It Happened Again!!

Bull

Gold Member
Every time we demo a new tune,my guitarist, who is bedroom engineering the project,edits out all the ghosts notes!!! Even the flams are missing AAAARRRHHHH
 
Every time we demo a new tune,my guitarist, who is bedroom engineering the project,edits out all the ghosts notes!!! Even the flams are missing AAAARRRHHHH

Maybe he doesn't want them there and they are too much for the songs? have you talked to him about it? But flams aren't ghosted notes... Flams tend to be louder than regular notes... He must really not like those flams.
 
If its a band tell him to leave your drum parts as recorded, how would he feel if you removed half the notes from his solo.
 
If he is using gates, that may be the culprit. Is he even aware this is happening?
 
It happens when he tries to clean up any bleed over on tracks. He isn't doing it intentionally. Just staring at the screen and thinks it is cymbal bleed or something. It's just a demo but it's annoying lol
 
It's most likely the sound replacing program he is using. They miss all types of stuff unless you really know what you're doing. Most "bedroom engineers" do not understand how to effectively use these programs.
Or, he has gated the natural sound to the point were the gate is missing them.

Speak with him maybe?....hire a real engineer to capture you guys?

D
 
Time to record with TAPE!

Funny story about tape if you're keen on hearing it.

Many years ago I co owned a studio with my guitar player in Hate Eternal. We were always hearing bands complain about digital recording and how "tape" was so much better and all that.
so, as a marketing tool for our studio we went out and purchased a 24 track otari 2 inch machine.
And we booked band after band on that marketing tool of "being one of the only studio in town with a fully functional tape machine".

Want to know how many bands actually could record on it?

One.......us. haha.

Nobody could get through their songs in one take. Everyone wanted to punch in. "what do you mean we can't punch in"......haha. When the record head is 8 inches away from the erase head....you hear it plain and simple. Unless it's in a break of the song....you have to be able to play. Haha.

Literally dozens of bands....not one could use it. lol.

D
 
Funny story about tape if you're keen on hearing it.

Many years ago I co owned a studio with my guitar player in Hate Eternal. We were always hearing bands complain about digital recording and how "tape" was so much better and all that.
so, as a marketing tool for our studio we went out and purchased a 24 track otari 2 inch machine.
And we booked band after band on that marketing tool of "being one of the only studio in town with a fully functional tape machine".

Want to know how many bands actually could record on it?

One.......us. haha.

Nobody could get through their songs in one take. Everyone wanted to punch in. "what do you mean we can't punch in"......haha. When the record head is 8 inches away from the erase head....you hear it plain and simple. Unless it's in a break of the song....you have to be able to play. Haha.

Literally dozens of bands....not one could use it. lol.

D

That's funny. Now I've worked an old MCI 2-inch deck that could do a rolling punch-in and punch-out - so was this an option you guys didn't give to everyone? We had a Studer deck that would let you punch-in, but you couldn't punch-out to let the tape roll to the next spot to punch-in. I never understood that logic and we couldn't modify the deck to do it, either.

I guess digital recording really allowed the metal heads to flourish then?
 
It's most likely the sound replacing program he is using. They miss all types of stuff unless you really know what you're doing. Most "bedroom engineers" do not understand how to effectively use these programs.
Or, he has gated the natural sound to the point were the gate is missing them.

Speak with him maybe?....hire a real engineer to capture you guys?

D

These are just quickies and he is trying to learn some basics. He never even thought about it. He was just cleaning up everything he saw on the screen. Ghost notes never even crossed his mind. :)
 
That's funny. Now I've worked an old MCI 2-inch deck that could do a rolling punch-in and punch-out - so was this an option you guys didn't give to everyone? We had a Studer deck that would let you punch-in, but you couldn't punch-out to let the tape roll to the next spot to punch-in. I never understood that logic and we couldn't modify the deck to do it, either.

I guess digital recording really allowed the metal heads to flourish then?

That's weird. Must have been a really old one. I'm lucky to be old enough to have worked with many Studer tape machines - 2/4/8/16 and 24 track, from 1/4" to 2" tape - and every one of them had record, repro and sync heads, with fully functional remotes that would allow punching in and out all you liked. Of course there isn't always an easy place to get out (watch that cymbal decay!).

My god , I miss recording on tape. It really did sound better on playback (tape compression, saturation, etc). I just bought the UA Studer A800 tape simulator plugin - can't wait to use that on everything.

