Now, I'm not big on the notion mostly save for the mistake-fix sorta edits, but my drummer likes the glossy pop and I concede the not-flamming-against-the-programming thing.

That being said, I'm trying to keep the feel of the performances intact, especially the hat work, which is really nice. Flex Time edits (time stretching; Elastic Audio in PT, can't speak for Reaper on this and I don't think anyone on here uses Cubase/Nuendo) can leave artifacts that sound like comb filtering or bad stutter edits, cut/drag/crossfade can do the same or produce obvious edit points, so I've taken a page out of the old-school playbook (thank you, Mixerman Diaries for reminding me of this) and taken sections from between kick/snare hits and pasting 'em in as splices to fill the gaps, otherwise it sounds like there's a bad gate happening. The decay is right and they don't read as obvious edit points.

Thankfully there's only one song I'm doing this on (double-time sections on a heavy industrial track). And that I'm not measuring and cutting tape.

For what it's worth. It's a relatively quick way to hide otherwise bitchy drum edits, and one I haven't heard mentioned much. Still a totally valid approach IMO.

Dude, drum editing is like, a huge part of what I do. I actually interned at a studio a few years ago where they would have to do a lot of that, and I guess it opened my eyes as to how much of a drum performance can be reshaped into what is 'expected'. I mean any drum I've forwarded of myself had it. Also some bands I record, have so much it's like I created a new performance. It is much more satisfying though, to record someone who has their shit together.

To do it and be able to hide it in the mix is a useful skill. To be able to hide it soloed is pretty epic. And the more tracks and the more room tracks there are, the more it starts to add up. It's interesting approaching it from a different angle in a not-metal context, trying to tighten up the kicks and snares against programmed tracks and then not lose the feel of the rest. It's not easy, honestly, and the non-destructive time stretch edits create their own set of problems.

It's a dangerous rabbit hole to go down- once you start moving stuff around, it introduces all sorts of other shit into the mix. Yeah, you have a "perfect" drum track, but now you have all this other bullshit that needs to conveniently disappear. Thus the splicing thing that made me start the thread- there were gaps between kick and snare hits that just couldn't be gotten rid of any other way, not if the drums are going to sound at all real and be high up in the mix. The hits were too close together.

Re: creating a different performance- If you really want to be stupid about it, and the music allows, cut up the bass, too. And don't necessarily line stuff up to the grid, either. Especially stuff where the rhythm section wasn't recorded all at once or you only have a limited amount of takes to work with, you can definitely make that rhythm section groove more.

I am really quite anti-drumedits.

Thankfully, i have not recorded anyone who wants that sound, and i probably wouldn't allow it in a band i was a part of(actually i doubt i would wind up with a drummer who wanted/needed it). My feeling is that if it is out of time, either leave it so, or re-record it.

Partly that is curmudgeontalk. But moreso, it is a decision not to drop down a rabbithole. You start modifying human performances for robotic perfection, and you will be cutting and pasting for a long time. The closer you look at it, the more needs fixing. And i am simply not convinced that the results are actually "perfection".

I just don't think it is a worthwhile goal to chase.

Also, for my own playing, i am a very swingy drummer. You would have to edit every single hit, and then, it wouldn't sound like me playing it. You might as well program the beats in SD2.

Even with the application being dance music, i would take some convincing. The earlier dance music was certainly not very well beat matched, either between turntables mixing on the fly, records that were not exactly accurate to each other, or by synths lacking 100% Overlord Locked In MIDI Clocks Groove Machine functionality. Hell, those doap old analog synths would change pitch and speed, depending on the ambient heat an humidity. The Fully Locked-In Beat was mostly impossible. Good enough for Grandmaster Flash, yeah, i will take it.

Also: There is a crazy tangential aesthetic/moral angle to why i support imperfect drums(err, there is such a thing to most of how i function or not, but that is a story for another time ), in about 90% of applications. Perfect repetition is not natural. Nothing in nature repeats itself exactly the same way twice. All so-called cycles of life are elliptical, with elements of improvisation down to levels that sometimes can hardly be measured, but with results that can be observed quite easily. The perfect circle/cycle simply doesn't exist anywhere in real life. Things should breathe, inhale/exhale, fluctuate, drift, change. If they don't, then i feel that the brain can figure out that something is missing.

Unnatural cycles can work for unnatural purposes though.

Like, modern death metal, becomes a cold dead place where the performer lies obscured by a film of fog and an obviously inhuman rhythm. We now mostly marvel at the machine's intensity, where we used to marvel at a destructive or emotional force of heavy fast music. Now the only emotion that comes into it is that of being worn down. It can work. Hello Origin. But the inhuman element is what comes forward. That is a band pretending to be a computer. Their cyborg worship IS what "their sound" is.

I don't know that i would prescribe that sort of presentation for a band that was about getting folks: dancing, drunk, and happy, though, you know?

