Is recording music in parts cheating?

la szum said:
Yup. They (The Beatles) were so not into gear. They didn't care----except when everyone else tried
to get Paul use a Bass other than Hofner. Please, Paul. It sound like arse. Paul didn't care. :)
Click to expand...

I recently had to learn Revolution for a cover gig, and man, those guitars are so fuzzed out it's tough to hear what's actually happening in places. Not to mention the song is in "A" but the recording is like a half-step-ish+ up from that, gotta figure they thought it was a little slow and just sped the tape up, not uncommon.

Current live music scene being what it is, I've had to learn a whole bunch of old songs, and really listen in-depth to recordings I've 'heard' a thousand times. The amount of stuff that was either studio trickery, obviously punched, or just 'fuck it, good enough' is pretty amusing to me.
 
la szum said:
Yup. They (The Beatles) were so not into gear. They didn't care----except when everyone else tried
to get Paul use a Bass other than Hofner. Please, Paul. It sound like arse. Paul didn't care. :)
Click to expand...


The Hofner sounds pretty good to me on the Let It Be stuff. He had been using the Rick from
Revolver through White Album.
 
My view, and I know no one cares: modern music production is like collage. Not better or worse than the alternative. Sometimes collage makes the best art. Sometimes not.

Dean Lamb had a nice discussion about highly edited videos:

 
To a small, esoteric and forgotten group of musicians it might be cheating. I mean of COURSE it's cheating. But it's also using technology. My process is to record the whole take many times. Then I comp them finding the best, less oopsie parts. Sometimes if it's all too hopeless I'll record just a section. But I don't often have to do that.

Last month I did a session with some well known and older jazz musicians from New York. I was supprised how willing they were to punch in sections. As producer I refused. I'd rather do 4 whole takes and comp them. Just my weird habits. I like to preserve the integrity of an entire performance done in the same time stream. But you know, I'm weird. Also I love being able to actually PLAY it in real time. So I take the time to learn it.
 
Cave Man said:

Is recording music in parts cheating?​

Click to expand...
I'm imagining @Cave Man in a studio with a referee, with the black and white stripes and everything, in there to take his song if he's caught cheating. He goes to copy a verse and paste it and all of a sudden a whistle blows and a yellow flag drops onto the faders!!!

"FOUL! You violated the recording studio continuity rule and will lose the last 30s of your recorded material. Let's see some better musicianship next time and a nice clean take!"
 
grandinq said:
The Hofner sounds pretty good to me on the Let It Be stuff. He had been using the Rick from
Revolver through White Album.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't have a beef with it either. Just thought funny and illuminating that Glyn Johns
thought it was a turd and couldn't get Paul off of it. I think Paul mentioned in the Doc that
it was "light" and "easy to play." Comfort trumps tone sometimes. :)
 
Strumzilla said:
Hard no on that one. If the greatest musicians, songwriters, and bands use that approach, why shouldn't you? It's one thing to have something performance ready for a live setting, but "playing the studio" is definitely a skill set that everyone can use to their benefit.
Click to expand...

Just to offer another view---aren't there still those who aspire to capturing as much of a full band/live performance
feel in the studio as possible. Minimal overdubs/layering--and usually just for colour, not for core tracks. Recording
the band all at once is still very much alive and well, it seems to me. Dave Cobb is a huge proponent of this approach.
Also, a lot of what goes down in Nashville with sessions is an entire band playing an entire song all the way through.
Doesn't mean they don't punch in as needed. Just that the standard there is still full band tracking live an entire song
and/or performance from beginning to end.
 
la szum said:
Also, a lot of what goes down in Nashville with sessions is an entire band playing an entire song all the way through.
Doesn't mean they don't punch in as needed. Just that the standard there is still full band tracking live an entire song
and/or performance from beginning to end.
Click to expand...

Much of that is due to the sheer amount of stuff getting produced there. They don't have time or money to let artists be precious about their albums really. Most smaller bands don't even play on their own albums because there would be too much stuff to fix. Write the songs, bring in the A-list guys to knock out the session in one shot, onto the next one.
 
henryrobinett said:
To a small, esoteric and forgotten group of musicians it might be cheating. I mean of COURSE it's cheating. But it's also using technology. My process is to record the whole take many times. Then I comp them finding the best, less oopsie parts. Sometimes if it's all too hopeless I'll record just a section. But I don't often have to do that.

Last month I did a session with some well known and older jazz musicians from New York. I was supprised how willing they were to punch in sections. As producer I refused. I'd rather do 4 whole takes and comp them. Just my weird habits. I like to preserve the integrity of an entire performance done in the same time stream. But you know, I'm weird. Also I love being able to actually PLAY it in real time. So I take the time to learn it.
Click to expand...

Vocal comping is one thing, and yes, I'll absolutely do that with 3-4 full takes because it's easy enough to identify the 'best' one and then go line by line and comp stuff without having to get too into the weeds, typically lots of dead air between lines so it's easy to chop up, plus it's really hard to recreate that exact mic placement/singer interaction/singer's vocal condition at a later time if you do decide something needs to be 'fixed', so it's good to have multiple sources (and critical parts we'll check to make sure we do have a 'good one' before moving on).

Guitar tracks I'll give myself a little more leeway on. I kinda keep a mental track of errors during a take and if it's just one flub, maybe two, that I know what I meant to do and can easily punch, I won't bother doing another take. I'll just punch that one or two spots. If it gets to be multiple flubs or I went a little off the rails on an improvised part or something I know I won't easily be able to recreate, just quit, scrap, and restart it. It's very rare for me to comp a guitar solo the way I'd comp a vocal track.

Not that it can't be done either way, that's just what I've found works best for my workflow and getting a decent result efficiently.
 
Buuh Buuh! Alan Parsons is a cheater, and his production "The Dark Side of the Moon" is a lie. A dirty deception.
I am going to play my lyre and flute. Nothing is pure in this world anymore
😭
😭
 
Here's another thought:
Jason Richardson (amazing shredder in his own right, whether you like his stuff or not isn't the point) has said that he utilizes the technology to lay down riffs, then speeds them up to see how they sound at faster speeds. If they sound cool to him, then he'll actually learn the riff. I think that's a rather innovative way of approaching things.
 
SHEPPARD said:
Yes, because art is a sport and we must follow the rules! Seriously, what a stupid question.
Click to expand...
That wasn't very nice. Cave Man seems to bring up topics others may find basic, or even very personal, but I've seen his topics generate some good dialog, and even go down some interesting rabbit trails, that aren't necessarily related to his OP. Remember, we're all at different places here, some more into using the gear to its utmost, others all about making their own music, and everything in between. It's been said the only stupid question is the one not asked.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom