How did we survive before digtal editing???

[socialleper]

My first demo in 1990 was on tape. It took all day to record 4 songs. That wasn't with that many takes either. Mix down was a hassle. I don't miss it at all.
I don't get super OCD with corrections when recording digital. But it does allow you to punch in and out very easily. VSTs allow you to get the tone you want for very little money and in a small space.
I prefer having control over my own recording process. That would have been impossible back in the old days of tape, analog consoles, and rack gear.

 

[lz4005]

It's the same with all technology. You have to know which parts of the past to maintain while also embracing the efficiency of modern technology.

Tape compression sounds great. As do a lot of mics and consoles that are older than the people playing into them.

But tape editing? No way. I love being able to save an otherwise great take by replacing or moving 3 notes.

One of the previous replies was right on, though. The problem comes from over-editing. Making everything too perfect. Taking the humanity out of it. The real skill is knowing when to stop messing with it.

One thing not brought up yet is that tape editing is one reason you used to be able to count the bass players on the majority of top 40 pop songs on two hands. The people who could bang it out perfectly and not need editing did everything.

 

[MDBass]

The thing that usually isn’t mentioned in this discussion is why editing is now truly necessary for modern music production.

It has nothing to do with “embracing imperfections” versus not.

It has everything to do with the fact that the clarity of digital versus analog, as well as the significant increases in the amount of compression (as well as the volume) of the final product would make certain “human” performances from say the 70’s sound downright awful if recorded today.

The soft edges of the analog/light compression world is what made those performance mistakes seem desirable instead of jarring and unseemly in hi-def digital.

 

[MDBass]

I just rescued two bass tracks from my band's upcoming new album through a little judicious editing magic. I hated to cheat but I hated to throw otherwise good tracks away over a couple of minor clams even more, so a little nudge closer to the beat here, a cut and paste there, and my tracks are now golden and completely seamless in the editing. If I didn't tell you, you'd never know. Did have to recut one because it was easier than editing, but I've saved two so far. Only 5 more to go, then everyone else can go to work. Ask me how badly I feel over doing it...

HINT: Not even a little.

But it makes me think of how miserable tape editing was. I've never done it myself but I've seen engineers do it, and it's a giant pain in the ass to sit there endlessly rolling the tape across the head till you're positive you have the right edit point, cut the tape with a single edged razor, then tape it to another piece of tape and hope that your tape job holds up through mastering. And God forbid you run one too many bounces, lest you ruin sound quality. It's as mind-numbingly slow a process as you think it is, too.

Miss the days of tape? I sure don't miss that. I also don't miss the cost of tape.

We truly live in the golden age of music production technology: I can produce a rock album using a laptop on my tour bus that sounds demonstrably better than something produced by a label in a high dollar studio 20-30 years ago.

That’s remarkable.

 

[40Hz]

Learned on tape. Otari MX5050 8-track reel to reel and a pair of Revox A77s for mixdown. Did the bounce thing, did the part about taking care with track assignments and watching levels so you wouldn’t get “print through” or tracks “splashing over” onto adjoining tracks, rocking tapes and doing punch-ins to fix mistakes. Fun times.

About the only things I miss are how prepared most musicians were when they went into the studio in the analog days. Because studio time was big money and fixing things added up fast. That and bands pretty much cutting tracks simultaneously so you got some of that live interplay you lose doing the track by track cut and paste process mostly employed today.

Do I miss it? A little. Probably more because I got good at it, and learned to work creatively within the limitations of what you could do with the medium rather than because I feel it’s innately superior to digital. Truth is, the limitations of analog weren't really all that burdensome once you learned how to work with it. Most tape jockeys knew their gear inside out and exactly how to squeeze the best out of it. Today I run into far too many project studio types that have the home equivalent of a supercomputer, a state of the art ProTools or Ableton DAW setup, and 200+ plug-ins - but no real understanding of how to really use half of it.

But so it goes. Digital recording and editing is definitely the better way to go for most things we’re looking to do these days. Maybe we threw out the baby with the bathwater a bit in a few places. But the trade offs more than made up for it for most people. So digital it is. And digital we do.

They’re all just tools. You work with whatever tools you’ve got.

