Gridless :GASP:

i refuse to hit record unless a click or grid is used and i wont change that. i have tried the record and edit later and have never been happy with it that way...if the drummer cant play to a click i will record scratch guitars to the grid and then let the drummer track this has been my way around getting drummers to play with a click that havent been familiar with it....

Have you ever tried like, not editing?

Really I'm starting to wonder. Is this current trend for horridly quantized metal a result of bands or just engineers that can't stand to let the music speak on its own merits...? Whichever it is, there's a line I'd rather not cross.
 
I turned off the click and ignored the grid on a track my mate and I did recently. I thought it was the 'proper' way to do things, with a click and such, but tight is tight. It's natural for us to just jam, so thats what we did. Only recorded midi, though if it was acoustic I would've done the same, kept making him play it until everything was perfect. Which would be once through maybe some dubs?

From an artistic approach its beautiful. Label heads may disagree, and thats where production tends to compromise with artistic integrity, and the money side of the product at hand. It'll always be a balance. Musicians want to just do their thing, labels want a stellar product to market, producers get caught in the middle, and still want to eat :)
 
I'm thinking on doing this for this one project. Ill let you guys know the pitfalls and heart aches I run into. But yea I'm going to do very little if no editing at all on this one. It will probably be a sloppy mess we will see. Then all of you can laugh and point and say I told you so....
 
Listen...recording to a click doesn't make it sound any less natural or anything. It doesn't take away a band's "sound." It doesn't take away the feel. It doesn't take anything away. All it does is make you play in time. That's it. If they think it does anything else, they are fucking morons that don't know shit. If they have a problem with it, they are fucking morons that don't know shit.

Simple.

~006

Minus the moron and shit stuff, i agree with this.

I'll give a example, who thinks that Scar Symmetry's "Holographic Universe" could have been that much better if they did not record that to a clicktrack/grid?
 
Well Scar Symmetry maybe isn't the best example Bob, since melodeath (especially sci-fi influenced) needs that incredible tightness. But even so, the raw production that I always come back to whenever anyone accuses me of only liking overproduced stuff is Primordial's "To the Nameless Dead," and fuck if I can tell if that was recorded to a click (and I doubt my opinion on its "rawness" would change if I knew one way or the other)
 
i've tracked a couple groups with no click/grid for basic live demo shit - you know, i just showed up, mic'ed the kit and the amps, hit record, and let them do their shit

any band that's worth their weight in shit should be able to pass off a usable performance without a click track
 
i've tracked a couple of bands with out a click. and it sounds just fine. seriously the hardcore band i think your dealing with is SUPER tight on their own. just make sure while tracking that the drummer and guitarist are in the same room
so that they can feed off the ques and shit. and just try to get em to play it as tight as possible
 
Have you ever tried like, not editing?

Really I'm starting to wonder. Is this current trend for horridly quantized metal a result of bands or just engineers that can't stand to let the music speak on its own merits...? Whichever it is, there's a line I'd rather not cross.

.. i wont put out work im not satisfied with this is my profession..... off timing is off timing at 200+bpm a ms or 3 is still off ... i care to much to let it go so i can keep putting food on my table.... its not supposed to be that way, if they cant play it they way they wrote it after they leave here sorry, but i did my job while they were here and got the part to come out right....which is what they paid me for in the first place to take there recordings to another level...
 
Whereas I am aware of the possibility of a shitty performance reflecting badly on the studio I generally believe that most listeners are simply incapable of hearing it. Frankly if a band is so goddamn sloppy that they just can't play tight, with or without a click, then they are destined to be permanently overlooked by anyone remotely important anyway. We've recorded bands so unbelievably useless I just cringed throughout the entire session but as soon as their abortion of a track goes on Myspace they still get the usual legion of teenage kids with their endless barrage of mindless "Yeah man traks sic!!!!!".

We'll do our best on the mix. Everything else is the bands own fault.
 
...if the genre calls for it ..fine, if the band request it ...fine, but i don't agree with the "click period!!" bullshit
 
Whereas I am aware of the possibility of a shitty performance reflecting badly on the studio I generally believe that most listeners are simply incapable of hearing it. Frankly if a band is so goddamn sloppy that they just can't play tight, with or without a click, then they are destined to be permanently overlooked by anyone remotely important anyway. We've recorded bands so unbelievably useless I just cringed throughout the entire session but as soon as their abortion of a track goes on Myspace they still get the usual legion of teenage kids with their endless barrage of mindless "Yeah man traks sic!!!!!".

We'll do our best on the mix. Everything else is the bands own fault.

Nice said... also, if one can't play with the click or isn't used to it (but is a tight drummer) if you force it, maybe he'll be playing giving more attention to the click than to the song itself. Great records where made without a click, and some are classic until today. Natural selection erases by itself sloppy and shitty musicians/bands/records...
I've recently recorded my band's drummer for our first demo... without a click. And his performance was very natural, and tight. It's all about the musician skills...
 
