Where do you draw the line on editing?

[Random3]

Hi guys, after someone mentioned it in another thread I did some reading up on the band Rings of Saturn and it really got me thinking about what I would consider cheating given todays recording technology. Just wanted to know which of these things you guys would consider cheating to the point where you/the band is straight up lying to their audience:

1: Recording parts slowly and then speeding them up.
2: Punching in frequently/recording a couple of bars at a time.
3: Blending multiple takes with playlists or similar.
4: Quantising drums/guitars to tighten them up.
5: Auto-tuning vocals.
6: Copying and pasting parts.

I can't say I have a solid opinion on this. On one level I think that abusing technology to make it sound like you can play things you can't is cheating, however some or all of these things would result in a potentially better sounding track. In other words, if you record something and go to tighten it up to give it a particular aesthetic then fair enough provided you can actually play the material 90% of the way. If however you cannot play something and use modern technology to make it sound like you can, I consider this to be cheating.

I think hands down it is bullshit to pretend that you can actually play the material if you can't, which appears to be what Lucas Mann of Rings of Saturn does. I also object to using backing tracks to compensate for poor technique. Using it for layers or as an effect makes perfect sense, but playing a backing track and pretending it is not a backing track is lying to the audience.

I don't really have a moral objection in regard to this provided the band or musician is open and genuine about what they are doing. This is part of the reason I don't have as much of a problem with Born of Osiris as I do with Rings of Saturn. I can see quite clearly in some performances they use backing tracks for the leads, but they don't appear to reject or hide this fact or pretend they are better musicians than they are.

Anyway, my view on each point I made above is:

1: Recording parts slowly and then speeding them up.
Absolutely cheating. You are pretending that you can play something faster than you can.

2: Punching in frequently/recording a couple of bars at a time.
Acceptible for tricky transitions, could be seen as cheating for solos.

3: Blending multiple takes with playlists or similar.
No problem with this.

4: Quantising drums/guitars to tighten them up.
No problem with this provided the performance is 90% there. If the drummer simply cannot play the material then this is cheating and you may as well use a drum machine.

5: Auto-tuning vocals
Same as above. If the vocal performance is 90% there then fine, if you are tuning someone who cannot sing then this is cheating.

6: Copying and pasting parts.
I can't really say why but I don't like doing this. Even if I am recording something that needs to sound mechanically precise I just don't like copying and pasting. I don't consider it cheating in the same way that some of the other points are, but I prefer to record each part in full rather than copying and pasting the repetitions.

Long post I know, but I am at work and just wondering what some of you guys' views on this are.

 

[Mister Revenant]

I've never recorded anything slowed down or whatever but I have recorded several parts one after another along with copy and pasting. I might record a few parts if its a quick transition or if I find a specific part is lacking to the rest. Ill go back in and tighten it up. As for copy and pasting, i've only ever done that with open chords or something similar. Just something easy so I don't have to get the guitar out again while i'm mixing since my computer cant handle full recording and mixing. I usually have to record and set the latency high while mixing or it goes bananas on me.

 

[JeffTD]

My view on it from the producer's chair: Who gives a shit if it's cheating? Sometimes you have crappy singers and drummers and need to produce professional results. If you're the type who's going to be a stickler on things being super super natural then you're probably in the wrong genre to begin with (you're going to forgive BOO on these techniques? I get the comparison but I personally have done 4/6 for them and know that they've done 1, 2, 3, and 5 on records.). On any given session I probably do at least 2 if not all 6 of those things. At a certain point you just need to get your job done.

My view on it as a guitarist/musician: Mostly agreed, but that's also part of why I haven't been in a band myself in years.

 

[MrBongo]

on the mixing desk:
i´ll do whatever I need to do to make it sound as good as possible. However, my definition of "good" may differ from yours, as I like to have my records sound like they were played by humans, not robots. So there are things I won´t use excessively, and I´m not a friend of quantizing "to grid" at all.

on the instrument:
I´ll do my very best to make it sound as good as possible, playing the shit "live". Of course, I don´t mind cutting every few bars if there´s a nicer sounding part in another take, but each take has to be at least a few bars in length.
On top of it, I prefer not to do double / x-time tracking, as it sounds like there´s more people in the band than we actually are. Backingtracks, for ambience or interludes, are once again an entirely different pair of shoes ...

writing songs:
cheat as much as possible. I can´t play that stuff yet, but I wanna know how it´s gonna sound when it´s done properly.
Hell, sometimes I don´t even know what´s gonna follow the part I´m recording! So I usually record just a few notes per take (as I need 50 takes for that 3 second part anyway), stretch and cut to taste. and learn the song when it´s done.


cheers

 

[Revson]

As long as the track sounds good as a result, I don't give a shit how the artist creates their artistic vision. Whether it's recording slowly or simply doing the part 300 times before it's finally perfect, it's all the same to me. It's their own fault if they can't do it live, but then again, even the best performers will hit a bum note from time to time.

 

[Mago]

Do whatever you think sounds good. Don't lie about what you did or didn't do though, that shit is weak.
IMO it's not cheating if you don't try to cover it up as a real performance.

And to be honest, even if you do decide to "cheat" your way through it (as a musician for example), it's not that bad after all. If you display yourself as a inhumane godlike performance machine, at least there's the chance that you'll inspire people who don't know that this can be done via "cheating", to try to get the best they can be at their craft in a more "honest" way.
Not too bad imo.
On the other hand, it ca be frustrating if people can't accept their own limitations...or setting unreal standards (photoshop cover spreads an the likes, making people feel bad for reasons that don't exist)

 

[Random3]

Cheers for the thoughts guys, particularly the points on BoO.

