General High End Studio Practices

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

I was listening to a Daryle Singletary cut, After the Fire Is Gone, with session players as good as it gets and presumably top shelf studio gear and techniques (sure sounds it). Something struck me:

---every single bass note is perfect and dead-on exact in duration---if he's playing alternating Root-5's on beats 1 & 3 the note lasts a quarter note and leaves space before the next attack.
Although I expect such 'nuance' from a pro picker, it is so perfect, each note shape is so precise that I'm wondering if it isn't assisted by some sort of gating.
I am not a bassist (I fancy myself as being able to pick, in an emergency but I have too much love & respect for bass to demean the instrument with any dumb claims) so maybe my question is naive--maybe the answer is 'of course an A team bassist is shaping his notes that perfectly---that's what an A team player does!' Or maybe compression and gating to achieve this is totally common.

I won't know unless I ask.

Alan Kirk · From: Paso Robles, CA, USA

Playing scales slowly with absolute accuracy and making each note EXACTLY the same attack, loudness, length and timbre, is how you develop control, on any instrument.
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Bob Martin · From: Madison Tn

Well John, let me just say this. No one is perfect including well versed studio musicians so if every note is exactly the same length right volume and attack there's either some mechanical assistance of some sort or you just possibly aren't hearing it as it really is and nothing against your hears or mine but none of us are capable of pulling one instrument out of a busy mix and hearing every single nuance of that instrument so it could be a very great bass player and it is because I know the bass player in reference as well as he is getting some electronic assistance before it ever reaches the tape so to speak as well as during and after. I'm willing to say that it is some of all of the above.

Big Bob
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mtulbert · From: Plano, Texas 75023

Jon,

When I worked in Nashville in the 70's I spent alot of time with a couple of bass players in the studio working on their guitars to get the most even amplitude from each note. The technology was not as sophisticated as today's standards but the results were pretty good. Some compression on the bass also would even out the level of the notes depending on the song being played.

BTW Daryl's album is one of the best sounding albums I have ever heard. It is a joy to listen to it from the technical point of view. Musically it is fantastic. I became a Mike Johnson fan for life after hearing it.

Regards,
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Joey Ace · From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

I don't know about the album in question, but exact timinig is easily achieved by Quantization.

It's very common on MIDI keyboards.
Properly used, these Keyboards can produce bass sounds that will fool the experts. They are samples of real basses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantization_(music)

http://emusician.com/tutorials/emusic_low_road/

Mark van Allen · From: Watkinsville, Ga. USA

I don't know about this particular album, but a lot of recent nashville tracks have been heavily edited in ProTools or other workstations for "pocket"- the drums are moved a shade forward or back to sit where the producer wants them on the beat, then other instruments are pocketed to the drums. It's considered an art form among engineers, and it's done with even the most polished studio performances. With less stellat perfomances it can make a track bareable, and with pro level players can still tighten things up considerably.

Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Just for clarity's sake, I'm not talking about the precision of the attack. It is the precision of the decay that got to me. I was listening on my mp3 player thru headphones so I could hear the details that I normally don't notice. I repeated the track several times because of how much this caught my attention. There was the attack, the decay, the silence before the next attack....each note shaped so so precisely with no run-on into the next note, seemingly the same cut-off point around beat 2 before the next note at beat 3.
I repeat-----if the answer is that this is what a top-level pro bass player does, cool. But I, too, am aware of some of the miracles of Pro-tools, not to mention older-tech stuff like gates. So that's what got me wondering.
Interesting answers above, for sure.

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

just don't loose sight that it STARTS with a producer and musician that understand the relationship of notes with regard to other Instruments and SPACE especially on a Bass track.

You can clean up a great track and make it better , but you can't clean up a cluttered track.

I have been fortunate to be in 3 different PRO TOOLS studios over the past few months . One they used gentle nudging but still expected the player to FIX the track, another they used somewhere in the middle for nudging and the 3rd used a whole lot of nudging. BUT, in each case, if the music was not right it came back to the musician and a new "take" was executed.

A great PRO TOOLS engineer will seek the absolute best "TAKE" before using the mouse.

One of these sessions I was a visitor in Nashville on Music Row, I asked the Engineer about fixing or sliding some parts and he said , "oh yeah I can do that but these guys are PRO's, it's best to let them do what they do, thats why they are here". The Steel player was Michael Douchette .

It's still the Musicians that make the music great.

I think in this case it is remarkable that Jon zeroed in on the Bass track, which to me is the most important track on any tune. Too much Bass leaves no place to sing or play , too little Bass leaves no groove. Too many Bass notes conflict with the singer or fill instruments, too few Bass notes offer no lead in to chord changes or phrases.

Pro Tools can't fix that.

An Engineer that understands how to use Gates, Compressors etc, can really clean up a track for a stellar final mix, an engineer who uses them because they are there is not quite the same. Pro Tools or not.

A few weeks back I played on a track for Muzak and there was this little part that I was brain dead on for the timing, the Engineer could have easily taken one "OK TAKE" and did his Pro Tools thing , but he didn't , instead he threatened to come in the Studio and learn how to play Pedal Steel on the spot and play the part, he told me that it would not be pretty ,so we just did it right instead. Then we ate dinner in the lounge .

tp

Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

I think this is a fascinating thread. So much here that everybody can learn from, not the least me, a beginner.

Tony, what you said here was very good and very educational. I hope everybody reads it and takes note.
I didn't have to be a pro or even semi pro to know that your post makes absolute sense.