Nope. Sorry can't do it. I'm with 740 here, it's click or I'm not working on it.

You guys don't do edits? Must like dirty tracks with punch-ins that are obvious? How about amp noise in between parts? Recording a heavy band with high-gain and they have a lot of stop-start riffs...guess you'll just let those go because, fuck editing and producing something...? What about when you do about 10 takes of a part and the drummer finally nails everything BUT two hits on the fill at the very end and there's no way he can nail it again? Just...fuck it? Wow...

When it comes to the sound, I don't know about you guys but I want my projects to have a professional sound. Which includes having tight tracks. The mix obviously is a big part of how you get more work, but if I was looking for a place to record and track after track that I can check out for examples of the guy's work there were timing mistakes...I wouldn't book with him. That tells me he doesn't care about the client. Regardless of the mixing quality, I would want an engineer to stop me if there is a part that is off, or him take it upon himself to edit it to be correct, if possible without any negative side-effects. But I guess you can call me crazy... Again, using a click doesn't affect how the songs sound, if you think otherwise you need to get off your high horse. If it sounds good without one, it'll sound that much better with one. Something that is off stands out because it's off. It will stick out like a sore thumb. It is unpleasant to hear stuff that is off. Sounds unprofessional to boot.

Say what you want, but let's just leave it at: you do it how you want, I'll do it how I want. Only, the projects I do will sound a lot tighter :p

~006
 
I can see where PhilR is coming from, that with untight bands who REALLY can't play to a click, its going to take an absolute age to fix everything to be in time and when the clock is against you its even tougher.

that said I really don't want anything coming out of my place to not be the absolute best I can make it - the last band I was recording I was working from 9-6 with the band, and then I was basically staying on after the sessions to 2 a.m. doing edits etc. granted for better bands I don't have to spend as long on it but at the end of the day I'd rather work more unpaid hours and get the product so I'm happy with it. I'll tell the bands my opinion on the songs and if there is things that I don't like, I'll tell them and sometimes we'll change the songs around, sometimes not. if when recording the band, it takes longer than expected ill tell them that they'll need to book in a few more days to get everything done - normally they are happy to do that to ensure the product is as good as possible. that said, its actually quite rare as I tend to get everything done in the allocated time.

If someone comes to me, I want them to know that I'm putting all my effort into making the product as good as possible - if they don't want my opinion on things they can do it themselves/go somewhere else. I don't mean to come across as a pushy person - I only tell them my opinion and they don't have to change anything if they don't want to. 90% of bands love to hear an outsiders opinion and are always looking to improve their songs so its normally welcomed by them.

The only times I won't work to a click is when the band is adament that they don't want to (if they are going for a particular sound).

anyway - I think its good that everyone has their own opinion on the subject so that we actually offer something different to people and have a bit of variety in recordings.
 
There is a big difference between playing to a click, and automatically snapping everything to a grid.
 
I'm not saying you shoudn't edit or not produce anything. If there's noise, unless you're trying to deliver some serious garbage, you should remove it. if the drummer makes one little mistake, you fix it. But I think that even if you track a sloppy player with a click IT WILL NOT sound as good as a tight player... with or without a click. So... send the fuckers home to practice :Puke:
 
i think the reason that they don't wana play to a click. its not like they can't keep in time its proably cause they have way to many tempo changes alot of hardcore bands do that. they have a slow down or speed up parts or diffrent feels and its really really hard to set a click track to it. so its not like they are a bad band. seriously so all of you fucking negative nancies try to look at it from another perspective instead of "IF THEY CAN'T PLAY TO A CLICK THEY SUCK" its pretty lame tbh. i always try to get the band to play to a click but if they can't then you deal with it, you can't turn away bands cause they can't record to a click you just say fuck it, and you try your best to make them on time as possible thats what producing or enginering or whatever is really about
 
If a band who is paying me does not wanna play to a click track....then ITS NO CLICK TRACK....they are the boss, they are paying me. I understand that you guys feel that it's your studios rep. but also keep in mind thousands of songs were recorded without a click track and yes there may be a little timing issues, but the end listener most of the time do not care. now if the drummer has really horrible timing, then it's the drummers fault for not caring enough about his craft to try and perfect it....and it's the rest of the members fault for first accepting a drummer who sucks, and second for going into a studio and paying money when they are not ready. to this day i can never understand bands rush to get into a studio and record shit. but it's not my job to make a practice. my job as an engineer is to capture his performance to the best i can. It the job of a producer and/or rest of the band members to pay an engineer extra to edit a shit drummer, and to get on that drummers ass to do and get better.