I don't have a problem with things that sound mechanical, plenty of my favourite bands have this kind of aesthetic. What I have an issue with is bands who cannot play their own material and use studio magic to pretend they are better than they are.

If I was working with one of these bands I'm not saying I wouldn't use all of the points I made where needed, because I most certainly would. If the end result sounds good, which most likely it would, then I wouldn't discredit their music if they have written a good song. I would however discredit them as musicians if they are incapable of performing their music and resort to studio trickery to disguise this.

The way I see it, using studio magic to make something go from good to great is fine, but using it to turn something crap into something great whilst pretending you didnt use studio magic is not.

 

[Vice//Versa]

I don't mean to sound confrontational and I know so people feel quite strongly about shit like this, but to me, the idea of being so concerned with what is "cheating" musically seems kinda childish. There's definitely something to be said about awesome musicianship, but record-wise? who gives a shit. There's a lot of good players out there, but awesome songwriting is a bit rarer TBH. Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven were awesome players, but we remember them by their incredible compositions (even if no one has ever heard any of them play anything. Ever.)

People used to write songs and have the best musicians play them. In metal and rock music we got in the habit of having the composer be the musicians and I think that is great, but you can't always have it all. If the guy writes awesome shit, who cares if he can't play inhumanly tight? if the band doesn't practice for their gigs then the public will sort them out. It's easy to fall on the slightly elitist conception that if you can't play well enough, you just don't belong in the circuit, but there's tons of sub-par players who write cool shit.

Our job as producers is to make good sounding music, not establish arbitrary rules as to what is or not is "cheating."

Mago mentioned Photoshop, which is funny because I feel like modern production is like Photoshop for music. People don't want their records to sound just like a live performances (an unprocessed pictures), they want it to sound like the ideal version of the song, a song that sounds "magical" in the sense that it is, for better or worse, better than otherwise possible (the filtered, edited picture).

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

I copy-paste my bass track verses and choruses in every song I write. Authenticity is no match for $20 bass strings. Other than that I try to avoid punching in too often, both because it feels cheap and because I wind up with clicks and pops in the final product.

 

[Vice//Versa]

I copy-paste my bass track verses and choruses in every song I write. Authenticity is no match for $20 bass strings. Other than that I try to avoid punching in too often, both because it feels cheap and because I wind up with clicks and pops in the final product.

I totally lol'ed at the bass string bit.

 

[Terminus]

I slip edit bass lines on everything, pretty much all the way through to pocket the bass to the drum beat. I try to play guitar well enough to not have to edit it much. Sometimes I'll do a bit here and there but ftmp its just recording part by part and only cutting silences.

 

[crillemannen]

My view on it from the producer's chair: Who gives a shit if it's cheating? Sometimes you have crappy singers and drummers and need to produce professional results. If you're the type who's going to be a stickler on things being super super natural then you're probably in the wrong genre to begin with (you're going to forgive BOO on these techniques? I get the comparison but I personally have done 4/6 for them and know that they've done 1, 2, 3, and 5 on records.). On any given session I probably do at least 2 if not all 6 of those things. At a certain point you just need to get your job done.

My view on it as a guitarist/musician: Mostly agreed, but that's also part of why I haven't been in a band myself in years.

It's all about the results if you want to do this for a living.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

1: Recording parts slowly and then speeding them up. NEVER EVER, SUPER GAY
2: Punching in frequently/recording a couple of bars at a time. ALL THE TIME
3: Blending multiple takes with playlists or similar. DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS
4: Quantising drums/guitars to tighten them up. ALL THE TIME
5: Auto-tuning vocals. IF IT'S A PERFECT TAKE OTHER THAN AN OUT OF TUNE NOTE THEN OF COURSE
6: Copying and pasting parts. IF THE TAKE IS PERFECT, WHY NOT?

 

[Machinated]

whatever conveys the artists intention. for metal it's usually showing off technical proficiency so ultra tight/perfect makes sense.

it's best to track as close to what you envisage as possible but if it sounds better with editing, then do what you have to do until it's right. how you get there is irrelevant for a lot of music.

 

[SvartSomSynd]

The only true production would be a live recording through the whole thing without stopping. If you have to re-track something 100 times and fail 99 out of those, wouldn't that be kind of considered cheating as well .. because you obviously can't play it live. As long as I practice beforehand and feel like I'm laying down a performance that feels good from the get-go (with punch ins and separate takes), I'm alright with doing slight edits to tighten up the production.

If I find myself cheating bigtime I hate myself for it because I don't feel like a musician anymore.

 

[Clockwork]

Edit it enough to sound good but not enough to sound fake.

 

[JeffTD]

I copy-paste my bass track verses and choruses in every song I write. Authenticity is no match for $20 bass strings. Other than that I try to avoid punching in too often, both because it feels cheap and because I wind up with clicks and pops in the final product.

Auto fade in and make your edits happen right before transients. You should ALWAYS be spot checking edits for clicks/pops before consolidating, anyway

 

[JeffTD]

Do you guys think it's fucked up that we tune between takes? I mean, if you really played the song all the way through the last chords should be slightly out of tune, right?

 

[Pharaoh's Curse]

I think anything other than playing live is faked. Let's face it, we all do a million takes to get it right. Is that cheating? I don't think so.

 

[Jordon]

I feel like the simple answer is to just do what the part/song/record/band calls for.