Best ways to edit guitars to perfection in PT

[Shaun Werle]

Hey my current method of editing in Pro tools is tracking everything to perfection, a lot of times part for part, note for note.
every 5 seconds is punched in at least, sometimes single chugs are too.
Than i quantize them using elastic audio properties. (right after it's recorded)

I want to explore different ways of tracking/editing guitars! This method does come out tight as hell but it takes forever, and sometimes guitar players can't play on time enough or play it good enough to give me what i need (this is a nightmare)

What are your methods of tracking and editing guitars? (to absolute perfection)
Tracking guitars for 10 hours a song just sucks.

I also have a problems at times when a guitar player mutes their strings after chugs, IF i cut it to the point where the noise is gone it sounds way to cut, even to an average listener.

Thanks

 

[AdamWathan]

You are already doing it the best way... Editing poorly played guitar parts is a dumb and awful sounding idea compared to just tracking them tightly in the first place.

I would probably skip the quantize if I was you too, just track it tight even if it means 2 notes at a time. If they aren't muting properly after a chug, retrack. Make them get it right. The less editing you have to do the better it will sound at the end of the day, editing should always be a last resort.

Recording crappy players just does take 10 hours per song, no way around it.

 

[Shaun Werle]

You are already doing it the best way... Editing poorly played guitar parts is a dumb and awful sounding idea compared to just tracking them tightly in the first place.

I would probably skip the quantize if I was you too, just track it tight even if it means 2 notes at a time. If they aren't muting properly after a chug, retrack. Make them get it right. The less editing you have to do the better it will sound at the end of the day, editing should always be a last resort.

Recording crappy players just does take 10 hours per song, no way around it.

Hahahah yeah there is a plus i haven't had to edit a guitar after the band leaves. Come there has to be a way to cut the extra noise on chugs!

 

[brianhood]

Hahahah yeah there is a plus i haven't had to edit a guitar after the band leaves. Come there has to be a way to cut the extra noise on chugs!

exactly why i edit while tracking. Makes the guitar player see how much work i have to put in to make them sound good

 

[AdamWathan]

exactly why i edit while tracking. Makes the guitar player see how much work i have to put in to make them sound good

Yup. Edit after every song when tracking drums too! Life is so much better when a session actually ends for you the same time it ends for the band!

 

[abt]

You are already doing it the best way... Editing poorly played guitar parts is a dumb and awful sounding idea compared to just tracking them tightly in the first place.

Playing tight is the only thing that has really worked for me. I've tried slip editing, quantizing, even note by note. It may work for Adam and those other wizards but I'm not that good and it always sounds weird and fake.

I've heard that you can do it note by note but it doesn't work for me. It would be a huge amount of work.

 

[Shaun Werle]

exactly why i edit while tracking. Makes the guitar player see how much work i have to put in to make them sound good

Yes! guitar players and drummers end up getting bummed out after they see me super editing everything, especially when i do some parts in like half tempo

I have to cheer them up and stuff it's like engineer/psychiatrist. haha

Would anyone like to go into the process of tracking vocals, do you edit vocals after their tracked?

I usually will re-record the vocalist until hes got a good one i like.
I feel like having vocalists do the same part a million times kind of brings down their vibe and looses their performance. Change of thread I am sorry haha

Am i the only one that spends like 15 hours doing one song of drums, guitar, bass and vocals?

 

[Shaun Werle]

Yup. Edit after every song when tracking drums too! Life is so much better when a session actually ends for you the same time it ends for the band!

I don't even think about guitars until the drums are perfect.
Always get everything perfect, always.

 

[Shaun Werle]

Sorry for the over posting but could someone explain their bass tracking method? I usually have to spend so much time making sure the bassist is playing consistent, I throw a limiter on there to squash it out but I hear a lot of the bigger guys have a steady consistent bass playing.
Same method as guitar tracking? because that's how i have to do it. Which still isn't perfect.

 

[Joshua Wickman]

Am i the only one that spends like 15 hours doing one song of drums, guitar, bass and vocals?

Nope

 

[Ermz]

I like the idea of editing as you go, but it may not be practical in all circumstances. I always freelance at a larger studio when tracking drums, so it makes no sense to eat up our session time doing edits I could easily do back home on the PT rig.

And the lack of slipping is what's stopping me from tracking guitars in PT. Not being able to edit as we go easily is a huge drawback. Unless I can somehow work real-time Elastic Audio into the tracking procedure.

 

[LeSedna]

Joey showed once a pic of one of his sessions. He actually punches every few notes, so no, you're not the only one.

Just wanted to say : if they mute their strings too early, ask them to go on playing further as if you didn't stop the recording.

You can do the same before the punch in. So you select in your DAW the part you wanna record, and punch in from a bit earlier. It will only record the selected part but the musician has to play from earlier until later, which ensures transitions are smooth.

 

[AdamWathan]

And the lack of slipping is what's stopping me from tracking guitars in PT. Not being able to edit as we go easily is a huge drawback. Unless I can somehow work real-time Elastic Audio into the tracking procedure.

You can edit guitars as you track in PT, slipping is faster though you are right. Slipping != Elastic Audio though, I wouldn't ever edit guitars with elastic audio unless it was a last resort. Time stretching anything is always a bummer compared to just tracking it in tiny sections and piecing it together.

