A week already?

[solarbird]

Since last post I wrapped up - I hope - recording bed track source material for all the mandolin-led pieces, and I even (omg) did my first... um... I think the term is drop-in? It's where you record a little snippet that you're using as a patch in a bad spot for an otherwise-good recording. It's different to other recording, in that you really need to match not just tempo but tone and feel of the recording you're patching. In this case that was pretty easy, but there will certainly be more difficult versions ahead.

But mostly I'm working on the bouzouki-led tracks. My bouzouki work has not been as crisp as my mandolin work, mostly because I've only been playing Kohaku since mid-April. (That's compared playing Summer since January '08, three times as long.) Six months is a lot of time and I'm starting to get there, but I don't have the... solidity? that I have on mandolin, at least not as consistently. There really are fundamental differences between how you approach the two instruments. So I've been doing a lot of playing and practicing just on getting the right kind of sounds.

"Getting Away with It" is not going to be easy to get right for the recording. Technically right is one thing (and there's nothing really that complicated about the song except it's another zillion-chord-wonder), but interpretatively right and energetically right is another entirely. I'm pretty sure that I'll be recording a bed track for it on (...checks schedule...) Friday that'll be timing-accurate but not good, and I won't end up keeping it. Maybe I'll surprise myself.

I'm also finding that I'm doing 2-3 hours of prep (including recording-specific rehearsal and warmups) for 20-30 minutes of actual live microphone and "tape." I suspect this is kind of normal? The ratio has actually been improving, which is good, mostly because I'm getting used to the equipment.

This afternoon I'm going to be giving a bunch of recorded tracks a really careful listen, and hopefully some editing. It's scary! 'cause it is. And more voicework. I'm not the kind of intuitive singer I'd like to be, but I have the voice I have, so I'm doing what I can with it. If Crime and the Forces of Evil are ever a Real Band, I'll probably be singing backup and harmonies, not lead.

Comments

[tfabris.livejournal.com]

It's called a "punch" if you do it in real-time.

Usually it's triggered by a button. You play along with the existing recording in your headphones, and just before you reach the bad spot, the engineer "punches in" by pressing the button, and when you're done covering the bad spot, the engineer "punches out" by pressing another button (or releasing the same button depending on the design of the recording apparatus being used).

It's important to play along with the recording both before and after the punch, much like following through with a golf swing. If you don't, the timbre and feel of the punched section won't match up properly.

If you're recording alone on tape-based mixing equipment, the board usually has a jack for a footswitch, so that you can control the punch remotely.

On tape machines, the punch is live and destructive, actively recording over what was present on that track of the tape at that time. So you need to be a good performer, and the engineer needs get the timing of the punch just right.

Digital hard disk recording systems and computer based recording systems are much better. They offer punch features, but they're non-destructive and are usually easily editable after-the-fact. No more sweating the punch.

Personally, I prefer to skip punches altogether and just do another take of that section of the song, then "comp" (edit) the newly-recorded section into place in the track by hand. The end result is the same as a nondestructive punch, it just makes it easier to visually edit the sections.

This is a perfect example of how modern digital recording techniques are lowering the skill bar for musicians and producers. Once upon a time, you had to work really hard on punches. Now it's just "relax and play that third chorus again". Or even better... Don't even bother re-recording that third chorus, just grab a copy of the good spot from the second chorus.

[solarbird]

Yeah, punch! That's it. I read that term in the studio book I have. ^_^ Except I wasn't doing it in real time, so I guess I'll be comping (comping? comping? Hansel?) it in later, with the end result the same as a punch.

(Ardour has specific punch functionality - nondestructive, as you note - but I don't have a remote control for it so I can't really do it live like that. I do have a remote control for the on-air sign tho'. It's my iPhone!)

[tfabris.livejournal.com]

Yeah, comping is short for compositing.

The last few versions of Logic Audio for the Mac have a feature called swipe comping (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_1Zdmn9jc0) which is really nice. I don't have that version so I don't get to use that feature.

[solarbird]

Oh that is tasty. Ardour has the auto-crossfading help but not the TOTALLY AWESOME folddown UI shown in the video. That's nice.

[tfabris.livejournal.com]

Many audio editing applications have the "bin full of takes" feature with the fold-down, but the swipe-comping is fairly new. It looks so natural and intuitive that it makes you wonder why all audio applications haven't already been doing it that way for years.