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The perfection is in the imperfection.


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Yeah. I was listening to Morphine last night. Mark Sandman's groove is... perfect. In its imperfection. Listen to his two string slide bass against the drum and bari groove. The the pocket of his singing. Man...

 

...and how easy would it be to strip that of its soul with today's tools? Or even today's perception of what "right" is? The players might've never gone there today. Just give it 45 seconds and see what you think...

 

[video=youtube;yNEYKrFJgRo]

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I have to say .... "hell yes".

 

I shudder to think of the effect of Beat Detective or Audio Quantize or hard midi quantize or Auto Tune on some great funk bands of the past... like Parliament / Funkadelic. :eek: That music would be... well... just plain ruined.

 

Load up some classic George Duke funk (or a band like War) and you'll hear what's now being called "playing that needs timing correction". Back then they just called it "funk"... and it was actually funky *because* it wasn't perfect... and it still sounds better than most modern music.

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Ya know I love MIDI, mostly for the fact that if you want to speed something up or slow it down after the fact you don't have to play it all again, especially bass and guitar stuff. And I really like doing basslines on keys so it tightens things up, but man you really can just suck the groove right out of things, I can really see the new guitar vst's just making everything to happy perfect.

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I totally agree. Music is a language of expression. We don't speak in perfectly timed monotone, so why should our music be any difference. However it's obviously not good to be sloppy either. Also some songs lend themselves to more or less "expressiveness". It's up to the artist to emote what the song is trying to relate. Great players know this and are very effective at it.

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Load up some classic George Duke funk (or a band like War) and you'll hear what's now being called "playing that needs timing correction".

 

Pardon my french, but... Like hell it does! :mad::cop:

 

[video=youtube;BGqsOX4g99k]

 

Back then they just called it "funk"... and it was actually funky *because* it wasn't perfect... and it still sounds better than most modern music.

 

It's all feel. 100%, groove, emotion and expression. I love good Funk. :phil:

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Yeah, that was my point that it doesn't need correction, and that I'd bet some modern producers might do it anyway if it was being tracked today. Not all, but some. :)

 

Listen to George Duke's "Dukey Stick" for example. There are part of that record that would probably get "corrected" today, and ruined. Sometimes the minor "slop" (which isn't actually sloppy playing at all) is what makes it so damn funky. :thu:

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One of the best examples of this is the organ part on "Like A Rolling Stone." If you listen closely, it's awful- Al Kooper didn't know the song and couldn't hear anyway, so the chord changes are all late because he was looking at Dylan's hands to see what chords he was playing. You can even hear a few times where he starts playing the wrong chord and corrects it. But, it absolutely makes the song. Sure they could have run it down a few more times and gotten it "right," but there was magic in that take and Dylan knew it.

 

Today, some dip{censored} would have gone in after the band left and "fixed" the timing on that organ track, which would have completely ruined the vibe.

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One of the best examples of this is the organ part on "Like A Rolling Stone." If you listen closely, it's awful- Al Kooper didn't know the song and couldn't hear anyway, so the chord changes are all late because he was looking at Dylan's hands to see what chords he was playing. You can even hear a few times where he starts playing the wrong chord and corrects it. But, it absolutely makes the song. Sure they could have run it down a few more times and gotten it "right," but there was magic in that take and Dylan knew it.


Today, some dip{censored} would have gone in after the band left and "fixed" the timing on that organ track, which would have completely ruined the vibe.

 

 

Not only that, he said that he didn't know how to play organ at all, and if the organ had not been on, he would not have known how to turn it on. He just happened to be there, said he could play, and winged it.

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This is why I always get confused when people talk about quantization and time alignment and such. I've never even used the Elastic Audio function on Pro Tools. I just don't get it - if the timing is terrible, do another track. But if it's reinforcing the song, leave it alone.

 

I don't get the demand that everything in a song be exactly the same tempo either. Ever looked at a piece of classical sheet music? There are all sorts of markings on it for where to speed up and slow down for emotional impact. As far as I can tell it's only been pretty recent that everyone has decided things are supposed to be exactly on a grid. Tempo is supposed to serve the song, not the other way around...

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This is why I always get confused when people talk about quantization and time alignment and such. I've never even used the Elastic Audio function on Pro Tools. I just don't get it - if the timing is terrible, do another track. But if it's reinforcing the song, leave it alone.

 

 

I use it, and the Warp Function. The Warp Function can let you fix the groove, such as a late (or early) kick or guitar or bass or whatever. But I might just do a couple of fixes in what is an otherwise great performance. But to fix a whole 'effin' track? I know that some people "need" to do this through extenuating circumstances, but in most cases, it'd be better to re-do the track. It'd certainly be a lot faster. I know that's not always possible, but judging from what track sounds like, it's obvious that *everyone* thinks that it's necessary to fix/quantize tracks!!!

 

I've used Elastic Audio once or twice to change the tempo of a song. This is good for either rock bands or loops. It's especially effective with loops.

 

But again...why is *everyone* either using loops or quantizing/fixing their tracks? I don't understand this aesthetic, this desire to do this at all. It seems to me that this would sound better to do sparingly rather than making your tracks sound completely rigid and lock-stepped.

 

 

I don't get the demand that everything in a song be exactly the same tempo either. Ever looked at a piece of classical sheet music? There are all sorts of markings on it for where to speed up and slow down for emotional impact. As far as I can tell it's only been pretty recent that everyone has decided things are supposed to be exactly on a grid. Tempo is supposed to serve the song, not the other way around...

