Is recording music in parts cheating?

The only problem with this approached that's become pretty universal and accepted as an approach is it has made musicians lazy. The end justifies the means. OK. Even the big dudes do it. Of course. But throw eggs at me, the level of musicainship might have declined just a bit because of it. Yes there are amazing musicians, in some ways better. But when you can just overdub until you get it right it makes you lazy. Hey, I do it too. I have a pretty high end studio. I know, I know. But I'm old enough to have started recording in bands where you didn't have that as a luxury. You just went in, set up, sound checked, headphones and played. What came out was what you sounded like, with some sweetners. You sucked. It made you HAVE to get you sh*t together for the next time. Nobody was covering for you. It forced you to get better. You wanted to shred a solo? You had to shred in real time.

That's all.
 
I'll add an amendment to my above post. In the "olden days"you had honest to god BANDS. They were everywhere. And gigs. Easy to get a gig, even if it was playing in the park. So you actually knew how you sounded. Cassette tapes. You had to sound GOOD with no help from an engineer from jump street. There. That's an old phrase! When you got to the studio you knew what to do. No overdubbing. The phrase "fix it in the mix" really didnt exist.

But listen top some of those old Warner Bros cartoons! Bugs Bunny chasing Elmer Fudd or Elmer thinking he's out smarting Daffy Duck. The orchestra that's playing IN REAL TIME. Conductor. They're reading their arses off. No smpte to sync to tape. No do overs. No overdubbing. And if you weren't good enough to nail it you never got hired again and everyone knew you couldn't do it. So you made sure you did it. Marimbas, guitars, violins, french horns.
 
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henryrobinett said:
And if you weren't good enough to nail it you never got hired again and everyone knew you couldn't do it. So you made sure you did it.
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I got to hear Chad Wackerman talk once about his time playing drums in the Zappa band, and he was asked how demanding Zappa was as a band leader. Apparently he wasn't, at all...the rest of the band was. If someone screwed up a part more than a time or two, Zappa would just say "guess we're not doing that one then, onto the next" and all the other players would look at you with hate. Very powerful motivation to get it right :tongueclosed:
 
henryrobinett said:
I'll add an amendment to my above post. In the "olden days"you had honest to god BANDS. They were everywhere. And gigs. Easy to get a gig, even if it was playing in the park. So you actually knew how you sounded. Cassette tapes. You had to sound GOOD with no help from an engineer from jump street. There. That's an old phrase! When you got to the studio you knew what to do. No overdubbing. The phrase "fix it in the mix" really didnt exist.

But listen top some of those old Warner Bros cartoons! Bugs Bunny chasing Elmer Fudd or Elmer thinking he's out smarting Daffy Duck. The orchestra that's playinh IN REAL TIME. Cinductor. They're reading their arses off. No smpte to sync to tape. No do overs. No overdubbing. And if you weren't good enough to nail it you never got hired again and everyone knew you couldn't do it. So you made sure you did it. Marimbas, guitars, violins, french horns.
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By the same token, there definitely is quite a bit of awesome music made either with sequencers or by one person in a bedroom that couldn't (or at least wouldn't) exist if that were the only way to do it.

I'm with you....for band music, I think that leads to better (or at least more authentic sounding) performances. But, I also don't want to sacrifice the whole of electronic music or any of the single-person productions either.

I honestly like arguing for both sides of this one.
 
marsonic said:
By the same token, there definitely is quite a bit of awesome music made either with sequencers or by one person in a bedroom that couldn't (or at least wouldn't) exist if that were the only way to do it.

I'm with you....for band music, I think that leads to better (or at least more authentic sounding) performances. But, I also don't want to sacrifice the whole of electronic music or any of the single-person productions either.

I honestly like arguing for both sides of this one.
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It's funny, most of my musical heroes are one-man bands, these multi-instrumentalist guys who do it all themselves(save for the occasional guest spot), piece by piece. Here's a few:

  • Tame Impala
  • Unknown Mortal Orchestra
  • Mac DeMarco
  • Plini
  • Sam Evian
  • Mick Gordon
  • Foster The People
 
It seems like we've come to the consensus that no, it's not cheating...but it involves trade-offs and is often not the ideal way to record.

So.....it's just like everything else you could potentially do when producing music.
 
Wearing a small hat on a perfectly calm day could be considered cheating. Listening to The Who play "Another Tricky Day" is not.
 
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