Digital works for me.

 

[HardNHeavy]

Miss the days of tape? I sure don't miss that. I also don't miss the cost of tape.[/QUOTE]

studied audio engineering in NYC at center for media arts right across the street from FIT...Thats how we did it for school music projects...a 2" jig, tape and blade.......thanx for bringing up that nitemare again

 

[Winslow]

Ah yes, tape.... It was always fun to cut it in front of people who had no idea that tape and knives can work together in the right hands. Freaks them right the h3ll out.

I don't miss doing it, but having the skill made for some fun moments when much of the world forgot (or never knew) that was how it used to be done.

 

[Ric5]

How did we survive before digtal editing???

 

[bearfoot]

I only ever worked with cassette tape recorders, and twice in studios recording on tape. So, I don't really miss the cassette sound, and the convenience is still available in multi-track recorders of generally the same form factor. I have used a Boss BR-800 to capture 4 mics at once in a silent, portable device. The BR-800 is the dream multitrack recorder of the 80's-90's. Amazing piece of "kit".

Went digital in the late 90's, with a Gadgetlabs 424 sound card: 4-track, 24bits, 48khz , still pretty much as good as it gets for capture quality. Still have that sound card, though I don't use it.

Anyway I am glad I made around 8 or 9 full demo albums on cassette 4-track, because it may have led to the practice of doing full, contiguous takes with almost zero punch-ins, excepting usually guitar solos, and the general attitude that my recording is an art form with an emergent quality which I honor and work with.

 

[E S Anderson]

Jim Bonnefond, who engineered Celebrate and went on to produce a bunch of stuff for Kool and the Gang, taught at the recording school I went to. He told us how on Celebrate, the drummer wasn't used to the 4-on-the-floor thing yet (they were a funk band before that record) and couldn't keep a steady kick drum. Jim ended up splicing just track 1 of the 24-track 2" tape to move the kick drums around and line them up in time. Probabl an hour or less of work today I don't remember how long he said it took.... days I'd guess... worth it considering the success of the song!

Huh... I can't imagine he edited only the one track on the 2"... I've sync'd two machine together in the past, going to assume that's how he skinned that cat. I was on a session back in the say, it took over 30 edits for a 2 minute song to get the drums in time. The drummer was so awful that she couldn't play the song if the other musicians were playing along with her. She cut all the tracks without the other band members. Unreal... they were on Warner Bros.

 

[Nephilymbass]

I just rescued two bass tracks from my band's upcoming new album through a little judicious editing magic. I hated to cheat but I hated to throw otherwise good tracks away over a couple of minor clams even more, so a little nudge closer to the beat here, a cut and paste there, and my tracks are now golden and completely seamless in the editing. If I didn't tell you, you'd never know. Did have to recut one because it was easier than editing, but I've saved two so far. Only 5 more to go, then everyone else can go to work. Ask me how badly I feel over doing it...

HINT: Not even a little.

But it makes me think of how miserable tape editing was. I've never done it myself but I've seen engineers do it, and it's a giant pain in the ass to sit there endlessly rolling the tape across the head till you're positive you have the right edit point, cut the tape with a single edged razor, then tape it to another piece of tape and hope that your tape job holds up through mastering. And God forbid you run one too many bounces, lest you ruin sound quality. It's as mind-numbingly slow a process as you think it is, too.

Miss the days of tape? I sure don't miss that. I also don't miss the cost of tape.

I do my best to be prepared so I’m not wasting money in the studio but yeah if I need to punch in here or there or even copy and past one repetition here or there I’m fine with it. I just don’t like it when certain instruments especially acoustic guitars in particular are cut up and edited all to hell. I’ve seen stems of recordings where people punch in multiple times to get one section of song (let’s say a chorus) and then the next chorus is that same section copied and and pasted lol with dirty electric guitars in particular edits ocone together pretty well. With bass as long as you’re not literally copy and pasting sections of songs and just maybe punching in once or twice a song I’m cool with it. Would definitely spend a lot more time working up the songs if we had to record to tape.

 

[roller]

No doubt today's technology is fascinating... too bad the talent pool isn't as full.

