how perfect is too perfect? dealing with clients

[dcb]

hey guys,

when it comes to production, i need everything to be perfect.
if my name is on it, i just cant give away shit ;-)

but, here is what happens to me now and then :

guitarists tell me : "no one is gonna hear that (mistake), i won't redo that take." some guitarists even tell me "mistakes" make it sound more raw and more emotional and basically force me to leave it as it is... :Smug:

to me personally mistakes distract me from enjoying music.
i dont see anything "good" in this... i get kind of frustrated now and then and think about not putting my name on the project, if im not 100 % satisfied...

so the question is : how perfect is too perfect ?
or when do you stop editing / redoing takes ?

does the client decide ? or is it you as a producer ?

 

[Via Noctis]

One of my favorite solos to listen to has a mistake in it...

 

[Charles J]

i understand wanting to make stuff sound professional but, as is always said; 'the devil is in the details'.

me personally, im not very fond of ultra-perfect, robot-quantized everything. i like rawness and the COOL mistake here and there.

one of my fave. albums of all-time is GlassJaw - EYEWTKAS. That's a pretty raw fucking record but that what makes it a masterpiece and emotionally viable IMO.

 

[Moonlight_Seeker]

It depends on the mistake. But in metal mistakes are kinda sucky.

But I would ask this guitarist an example of an "emotional mistake" with another band. But frequently musicians will say that mistakes = emotions and stuff and I personally think it is because they suck but they still keep their self-confidence by saying such things while never getting better. Mistakes are human and modern metal recordings are not.

 

[Metaltastic]

I dunno, I certainly think you should try to get them to give the best take possible, but in the end I doubt anyone will hear shitty guitar playing and blame you as the producer, so I wouldn't lose sleep over it if you have to keep it!

 

["Evil" Aidy]

Hey!

While I wouldn't consider myself a professional at mixing or recording yet I do consider myself more than competent and writing songs and playing the guitar (without blowing my own trumpet too much ) and I've done the odd demo for some clients too (check one out here).

I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to takes and I think you can feel while tracking, as well as the player can feel when a take is good enough. I aim to meet in the middle and get a take that we're both happy with.

I had a few responses while tracking like, "I think that's as good as it's gonna get dude, I can't play it no more!" but I kept on pressing ahead with more takes until we got that "one".

I think there's got to be a bit of give and take from both sides, to successfully work together and get a product that not just they are happy with but one that you are happy with as well. At the end of the day, your name will be on it too!

So how perfect is too perfect? I dunno!

ps Thanks for your help in the other thread I posted in too.

 

[GarethSE]

It depends on the style of music. For really raw hardcore and stuff like that it works.
I like my avant-garde jazzy stuff full of slight mistakes though. I want to be able to hear everything that went into making that music, warts 'n all.
Because, as others have already said, mistakes are human, natural, REAL, and it's a shame it's become so unexcusable for musicians to be granted the right to make mistakes in modern metal.

 

[dcb]

thanks for your replies!

seems like you all dig some mistakes here and there ;-)

but on modern recordings ther is no space for ANY mistakes -
or is it just that i, the consumer, if i've never listened to the single tracks (other than the engineer/producer) , dont hear the mistakes because i focus on "the whole thing" ?

im no fan of autotuned vocals / artifically polished music - but still i think
a record should be treated like a painting : if you spot a mistake, you take out your eraser and correct it.

@Metaltastic - yeah - the question is :
is someone going to blame the producer for bad playing ?

i mean, isnt this something a great producer should do - make the band sound as great as possible ?

 

[Via Noctis]

This is an old reference, but listen to "the four horse men" by metallica in the first minute in one spot the guitar overdubs are off. I have had that album since I was in 6th grade I never once thought "the producer should have done a better job." But maybe it is that now days we don't need to splice tape to fix mistakes.

 

[Skyweaver]

if you play the song in one room while listening to it from another room or away from the speakers and it "stands" out then its definitely a mistake and needs to be fixed, if its not so obvious then the "human" part of it is cool - Zeppelin, Sabbath, first two Maiden albums had some real raw parts, and those albums are amazing

 

[kalony]

does the misstake fits the song? the band? the feeling? thats the decission u should make. its always a compromise between the musiccians and the producer. find your way with the music and their players.

if the misstake still hurts you, you should repair it at night when they are away, and show it the next day. thats the way i do it.

kalony

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

It takes a lot to let a mistake go, but in the end whenever I have it's been okay. Nobody hears it .

Depends on the band as well, I don't think I could let as much shit slide with a label project.

