Good musicians and good recording equipment make daw editing unnecesary?

[stoopicus]

Pretty sure I saw the same tour and yeah Cheap Trick were so, so much better than Foreigner. Then again Foreigner was not really my style even at the time in Jr. High. I remember thinking "this sounds exactly like the album, this has to be taped." At 13. If it was obvious to me even then...

[jancivil]

Also, in consideration of piano roll (and confer 'impossible to do') there's a pretty famous composer, Conlon Nancarrow whose entire ouevre was done on a real piano roll, where you punch holes in a card for a mechanism to 'read'. I have heard one group do something of his live (it's on Youtube), but generally this music is considered quite impossible.

I had a piano-centric piece a few yrs ago where the last bit was probably as impossible AF to play, and someone commenting at YT likened it to Nancarrow. I can't play enough piano to really assess possible vs impossible. <Is it idiomatic enough> is my goal instead.

And, I have instruments that do not exist outside the technology or even close. The intial question of the OP poses a false and useless dichotomy.

is ok, as original poster, was not my intention to state something, instead of it, i enjoyed reading your experiences. Thanks your several shared ones!

I recognize that, it is a good thought-provoking question so I went with some thoughts.
If all 'virtual' music was just aping what can be done on instruments in real time it wouldn't be what I spend all this time on. I come from a performance background btw. many years ago.

also I was reacting to an early comment where that was all it was about.

all of my current work is created in Key Editor in Cubase. To a certain way of thinking it's all a great lie. but it's also not feasible to do otherwise, the overall effect notwithstanding.
but again, sometimes events have to be live, virtual is not always virtuous.

[jules99]

I'm not even going to argue about what's a 'good' musician, because that's a whole different kind of discussion. But generally speaking, your whole argument is very genre-dependent, as blurred as they've become.

No one would argue that you need especially good musicians for most of hip hop and electronic music. The more the music depends on acoustic, played instruments the more it helps to have musicians who know their craft. Still, even there, one-take wonders are super rare.

Add to that the explosion of home recorders and bedroom producers in combination with the vastly improved editing tools of today's DAWs, and your point is even less valid. Because, sure endlessly editing recordings and tweaking EQs might take a lot of time. But who's going to ask about that if the song moves people?

[jlgrimes11]

And yes what a good musician is could mean alot of things.

Some people might not be the most accurate or technical but might have a character that can't be matched.

Some people sound best fairly raw while others sound phenomenal with loads of editing.

It's all about the song in the end.

Whether the musicians are good is subjective.

[stoopicus]

Technical skill and chops on specific instruments does not imply a good musician any more than 120wpm typing implies a good author.

Someone could be a EVH-level guitar shredder and still be a horrible musician.

DAWs, plugins, guitars, these are all a means to an end. How you get there doesn't matter; all that matters is the finished product. Music is not a contest of virtuosity; it's an art.

[zerocrossing]

Technical skill and chops on specific instruments does not imply a good musician any more than 120wpm typing implies a good author.

Someone could be a EVH-level guitar shredder and still be a horrible musician.

DAWs, plugins, guitars, these are all a means to an end. How you get there doesn't matter; all that matters is the finished product. Music is not a contest of virtuosity; it's an art.

Indeed. I've also been in the studio with amazing musicians, and I can't ever remember a time when a performance wasn't taken from one of any number of takes, or cobbled together from many comps. Punch-in/outs have been being done with the best bands since the technology was invented. Am I guilty of fixing the timing of a note or two when I'm putting my stuff together? Sure. Do I knit a solo together from a number of comps? Absolutely. I'd probably have to do this less, if I practiced a lot more, but who has that sort of time? I've got people on the internet I have to agree/disagree with, and that's no easy task.

[zerocrossing]

I've told this story before, but I'll do a quick summery to prove a point. I wrote a 3/4 adaptation of Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star, to be used as an educational guide for kids. The point was, "why ask what a star is? Why not tell kids what stars are?" Anyway, I envisioned a woman singing it, which is definitely not me. So I put out a call for people to do the vocal, and I promised that I could pay a small fee for the favor. It never really came together due to flakiness and laziness. If I were to do this again, I'd use an AI voice and be done with it. I wasted a ton of time trying to wrangle "good musicians." No thanks. I accept our robot overlords.