In another 50 years, artists from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s will still have more worldwide longevity and reach than music recorded in the 2000s or 2010s. Regardless of genre, there's simply not as much lasting strength in most artists who have come around since 2000. Like I wrote earlier, today's new music is like cotton candy = a little taste for a few seconds and then it's gone.

It has everything to do with the fact that the clarity of digital versus analog, as well as the significant increases in the amount of compression (as well as the volume) of the final product would make certain “human” performances from say the 70’s sound downright awful if recorded today.

The soft edges of the analog/light compression world is what made those performance mistakes seem desirable instead of jarring and unseemly in hi-def digital.

 

[ofajen]

I was gonna say some other stuff, but I’ll merely mention that I’m still tracking and mixing analog. It imposes many demands that are worthwhile for me to have to meet.

Otto

 

[jamro217]

It's a two edged sword. The good part is that is that you have a quality product to offer your customers. That bad part is that the possibility exists of recreating the clunkers live. The more corrections/overdubs/enhancements you put into recordings, the harder it is to duplicate at gigs. Did you ever see a guitar trio trying to fudge their way through the orchestral section of the Moody Blues' "Nights In White Satin"? Not good. Digital editing is much easier and therefore much more attractive an option than tape editing. This potentially leads to abuse and the subsequent disappointing live shows.

 

[FenderP]

I've edited plenty of what I've done of the years but I leave the human element. I don't want things super quantized or so perfect it has no feel. Fixing a clam or an egregious "coming in late" is fine. Lining everything up so it looks like we're all human metronomes? Nope. The road to perfection is paved with potholes.

 

[roller]

Preach it, P!

I've edited plenty of what I've done of the years but I leave the human element. I don't want things super quantized or so perfect it has no feel. Fixing a clam or an egregious "coming in late" is fine. Lining everything up so it looks like we're all human metronomes? Nope. The road to perfection is paved with potholes.

 

[JimmyM]

Huh... I can't imagine he edited only the one track on the 2"... I've sync'd two machine together in the past, going to assume that's how he skinned that cat. I was on a session back in the say, it took over 30 edits for a 2 minute song to get the drums in time. The drummer was so awful that she couldn't play the song if the other musicians were playing along with her. She cut all the tracks without the other band members. Unreal... they were on Warner Bros.

They're called window edits. Done a lot more than you think.

 

[JimmyM]

By the way, in no way do I want this music to sound like a drum machine playing everything. That's just insane when you're a rootsy light rock band. And trust me, it won't. Feel over everything.

 

[Cutter8]

I learned what little I ever knew about recording/production working with Neve/EMI/API consoles and Studer 8/16/24-track tape machines, and that technology still dominated the industry when I last did any hands-on studio work from the engineering desk side of the glass. In short, I’m a musical dinosaur with virtually no knowledge about 21st century music production.

Still, from the observer’s perspective, I find digital recording/editing tools absolutely amazing. There’s no denying that they are incredibly powerful, infinitely useful, mind-bogglingly efficient and ridiculously cost-effective. They also appear to have the potential to open up limitless new creative paths. Nonetheless, I really don’t like a lot of what those tools yield in most people’s hands.

Humans are beautifully imperfect, as are the best of their expressive creations, and emotions are messy and always somewhat unpredictable. Music is an inherently expressive and emotional form of communication, and it’s power comes from how it can make people feel on a very intimate personal level. It seems to me that the ease, efficiency and low cost of using modern recording/production technology frequently results in masking/diluting the essence and scrubbing away too much of the human/emotional fingerprints that I value most in great musical performance and recordings.

To use a crude and admittedly simplistic analogy, plastic surgery can do wonderful and miraculous things, but if Barbra Streisand had chosen to have a nose-job and Cindy Crawford had chosen to have her mole removed, they both would have been more “flawless” but far less beautiful. Of course, that just this one grumpy old guy’s opinion.

 

[FenderP]

One of the nice things about modern recording is that I can play live so that everyone gets what they need done, but if I'm DI'd or have good isolation, I have the option of redoing bass parts if I want. Sometimes I'll intentionally not go for a keeper (every now and then you get one). It takes a bit of pressure off.

For the most part, I engineer and play on a lot of live to 2-track stereo recordings and there's virtually no fixes there.