That is perhaps/definitely one of the ways that i am loony though. Everyone has to make some aesthetic decisions, how and why that happens individually, well, some of us go strange places with the process. I accept that.

hrm. i'm kinda with chris here.. but man, i'm as hands off as it gets, i think.

i avoid drum edits because a) i am entirely too stupid to learn such a thing, and b) because i am entirely befuddled by the use of technology to clean up a performance, i just pretend it's unnatural, so curse it. that way, i save face by hiding my ineptitude with computers and seeming grouchy and antitechnological and pro music.

the unfortunate truth of this is, i am both inept with computers AND grouchy, antitechnological, and pro music.

regardless.. sometimes, i'm positive it's probably necessary. just not in my world 99.9%. the time to redo it right by playing it again in time is cheaper in my world than fixing a track by a paid for studio guy in another city. i don't record anybody for whom it WOULDN'T be. and i'm not really a data entry sort.. fixing a performance is just not the kind of thing i record bands to do-- and luckily, i tell bands that, so they self select for me. dumbass willie's recording co. has its own allure, i suppose. so i'll market to my strengths

all that said-- there's times i'm sure it's necessary.. much like mashing the crap outa stuff with comps, which i had also previously never done lotsa fun new tools, even for a dufus like me who's been pretty caveman-esque.. i'd learn it, but probably never use it. and i'm sure in the time between learning and using.. i'd probably forget how...

Well guys it really pleases me to record something that needs little to no edits. It's really nice. But alas, people have expectations, and it's within my capability to make the recording move more in the direction of what they're expecting even when the performance isn't fully there. So it gets done. It's a metal thing...

there's that. i think, though, there's the counterforce that you can exert that despite the fact it CAN be done, you can still decide if it NEEDS to be done. i mean-- there's the idiom, and there's the ability to want to change the idiom. there's nothing wrong with changing it-- hell-- what greatness ever came out of just doing what everybody else does?

at some point it'll probably lurch back to single mics in a room, because the standards of perfection we have now will eventually become passe unless people plan on having click tracks on their ipods.

I do do some of the 'going against the grain' thing with my production. Like these days it's often the norm to sound replace every drum on the kit, either fully or mixed with the original one. I don't do that, the only thing I'd have triggered is the kick drum. Just can't stand hearing that stuff and am doing my part to make sure there's metal that doesn't sound that way.

I'm talking about this sound:



No thank you.

I think it already has lurched toward the simple organic approach. It's hard to be definitive about it just because popular music these days encompasses so many different genres. Within metal, no, simple and organic without the click is not the direction of things. But there is a lot of music now that is very popular, which is recorded very simply without any editing wizardry. For instance, The Black Keys.

Don't get me wrong, i am not smacktalking the process, only explaining the crazy behind why i personally avoid it!

In my opinion, ALL techniques are valid, and ALL techniques should be used by anyone who can think of a reason for using them at any given time.

Lots of folks would(and have) smacktalked my completely fucked up sense of meter. Most engineers/producers would completely puree my playing. I used to take offense to that, but now i realize that they simply have a very different set of aims with regards to what they want to get from hearing sounds. I don't know of anyone who is really into some of the stuff i am into, and i would not ever desire to dictate what other folks should be into either.

I would only ever suggest that folks do make some sort of self-appraisal though. Meaning, that they ask themselves if there is really a good reason to do something. And then, if there is a good reason NOT to do something. Then work from there.

For recorders anyhow, i like the idea that decisions are made, and aesthetics followed, rather than, just a bunch of paths of least resistance followed or even worse IMO, of complacent routine dictating what is done and how it is done.

But that might be also because i like to overanalyze just about every part of everything. NOT because it is the "right" way to do things, necessarily.

I hadn't read that when i posted the above. But we are on a similar page i think.

Holyfuck, that just sounds terrible. The drum sounds they chose don't even make any sense together.

yow.. that fleshgod nightmare stuff is awful. ick.

don't gemme wrong, ustrung-- no baggin on what you do or otherwise-- but i think some bands could be classified as metal and pull off MUCH more organic recordings than are currently in vogue. what else will change expectations than good exemplars of music people like that's similar, but not the same?

hell.. listen to the Accused or poison idea.. retardo tight, and no clicks, no replacement, no edits.. just overcaffeinated badass..

it might CHANGE metal to go that route.. but then again.. god-- PLEAAASE change metal-- that could potentially be awesome. there's loads of attributes i LIKE about modern metal... but 'organic sound' is NOT one of them.

One band I can think of think of that isn't this way is Nile. That stuff is over the top, but they keep it natural. Helps that they've always had drummers who were top of the heap. The only thing that is triggered is the kick, which is to be expected at these tempos. It certainly isn't the norm, but then drummers of this skill level aren't either.



I'm not that big a fan of them though. Their stuff kind of blurs into an endless raping to me, not very catchy. Just an example of people approaching the production in a way I can get behind.

Those samples on that FA song are pretty terrible.. Badass song though!

But there's nothing worse than this;



Though I really like this band as well, just shitty ass drumsounds.

However, here's a good example of brutal death metal with organic production.

Ah, the drums were real cymbals and Roland drums... no editing though! No click.

