HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?

I say leave it in ...as long as it's not grossburger stuff like sounds that emanate from below the belt (I bought a Mr. Bungle cd which was pretty cool, but on the last track for no special reason, he decides to bombard us with various bodily noises which you don't wanna hear cranked on your hifi I ended up chucking the cd).

But yeah, normal sounds? Keep em in there. There was an NPR special that talked about musicians who inadvertently mumble or breathe heavy whilst playing. Most of the program focused on classical music, but they played a few Jethro Tull songs where Ian Anderson grunts through his flute. Way cool. The general idea was, as you said, it makes the performance more human.

But one that's bothered me for nearly 30 years since the first time I heard it... on Van Halen "Atomic Punk" what exactly is that noise in the guitar solo @ 1:39??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6BqvJjo0AM

One of the problems with midi instruments is that "sterile" sound you mention. In fact, sound fonts are far better in my opinion, since they are recordings of actual instruments. When I hear a sax, I want to hear the player chewing on the reed (is that correct? reed?) or maybe a little more squeak on the new strings of the acoustic guitar, the sound of the hold pedal on the piano being moved hard when the player slips his foot off, the hammer of the kick drum, things like that. A singer makes sounds that are not notes, a midi plays perfect notes, without feeling.

Later
Albert

When they release "dog barking" and "neighbor mowing the lawn", that's when I throw in the towel.

 
Back in the 80's I wrote a song called "Joy Ride In Your Love" where I used two Mirages samples. A car starting up and revving by and car horn honk.
 
But they were there to supoort the theme of the song.
 
But, I can send you samples of them if you like.

I think natural is the way to go unless it spoils the mood of the song. (Flashback: Years ago there was feminine hygiene commercial featuring an actress named Brenda Vaccaro in which she sounded like she was having an asthma attack between each voice-over phrase. Probably too much compression. It was parodied nicely by SCTV.) As far as over-editing goes, I think it's bad enough that overuse of vocal tuning is dehumanizing music to the point that it doesn't impact us in the dramatic and instinctual way that it has the potential to do. I won’t rant more about that here.
The problems I run into more often with compulsive editing are related to playing techniques used in the tracks when I go to mix a song. I've spent hours editing bass and guitar tracks where the part called for laying out briefly during a snare hit every bar in a syncopated backing track. The bassist and the guitar player (who did about 4 rhythm track overdubs) both insisted on subconsciously playing the missing snare hit by tapping on the pickups where they were supposed to lay out. The accumulated effect smeared the snare hits and diluted the impact of the silence preceding the actual snare hit. If they'd done it together it might have been cool but their timing was all over the place. I spent one dreary afternoon editing several hundred clips to save the mix.

I agree with Feedback50 about the overuse of vocal tuning.  The occasional (very slight) off time hit or off key pitch is what makes a song sound alive to me.  (Unless 'I am' singing, in which case break out V-Vocal, Melodyn...and pen and paper, to write apology letters to the neighbors)

That said, my pet peeve is lip sounds in the mic.  I don't want to hear someone smaking their lips when they open or close their mouth.  It reminds me too much of someone chewing food with their mouth open and talking to you at the same time.  That and ..too much breathing.  If I hear someone sucking in air before they say each phrase I start to wonder if they have asthma.  Then I start wondering if they are 'ok'.  Then I spend the rest of the song wondering who is torturing this poor soul and making them sing into the mic when they obviously can't breath very well.  Instead of enjoying the music I am left wondering if they are still alive when the song ends.

So long as inadvertent sounds do not distract from the production, I keep them in.

+1
Great topic.

The problem is knowing what "distracts from the production". As the mixer (and probably performer too), you are too close to it to make that determination yourself.

It is the cumulative effect of many small details that makes for overall quality. You struggle to get every track just right without regard to whether it's ultimately going to get buried in the mix. Such anal attention to detail is what makes a good mix. So naturally, as we look for defects to address, we don't ask if it's too trivial to bother with - we just fix it.

Unfortunately, after spending hours in that world of tiny details, you lose all objectivity. That's why you have to suspend a mix for a day and approach it with fresh ears later. That's why you burn a CD and listen to it in the car. That's why you have somebody else master it. Because you aren't objective enough.

As a practical matter, I would hold off editing lip smacks and such until very late in the process. Leave them in until your mix is 99% done, then leave the project for a day and come back to it. If you don't notice those flaws the next day, forget about them. Even if they stand out to your ears, run them by another pair of ears for verification before editing them out.

Another practical consideration: don't forget that the simple act of editing the track is going to leave artifacts that may be audible, even potentially more distracting than the noise you're trying to eliminate.

Some times, especially with up close female vocals, breathy is what you want, but it's not good in all situations. It also depends on the mic as well. A budget mic will often make lip and other natural mouth sounds sound more like offencive clicks or slaps, where as a high end studio mic will preserve the sound more naturally, making it a part of the feel or ambiance, and therefore can be more forgiving - it will pick up more of these stray sounds as well though - rumbling stomachs are common when soloing a vocal track captured through a high end mic, but it will be lost in the mix unless it's a particularly huge rumble, in which case, just zap it. If you have a singer with a particularly loud, slobbery gob or indigestion, a well setup gate (before any compression) will help keep it clean.

gamblerschoice


..."If you have a singer with a particularly loud, slobbery gob or indigestion"...

You need to hire a new singer

Later
Albert

That's assuming you hired them in the first place, as opposed to them being a client.