Neal
 
Funny story about tape if you're keen on hearing it.

Many years ago I co owned a studio with my guitar player in Hate Eternal. We were always hearing bands complain about digital recording and how "tape" was so much better and all that.
so, as a marketing tool for our studio we went out and purchased a 24 track otari 2 inch machine.
And we booked band after band on that marketing tool of "being one of the only studio in town with a fully functional tape machine".

Want to know how many bands actually could record on it?

One.......us. haha.

Nobody could get through their songs in one take. Everyone wanted to punch in. "what do you mean we can't punch in"......haha. When the record head is 8 inches away from the erase head....you hear it plain and simple. Unless it's in a break of the song....you have to be able to play. Haha.

Literally dozens of bands....not one could use it. lol.

D

lol, seriously? I can play everything I go into to the studio with in a whole take. If I can't, then I'm not ready. Of course, everything is easier and quicker if you can punch in, fix mistakes, and not have to do 50 takes to get something right. It's really about preparation, though. I don't wanna waste time in the studio trying to get something right because I'm not prepared (which our guitarist does, lol).
 
lol, seriously? I can play everything I go into to the studio with in a whole take. If I can't, then I'm not ready. Of course, everything is easier and quicker if you can punch in, fix mistakes, and not have to do 50 takes to get something right. It's really about preparation, though. I don't wanna waste time in the studio trying to get something right because I'm not prepared (which our guitarist does, lol).

Quite, If you cant play the song through then you are not ready.

You cant punch in during a gig so the song should be ready to gig.
 
I see it as the scourge of expecting recorded music to sound professional. My ear usually prefers the spontaneous energy of first or second takes, warts and all (as long as not too dire). If you're not up to playing songs perfectly then why expect perfect recordings? Why not just try to capture the vibe? (not directing that to you, Bull, just speaking generally). It's easy to lose some of the guts and grit with all the tweaking.

However, pro standards demand that you tick the "relative perfection box" before you're allowed to express. I guess that's how it goes if you want your play to become work.
 
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Have they actually been edited out, or have they been lost in the mix because of lack of adequate compression or sidechaining?
 
I see it as the scourge of expecting recorded music to sound professional.

Exactly this! I remember an early studio experience I had - when I brought home the initial recording roughs, I was so disappointed that I didn't sound like Copeland or Cameron or Mac Macneilly, and simply did not understand why.

I actually gathered a few disparate recordings - professional recordings; Genesis, AC/DC, Soundgarden, whatever - and brought them to the studio the next day. I played a few different cuts for the engineer and A/B'd them with our most recent tapes (yes, tapes - this was a while ago).

Very innocently, I asked what we could do to boost our recording quality to the levels heard on those albums. We were in a nice studio, with very good microphones and recording equipment - it all looked very fancy and high quality to me. So what, exactly, was the difference between those album recordings and ours?

The engineer deadpanned: 'About six months and four million dollars.'

You can make excellent basement tapes, but unless you've got a good chunk of time and/or money, they're still going to sound like 'basement tapes'.
 
Funny story about tape if you're keen on hearing it.

Many years ago I co owned a studio with my guitar player in Hate Eternal. We were always hearing bands complain about digital recording and how "tape" was so much better and all that.
so, as a marketing tool for our studio we went out and purchased a 24 track otari 2 inch machine.
And we booked band after band on that marketing tool of "being one of the only studio in town with a fully functional tape machine".

Want to know how many bands actually could record on it?

One.......us. haha.

Nobody could get through their songs in one take. Everyone wanted to punch in. "what do you mean we can't punch in"......haha. When the record head is 8 inches away from the erase head....you hear it plain and simple. Unless it's in a break of the song....you have to be able to play. Haha.

Literally dozens of bands....not one could use it. lol.

D

My band fell for that marketing hype recently but we actually did it in one session. In Clifton NJ, there's a place called "Mozart Studios" that uses a Sony 24 track from 80's. We did 3 songs in one session in one take - about 7 retries on each I would guess but we stayed focused. Actually our band "rules" are: 1) Be perfectly prepared for the song before scheduling recording and 2) Play what you would play live (i.e. no extra instrumentation if you can't do it and no tech on stage)

I'll bet from your experience with tape that you can't deny the beauty of cymbals. The wash is completely different than it is with digital, as with the natural low end response from floors and kicks. I don't think we can go back after what we heard and experienced.
 
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