being in a band and recording your band and fighting with your band about the recording

why is it always such a pain in the ass in the studio with other ppl!

how do bands even exist!

ヽ(｀Д´)ﾉ

what are you fighting about

what tier of flaws/mistakes/'rawness' we should purposely leave in the recording? i guess?

hmm, if u have the choice why not go with zero mistakes

well, that is my position, others disagree

Save what you've got, do it again with no mistakes and compare/contrast

also your band otm, mistakes are the best

depends on what kind of band you are, and what kind of "mistakes" they are.

is it a bad note in a solo or a stick clicking a rim on accident during a fill or something?

some mistakes are great but i`m not comfortable having my own on permanent versions of recordings. i always feel like, i wish we could have recorded that one jam where everything sounded right, you know? we tend to record pretty quickly and don`t have much to change, usually delegate mixing to one person. i'm pretty easygoing and trust my bandmates' tastes more than my own when it comes to our own stuff, i have had some really dumb recording ideas in the past that i'm grateful were vetoed

Is it for release or a demo? Is it a live band recording for a garagey outfit or a studio take for something less punk/DIY? Is it obvious bad playing/bum notes, or is it "we sped up during the crescendo"?

In general I would say try to get a good recording with no mistakes, as once you're in the mixing process it can be a fucking nightmare if your source material isn't good enough. You can't fix things in the mix! It never works! Never!

it's not even something as bad as anything anyone's guessed! we are actually decent musicians (if i can be so bold), late 20's/30's, playing a 'rock' music. Just our songwriter has this authenticity complex, 'you can never edit anything ever because using computers to manipulate music is the devil' thing.

The thing that set me off is literally a vocal double where one syllable is fucked up/way out of sync between the two takes and it's pretty much the only thing in 4 songs i've even considered changing so far. But I guess having a completely-in-sync-except-one-word vocal double is a vital part of the vision for this song.

The distinction between release and demo is exactly it --- we have done everything so right so far, pretty much for the first time in my life with a band, and I totally feel this is 'release' level and want to take it all the way there! It's always something!

like, believe me I am all about the 'happy accident' kind of mistakes. this just sounds like an oversight, except it's not, or wouldn't be...

u should make a sleepingbag remix imo where u sync up that one syllable

Here's my "if I had it to do all over again" advice: stay cool even (especially) if you're in the right and the other person is being a dick let it go.

Then, stay busy and never be in only one band at a time again.

our songwriter has this authenticity complex, 'you can never edit anything ever because using computers to manipulate music is the devil' thing.

maybe just gently remind the songwriter that unless his/her throat is a genetic mutant and has the ability to sing two different things at once, the recording is already manipulated because it has doubled vocals?

xp Yes! "if I had to do it all over again" advice is exactly why I started this thread, I feel better already!

stay busy and never be in only one band at a time again.

― Three Word Username, Sunday, March 3, 2013 3:53 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hehe good advice

xp to zs, that is exactly the way I think, believe me. I assume the reason i keep stewing on this in my head is cos I find his thinking too arbitrary to decode to an extent.

i'm in a band with a super stubborn curmudgeonly rockist dude and yeah, it's like the sooner you stop trying to decode or find the logic or convince them of the error of their ways the better

I could definitely imagine someone making a case for "yeah, it's a mistake but it sounds interesting" re: what's described here, but having not heard it myself I can't say.

maybe just gently remind the songwriter that unless his/her throat is a genetic mutant and has the ability to sing two different things at once, the recording is already manipulated because it has doubled vocals?

OTM OTM OTM. We managed to convince our curmudgeonly drummer to appreciate the value of computers when he finally realised that it would save him another three hours of trying to get the perfect take.

i have always regretted letting mistakes go, it is almost always because i was being lazy or letting others be lazy

OTM

my ex-band fought a lot about recording situations and it was p much always me against the three of them. now as grown ups they acknowledge that i was right about p much everything. it is a small victory, in fact not a victory at all but a testament to the fact that i had no idea how to assert myself in those days, but it feels good to have your friends say they were wrong so console yourself with that

lol

Asserting yourself might not have helped against the power of groupthink.:P Might have though.

