I’ve always gone by sound and feel with my recordings, other than to edit some midi drums and keyboards to build a fill or correct flubs on a keyboard part, or add extra notes after the fact that I couldn’t properly play.
I listened to a few Reaper tutorials today, and found some methods that make getting everything to fit the grid a lot easier than the slice and slide procedure that I’ve used in the past. I got a little overzealous trying to match up a syncopated and doubled guitar part today, but I should be able to fix it when my blood pressure comes back down.
What I’m wondering is how many people on here go through their tracks completely and quantize everything in a project, and what method do they use, or how much leeway do you give yourself?
quantizing can have different meanings.
I am assuming you are referring to aligning to “bars and beats” in a Daw to correct timing mistakes.
If that is the case, I do it depending on the situation. If I am mixing a jazz improv as an interlude or a bridge, I avoid quantization. If I am mixing non concert pitch Indian Classical with a concert pitched western score as a fusion, I would not quantize Indian Classical as it would ruin the classical bits of the piece.
In many cases natural wind instruments have nuances that get ruined with quantization. For example a meend (pitch bended glissando) in a Bamboo Flute element are humanly improvised and quantization would break it. Same goes for some violin solos. So, I guess my answer is that it changes based on the situation. For example, I would match a snare to bars and beats and maybe the base rhythmic elements of a guitar or piano. But when it comes to improvs or solos, I avoid quantization. I avoid in certain Percussion situations such solo as elements of a Conga or a Tabla or a syncopated kick drum.
In some cases, quantizing music could refer to variation in timing signatures (i.e using multiple timing signatures) in the same score. For example, going from a 4/4 to a 3/4 timing in the same score, to freestyle then back to 4/4
I’m sure there’s a wealth of musical systems for which a grid would be superfluous. For instance listening to Ravi Shankar wouldn’t be the same if they weren’t constantly pushing and pulling throughout a composition.
For this conversation I guess I’m more focused on a wide range of modern popular music.
A better way to phrase the question might have been to ask “How many rungs down the ladder from Taylor Swift do you go before the producer allows for variations from the grid, for fear of losing his job?”
I’ve been working on a recording that has a little bit of a Latin feel, and with a grid on 32nds it is really difficult to be fluid with my playing and accurate to the grid. I get the impression from many of the online “pro” producers that popular recordings are now typically either locked in, or not considered competitive.
I’m also learning that fixing anything beyond obvious timing issues is extremely tedious, and I tend to end up with something I shouldn’t have messed with after I’m done.
This is a really interesting question. I think my answer is along the lines of Michelle’s… It depends. The answer for my own work is that I fix anything that messes with the groove of the song.
Sometimes that means editing to the grid, but other times, I’ve actually created a tempo map from the drum performance, and then played all the other elements and edited them (if necessary) to that.
When it comes to my own playing, I find my proficiency on the instrument dictates how much timing editing I need to do. I’m relatively proficient at guitar and bass, so I don’t tend to do as much there. Keys are another thing entirely - I have no qualms about quantising and editing my very poor keyboard playing. Same with drums or percussion. I just edit them until it grooves nicely.
I don’t find timing to be a big issue with vocals, but I’m not averse to shifting the odd note here or there if it improves the production.
Pretty much the same for me. I think that since I use a drum program that adds a little swing it’s counterproductive to try to get everything exact, since that sort of negates the swing.
The kick and the bass need to be as close as possible, but the click won’t line up exactly anyway.
I just spent hours trying to mess with a guitar solo, and it turned out about 50/50 of fixing things vs. losing the feel.
Like we used to say, if it sounds good, it’s good,
I generally keep auto-align to grid OFF when tracking live performances. Specially midi performances of that level. Auto arrange can sometimes mess with the feel of the song. In live performances, it is not uncommon for pianists/guitarists/violinists etc. to veer off into the 64ths 45ths and 32nds on grace notes (generally the case with improvs). Auto arrange can mess up grace notes in a big way. Instead, I only arrange the bits and pieces that sound totally off (like an obvious fumble of the keys)
I usually try to fix it in the performance. Afterwards - it is a hiss or miss. I usually go with as minimalist as I can, prefer not to do much of that, especially if part was done by a live musician that I still have access to.
Recently I ran into that issue as a client wanted me to record and write riffs to a song, about a year ago.
The drum parts were drum machine at the time and some of these were fixed. He wouldn’t spring for a good drummer that can lock with a click well and instead his engineer buddy played some what I call beginner drums on it, absolutely destroying the song in the process.
At that point I was paid for songwriting and guitar production. A year later they tried to fix this by quantizing the drums badly and then asking me for a very small fee if I’d re-record all my parts. The fee was so small so it didn’t warrant relearning all these parts so I can be on their record so I just wished them good luck.