Guitar editing

[NSGUITAR]

Hey guys.


I'm aware that there are a couple threads regarding guitar editing... But the two I found were either from 2007, or had little to no replying..


So.. Simple question.. What do you guys do to edit your guitar tracks?


I've acquired a technique that I REALLY enjoy, but I just want to know what else is out there, for different situations.. I used to just slip edit everything.


BUT... All I do now is tab to transient!!

Tab--->Cut--->Move---->Crossfade

However, sometimes I've noticed small artifacts showing up that don't belong, which means I'm sometimes forced to cut things out and time stretch a little...

BUT, the perk of it is that it's pretty much perfect, as far as accuracy..

What about you dudes?

 

[Brandon E.]

Slip edit "somewhere in the ball park of the grid" if its too far off. Time stretch if its beyond slipping. When you say tab to transient does that mean it is automatically moving your audio around or just making the cuts for you to move/slip yourself?

 

[midget donkeys]

Very interesting. So what you doing is pretty much like Adam's reaper drum quantizing tutorial? Are you doing it in reaper?

Would you please post some DI tracks in the before this process and after this process state?

I would enjoy inspecting the tracks very much.

 

[AdamWathan]

Slip editing and you have to really listen to each edit, the artifacts are a lot more noticeable than with drums. Bass is a million times worse, I have to make every edit at the zero crossing of a complete wave cycle.

 

[midget donkeys]

Hey Nsguitar I just looked at your myspace page. I did not realize you were from Muskegon. That is were my wife is from. Her folks live over near the old paper mill.

Small world.

 

[Brandon E.]

Agreed, gotta be very meticulous about where your cuts and slips are to keep it sounding natural. Would never let the computer do it for me on guitars or bass

 

[greyskull]

Mine mostly consists of saying "do it again" until the guitarist looks like he's about to cry.

But other than that, just chopping, sliding and crossfading.

 

[jangoux]

Mine mostly consists of saying "do it again" until the guitarist looks like he's about to cry.

ahahhaha good one

 

[The-Zeronaut]

i use Tab to transient, time stretch and slip editing.

Slip editing and you have to really listen to each edit, the artifacts are a lot more noticeable than with drums. Bass is a million times worse, I have to make every edit at the zero crossing of a complete wave cycle.

Would you care to explain this better? an example ( or a little video ) would be AWESOME.

 

[006]

Yup, what Adam said. Slip edit, but you have to constantly listen back, moreso than with drums.

 

[PlugSlut]

What is the drawback with stretch edit? With algorithms like elastique, which I believe is included in both Nuendo and Pro Tools, I would think that it is easy to handle, and at the same time sounds good.

Thanks
PlugSlut

 

[Lasse Lammert]

why does everyone think everyting needs to be edited?
I know Andy doesn't usually edit bass and guits.
I know it might be helping for that borecore sound, but for everything else?
I feel like sometimes people here are editing "just because", why not just reamp and start mixing and then IF there's a note or two in a song that sound way off edit that note?
isn't anyone working with their ears anymore?

 

[greyskull]

why does everyone think everyting needs to be edited?
I know Andy doesn't usually edit bass and guits.
I know it might be helping for that borecore sound, but for everything else?
I feel like sometimes people here are editing "just because", why not just reamp and start mixing and then IF there's a note or two in a song that sound way off edit that note?
isn't anyone working with their ears anymore?

Agreed, but to be fair I don't think that everyone gets to work with the same quality of musicians! But yeah, some people do like to edit every single note....
I was like that once, then realised it sounds better if you get a decent performance, and spend longer on the mix.

 

[AdamWathan]

why does everyone think everyting needs to be edited?
I know Andy doesn't usually edit bass and guits.
I know it might be helping for that borecore sound, but for everything else?
I feel like sometimes people here are editing "just because", why not just reamp and start mixing and then IF there's a note or two in a song that sound way off edit that note?
isn't anyone working with their ears anymore?