God I feel like sleepingbag's worst enemy. with the demo we just received, i've been trying to be optimistic because i know if my drummer had his way he'd agonise over every minute detail until it got ot the point where we'd have to start all over again. at the same time i can't help but feel there are things about it that bug me that i'm just trying to brush off as an eccentricity rather than an annoyance. i'm just not sure how productive it's going to be to get back to the studio engineer with a shopping list of problems.

just listen to the roughs A LOT. some of the problems will just go away, other things will keep standing out

Dr Seuss guide for rough mixes:

Have you listened on headphones?
Have you listened at your home?
Have you tried computer speakers?
Or the finest woofers and tweeters?
Have you listened in a car?
Have you listened near, and far?
Have you stood back, front and left?
Have you played so loud you're deaf?
Have you listened off your box?
Have you listened in pants and socks?
Have you played it as background?
Are you sure you like that sound?

A++++++

looolll

just keep recording till you get a good take

You can clip a toenail or apply moisturizer but "how good you're looking these days" is dependent on your diet, your lifestyle and your genes.

Similarly, cleaning up a take on a micro-managerial level is wasted time imo. Better to leave it, listen to it before rehearsal next week, and retake it again. Play it live and then take it again. Etc.

wrt mistakes, they're the best, but only if you're band is already tight and knows what they're doing

IMO

the dogma about "authenticity" is kind of bullshit/not-bullshit. Nobody else cares about your authenticity, but these recordings are going to mean more to you than anybody else. Better to do it once and keep it real, or every time you hear it you'll be like "oh yeah that's the note we pitchcorrected *shudder of shame*"

haha I get that way about listening to recordings of myself singing, usually along the lines of "wtf was I doing with that diphthong"

or every time you hear it you'll be like "oh yeah that's the note we pitchcorrected *shudder of shame*"

nah, i think it's funny how after awhile you forget the mistake (as long as the edit is good) and just hear the part as you meant it to sound.

That has not been my experience.

My perennial comment on anybody's unfinished recordings is "why don't you sing it again", like, instead of correcting your vox and fixing it up, just sing it again next week, and the week after. Nobody listens to me tho

i'm mostly thinking of rhythmic edits, nudging things around or grabbing a fill from another take.

That kind of stuff is great! I see that as an extension of normal production, though, not "corrective".

I'm pitchcorrecting an individual french horn within a full orchestral take right now though, the most anal corrective shit ever, so I'm as guilty as anybody

one of the meanest things we ever did in my band was edit the drummer's track to remove every other snare hit on the bridge of one of our songs during a mixing session he missed because he was in the process of losing his mind (literally)

we were right, tho

i have always regretted letting mistakes go, it is almost always because i was being lazy or letting others be lazy

― acid sierra (electricsound), Sunday, March 3, 2013 5:04 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is otm and i'm sick of having lazy recordings of good music

Dr Seuss guide for rough mixes:

Have you listened on headphones?
Have you listened at your home?
Have you tried computer speakers?
Or the finest woofers and tweeters?
Have you listened in a car?
Have you listened near, and far?
Have you stood back, front and left?
Have you played so loud you're deaf?
Have you listened off your box?
Have you listened in pants and socks?
Have you played it as background?
Are you sure you like that sound?

Yes!!! Love this!

going to print that out and put it in my home studio which is actually just a tiny corner with a barber's chair and a tascam

fgti, are you recording/producing an orchestral recording??

we worked this out pretty amicably fwiw, I think I was misinterpreting my buddy as being more calculatedly anti-studio-'magic' than he actually was when it was more just plain studio-inexperience. very psyched about the way this music is turning out!