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

my rule of thumb is that if I don't think I would hear it on a modern commercial release, it doesn't slide in my studio. period.

 

[Suicide_As_Alibi]

Go stick on 'Replica' by Fear Factory, and listen for the gnarly false triggering action going on with the snare (1:07, 1:23, 2:21). That's a band whose entire reputation was/is based on their robotic precision and completely locked in guitars and drums, and who used modern techniques and sounds (as opposed to older, blues-based metal bands recording to tape).

That really goes down as a producer/engineers mistake, but it hasn't stopped a lot of people loving the fuck out of that album. It's amazing how many modern albums I listen to that sound fine normally, but the moment I put headphones on I can hear punch-ins on the rhythm guitars or something like that.

DCB - I think you're right; music is an art form, and so a song should be treated like a painting. The thing is, some of the most incredible paintings in the world have awkward brush strokes and badly mixed oils - but unless you go looking for them you don't see them. Look at the fine details for sure, but to really get the work you have to appreciate the whole canvas; not each individual brush stroke but the way they all work together. Same goes for music - you have to be able to appreciate the song, not the notes that make it up.

Steve

 

[dcb]

guys, its really cool to hear your opinions on this !
nice talking to people like you and sharing thoughts !


@ Steve : whattt ? replica was (back then) one of my favorites and i never ever heard these false triggered snares

but that was way before i started producing bands... i think i didnt even know what a trigger was back then...

"It's amazing how many modern albums I listen to that sound fine normally, but the moment I put headphones on I can hear punch-ins on the rhythm guitars or something like that."

doesnt that somehow distract you from enjoying that particular song / album and maybe think : they did a punch in there and there...?
i (as a listener) tend to think : someone is sitting in front of a computer trying to "emulate" an atmosphere - while i (again as a listener) want an illusion and be taken to wonderland.

@kalony :does the misstake fits the song? the band? the feeling?

maybe that is the problem : i'm basically talking about producing other bands , not mine. so most of the times - i will wait until the vocals are there,
till i have the whole image in front of me.

i feel, people spot the mistakes in a vocal performance before everything else.

if i know the guitar player wont give me a better take i will ask the guitar player : is you singer gonna sing there ? if yes >> move along >> hope for the singer to be the "star" of the track, blinding the listener and hiding alllll mistakes , hehe

(and most of the times, the first 2 takes are their best ones, because later, they will force themselves to play more accurate - while they loose all their feel and it gets sloppier and sloppier...)


maybe i could post an example of a band im working with, where i cant really decide if i should edit the shit out of it or leave it as it is?
and maybe you could tell me : is it ok for you (as a listener) and if you would blame me (the producer) ?

 

[gabriel g.]

Me too man, me too.

BUT

When I record bands I stop at one point editing the shit.
When the guitar player cant play his riffs, I tighten it up, but not 100%.

It has to be balanced with the bands performance.





and also its a time and MONEY question.

But when something sound like shit, I would never let the band go with it
Mistakes sound like mistakes...

 

[Suicide_As_Alibi]

i (as a listener) tend to think : someone is sitting in front of a computer trying to "emulate" an atmosphere - while i (again as a listener) want an illusion and be taken to wonderland.

I think that's the whole thing - I think a lot of engineers have trouble switching off their engineering brain and just being a listener.

If I play a track to my friends, they would never notice punch-ins or dodgy fades or whatever because they don't know the technicalities behind it. You have to listen like that.

It's like watching a magic show - once you know how the tricks are done it can lose it's appeal. You have to learn how to enjoy the performance.

How clinical your own work is is up to you, but when you start applying the same mindset to other people's work you start to suck all the fun out of music. Just remember that live people fuck up constantly

Steve

 

[Torniojaws]

I don't mind mistakes, they bring life to otherwise lifeless (modern) productions. Same goes for vocals: if you can't hear the vocalist breathe, it sounds like robot and you feel awkward. Same goes for taking tens of retakes with guitars - yes, it may technically be perfectly in time, but you (the player) damn hell won't have any enthusiasm in the take like you have on the first couple of takes. That leads to more lifelessness that modern productions often have.

 

[::XeS::]

Yeah there are false triggerings in Replica At 2:21 they are pretty noticeable

 

[kalony]

hehe, nice 1. was listening to the song on utube.

but those misstakes are made by the producer or engeener. this is nothing bout musicality or feeling. i would repair that stuff without asking the band, because it was me who triggered wrong.

but dont we talk about misstakes the musicians made? thats a diffrent thing imo.

kalony