Fix sloppy musicianship???

johnnylakes

Hi guys,
Recording/Mixing a young band at the moment, the musicianship is, shall we say lacking in places ;0 . Just would like to get your thoughts on how far ye tend to go to correct this? Or do ye even bother?
I can Autotune/Quantize etc. but I kinda feel that might be mis-representative of the band's sound. The have a kinda wild, hard rock kinda sound, so do you think is it best to just let them do their thing and just try to capture the performance, or should I be correcting the timing/tuning etc?
Don't think it's gonna get any better by doing multiple takes.

(It's not terrible, don't get me wrong, just not bang on)

Thanks

krd

It depends.

Have you ever listened to the Libertines?

There's really two ways you can do music these days. Either go sloppy like the Libertines, which can be really refreshingly shambolic. If the vibe is there the vibe is there.

Or, you can cheat like F****. Which is what most people are doing. Complete drum replace - quantising, correcting, adding synthetic sounds, auto tune. If you can afford it, seasoned session musos. 99.99% of music done today is completely unrepresentative of the raw sound of the musicians making it. There isn't a musician in the world who can play straight through without making a few micro second flubs here and there.

Most hardrock/metal made today is polished within an inch of its' life - and the result is most of these bands sound absolutely indistinguishable from each other.

johnnylakes

Hi krd,

Thanks for the reply.
I'm kinda leaning towards just letting them 'have it'. Just do what they do and it is what it is. My fear is that it could lose it's charm if I do 'polish' it. It's raw but there's something charming about that.
Just interested to see how the folks here would approach it, in general.

Thanks again

Squidgy Black

Just be straight with them, don't let them do any half arsed takes with mistakes, make sure every take is perfect. I know if I'd learned this from a young age it'd made any future recording sessions 10 times easier. Remind them to practice their parts before and after they come into the studio so they have it down fully.

You want to give them the best you can, but you'll only end up feeling like you've cheated them if you start autotuning and replacing drums. They'll want it to be their piece of work they're proud of too, something they've done everything on.

PaulBrewer

'every take is perfect' ..... go on with ya ! Then there'd only need to be one take

I dislike slop - I find it mars my enjoyment of the music, I'll always be Beatles over Stones.

Ensemble recording is a difficult thing to do - even by the experienced .

I think a good compromise is to tighten drums and over dub on that.

I avoid beat detective like the plague - but I would pull and push stuff closer to the line - so it sounds like the drummer, just a better version .

At least one has something solid for the rest of them to hang on to.


When I work with Joe in Clara what often works is we'll track - then I'll take the drums back to mine that night and tighten (or pocket them as the Yanks would have it) . Depending on the track it can be 2/3 hours work per song.

I'll send the work back to him by email (just the protools session he already has the audio files) and he'll overdub the next day.

I'm often surprised by how one or more band members ups their game just by the fact they 'know' where a beat is going to be.

And if that isn't the case it's clear what needs to be done.

Tightening drums also de-stresses a session - a decision has been made that all must abide by.

With a looser track there can be an acceptable place where other instruments may sit giving the required result , but that can be a variable. What everyone thinks is ok one day - may not past the test on another.

Having something solid as a bedrock is integral to how I hear and feel music.

Hayte

You should talk to them about this and see what they want.

I dont think there is a right or wrong way to do it, but you can act unilaterally and deliver something which they didn't expect and don't like. Have a chat so your efforts don't go unappreciated.

narwhalthe

What sounds wrong with their takes?
You could correct the vocals pitch and just comp in bits where the drummer messes up. Or get him to do a few takes and grab the best one.

krd made a good comment above about the Libertines- it really works for them so might work for these guys too.