Randy P

batsbrew

mettelus
Live performance skill is a massive time-saver for editing, so developing those is never a bad thing 

this.
 

Again, this.
But, you also need to be sharp enough to get in the pocket and stay there regardless of your instrument while tracking your part. I've been a part of a band and have seen other bands fall into the trap of playing great live gigs where you felt the band was good and tight, only to get in the studio and find we weren't even close. It's pretty sobering to have a producer or engineer give you "that look" and tell you to go home and practice A LOT more.
 
On the flip side, it's a great feeling when you do get back and find that the work you put in has paid off in making you a better player, and back in the day, saving you a ton of money in studio time.

Yes that rings some bells with an album I recorded with a blues band in the mid 90s. I became known as 'One Take James' because I did a LOT of rehearsing before a session - I just didn't want to embarrass myself the next day

Philosophically, here's my view: by definition, a non-recorded live performance is heard once. Any recorded performance is heard more than once. If you're lucky, hundreds, or thousands, or hundreds of thousands of times.
 
At a gig, you can get away with being scrappy as long as you're exciting. On a record, the same is true, but the ratio weakens. Your scrappiness will undermine how exciting you are much much sooner on a recording.
 
Pragmatically, here's my experience: an hour's rehearsal is worth ten hours of back end repair. A full day's rehearsal will give you something editing never can.
 

John T
Pragmatically, here's my experience: an hour's rehearsal is worth ten hours of back end repair.

I'd say that estimate is pretty accurate. Even more so if we're talking about a band - multiply those 10 hours by the number of band members.
 
I'd also offer a corollary: an hour on stage is equal to ten hours of rehearsal. So if you want your band's recording session to go smoothly, play your tunes in front of an audience first. Multiple times. When Pink Floyd recorded DSotM, they'd been playing much of that material live for a couple years.
 
Another benefit: playing live forces you to face your limitations. If you're stretching yourself (like you should) then you are invariably going to hit walls with parts that you just can't perform with consistency. In the studio, you could keep on recording multiple takes until you got it right, or stitch together a fake "performance" from multiple takes. But I've largely given up on that approach, because a simpler part is probably going to better for the song anyway. So with few exceptions, if I can't play it in real time it's not going in.
 

Yes. I'm always encouraging bands to try to schedule recording sessions closely after a run of shows. If you can catch a band when they're on top live show form, tracking is a breeze.

Really amazing tips and insight here!!
 
If anything, I'm definitely inspired to push my limits and get GOOD at recording.
I've got a unpcoming year-long project with my church where we'll be writing and recording a number of songs in upbeat styles, mostly rock. But the folks we've got to work with are far, far below professionals - most of us just picked up our "rock" instruments within the past 2 years (Me on bass, plus keys, guitar and drums)
I'm definitely going to push to have everyone able to come in a play a well as possible... it'll save me a lot of time!
 
Working with other people at someone else's studio tends to seem so time-consuming in comparison to being in the isolation of one's own workspace, working and recording at one's own pace.

i think folks should never go into a studio without having their act together.
booking studio time, is not the time to experiment or 'wing it'.
you should be able to nail your part in at least 3 passes, no more.
 
working on your own stuff, that's totally different!
work for a year on one bass part, who cares!
 
but, i find that WRITING MUSIC, even at the DAW, is a different process than TRACKING A SONG.
 
one happens first, then the other.
 
if you are well rehearsed, and do not have to struggle with the mechanics of pulling off what you want to do,
this is what allows you to be free and creative, and get the 'feel'.
 
ideally, for myself, once i have finished writing a part, and know it totally,
i walk away from it for a while...
come back, warm up, and try to get the entire thing from beginning to end in one pass.
that always sounds and feels better than hacking something to death in bits and starts.
 
 

to be fair, 
my personal view of recording comes strictly from a 'performer's perspective,
due to the many years i played on the road.
 
but i bring that same work ethic to writing and recording my own music,
and somewhat influence other folks i work with to strive for the same thing.
 
the end result is honest.
 
 

None of you mentioned that this has all been done before.  None of you mentioned a gazillion recordings that we have as blueprints for future recordings.  If you want to *mix like a master* then listen to those recordings done by masters.  Musically, you have to know what you're looking for so maybe learning an instrument would help in that respect.  

Gosh a good topic, and I've missed more or less.

Since the advent of recording technology, there have been two types of 'musicians' live and what you could call sonic painters. Neither way is right or wrong. For me, I can do all the theory and I can paint. Mind you, I prefer the fundementals of theory rather than an exact use of said rules, because here's the thing...each successive generation of the western art music tradition have more or less re-wrote the rules until the rules have basically been thrown out. This has actually been detrimental as hopefully some of you can see...Beiber anyone:).

Musicianship is different to composing, and composing is closer to sonic painting in contemporary music culture. I think it's important to have a handle on both...but not to beat yourself up too much if you sketch a line in or play a perfect line in. It actually limits a composer and indeed limits musical exploration. Case in point, I'm working on a Nilson Without You cover...I was trying to fix an old versiom I did in 2011...I gave up and started again...but even though I could hit every note outside the cans...inside I could not. I've since worked out that my crappy mic's diaphragm is too small making it hard to pitch, so I've taken every instrument out of the tracking mix and just sing to a piano melody...sometimes one word at a time. Sonic painting. If I worried about the fact I was painting and not playing then I would not be doing the piece and I'd be limiting my musical exploration. Imagine if I was say The Beatles and did this...I can't sing that line George...it's too high, we can varispeed it, but that's cheating George and I won't do that. Imagine, there would be no Rain or Strawberry Fields.

The big issue in contemporary music is we've trapped ourselves in last centuries' music culture...studio, band, record then play live. We need to separate all that. In the 'studio' we paint and live becomes more based on improvisation.

The music industry that we've all grown up with is gone. The idea of bands and recording in studios with engineers and the like is gone. Like anything in history...there is an expansion and then a contraction. Think about the recording studio...it grew exponentially, and there was a studio on every corner it seemed...then gone. Whilst there will always be sound engineers - well into the foreseeable future because our world is made up of audio-visual content...increasingly the music sound engineer will go the way of the dinosaur. Why bother with temperamental musicians, when, so long as you know the fundementals and can paint sonically? And in this, we see the final stage of the contraction of western art music by returning us to the age of the composer again...of course slightly differnt...still no use for temperamental musicians. It will be the composer who can improvise using machines and real instruments and sell this as a performance that will usher in the next phase of western art music

Interesting thoughts, Ben. We as studio musicians NEED to be okay with making use of the different tools. I think there's a time a place for everything... when performing live, as long as the feel is right, the playing is decent quality and the listeners can latch onto the emotion of the singer and the song, then it meets the requirements. But in the studio, oftentimes (when aiming for quality) the idea is to not only do all of the above, but at a HIGHER QUALITY than what can be achieved live. And if one's maybe NOT able to achieve perfection, neither live NOR in the studio, then there shouldn't be any shame in reaching int the mixing engineer's toolkit to get the best one can - or at least achieve the vision that one has for ones self.
 
For you guys who've worked in-studio with clients... What are some skills that you consider ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE to have when working doing paid work?
 
I, for example, am working with a client on a pop/alt-rock song and I'm actually finding that my less-than-stellar keyboarding skills are hampering my ability to work quickly. Definitely something I'm going to be strengthening if I'm doing more work like this as time goes.