Just wondering what people's approaches are towards small recording mistakes.
I'm recording for fun and to improve myself as a musician. I have decided to never quantize or pitchcorrect so as I learn to sing and play tighter. I tend to record in sections with often a lot of takes but have wondered if some mistakes actually improve the sound.
I'm not talking about a blatantly wrong chord sticking out, or a misfretted note in a melody section, but the odd enharmonic. blatant string noise or a slightly louder note within a riff. I've found myself leaving some of the warts in, even though I could put in a "better" take.
It's this an approach you share? Or is this the type of thing that you hate hearing? How do you balance the pressure for a "perfect" take and making things still sound and feel natural?
Comments
As for little errors...it really depends if they fit with the other parts. If it sounds messy, or out of time (especially in fast muted sections) then it gets played again.
Fortunately, Reaper's bloody wonderful for managing multiple takes - just record "over" the original part several times, and pick the best bits if necessary.
You can always rerecord a part that's a bit rough but musically good, but if you never get your musical ideas down in the first place...
In the studio I used to spend way more time putting drums in time and vocals on pitch then I ever did actually tracking music. I wouldn't do it now, the end product was a soulless piece of music that the band couldn't reproduce live and it didn't really represent them or how they sounded.
I don't miss those days at all
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IMO Glaring errors, which disturb the flow, need to be sorted. My preference is to play it again, rather than drop in notes.
Quantizing and correcting pitch take soul out of the sound.
It's one of those things that really varies by genre and time period too. You pretty much won't hear an out of tune vocal in EDM/modern pop, or hear an out of time drummer in a modern metal band. But for more raw styles like blues or classic rock things being too tight and perfectly in tune doesn't generally sound right. Even artists within the same genres will have their own kind of levels of what vibe they want from tightness/perfection vs raw/real.
As far as I'm concerned editing or not is a taste decision, not a moral decision. A recording is different to a live performance, and well if a person is comping between multiple takes the recorded performance is edited anyway.
However, in my opinion what sounds the best generally comes from a good take in the first place. Anything beyond that depends on whether or not it is needed for the end result a person wants.
My opinion, don't over think it and try to make your music sound the way you want it to. If your goal is to use your recordings to improve yourself as a musician then leaving it raw will let you know where you're at with your technique at this moment, and you should see improvements over time.
That makes a lot of sense. As does the other advice. I'm thinking I'll keep concentrating on getting the takes, trying to play longer sections as I get more experienced, less time editing and not worrying too much about tiny mistakes.
It's reassuring to hear that we've pretty much all got the same attitude even if approaches differ. This forum is a very useful place.
Do you only single track your guitar parts? Your ROTMs sound great. The last two have been belters.
And cheers. I've almost finished making a full song out of that riff. Will post a link when I'm done. There's not a huge amount of content on my soundcloud just now as I only started recording over the winter but it'll build up hopefully over time
I'll look forward to hearing your stuff, the riff you put up sounding like you have been recording for much longer!
For example, popular wordsmith, Robert Zimmerman, fluffs his own lyrics during "I Want You" on the album, Blonde On Blonde. No matter. The vibe is there. Maybe the session time was running out? I do not profess to know how many other takes were attempted.