually remove the space between snare or kick hits? That's insanity.

Me personally, the only silence I ever add to a mix is if there's a passage in which a single coil guitar is just sitting there humming away. Or maybe a little feedback before a lead take. And sometimes I'll even leave that in there. Or maybe I'll burp or fart between vocal lines. I'll leave the farts. The burps come out because that's just rude.

 

[Armistice]

Not everything is "comp-able". I do most of my guitar stuff single take, even long songs. As others have noted, if you can't play it in one take, then possibly it's not ready to be recorded.

Vocals, on the other hand, I comp a fair bit as there are plenty of gaps, but I've started to cut back and work on getting better first takes as I end up spending hours and hours comping vocal takes sometimes. But I'm a much better guitarist than singer, so not surprising....

 

[miroslav]

...but does anyone actually remove the space between snare or kick hits?

I doubt it....since drum hits are close enough to each other that there is often tail decay from the previous hits, running right up to the start of the next hits. If you took that out, it would sound weird.

The tracks that get the most cutting up by me tend to be leads and vocals, since there can be a lot of stops between notes or sections of lead/vocal phrases. It's really mostly about cleaning out the "hash" that has nothing to do with the actual music being played or sung. It just makes for a cleaner track.
Sometimes leaving breaths in a vocal track works perfectly for a song, just like leaving useless string noise on a guitar track can sound more real/personal....but other times it can be very annoying and completely get in the way of the actual notes/words/etc....so it's a per song/track thing.

I rarely remove stuff from rhythm tracks unless there are longer sections with nothing being played...which is not often.

 

[miroslav]

Not everything is "comp-able"....

Wanna bet...?

Though really....as already said, comping is not, and should not, be about "not being able to play it in one take".
It's about taking a few takes that you CAN play in one take...and from them comping one that is better than any of them are individually.

When I do leads....I rarely play/rehearse every note/lick so that it's identical every time. There may be several key licks that I use for the foundation, but the rest I prefer to improvise as I play.
It's not that I couldn't learn to play every note in a guitar lead the same way every time...I just don't usually see a reason to, as long as the "vibe" is there for each take. So that's why each take has some uniqueness to it...and comping allows me to combine a unique phrase from one together with that of another.
Some guys will do that....create the comp track from best parts...then sit down and relearn the whole thing note-for-note...then re-record it all over again....
...I just don't have that much interest or energy!
If I was going to perform the songs live...then I would probably learn them that way...but I've yet to hear a lead played the same way live, note-for-note as it sounded on someone's album...so I just don't bother learning them note-for-note in the studio either, and I kinda like the spontaneity of improvised leads even when recording.

 

[Greg_L]

I doubt it....since drum hits are close enough to each other that there is often tail decay from the previous hits, running right up to the start of the next hits. If you took that out, it would sound weird.
.

Well duh, but I was just wondering. People do some whacked out completely unnecessary stuff in the digital realm.