 

 

I'm with you. I don't get it at all. I don't know why even if someone plays drums "live" (which is sort of rendered meaningless when you replace the drum sound, quantize, snap to grid, etc.), one has to go and make it sound like the drummer is looped anyway.

 

I love tweaking, destroying, altering sounds, including drum sounds. It doesn't have to always sound "natural" to sound good. No, what I'm getting at is this: why does everyone have to make their drums sound the same? That's what this all does, you know. Rather than sounding "modern", it just sounds borrrrrrrrrring.

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This is why I always get confused when people talk about quantization and time alignment and such. I've never even used the Elastic Audio function on Pro Tools. I just don't get it - if the timing is terrible, do another track. But if it's reinforcing the song, leave it alone.


I don't get the demand that everything in a song be exactly the same tempo either. Ever looked at a piece of classical sheet music? There are all sorts of markings on it for where to speed up and slow down for emotional impact. As far as I can tell it's only been pretty recent that everyone has decided things are supposed to be exactly on a grid. Tempo is supposed to serve the song, not the other way around...

 

 

Embrace the paradox. Time shifting and tuning are tools. If you don't trust yourself with a chainsaw, by all means, put it down. And yeah, there is so much overuse of the technology. I won't argue that a lot of crap is the result.

 

But hey, there's a whole hip hop culture born of it too. House music exists due to hard quantize. Trance, etc.

 

Then there's the Micheal Buble hit. Strange that he'd be autotuned so severely when the guy can sing his ass off. But then again, he hit with I Just Haven't Met You Yet very likely because of the autotune coloring his retro rat pack thing to a more modern radio vibe.

 

So what? Use your taste to not use the tools when you decide it's lame. Your taste makes it or breaks it. I wouldn't have time corrected Al Cooper's organ.

 

I have never been subdued by a piece of software and been forced at gunpoint to employ it. You choose. I choose all the time and go from extreme to nothing depending.

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I have never been subdued by a piece of software and been forced at gunpoint to employ it. You choose. I choose all the time and go from extreme to nothing depending.

 

 

I think a lot of people assume they have to use all the tools at their disposal, simply because they're there. You get projects with 17 drum tracks because there were 17 tracks available and they think they get more "control" over the drum sound that way. I've seen people scrub headphone bleed on vocal tracks not because they needed to, just because they could, so they figured they were supposed to.

 

It's kinda like young musicians overplaying simply because they can- it's only later on that you learn to leave stuff out. I think everyone learning to record should be forced to record a band live to stereo. After you can do that you get four tracks, then eight, sixteen, etc. Oh, and you start out with two mics for drums.

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i've been listening to a lot of blind willie johnson lately.... music doesn't get much more raw than that imo... such powerful stuff... i can't imagine it cleaned up and sterile sounding

 

as for the groove of a song... there's a great line in a prince song ... "a little bit behind the beat... i mean just enough to turn you on"

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This topic quickly degenerated into a rant about production values. While that rant is well-deserved, IMO (too many technicians and not enough musicians behind the boards, on average), the original observation was "The hard part for many players is coming up with the perfect imperfections."

 

That, I think, is a subject worth further exploration.

 

It's a matter of the player serving the song vs. "imposing his will" upon a tune.

 

It's a matter of listening and responding rather than playing a part as written.

 

It's a matter of taking a chance as opposed to playing it safe.

 

Or am I completely off-base, here...?

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This topic quickly degenerated into a rant about production values. While that rant is well-deserved, IMO (too many technicians and not enough musicians behind the boards, on average), the original observation was "
The hard part for many players is coming up with the perfect imperfections.
"


That, I think, is a subject worth further exploration.


It's a matter of the player serving the song vs. "imposing his will" upon a tune.


It's a matter of listening and responding rather than playing a part as written.


It's a matter of taking a chance as opposed to playing it safe.


Or am I completely off-base, here...?

 

 

Completely on base. The Op seemed to include the engineer/producer's hand as well though. This is a studio forum. But yeah, musicianship. I remember being in the studio in the 80's and being so tight. "Gotta lock in like a gnat's ass." It was a mantra. Man... what a waste.

 

Good feel is natural. Even if you are playing a part note for note. Listen to any of Page's work in Stairway. The parts are pretty mapped out. He knew what he was going to do on each part. And yet... it flows like water. Not stiff, but going where it is supposed to go.

 

I can not imagine the opening notes of Stairway's solo if it were stiff. It just rolls out in the most natural way. And yet, to a grid, it might be looked at as an imperfection.

 

Bon Iver's stacked vocals are also full of rough edges and a loose concept of time. They're glorious.

 

But I also like the VocalAligned and tuned stacked to gills sound of the Max Martin onslaught of the 90's.

 

It's all music. There is no one right way for me. That'd be boring. I love hearing Joss Stone and I love hearing Katy Perry. 2 opposites. Mavis Staples or the whitest black person on earth, Marilyn McCoo? Fine by me that they all operate in the same universe.

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I just started listening to Junior Kimbrough on some YouTube clips, and it falls so much into what we've been discussing here. The beautiful push/pull of the rhythm, varying, weaving in and out. So gorgeous. I just ordered two of his CDs. I wish I could have seen this guy when he was alive. I have a feeling it would have been revelatory. Anyway, beautiful hypnotic Mississippi rhythms, just amazing...deceptively simple, but oh so great.

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