the pro tools back lash

I can't believe dudes would show up to even a small-time studio unrehearsed. I know what a good producer can do with ProTools but damn... A couple years ago my band went to a 2 man studio with about a $15000 setup in some guys spare bedroom. We practiced 2 days a week for 3-4 hours a day when we were just writing and gigging and double that prior to hitting the studio. We still felt unprepared. Our drummer quit on the second day. Turns out playing to a click track was an insurmountable obstacle. Maybe I'm old school?

FWIW - The dude whose studio we were at was doing the whole thing for free too.
 
Deaf Ear said:
Story of my life as well. However, on occasion, I've gone through and tightened up everything, only to realize that only the bridge needed it, and the rest was ruining the song. Goes both ways I guess, but usually the way you stated.
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..you don't wanna know how classical gets done, and Im talking about everybody, especially the big names..

Funny thing is, they want you to edit everything together, they count on it, so they can play it bit by bit.

That's a main reason software like Pyramix and Sequoia are popular, they are fast when it comes to making lots of crossfades.

I'm used to this too, but don't get why bands don't see the benefits in editing (since they can do it themselves nowadays). Canned Music is made to be consumed repeatedly, so faults will stand out after a couple of listens.

MetallyGuitarded said:
Our drummer quit on the second day. Turns out playing to a click track was an insurmountable obstacle. Maybe I'm old school?
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Record a couple of drumbars, loop them and feed it to him during recording the takes. Drummers who hate metronomes can sometimes live by their own grooves. If they can't play with themselves, they just cant keep tempo..
 
Mulder said:
Canned Music is made to be consumed repeatedly, so faults will stand out after a couple of listens.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I get what you mean, but I think it's just us. Go find an old album that you grew up just loving the hell out of. Listen to it NOW, with engineer's ears. Look for flaws. Listen like you're recording them. I'm amazing at how many fuck ups I hear on older records that I NEVER noticed until I started being such an anal listener from recording. You can get away with a LOT to the average listener.
 
Deaf Ear said:
Yeah, I get what you mean, but I think it's just us. Go find an old album that you grew up just loving the hell out of. Listen to it NOW, with engineer's ears. Look for flaws. Listen like you're recording them. I'm amazing at how many fuck ups I hear on older records that I NEVER noticed until I started being such an anal listener from recording. You can get away with a LOT to the average listener.
Click to expand...

I know, but it made me wonder why Trevor Horn and his amazing quantizing Fairlight concured the world, and after that House and Techno. People like tight stuff.

a Couple of years later people learned that old records could 'groove'. Wow! So we sampled grooves, but only 2 or 4 bars, so old music would become steady as hell.

For a period of time this studentdrummer I heard of studied all day just the same 4 beat, with an electronic metronome and a footswitch. He switched the metronome off during playing, switched it back on after a few bars. He kept on doin this until he was in sync. He wanted to be a sessionplayer and I believe he made it. :)

Anyway, once the people who like to listen to music know the difference they can feel important if they notice it, and then you're fucked. They WILL search for it and they will dominate you during family holiday dinners.
 
Mulder said:
For a period of time this studentdrummer I heard of studied all day just the same 4 beat, with an electronic metronome and a footswitch. He switched the metronome off during playing, switched it back on after a few bars. He kept on doin this until he was in sync. He wanted to be a sessionplayer and I believe he made it. :)
Click to expand...

I do that, and I'm not a bloody drummer... yet... hmm...

Jeff
 
Mulder said:
I know, but it made me wonder why Trevor Horn and his amazing quantizing Fairlight concured the world, and after that House and Techno. People like tight stuff.

a Couple of years later people learned that old records could 'groove'. Wow! So we sampled grooves, but only 2 or 4 bars, so old music would become steady as hell.

For a period of time this studentdrummer I heard of studied all day just the same 4 beat, with an electronic metronome and a footswitch. He switched the metronome off during playing, switched it back on after a few bars. He kept on doin this until he was in sync. He wanted to be a sessionplayer and I believe he made it. :)

Anyway, once the people who like to listen to music know the difference they can feel important if they notice it, and then you're fucked. They WILL search for it and they will dominate you during family holiday dinners.
Click to expand...

