Modern Techniques to AVOID that KILL the Music

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This track of mine is a good example of hiring the right guys and embracing the bleed! 2nd take keeper and the only overdubs were the vocals. I chose not to fight the phase when playing and singing at the same time and didn't have enough studio room for Scat Springs and the McCreary sisters to also be there going down.

R

We built the first booths I'm aware of at Motown in the early '60s. We wound up leaving the doors open with only the organist on headphones. That was only due to lack of space. The nice thing about being first is that you don't necessarily expect it to work.

The tough thing with doing it all at the same time is being in good voice (with all of this pollen) and the band be at their best as well. I find as a player, about 11 am is my best work of the day. I am warmed up but not fatigued and my ideas are still fresh. As for singing, I know of few people who want to sing on a record before noon.

R

Great tip! Don't forget water.

Yeah , I'm the same way . The voice is annoying that way . Every other instruments you can roll out of bed and start playing and be ready to go quickly . I have to wait until the afternoon for my voice to show up . 

I'm fascinated and entertained by this thread and having a flashback to an earlier thread in which, when describing a four track recording my band did in our rehearsal barn sounded better than the "professional" 24 track 2"inch we did in the studio, svart essentially said I was full of shit and incapable of understanding why the "pro" recording was better. (Without having heard either, lol).

Curiously, where the train went off the tracks in this thread was his response to Scumbum's affection for his garage 4 tracks.....

An interesting chip on your shoulder, sir.....

And was it you that said it's 99% musician and 1% recordist? (If not, my apologies....I'm too lazy to go back and check).

I think we all want to justify our gear purchases and investments in learning the craft.....(my unhealthy obsession with compressors is getting worse)...

But sometimes set, setting and fairy dust trumps all....

And our endless posturing over approaches to an end result amounts to little more than self-righteous wankery (of which I cop to).....

It's entertaining though !

LOL.

This IS entertaining.  It's perfectly OK that you've taken a disliking to me having different views from you and have seemingly been waiting for a chance to blame me for something, and completely distorting the truth to do so...  Who's got the chip now?  I'm not the one chasing someone down in another thread looking to snark back at them..

Well, In the interest of explaining myself, I didn't respond to Scumbum about his 4 tracks at all, I was responding to the general idea being touted out that somehow "modern recording" was a creature to be battled and defeated in order to get music to sound more like it did in the old days.  It's a theme that won't die, and mainly lives through audio engineering forums, that somehow modern music's "sound" is foul and hated by all. By my pointing out that the majority seem to be OK with it and that only a vocal few are the ones who dislike it, I seem to have offended folks. While I didn't think my approach was at all insulting, people seem to think it was and I get my opinion trashed, not on a factual account, but an emotional one.  That's where my angered response came from.  It's regrettable, but I said it and I'll stand by it.

You know, it's OK.  Emotions run high on the internet and in music.  You add both together and you can get dynamite.  I don't really care though, it's just the internet, but my opinion is still just that.  I'm not going to suddenly reverse it just to conform on a forum.

Sure, I said 99% musician and 1% recordist.  However, in your attempt to corner me, you missed that each portion can have underlying pieces with percentages too.

Of the musician, I say 70% ability (encompassing practice and technical ability), 15% gear and 15% will/drive.

Of the recordist, I say its 80% gear, 15% ability, 5% attitude.  I judge this like I do because, yes, I do believe that gear opens doors that are not able to be opened by determination or ability alone.  Those who've done recording others for any reasonable amount of time would know this.  Recording yourself doesn't necessarily count because those who do tend to subconsciously conform to their gear roadblocks and develop other paths to follow.  As a person who gets paid to work quickly and produce ANY sound the client wants, I don't get the luxury to play around for hours or days to get something to sound decent.  I need it now, and I need it to work.  That's why I need professional gear that delivers what I want when I want it at the highest quality.

So you hear me saying that "pro recording was better", when all I was alluding to was that I think it's completely possible that your pride in your 4track recording might have possibly clouded your judgement, instead of getting my meaning, you got defensively angry.  I regret that it ended up like that, but I've seen it time and time again where folks record themselves and unreasonably believe their recording is somehow better than what a pro can do, so I come from a completely opposite viewpoint.  Nobody seems to understand that, they just get angry rather than attempting to try to see it from my side.

Again, I hear it all the time, "Why should I pay to record with you, I can do that with ______ box I bought from Guitar Center and it'll sound exactly the same!!"  And later, when I finally hear it, it truly sounds terrible, so terrible that I feel bad for them.  I feel bad because poor presentation can lead to missing their big chance.  When that A/R guy listens to their submission and hears a bunch of noise and pinched sounding guitars, he's not going to continue listening to see if it gets better.  That's the hard truth.  Having a good demo or full album is essential for growth of fans and for getting gigs.  Maybe you see where I'm coming from a bit better now?

One of my favorite quotes sums me up.  "Because I am hard, you will not like me. But the more you hate me, the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair."

See, I truly want my clients to succeed, and that means doing my best by them.  I work by word of mouth and by offering my services to bands who I find interesting to offer to the world, so when a band tells me that they're going to do everything themselves, I really wish them the best, but I understand that they'll be shooting themselves in the foot to some degree.

I think I figured out "for me" the problems I was having with Modern Recording techniques killing my music .

I'm finishing up a new song and its coming together/sounding just like my older stuff .

The things I was doing wrong was not giving a good enough performance . I was relying on doing a lot of takes and editing together a perfect performance . Which I believe is the Modern Recording Technique that is killing the music today . Well that and quantizing everything . But I never ever quantized or sound replaced...... But I did edit a lot out of laziness . I think today the problem with music is its lazy and thrown together .

Theres a different vibe and energy in a track , different mindset , when a musician can't rely on editing . Now I'm not talking about never editing , punching in or comping vocal tracks..... all the things you could do with tape is pretty much the limit I think of what should be done with a DAW .

Bob talks a lot about "live performances" "connecting with the audience"......and that just goes back to being able to play your instrument well/good performance . No musician can rely on editing in a live performance , they can't ! They have to play their song and do it well in front of an audience . The problem today is most CAN'T play well live and they rely on Studio tricks/editing to make their music .

Also Bob talks about 4 mics , a room and a group of musicians is all you need .....and its true . But how that makes great music compared with today is mainly because its "focused on performance" and not trying to create/edit music together with a computer .

I think the biggest problem is musicians not accompanying and responding to the vocal performance.

Make no mistake that recording "old skool" was a very stressful process we were happy to move past as that became an option. My 20-20 hindsight tells me the stress was probably well worth it in terms of results.

This is exactly what I was talking about on page 3.  


Although you go on to mention editing together performances is why you think modern recording sucks, I still can't get behind that.  Practice used to mean perfection, now it just means getting through the song.  

Whatever the reason artists can't reproduce perfect takes these days, be it over-reliance on modern editing, nervousness being in the studio, or just plain not practicing enough, is beside the point.  The result is that the player can't reliably play their parts over and over as they should.  In theory, they should be so adept at it, that one take is all that is needed.

In fact, a lot of session musicians are one takers.  I've worked with and known a handful.  Bam.  One take.  Ok, I need to quad track that guitar?  BAM.  4x identical takes.  Done.  No punching in, no editing, no endless amounts of takes for "the perfect one".

This is NOT to get on your case or anyone else's, and especially not to create hard feelings.  I just think that people aren't nearly as prepared as they think they are, and a lot of them use excuses for it, such as the "I need to be in the groove" excuse.