So you want a tight mix?

[jval]

Just curious, when you are punching guitars like this, are you literally having them just play the note in question in the punch section or are they still playing the piece before and after? If you are just playing that one note to get it perfect, how are you doing your crossfades? Also, do you batchfade this sort of stuff using Beat Detective or are you doing it all by hand?

Semi-related question about punching in in ProTools in general, are you toggling your preroll/postroll on and off a lot? I honestly hate setting a preroll when I have highlighted a section to punch in, is there a way to set it up so I can highlight a section to punch, and just manually click where I want to start playing from without losing the selection so it'll still auto punch there? Or a quick keycommand way to toggle the preroll on and off? What's your actual workflow as far as setup and key commands are concerned for doing this sort of meticulous punching? Are you recording the part, then punching over it, or just building it a few notes at a time one phrase after the other?

Hey dude, first off forget pre roll!! Put it in Quick punch mode... play it from where ever you want and just hit record to punch in and out.

It's hard to really explain the process in writing because the approach really varies part by part. I'll get the player to play through the whole part so I can identify where the problems are, where we need to split things up. if they are awful and have bad technique, that might mean every one or two beats! But assuming they are at least average players. Let's say you have a 2 bar riff, all 8th notes. He is skipping over the 3rd note because he has to slide his hand up from fret 2 to fret 8. So I get him to just play the first 3 notes, letting the last note ring, and then we punch in the next few notes etc. And then he's always early on the start of bar 2, so I get him to ring out the last note of bar 1, and then give me the first note of bar 2 so I can move it where it needs to be. I am not going for robotic, just tight... so I only split things up as much as needed, it's not like I am recording one note at a time no matter what. You gotta use your ears and be creative about how to make it sound the way you want.

I do all the fades by hand as we're tracking. Usually really short ones, <5ms. After we finish a song I have to go through and double check them all cause I usually screw up a few of them, or forget one... and sometimes you have to move the fade around a bit for it to sound right.
That's just one example, but I hope that helps.

 

[jval]

You are missing his point entirely... He is talking about everyone saying "Oh I need this new Waves Compressor to get my drums to sound punchy! And I need that new Sonnox EQ to get that bite in the attack of my guitar tracks!"

No you don't, you need the source tracks to sound like that in the first place. If that means you have to splice together a million source tracks that's fine, but people are constantly looking for ITB magic to make their shittily played, shittily recorded raw tracks sound like a Sneap production. It doesn't work that way. If you gave Sneap sloppy raw tracks and told him he wasn't allowed to edit anything, his mix would sound like shit because you can't polish a turd with plugins. Editing the raw tracks is a different ballgame then what jval is talking about when he says software...

yes exactly!!

 

[Force666]

You are missing his point entirely... He is talking about everyone saying "Oh I need this new Waves Compressor to get my drums to sound punchy! And I need that new Sonnox EQ to get that bite in the attack of my guitar tracks!"

No you don't, you need the source tracks to sound like that in the first place. If that means you have to splice together a million source tracks that's fine, but people are constantly looking for ITB magic to make their shittily played, shittily recorded raw tracks sound like a Sneap production. It doesn't work that way. If you gave Sneap sloppy raw tracks and told him he wasn't allowed to edit anything, his mix would sound like shit because you can't polish a turd with plugins. Editing the raw tracks is a different ballgame then what jval is talking about when he says software...

Just bein a smartass dude. I get the point.

I also don't believe *Andy* would ever work on something that needed that much editing. Granted, he can pick and choose and not everyone can.

 

[AdamWathan]

Hey dude, first off forget pre roll!! Put it in Quick punch mode... play it from where ever you want and just hit record to punch in and out.

It's hard to really explain the process in writing because the approach really varies part by part. I'll get the player to play through the whole part so I can identify where the problems are, where we need to split things up. if they are awful and have bad technique, that might mean every one or two beats! But assuming they are at least average players. Let's say you have a 2 bar riff, all 8th notes. He is skipping over the 3rd note because he has to slide his hand up from fret 2 to fret 8. So I get him to just play the first 3 notes, letting the last note ring, and then we punch in the next few notes etc. And then he's always early on the start of bar 2, so I get him to ring out the last note of bar 1, and then give me the first note of bar 2 so I can move it where it needs to be. I am not going for robotic, just tight... so I only split things up as much as needed, it's not like I am recording one note at a time no matter what. You gotta use your ears and be creative about how to make it sound the way you want.

