copy/paste or full take?

[euga]

total noob question!
when tracking guitar and bass do you prefer a single take of a riff and copy/paste or a take of the full song (or a big a part of it?)???

if you can play enough tight to the click which do you prefer soundwise??? and why?

 

[mick thompson]

it depends on the musician - if the musician sucks and is not capable of laying down a full track then i will start cutting and pasting but if the musician is good enough and is able to keep tracking and can keep up with the tempo of the song then i will most certainly make the musician do the full take.

sometimes when mixing later on i notice that the guitarists have made a slight accent change in example 1 bar so for things like that i will cut and paste to make the song more neutral throughout

so if your guitarist is having problems keeping up with the tempo of the song then just make the guitarist get 4 bars correct and then cut and paste - it will save a lot of wasted tracking time

 

[lolzgreg]

I like copying and pasting parts that are played exactly the same. It promotes consistency and saves time. If you have two of the same chorus/verse, why play it twice for that one particular track?

You do need to have the part played ONCE for each side of the mix (one for the left hand side, and one for the right hand). You have to double track rhythm guitars for them to really sound good.

 

[Ermz]

It depends entirely upon the musician and the amount of time/finances available.

Whenever possible I will try to keep things as natural as possible. It always sounds more vibey this way. Always. If the musician is capable of it, I want them to play the whole song through, and I want it to sound slightly different each time that part repeats (though always tight as hell). Anything else is cheating the end listener, but sadly that's the industry we're in, and we're forced down that road more often than not.

Most of the time I find myself constructing riffs from bits and pieces, and then just duplicating those riffs across to constitute a part, then just duplicating that entire part when it repeats later in the song. It's one of the most soul-sucking processes I go through, and afterward my enthusiasm for the project tends to wane considerably.

 

[lolzgreg]

Most of the time I find myself constructing riffs from bits and pieces, and then just duplicating those riffs across to constitute a part, then just duplicating that entire part when it repeats later in the song. It's one of the most soul-sucking processes I go through, and afterward my enthusiasm for the project tends to wane considerably.

The worst part of this is when the musician has horrible technique as well and you still can't get it to sound "right."

It ain't easy being an engineer. Every once and a while, we get graced by great musicians. Last full length I did, the guitarists did their entire songs in two takes each kickass:

 

[euga]

I like copying and pasting parts that are played exactly the same. It promotes consistency and saves time. If you have two of the same chorus/verse, why play it twice for that one particular track?

You do need to have the part played ONCE for each side of the mix (one for the left hand side, and one for the right hand). You have to double track rhythm guitars for them to really sound good.

interesting! i could copy/paste entire verses or chorus, time saving, consistent and not too artifact sound...

for the double track thing i always do that... i'm tryin' quad track but seems too modern for thrashing riffs

 

[Harry Hughes]

I only record my own stuff for now, but I always copy and paste entire verses and choruses. It just saves me time really. I don't think I'm a particularly poor guitar player, I do make an effort to track entire verses and choruses in on take, no matter how many bars it is, be it 16, or 32 or whatever. It's just about getting a consistency really.
I would dare say, given enough practice, I probably could quite easily pull off entire songs in one or two takes.
I mean, the technology is there, why not take advantage of it if it makes things easy? This isn't wrong and "cheating" people at all IMO, as long as the musician/musicians can actually pull it off live with a good deal of accuracy, why care? I certainly don't anyway, because I know the studio album/EP or whatever isn't the same environment as a live performance anyway.

 

[MEGA DAVE]

A rule of thumb for me has usually been to try to get the musician to play everything, no copy and paste, as it will sound more natural and down the road it will help the musician realize what it takes to get a good recording, and 9 times outta 10 when they come back the next time they will be that much better. Also, make sure you be a nazi about making them practice to a metronome when they're not in the studio! It may take more time the first time around, but they always seem to come back to book more recordings when they hear the end product of all their hard work, and they never feel cheated or bad about their playing, they just realize they need to do more work for next time around. And if you do wind up having to copy and paste, try to not let them know you did it, just get on them about about that metronome, or just leave them with the mistakes in their recording so that they realize it was their fault it came out the way they did and perhaps they will even ask you to copy and paste it, gotta play mind games with them