Essentially what you are saying, Tony, that hits home with me, is that I should do another take(s) on the song I am currently struggling with in Adobe 3 and strive to get the best track down before I start editing.( You can clean up a great track and make it better , but you can't clean up a cluttered track. )

Thanks man!

Bent

Bruce Snow · From: Neustadt, Ontario, Canada

I Just upgraded to pro tools 7.4 which has a new feature called elastic time.You can now quantisize audio the same as you would midi & that can tighten & even out a bass or guitar line real quick, a great feature for us guys in home studios or anybody for that matter wanting quick results, but i do believe these studio musicians know their stuff & can deliver acuracy without relying on a quick fix. these edit tools do have their place though & they certainly help me out.A great topic & enlightening. bruce

Bruce Snow · From: Neustadt, Ontario, Canada

Bent,It's too bad we couldn't get audition installed on my pc,it would be fun to learn that program as well it sounds like a great program as well, mabe when i get the new pc i'll give it a try with your help:)I love these topics on recording.b

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

I don't like music that's "too perfect". I like to hear a human's hands on the instrument. When it reaches the point where I doubt whether a person actually played it, it's either a machine or a musician with no soul in his playing. I don't like that.
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Mark van Allen · From: Watkinsville, Ga. USA

I agree with you, b0b, and on the one hand I kind of miss the analog days when bass players, drummers, and backup singers got it "right" or tracked it again. One of the great learning tools about recording is being forced to really hear your timing and groove issues and work on them.

That being said, I wouldn't want to give up the digital editing joy that's available now. Not so much for quantizing a performance into "not sounding like a person's hands on the instrument" but for those near perfect takes where one beat is a bit rushed, the decay on one backup vocal line doesn't quite blend with the lead, or we even decide to add another chorus after the fact.

It's also really nice from a commercial standpoint to be able to clean up the amatuerish performance of a self-contained band that just wants their record to sound as good as possible. While you can do amazing things in editing, a heavily edited track by hacks will still never have the emotional impact of a lightly-edited track by competent pros.

They're all just tools, and like a steel guitar, it's what you do with 'em.

John Macy · From: Rockport TX/Denver CO

That is Glenn Worf on bass on that song, and if he is being ProTooled, I'd be real surprised...he just plays that good Smile

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Bryan Daste · From: Portland, Oregon, USA

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the importance of fades and crossfades in Pro Tools and other digital audio workstations - I would imagine that, if the bass track you're talking about was in fact played on a bass guitar and not a keyboard, fades were used to clean things up. The advantage of fades over gating is that you have precise control over where the note ends.

If I'm recording a bass track with a great player who can really control his attack/release like you described, what usually happens is that a couple of notes on the song will not sound as 'perfect' as the rest - so, in order to preserve the feel of the track, I will point them out and ask if the player wants to punch in or if I should just nudge the note, fade the release to end correctly, or whatever the case may be. Often I'll just do the edit quickly to show the player what it will sound like, and 9 times out of 10 he'll say, "great, I could never pick that out in a million years."

Punching in, which I would assume is grandfathered in as 'human' editing since it was done in the days of analog, can work well if the player is very consistent - but often little details such as the position of the player's hands on the instrument, how hard they're hitting the strings (this is very hard to keep consistent when you're punching a take you did 5 minutes ago), etc. can make the punch sound obvious and out-of-place. In this case I believe fixing the rogue note of the original performace can yield a much more 'natural' sounding finished product.

It's all about making the player look good! If the bassist has played every note well except for a few, he will thank you for editing those few notes to fit in with the rest. Believe me, you don't want to listen to the song 2 years from now and go, "Jeez, why didn't the engineer fix that one note?"

Steve Norman · From: Seattle Washington, USA

I had to do a last minute mandolin track on a friends album. I did 3 different solos in the very limited time we had. The used protools and cut and pasted one solo out of the 3. With cross fading they made it sound seemless. I cant reproduce in life what they did with my "samples". There are a lot of fixes in protools including compression (just click and dragg the upper boundry of the track), tuning fixes, you name it. Then after mastering etc the song will be pretty close to perfect if you start with good musicians.
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Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

I have no idea or opinion regarding whether Mr. Worf's tracks had any digital assistance. I most certainly would think no less of the man if 'tools were used. And I would admire him all the more if not.
The statements regarding human vs. perfection.....I recall that someone posted some patriotic song by some boy band--'nsync or some pap and everyone was all 'wow' about their harmonies but all I could hear was what sounded like a synthesizer. There was no way in hell that these posers could sing so in-tune---I swear, you could listen to them and debate whether their harmonies were ET or JI. Now that is, to me, a digital travesty. Sounds not only unreal but downright crappy. But everything else being referenced here, to me, is just a great way to create good music. If in the process one is creating music that is above and beyond the capabilities of the players (and here I've got to fess up that I've been doing some sessions that will be cut/paste manipulated up the wazoo to make usable tracks. I'm not proud...it just is what it is.....), well, god bless Mr. Phineas P. Tools for his great invention.
But that all is a whole nuther aspect of the compu-tool recording subject.
The original question regarding the Singletary sessions---it just sounds great. You don't listen to it and think that it sounds 'too perfect'. It is just sonically fine.

John Macy · From: Rockport TX/Denver CO

Here's a great Cowboy Jack Clement quote from the new Mix Magazine:

"Speaking of voices, do you tune vocals in the studio?

'I have never done that, except for very minor stuff. We'll move things around, but I don't do much in the way of tuning. If something needs tuning, I cut it over. They overdo it now, you know. They get it sounding perfect, and it turns out that perfect equates to sh*t.'"

Smile

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Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

There ya go.

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