I think you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Just evaluate on a case-by-case basis whether you feel the band need that sort of treatment or not. Some are suited by intense quantization more than others, and some are suited by intense sampling more than others. Part of being an engineer is being able to call it as you see it and create lasting albums.

Keep in mind that this insane sampling/tightening fashion might wear off sometime in the future as more artists 'rebel' against the evils of DAWs and digital processing. Doing stuff overboard is the best way to date your productions - Something the guys working in the 80s are well aware of.
 
Moonlapse said:
I think you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Just evaluate on a case-by-case basis whether you feel the band need that sort of treatment or not. Some are suited by intense quantization more than others, and some are suited by intense sampling more than others. Part of being an engineer is being able to call it as you see it and create lasting albums.

Keep in mind that this insane sampling/tightening fashion might wear off sometime in the future as more artists 'rebel' against the evils of DAWs and digital processing. Doing stuff overboard is the best way to date your productions - Something the guys working in the 80s are well aware of.
Click to expand...

When I was a little nerd I used to think all musicians knew quite well where their groovetiming would take a song, and how they had to build it up and slow it down.

I learned only a few can do that, and then there are those who can recognize it and (help) edit it afterwards so it resembles their intention.

And there are guys who just know fuck all, but know how to 'believe' in themselves.

For those I keep a hammer and three long nails nearby.
 
Mulder said:
..you don't wanna know how classical gets done, and Im talking about everybody, especially the big names..

Funny thing is, they want you to edit everything together, they count on it, so they can play it bit by bit
Click to expand...

Yeah, I just recorded two clarinetists at school. Their teacher sat in on the session and we did so many freaking takes of different sections of the song so it sounds perfect. It is going to be a pain to edit.

Not to mention I think editing the crap out of a classical song is lame because I want to hear an interpretation of a song by the artist, not just notes on a page. I think excessive editing can cause it to sound mechanical and classical music shouldn't be completely mechanical imo. I can understand editing notes that were way off or something, but some things can slide by. I remember one of my teachers telling me that Perlman had something crazy number of edits in one of his more recent albums.
 
Deaf Ear said:
Yeah, I get what you mean, but I think it's just us. Go find an old album that you grew up just loving the hell out of. Listen to it NOW, with engineer's ears. Look for flaws. Listen like you're recording them. I'm amazing at how many fuck ups I hear on older records that I NEVER noticed until I started being such an anal listener from recording. You can get away with a LOT to the average listener.
Click to expand...

i've been noticing that a lot too...i can't enjoy music the same way i used to anymore. though i'm barely just an amateur home mixer here, but it still ruins the experience some times
 
I'm sure some people here wouldn't agree with me, but I tell them we're going to do it to a click. After about 4 tries and them getting ahead or behind the click, I say "This should be important to you, if you can play to the click then your product will sound better and more professional". After a few more tries, we just say fuck it and do it to thier speed. On one hand, I've had people say they like the fact that my recordings have *life* to them and a little humanity because of nobody being able to play to a click, but on the other hand I really wish fuckers would get used to it because I think it would be so much easier if they would.
 
MetallyGuitarded said:
I can't believe dudes would show up to even a small-time studio unrehearsed. I know what a good producer can do with ProTools but damn... A couple years ago my band went to a 2 man studio with about a $15000 setup in some guys spare bedroom. We practiced 2 days a week for 3-4 hours a day when we were just writing and gigging and double that prior to hitting the studio. We still felt unprepared. Our drummer quit on the second day. Turns out playing to a click track was an insurmountable obstacle. Maybe I'm old school?

FWIW - The dude whose studio we were at was doing the whole thing for free too.
Click to expand...

Funny stuff. It's too bad because those songs were fucking awesome.
 
These bands claim they want a 'live' sound when in fact they don't know shit. They trigger their bass drums live, the mix they hear in their monitors is nothing like the FOH mix, so WTF would they know about their 'live' sound?!
 
I'm curious; where are all the Trivium defenders that lurked on this board before? They have seemed to disappear.

"They would never so anything like that. I called them and they laughed about it and totally denied any truth to the story" yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah
 
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