Definitely agree with you... Some people literally just CANNOT play though. It's like the first time they ever picked up a guitar was the day they enter your studio and they are recording Necrophagist covers. The amount of recordings that I have replayed all of the guitar and/or bass myself is pretty astonishing. I would rather do that than edit though, sounds better and is faster.

 

[The-Zeronaut]

I don't edit unless its needed but by today´s engineering standards you pretty have to edit everything so it sounds "perfect"
and i have never had the pleasure of recording someone that didn't need to be edited to hell and back

 

[ForHerDeadEyes]

I never really edited my guitartracks before (before I discovered this forum)..
But seriously, I've always recorded about 10 playthroughs of the song.. then anything between 5 - 20 - 30 takes of intro, vers, etc..
Then I, almost always, remove the first 2 recorded tracks and look for the good takes and if something sounds bad or off-beat.. I check for a replacement in the other tracks/takes..

I've either tritracked or quadtracked..
But I'd never slipedited or timestretched.. though I can definetly see the pros of slipediting now..
Timestretch is the absolute last resort..

If you want it to sound perfect as fuck, quadtracked, then edit it..
But if you're only doing dualtracking, I'd say record some more takes and keep the life.. (unless it's not your own tracks and the guitarist is shit..)
The most transparent editing is of course slipediting, IMO..
When you use tab-to-transient, you lose the pre-transient-stuff.. right?

 

[guitarguru777]

why does everyone think everyting needs to be edited?
I know Andy doesn't usually edit bass and guits.
I know it might be helping for that borecore sound, but for everything else?
I feel like sometimes people here are editing "just because", why not just reamp and start mixing and then IF there's a note or two in a song that sound way off edit that note?
isn't anyone working with their ears anymore?

+100000000000000000000000 (DKP)

Im getting to the point where I am letting less and less editing touch my projects. Its becoming MUCH more organic. The way metal used to be.

Honestly its all about the musicians. If the musicians suck then editing the fuck out of them and making everything sound perfect you are giving the band false hopes thats THAT IS what they sound like. I prefer to the le bands natural talent or suckage shine though, so when they go and listen back and go...

Band: Why does it sound like that?
Me: Cause thats how you played it
Band: But it sounds like shit!
Me: Then do it again and play it better

Usually they end up realizing they need some practice and then they ask me to show then proper technique and what not. So then they learn and the world is better for it.

We tracked guitars for the last project I did 4 times until we were finally happy with the results.

Downfall: Takes more time
Advantage: Band learns to trust you and your ear and tells their friends you are genius. then more bands show up to your studio.

 

[Uros]

^^I totally support that approach, but you could put this under the downfalls too: you tell them they suck at playing, they go to some other engineer. He makes them sound tight as computer, and then they say to him: "see, that guy Jason sucks, you are our new god"
Just sayin'. FWIW, I guess I've been lucky enough, because I haven't had a reason for note-per-note-then slip edit it-recording or for this kind of editing yet.

 

[Mago]

I only edit gaps/silences on breaky stuff. For everything else there's

Mine mostly consists of saying "do it again" until the guitarist looks like he's about to cry.

If it HAS to be, because I missed something during recording, or if it's really not a lot, then cut, slide and crossfade. There shouldn't be as much need to edit to use slip editing imo

but by today´s engineering standards you pretty have to edit everything so it sounds "perfect"

I call BS on that one, as long as the player is able to play. You can get away with stuff more off on guitar then on drums, compared to how it LOOKS in the DAW.

The Über-edited to grid stuff sounds like horse-shit to me. It sounds way tighter if you leave the attack on and if it's just played tight.
Sometimes I even just dont edit at all (apart from different takes) and just slap a Gate on there for the breaky stuff. Also works, if you know how to play guitar...but maybe I'm just more experienced with
recording then most musicians

 

[Clockwork]

Tight playing > heavily edited parts. Better to spend the time practicing then editing. Although when it comes down to recording other bands it seems they would rather someone else spend the time making them sound good than themselves.