[cryophonik]

Yeah, that’s par for the course. I’ve recorded with dozens of singers (and other instrumentalists) over the years and did a good share of studio session work as a bassist in my younger days. Aside from a few very simple bass lines recorded for jingles, I don’t think I’ve ever had an instance where a musician came in, nailed it, and needed no editing or comp’ing. Even more so, the best singers I’ve worked with are the ones who have been the most critical of their own performances and the most likely to want to keep recording, doing some punch-ins, etc. to get it as close to perfect as possible. They’re also most likely to tell me that they specifically want lines x, y, and z from this take, lines a, b, and c, from that take, etc. where I’m usually just sitting there thinking “my god, every one of these takes were near perfect”

Oh, and don’t even get me started on flaky singers…

[wikter]

tacking
I'm learning about stacking which (I believe) is the process of doing multiple takes, stacking them in a DAW, then taking the best bits from each to make one great track (usually vocal). I think this is smart. Kind of like film editing.

It depends on your way, but with good sources, stacking is an alternative, not a must.
A very important part of a sound technician/producer is to get the better possible take from a musician/singer.
Know about their possibilities and exploit them.

[Vocalpoint Studios]

Indeed. I've also been in the studio with amazing musicians, and I can't ever remember a time when a performance wasn't taken from one of any number of takes, or cobbled together from many comps. Punch-in/outs have been being done with the best bands since the technology was invented.

This.

Unless you are recording direct to two-track and one off perfection is the only end game - every commerical session ever recorded has been punched, comped, chopped and cut every which way to arrive at a finished product.

That is just good use of the toolset and par for the course.

If you want a real cool insider view of how things really work - check out Rick Beato's most recent interview with David Gilmour of Pink Floyd - talking about exactly how the band pieced together the Wall using 4 track machines, playing against home demos, humming count ins, manual clicks, no tape syncronization and hundreds of manual fly-ins, fader moves and real foley FX.

The actual assembly of what we hear on that record - blew my mind when Dave started describing it.

VP

[tapper mike]

I'm learning about stacking which (I believe) is the process of doing multiple takes, stacking them in a DAW, then taking the best bits from each to make one great track (usually vocal). I think this is smart. Kind of like film editing.

That's what Quincy Jones did with EVH's solo on beat it. EVH spent 16 hours in one day trying to get the perfect solo. None of them were working. Finally Quincy pulled up the best three and said this is the beginning, this is the middle and this is the end. Back then multi-tracks were sync'd by a sync track which would allow the tapes to be aligned. It could have been either Quincy or Eddie but someone cut the tape wrong and they had to throw a simple drum pattern to sync the two multi-tracks together. Steve Lukather mentioned this in an interview long ago. I don't have the link.

[tapper mike]

When I was in my teens. ELO performed live at the Pontiac Silverdome. It sounded just like the records. Because it was the records. They mimed the entire show. I didn't know at the time and was furious when I found out. I knew it was common practice for performers on TV shows to lip sync to their hit songs on various variety shows. But I never thought they'd do that live or in one of those recorded concert shows. Today If the band is live it's mostly accurate although the singers mic is fed into some auto tune.

[tapper mike]

In the 80's the two best things I did for my musical journey were one go to school for recording engineering and two buy a 4 track cassette player. It was the recording equipment that made me a better performer. I'd have to listen to what I was doing and get a handle on what I needed to do better including leaving space for other instruments and composing songs on paper.

At my zenith I was writing and producing one song a week. I bought cheap keyboards and taught myself keys. I bought drum machines and learned how to play common patterns and program them as well. I would do several takes on parts till I got them right and kept on working on my punch ins till I got more comfortable with them.

Regarding quality recording musicians. God those are few and far between in my neck of the woods. I too had some time in a small studio playing rhythm guitar for jingles, song poems and the occasional solo artist, As well I'd work as a second prepping rooms for studio dates. Some otherwise great live musicians fall apart fast in the studio. Very few can knuckle down and get through a proper session. Yes those who are usually the best will want to do better.

As much as I loved those days of sit in jams where everyone will bring an instrument and play along spontaneously. I doubt if I could survive it these days.

[Awats]

If everyone did everything perfect there wouldn't be a need for editing. True.

However ...

[VOODOO U]

Well thank god for A.I.! Now everyone can do everything perfectly with no need for editing.