Most of us, with multitrack recording, already know this, but for those of you that don't know.

Most of us, with multitrack recording, already know this, but for those of you that don't know.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-little-known-recording-trick-that-makes-singers-sound-perfect

Dan

What's amazing to me is seeing a well-written and accurate article about music technology in the mainstream press. Unfortunately, though, this may be a sign of the end times

“It’s rare that you hear a really bad vocal comp...” I'd say, comme ci comme ça on that. But, to be sure, the mayhem is usually far less obvious than what all too often passes for 'professional' vocal pitch correction in so much commercial music.

Vocal retuning has certainly gotten better, tools have improved, artifacts are somewhat less gnarly, and, it seems to me, given a decent starting place, a good vocal editor can come up with pitch correction that largely flies under the radar. (Now, I'm not talking about tuning-for-effect, here, which is, of course, a whole different aesthetic.)

So why do we still hear so much clumsy and obvious, stick-out-like-sore-thumb tuning of vocals that are obviously intended to sound 'natural'? (The mega-star singer Adelle comes to mind on this count. She's obviously a pretty skilled singer. And the economic stakes could hardly be higher. It should be easy to get her vocals on the square without leaving artifacts behind, shouldn't it? You'd think.)

After nearly two decades of habitually applied vocal pitch correction, I think I'm prepared to say that these problems linger simply because there are a lot of tin ears in the music production hierarchies who will settle for what they apparently think is 'close enough.'

What's amazing to me is seeing a well-written and accurate article about music technology in the mainstream press. Unfortunately, though, this may be a sign of the end times

I hate it when secrets get out into the general public. Oh well. Vocal comping was by far, the main reason I began using locked 16 and 24 track machines in the 70s. Eliminated all the un-doable submixing along the way that had been the only recourse in the late 50s and most of the 60s. For me anyway. And others. When I would be tracking down at Criteria in Miami, there was never just a single machine running. Always for comps.

The general public still doesn't really know that the evergreen "Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac is composed of lead guitar solos that are TOTALLY comped. And Lindsay didn't even make the decision of which parts to comp of the 26 tracks. Richard did it. Just by sitting there, randomly bouncing faders up and down till he found a combination he liked. Totally comps that were then bounced down to a track to manage easier in the mix. Then... Lindsay had to learn it in order to play it live haha.

So common. Yes did the same thing. Recorded all the random parts, edited them together, and THEN had to learn the song as a piece.

I'm working a tv show this week where there are a billion comps. Film takes. Sometimes just four words, sometimes just one type of look. On the weekend, various combinations of the video and audio tracks will be flown around on the fragment takes.

Same thing as making a record.

On vocal tracks from the past ten years or so where vocal aerobics are so popular (yawn), you can listen with your engineer hat on and often.... very often... hear many of the comps. Just by listening to the breathing, occasional overlapping words in phrases.. even the pace of the rhythm. I often hear two and four bar passages. Which, if I were the engineer, I would do as well in order to get great comp takes. Doing entire passes as a starting choice palette is also good.

There are still at least a FEW recording secrets the general public doesn't have. Even guys in the bedroom studios who lament "how did they do that?...". Some secrets are good to have. That's why I personally will never do an interview with anyone anywhere for any reason. And if YOU have some killer secret ways of working with sound or film or... painting with Jello....I'd recommend keep the secrets to yourself!!!

What I really like are the guys who have secrets and purposely give the WRONG answer as to "how I did that". There are some legendary stories built that way.

I watched some CBC archival video of Gelnn Gould television interviews. It's quite amazing, in retrospect, how much insight he had into the "future" of music.

Gould was a performer who, like The Beatles, saw the recording studio as more than just a place to capture live performance. He would spend countless hours reviewing multiple takes and comping them together to create a near flawless performance.

Listening to Glenn Gould recordings is, at least for me, a very emotional experience. It doesn't seem that his efforts to achieve perfection have taken anything out of the music.

Listening to Glenn Gould recordings is, at least for me, a very emotional experience. It doesn't seem that his efforts to achieve perfection have taken anything out of the music.

I think if you comp performances with a strong emotional component, you can't really go wrong. It's when comping stitches together takes of varying quality that you start getting into trouble...

 

On vocal tracks from the past ten years or so where vocal aerobics are so popular (yawn), you can listen with your engineer hat on and often.... very often... hear many of the comps.

Wonder why they don't try to create some kind of catchy melody like they did in the old days.