I do all the fades by hand as we're tracking. Usually really short ones, <5ms. After we finish a song I have to go through and double check them all cause I usually screw up a few of them, or forget one... and sometimes you have to move the fade around a bit for it to sound right.
That's just one example, but I hope that helps.

Cheers this is really helpful thanks man! The only question still remaining is if you are doing like you say and letting a note ring out, then punching in the first note of the next bar, how are you crossfading before that note if the player isn't playing the last note of the previous bar AGAIN before the first note of the next bar? Don't you need some sort of sound to crossfade with before the transient of the first note being punched in?

I know Colin has talked to me about just making sure there is data there by like, counting in on totally muted strings with your pick so you have SOMETHING to crossfade, otherwise you are basically just fading the previous note out to silence before the next note comes in right...?

Hopefully I am being clear... I just figure you can't possibly be having them play the previous note as well, because if they could play those two notes in a row without a problem you wouldn't need to punch right... I dunno, I feel like I might be overthinking but I HAVE had that problem in my limited experience trying to be this meticulous with my punching. You need some data BEFORE the first note you are punching to crossfade otherwise you are crossfading with silence so I'm just curious as to what you are doing to avoid that, I haven't really been able to come up with a method that I am totally happy with. Cheers dude and thanks so much for the help, always excited to read your posts.

 

[joeymusicguy]

the sound of the pick strumming the strings can be any where from 10 - 30 ms
sometimes you need a crossfade in front of the grid line when you're punching in two seperate guitar pieces that arent meant to be played consecutively

 

[AdamWathan]

Yeah but you don't want to crossfade over the transient and if you are crossfading before the grid line (which you obviously should always be doing), then you are crossfading with silence unless the guitarist is making some sort of noise before he hits the note, so what are you guys getting them to do in order to have audio to use in the crossfade before the transient of the note you are punching?

 

[XnaySaturo]

I get how this works / needs to be done with what you guys do with less than exceptional players and all. It's also very linked with the musical genre (hardcore/metalcore/-core, however you want to call it, personally I don't like it very much, and it's also much more than 50% of everything we hear on this forum).

I like hearing people play. I like hearing people play the same stuff that they play live. While I understand the marketing point of vue, it still doesn't legitimize bands that have to rely on this much editing. But yeah, like people said, if that's what you have to do as a mixer/engineer, you gotta you what you gotta do, but I call that "dealing with shitty bands" and not "tips for mixing".

I'm still new at this, but if I'm going to aspire to anything, I want it to be portraying a musical "journey" with a distinct vibe, and not just notes. Listen to the new Woods of Ypres album. I'm sure the mixing isn't perfect, but the vibe is.

 

[AdamWathan]

You aren't editing to make it sound like it's programmed or like it's being played by a machine though. The point of editing it is to make it sound like James Hetfield from 1989 played your rhythm tracks. It's 2009, kids suck at their instruments these days. You have to edit it to get it to sound good, not to make it sound unnatural. You want it to sound like it's NOT edited, just played perfectly to begin with.

 

[Philchef]

For me (!) its the wrong way to start recording with the goal to just use those takes which are perfect... or those which you'll make perfect. Sometimes i track guitars and within some takes i miss a note... fuckup a note, got some noises, played a wrong chord or stuff like that. I listen to those takes and sometimes it's cool... for me thats something like "destiny"... for me music is something like a holy way to express my soul... and if my fingers did something which wasn't my direct intention and it doesn't suck: just fine!
maybe u unterstand...
Usually i do takes and use them when i got that "yeah fuck yeah"-groove feeling... afterwards i analyze those takes by an optical check and correct some tiny things (push the first note to optical perfection or stuff like that)...

I checked the example band for this thread....
bands like that are the main reason why i basically don't like the most metalstuff today.... the most stuff is just soulless garbage... it's not ART... it's technique...

 

[XnaySaturo]

^ One of the points I was trying to bring up too is that it's not metal.

 

[jval]

Adam, i understand what you are asking but that's why you let the previous note ring out, so that you don't have empty space in between. If you check out where your DI transient is, on the amp track you'll always have 20ms or so of noise or the initial pick attack before the transient hits. I usually have like a 5ms fade with the end of the fade being right where the transient starts. hope that makes sense.
sometimes you have to move the fade back a little bit to reveal more pick noise before the transient if it's sounding fake.

 

[Nitsuj]

Im totally serious, it sounds just as edited as usual bands. But not re-tuned after every 3 notes etc

even you can't hear the difference, why can't these ppl in the studio learn their parts properly and nail the sonofabitch instead of punching 3 notes every now and then? We're not talking about Necrophagist difficulty here are we

Why do they even enter the studio when they are not ready?

