Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

So here's long-winded Bill chiming in:

IMHO Some cutting, pasting, pitch-correction can be a good thing...
there are some things that can't be done any other way. But in my
experience, when the core tracks of a record - including the main
vocal are, essentially, performed - and mostly straight through rather
than constructed, it makes a huge difference.

About 8 years ago, an old friend played me the master of his band's
latest record. It had been recorded using the world's highest
technology. For one cut, he had even rented time on a satellite so a
session could be done with people in LA and NY simultaneously. He
asked me what I thought.

I told him that I thought it sounded sterile and that it didn't
capture the energy of those times when his group just stood and sang
with their accompanists like I've heard them do in rehearsals and when
they've been just laughing it up backstage.

He agreed. He bemoaned the olden days when they'd just stand around a
couple microphone and sing their hearts out.

Yup. Me too.

He and I had just co-produced a live recording on an old 8-track
analog machine (one of mine) - pre-mixing some of the inputs with an
emphasis in catching the ambiance of the space. In contrast it was
alive and vibrant... it had "problems" hiss, hamonic distortion - but
the recording leaped out of the speakers and demanded your attention.
It was riveting. Since then, he and his pals used a lower-tech
approach which I think sounds a lot better.

Jay - Peter, Paul, and Mary live is different thatn PPM in the studio.

Now - Paul S., to be fair, the best Harry Chapin concert in the world
isn't the same as a studio recording of Harry Chapin. In live
performance all kinds of other things are happening. (Live recording
has its own demands - one of my specialties - ahem).

On the other hand - there's my friend Jack Hardy who did some of his
records live in the studio - one take. Fantastic work.

Frank Sinatra - well - how were those recordings made? Big room - big
performance - you can't beat them.

I can see how, extended to the orchestra, Barry, one might take
various sections of a longer performance and edit them together to
form a better whole than one performance as you're saying, Barry.
Clearly there'd be economical benefits... but I don't know if that
makes it a better recording. I suppose it could - like maybe after
the recording of a few performances, the conductor says: Oh god - the
first movement of take 1 was perfect, but movement two sucked... let's
use the second take's version of the second movement - it was
great..." Well - I can see that.

So my question is, Barry, that jazz thing you produced - was it worth
the $600 / hr? Honest question. I'm thinking for someone with the
600 to spend and an eye on a kind of "sound" - a kind of perfection...
well... it probably was. I mean, I'll wager it sounds friling great,
right?

And as Jay has pointed out - let's not forget the making of Strawberry
fields. Brilliant - spliced together - speed/pitch all weird - but it
all made it surreal. Perfect. But there it was two performances -
married, right? Still - it's a performance - not piecemeal. The
white album - overdubbed, but still performed, right? Even "Let it
Be" - lots of over-dubbing - but not shredded, right? Much simpler -
much more direct that what that old friend of mine did over satellite
- then spliced together all kinds of takes.

OK - but then there's Brian Wilson's Pet sounds recordings, right? So
what made that "work?"

In my current project (one I reluctantly embarked on at the insistence
of those old friends of mine - and at Will's) I am playing all the
core instruments myself - guitar, piano, drums, percussion, bass,
electric guitars, synths. (Although I'll have a couple of those
friends come and play instruments I can't play - like strings, horn
section work, (banjo) etc. - and do harmonies - greatfully, they're
vying for those so I might not even have to pay them <LOL>).

Poses a dilemma - I can't play with myself in a live recording. But
I've found that by playing the song all the way through, and, again,
essentially performing the song with myself - and by re-recording
every track at least two or three times - performing it with the other
tracks - there is a point where the recording gels -it becomes a
recording of a band - albeit of one - because I'm playing along with
the other performances - like band members do - reacting to the other
parts - they just happen to all be me.

And a few punch-ins are fine too, as you say, Barry - but I try my
damnedest to do the take straight through and I rarely "fix" the takes
of main tracks. I never do a recording with the attitude that "I can
always fix it later." For me - it's simply verboten.

But I drive people crazy. I do take after take after take - all the
way through with as little snipping as possible. And I have a huge
advantage - no hourly charge for the studio - I own it. <shrug> I've
spent the better part of the last year re-building this particular one
especially with this project in mind - including building these d∗mned
MOTM things <g>)

Ah - and what else does all this have to do with MOTM? <LOL>

Well - for me, it's not so far off topic at all. Because It comes to
- how do you record essentially mechanical technical stuff? Is it a
performance? I think so - but of a different kind.

I think there are times when the recording itself is the performance.

Clearly - when there's other stuff being done, there is a performance.
Like Scott and Terry - or you, Doug - when you guys go out to play
live, right? (BTW - I wanted to get down to Philly to see Scott and
Terry - but I wasn't in the NY / NJ / Philly area and couldn't there
in time. I wanted to see how you guys would perform your stuff.)

But - OK - so if the recording is the performance, how does one keep
it alive? Or is it alive? Or what?

I know this sounds like a recording issue - but I find it interesting
that it arose now in parallel with a discussion of the nature of
imitative or invocative (?) synthesis and new modules that would be
useful.

It comes down to - well - how do we make the best sound? How do we
record it? How can we be "musical and expressive" (Elhardt)? Where's
the filter bank, Paul? <G>

Bill (Will's just finishing up a World of Warcraft session - a whole
different kind of session)