Cam, would you like a copy of our EP? I'd need you to PM me the mailing address. Actually, same to anyone else here who is interested. It's a legit release from Pathologically Explicit records, with the booklet and liner and shit.

I leave for two hours, formulate a response and pretty much everyone else has responded for me.

Now, I don't come from a punk or indie background, and I'm not a documentarian recordist. In a way, I'm a bit of a traditionalist in that I'm willing and able to subvert reality toward an aesthetic end.

Re: editing and the like, I'd rather that end be a purely aesthetic decision rather than covering up for the fact someone can't play. I've been blessed with some really solid drummers over the past few years. And the metal stuff has been largely left alone, oddly enough, seeing as my usual collaborator there is of like mind (and a badass drummer his own self).

I don't subscribe to the currently prevalent modern notion that because something's 100% dead nuts to the grid on every hit or the vocals are perfectly in tune (never mind they sound like they have a sine wave off a Minimoog behind them) that's somehow perfect, good or desirable in any way. And I think there's a pretty big backlash against this in the engineering community, much as there is against slammed mastering.

In my context here, I'm allowed to strap on my producer pants and if I'mma do it, at least do it my way where you don't hear it so much and leave well enough alone unless you do. (Save for as an obvious effect; there's a couple songs we've thought about cutting up and looping parts of the rhythm section hip-hop style, like we sampled an old record... of ourselves. Different animal, as Chris pointed out prior.) The production aesthetic here is more Trent Reznor than, say, Joey Sturgis; the idea is more to create an almost-but-not-quite impression of a loop in certain sections from a real track that's already played that way. Snares that flam against the kick doing a four-on-the-floor disco thing are left doing so, and the non kick/snare drum machine sounds (some of which are from hardware) are left to do their thing against hat and ride patterns. The overall feel is more something like... probably late '90s Depeche Mode or NIN, with real drums playing off against a programmed track. Given the context, even though I tend toward the curmudgeonly side, I'll concede it is not an aesthetically inappropriate choice, and I have, for my part, having a good drummer to work with, tried to keep as much of the feel of the drums intact as I can- they'll push or pull or be left alone where they need to.

There was something I saw on ProSoundWeb a few years back where someone got the multitracks from... I think it was Marvin Gaye's What's Goin' On, hard-Autotuned the vocals and grid-aligned the drums. It was not good. The notion that a fairly arbitrary mechanical standard can be applied to art to "perfect" it is kinda anti-art; it's more subversive than Dada or Marcel Duchamp or whatever, but in a really creepy Orwellian way, and I kinda take offense to hear it overtly applied to someone I'm well aware is a plenty competent performer on their own. In my case, my hands are tied as I have one night worth of takes to work with so I can't say "do it again" and the aesthetic allows it without sounding out of place. (And even then, most commercial stuff or metal is edited way beyond what I'm doing, far as I know.)

That being said, the interaction between the live and programmed drums- essentially two different feels from two different percussionists, if you want to look at it that way- and the bass creates something that would totally get lost and groove a lot less if it all got lined up. Might as well not bother with real drums and bass at that point. There's that bit of the mechanical element from the programming and the rest is left to swing around it. The live stuff gets comped down from a number of takes, but that's it's own thing, going for "what's the coolest sounding performance" 'cause they're all a bit different.

But I digress.

Yar, but the production is so gritty and angry that it's not a super obvious thing, when everything is all shined up the samples become clear as day. The drum sound really works on this, all the sounds work quite well. A more beefy guitar sound would have been good (but we've already talked the semantics on this) but the bass presence makes it huge.

And fuck yeah! Thought it would probably have to wait till I get back to Washington as I have no mailbox/mailing address here.

K well, tell me where to mail it when you're... three weeks before you're ready for it.

I have a few of their records. They're not something I bust out often, but the production approach is interesting in that... they're just playing the songs like that. Their producer/engineer, Neil Kernon- yes, the guy who did the Hall & Oates records -has, or had, a forum on UltimateMetal which is mostly inactive but had a few good things I stumbled across a few years ago. I gathered the Nile recordings really don't have much going on at all. They made a kick sample more out of sonic necessity as you're fighting the actual physics of the instrument with 16ths at 300 bpm- and just rolled with it. As in "no compression on the snare, no EQ on the guitars" just dialed in and ripped. Now granted it's also slammed to all fuck in mastering, but they must have done something right beforehand if it's not a complete mess and the snare's still there.

Now, I am all for good production values in metal. It used to be a real genuine rarity. Then a formula started getting applied and this is where we're back to the idiomatically appropriate thing again. And in a genre that is not about good taste and part of the appeal of which is its total OTT-ness. Which made for a lot of records that range from vibe-less to . Problem is though you need to get guys who can play who actually finish the songs they write who are on the same page musically who can stick together long enough to make a record with someone who has some real recording chops (even if it is the guitar player from the band) and not have to totally ghetto-rig the whole thing. Easier said than done, and I think a few of us are aware of that- the skillset/taste/attitude combo is a real tough nut to crack, especially in a genre that's so often influenced only by itself.