 

[Demonstealer]

That explains Trivium.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

To be honest we got it to tight you can barley tell its quad tracked even when its stacked down the middle.

Yeah I fucking hate this

 

[AdamWathan]

Adam, i understand what you are asking but that's why you let the previous note ring out, so that you don't have empty space in between. If you check out where your DI transient is, on the amp track you'll always have 20ms or so of noise or the initial pick attack before the transient hits. I usually have like a 5ms fade with the end of the fade being right where the transient starts. hope that makes sense.
sometimes you have to move the fade back a little bit to reveal more pick noise before the transient if it's sounding fake.

Cheers, glad it's actually that simple haha... Thanks man.

 

[joeymusicguy]

even you can't hear the difference, why can't these ppl in the studio learn their parts properly and nail the sonofabitch instead of punching 3 notes every now and then? We're not talking about Necrophagist difficulty here are we

Why do they even enter the studio when they are not ready?

sometimes it is mechanically impossible to perform a part the way i want it to sound, without the use of a computer

please keep in mind that i am talking about quality sounding riffs. like playing a bar chord on the 8th fret, then letting go of all the strings and strumming will produce a sharp open in drop tuning for most players

or playing the first fret on any string is always sharp

"i dont want to hear sharp open, this band doesnt play in drop c + 10 cents
they play in drop c"

or when switching from a 12+ octave to a first fret octave chord, you're always going to get a fuck up

are you getting the point yet?

and i think the mythbusters proved that the fastest anyone can close their hand is 40 something milliseconds, im sure this translates to other hand movements, not to mention moving a chord position or your whole arm from high to low or vise versa

in some riffs, these timing issues are unwanted! in other cases (like the rolling stones) all of this garbage is musical

with fear factory, its garbage

so yeah, sometimes we're putting butter on toast and making shitty players sound the best they'll ever sound before they can actually even produce that sound on their own

and yeah, sometimes we're making a riff that has a few imperfections sound a little bit more polished

but mostly, we're just making records

 

[joeymusicguy]

also, i'd like to mention that if i had the ability to forget how to edit things to make them sound better, i probably would

in this alternate life, i would just record bands exactley as they sounded

i cannot say what conclusion that would bring, but it would be interesting to discover

the closest i can get you, from my work, is plagues by prada. we recorded most of it live, and there was no click.

 

[cloy26]

Joey, how bad are some of the bands you've done? I seriously can't imagine a band getting anywhere who is really *that* bad of musicians... I mean, Miss May I, for instance, doesn't have that crazy of guitar work on it... I can't imagine them not really being able to play those parts at least decently.

 

[AdamWathan]

Curiousity just another question jval (sorry )... Is there any reason why the second guitar track was duplicated from the first aside from just being quicker to copy over i/o settings and stuff? I know you can't duplicated a track and pan it, we all know that but it just brought to mind a couple other copy/paste related questions. I know you spend forever tracking guitars, do you actually track through the whole song, like if a riff repeats you will record it again piece by piece even if the shitty player took 2 hours to record that riff the first time, or are you doing a lot of copying and pasting of completed sections? Also, are you copying and pasting from Gtr 1 to Gtr 2 using different takes to save time?

 

[AdamWathan]

Joey, how bad are some of the bands you've done? I seriously can't imagine a band getting anywhere who is really *that* bad of musicians... I mean, Miss May I, for instance, doesn't have that crazy of guitar work on it... I can't imagine them not really being able to play those parts at least decently.

I think a lot of people don't realize how big of a difference there is between being able to play something, and being able to play something well and with confidence and the right playing technique so it really sounds GOOD.

I'm sure 95% of these bands can play all the notes in the riffs and play them reasonably in time. The problem is the subtleties that really pile up, like not picking aggressively enough or fretting notes slightly sharp, etc. These are all the kids that tried to learn how to play "Stabwound" by Necrophagist before they learned "For Whom The Bell Tolls". Kids who never developed that solid rhythmic foundation to base the rest of their guitar playing off of. I started playing guitar when I was 7 years old, but never really got into anything technical until I was like, 15 or 16, so I spent 8-9 years just playing Green Day and Metallica riffs and I think that's the reason why my rhythm playing is what it is because I never jumped the gun and tried to learn a Petrucci solo after 6 months of guitar playing before I even knew how to palm mute properly.

Anyways that's sort of a tangent, but like I said my point is just that playing all of the right notes and playing them in time can still sound like shit compared to playing it well. Soooo many guitar players pick like girls