tracking guitars, single take? or multiple takes?

[SimonAdams]

i always find when I am tracking a guitarist that i say "now, sit and play as much as you can, as tightly as you can". this is because a lot of the time (in my experience on nuendo) when a take runs into another take on the same track there is an awful popping sound, so my question is how do you guys prevent/stop this altogether?

also, do you guys ever break songs up into sections and then copy paste for things like choruses or verses?

 

[sparkyness]

Crossfades should sort out the popping noise issue in Nuendo. Highlight the two adjacent events where the punch-in occurs and press the "x" key.

I don't copy/paste anything in my own stuff as I tend to vary the tempos slightly every few bars to add to the dynamics of a track and keep things from becoming static. Some folks do use the copy/paste function though and if the tempo's the same, and the part itself doesn't vary, and time (money) is an issue, I don't see a problem with it so long as the band can pull it off live.

 

[Ermz]

As said, crossfades will solve your popping issues. It doesn't really matter how tight the take is, the natural nuances in between different takes will cause them to not blend together well generally, until you force a fade.

I only copy verses and choruses when the band members aren't capable of replicating a good performance in a reasonable time frame. I mean really, when you deal with deadlines and budgets, sometimes you have to cheat a bit to get to the finish line.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Here is a crossfade tutorial for cubase LE (it's the same shit for Nuendo though).

http://www.cubasewiki.com/index.php?title=Performing_a_crossfade

Later.

 

[SimonAdams]

what an epic epic win of a website. thanks!

yea i never thought about this,... seems pretty obvious now though ha! but hey, rocket scientists dont know shit about rocket science before they ask questions or are taught it.

 

[Exocaster]

When I'm tracking my own guitar parts, I try to get a single good take rather than edit bits together. It's usually not a problem for me, as I'm pretty quick and consistant in the studio, so I can get a decent performance within a couple takes, usually.

I suck live though. I botch my shit all the time.

 

[JeffTD]

Auto crossfade for 5ms on everything - multiple takes, get it sounding clean and tight, then reamp in one go if necessary.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

what an epic epic win of a website. thanks!

yea i never thought about this,... seems pretty obvious now though ha! but hey, rocket scientists dont know shit about rocket science before they ask questions or are taught it.

I wrote the LE tutorials. I did it so I could do what I just did. It's alot nicer than a RTFM response.

 

[Sloan]

I manually punch in the guitar parts and make sure the player starts playing along much earlier before the actual punch in. I don't use all that computer tomfoolery.

After punching in a lot of stuff, you kind of get used to knowing where in a song you can do it without anyone noticing. For example, right when there's a badass cymbal smash or something, that'll mask a punch in, etc...etc...

 

[JBroll]

I record a measure before silent, play the part, and record a measure afterwards with silence. I then either crossfade or go between two different tracks to alternate (and not worry about crossfading) adjacent parts.

Jeff

 

[gumplunger]

I manually punch in the guitar parts and make sure the player starts playing along much earlier before the actual punch in. I don't use all that computer tomfoolery.

After punching in a lot of stuff, you kind of get used to knowing where in a song you can do it without anyone noticing. For example, right when there's a badass cymbal smash or something, that'll mask a punch in, etc...etc...

I do this too - I just don't like the sound of crossfaded guitars.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Honestly I don't hear the crossfade if it small enough. Especially if it's less than a second long.


To each his own I guess.

 

[axeman720]

you should never hear a crossfade, unless its used for sounddesign purposes on a track. with the amount of editing i do, crossfades are absolutely essential.

 

[egan.]

you should never hear a crossfade, unless its used for sounddesign purposes on a track. with the amount of editing i do, crossfades are absolutely essential.

Yes...if you can hear a crossfade (on a punch-in) it's too long.

 

[Ermz]

Yeah, you shouldn't be able to hear the crossfade at all. It's about making it the right length, the right power, at the right spot on the track.

 

[s34nsm411]

just make sure the tracks overlap and the autocross fade should take care of it, you should only have to use the crossfade feature if youre doing some longass fade between two clips