I don't really "edit" as I track guitars anyways, just track them properly and there's no editing to do, if that makes sense. I don't ever cut up a take and move stuff around. If the take needs to be edited, I will just redo the take in smaller and smaller sections until it is right. So I might end up with 6000 regions on my guitar track, but none of them are me cutting up a larger region, they are all totally separate punches.

 

[LeSedna]

And the lack of slipping is what's stopping me from tracking guitars in PT. Not being able to edit as we go easily is a huge drawback. Unless I can somehow work real-time Elastic Audio into the tracking procedure.

I didn't get it, what is the lack in PT ?

 

[AdamWathan]

Yeah this is what guitar tracking looks like:

There's no real "editing" of a performance there, more like programming the performance from tiny punches. Perfectly do-able in Pro Tools as you go while tracking as evidenced here, but I still prefer to do it in a host where I don't have to do my edits blind. It's nice to see the transients while you are dragging around the little chopped up sections! Hah...

 

[Shaun Werle]

Nope

If you would mind sharing how long on average does it take per instrument?
Curiosity

I like the idea of editing as you go, but it may not be practical in all circumstances. I always freelance at a larger studio when tracking drums, so it makes no sense to eat up our session time doing edits I could easily do back home on the PT rig.


And the lack of slipping is what's stopping me from tracking guitars in PT. Not being able to edit as we go easily is a huge drawback. Unless I can somehow work real-time Elastic Audio into the tracking procedure.

Yeah well everything i do is in my home studio, so this is not a problem for me.

But i still couldn't see tracking guitars over an unedited song, even it is played to the click.

Joey showed once a pic of one of his sessions. He actually punches every few notes, so no, you're not the only one.



Just wanted to say : if they mute their strings too early, ask them to go on playing further as if you didn't stop the recording.

You can do the same before the punch in. So you select in your DAW the part you wanna record, and punch in from a bit earlier. It will only record the selected part but the musician has to play from earlier until later, which ensures transitions are smooth.

Yeah my sessions have like a thousands of punch ins

Yeah this is what guitar tracking looks like:

There's no real "editing" of a performance there, more like programming the performance from tiny punches. Perfectly do-able in Pro Tools as you go while tracking as evidenced here, but I still prefer to do it in a host where I don't have to do my edits blind. It's nice to see the transients while you are dragging around the little chopped up sections! Hah...

This is exactly how my guitar tracks look, I literally punch in everything separately

 

[Ermz]

Correction: That is how guitar sessions look when you get kids that write material beyond their ability. Sadly this is about 90% or more of metal these days.

My issue with tracking guitars in PT is that I track an amp sim and DI track in parallel, so both are being printed together. I group the two then slip edit them together so that I can make changes and then audition those changes at the same time. The reason I print the amp sim is to conserve CPU power, as I commonly have around 16 tracks of guitar in a project. So, along with the input fader helping things along, the ability to slip edit easily across both tracks makes life easier too.

Love PT though... that UI is gorgeous. Cubase looks like a barcoded turd when you're running an intense editing session.

 

[Shaun Werle]

Correction: That is how guitar sessions look when you get kids that write material beyond their ability. Sadly this is about 90% or more of metal these days.

My issue with tracking guitars in PT is that I track an amp sim and DI track in parallel, so both are being printed together. I group the two then slip edit them together so that I can make changes and then audition those changes at the same time. The reason I print the amp sim is to conserve CPU power, as I commonly have around 16 tracks of guitar in a project. So, along with the input fader helping things along, the ability to slip edit easily across both tracks makes life easier too.

Love PT though... that UI is gorgeous. Cubase looks like a barcoded turd when you're running an intense editing session.

Lol on the metal comment.

I always print, drumagog files and things like that, Amp sims don't really cause me problems as far as CPU

 

[AdamWathan]

You can just put the DI and amp'd track in an edit group though in PT and it's the same deal? Just no slip editing, still can easily cut and drag stuff around though, same result at the end as if you had slipped.

I'm with you though, prefer tracking guitars in a slip-capable host anyways.

I actually record my guitars as a stereo track. Left channel is DI and right channel is the amp'd track. I have a plugin that I wrote for Reaper that I just stick on there that lets me select which channel I'm hearing. It's pretty killer, much more idiot proof than grouping is because the DI and amp are literally bound together in the same wav file.

 

[AdamWathan]

Yeah well everything i do is in my home studio, so this is not a problem for me.

But i still couldn't see tracking guitars over an unedited song, even it is played to the click.

I would imagine Ermz doesn't track to unedited drums, I don't think that was ever implied Track drums at the big studio, take sessions home and edit all the drums, then record the guitars at Ermz' place after the drum editing is done.

Since I get to track at home I prefer to record a song on drums, then edit that song, then record the next song on drums, then edit, etc. So by the time we are done tracking drums, I'm also done editing. It's a lot easier mentally than having to edit 10 songs of drums in a row

At the very least I'll edit whatever was tracked that day at the end of the day, and I'll make the tracking days shorter to compensate for the amount of extra time I have to stay to edit. So if we're putting in an 8 hour day, I'll just have the band here for half that time, record 2-3 drum tracks and then send them home while I edit. 8 hours of tracking and then staying later on top of that to edit will burn you out fast :/ Haha... It's easy to get lazy with your edits too when you have that much to do, and lazy with your tracking when you don't get "breaks" between the songs to edit.