The Secret To A Perfect Recording 

This channel is about to blow up, I believe. It's too good to be this obscure for long. Good job, mate.

I came to a place where i decided to track drums to a click and have the drums as tight as possible. I don't quantize, I record the parts until they are really tight. I use them as the base for everything else and don't use a click for any other tracks. I've found that going this route gives me great timing but still gives me vibe as I layer parts on it. It strikes a balance between tight and vibey that seems to work for me. Great video as usual!

Yes - it's the intentionality that is key here! My early recordings also sounded amateur AF, and I've also stumbled over the "produce it till it's milked dry of anything worth listening to..." phenomenon. These days, I don't use broad brush quantise on my drums; I just tidy up the main bits that are obviously 'too sloppy'. I use a lower factor of Q as well; almost never 100%. I want it to sound 'more in time', not 'perfectly in time.' Same goes for bass and guitar. A touch here and there to tidy up the most obviously bad bits, but leave most of the looseness in there. It's me playing - I'm not perfect, however much I strive to be. (To be fair, I don't strive THAT hard...) My main vocal I'll pay a bit more attention to. But if I find I'm editing almost every phrase, I bin it and re-sing. Backing vocals I rarely edit at all - I like doing multi-layered vocals so the pitches even themselves out... My notion is to capture "the best I am capable of doing at that time", not some mythical "best" that's not related to me...

This ties in to the idea that you can spend too much time on a particular idea or song. not sure who said it, but i once heard a quotation from an artist who described art as "working on something until you like it, and then stopping." Sometimes, the hard part is knowing when to stop!

The comparison between your two versions is brilliant. It’s a perfect demonstration of what many of us older musicians mean when we gripe about modern music. Incidentally, this is also why I prefer old country blues to the later electric blues with drums. Those players swing the tempo all over the place and it keeps you on the edge of your seat. In Japan, the aesthetic concept that you demonstrate in this video is called “wabi-sabi” which roughly means “flawed beauty”.

Yep agree completely with this. My own recordings I’ll get the drum track down, switch the click off and play to the rhythm. Vocals….I reaaalllly hate using melodyne but if 90 per cent of the performance is great then I can live with sliding the other 10 per cent around. When I record other people I always provide a ‘less produced’ and a ‘more produced’ version to the clients. For no other reason really than to show just how much life you can actually strip out of a song by ‘perfecting’ it. Great channel by the way, been a subscriber for a year or so now. You’re doing great man

Thanks, I'm glad I found your channel. Lots of interesting content to ponder. I am about to record my first record at home. I'm sure I will be referring back to your videos a lot for inspiration while I try to learn. Thank you again. 👍

I totally agree that you shouldn’t be quantizing and pitch correcting everything to be “perfectly on the line”. I feel that the best approach would be to only “fix” the parts that you really find gnarly (if you trust your ears that is). No need to “fix” something that isn’t a problem after all. Say you have one note in a vocal take that really irks you, you could just touch that note and leave the rest of it alone. (Though usually after doing that you start hearing other notes that aren’t perfect and unless you manage to stop yourself in time you’ll end up spending hours fiddling around and sounding like T-Pain. 😂) Most people making music don’t actually listen to the song and trust their ears and just “fix” everything as that’s just “a part of their workflow” or because of a fear that someone with “better ears” would find it too pitchy or too out of time. (I fall into the latter camp as I know my tolerance for when something is too out of pitch is a lot more liberal than for example my classmates back when I was studying music.) Other thing that I personally think is a good middle ground is to never correct something to be perfectly on the line. (Unless you’re going for a certain type of sound.) Sometimes pitch fluctuations in vocals for example are what makes the delivery great or drums being not 100% on the grid are what makes the song groove. So if I feel tempted to edit the performance I’d move things slightly closer to “perfect” but never all the way there. Say for example I’d Flex Pitch the vocals and then have the pitch correction be at like 50% strength. (So the flat notes are still a bit flat and sharp notes still a bit sharp but just a little bit tighter.) It also helps the pitch correction to sound more transparent cause the less it needs to move the notes around the less there’s going to be obvious artefacts. I might hit the doubles and harmonies a bit harder (though I prefer to be a bit loose in the timing of the doubles as correcting them too much would make the doubles kinda pointless). To keep things sounding tighter and as you usually can push them further before it starts sounding obviously processed. The point I’m trying to make is that one should always produce with ears instead of your. If it sounds great with your eyes closed you shouldn’t touch it (at least not too much) when you see that it’s not perfectly on the grid. (Mixing engineers might want to check some things with meters but even there your main tool is ears.👂)

A powerful message. Well said Spencer. I use EZdrummer for my drums, and record guitar and bass that I play. On occasion, I may touch up very small sections here and there if the timing is off. Otherwise, if it is really out, I just re-record. I also like to record guitars wet (I kind of imagine I’m recording to tape and have to get the sound how I intend it when tracking)…I feel it helps to the intentional quality I am seeking. I don’t sing, but I do work with singers and I use their vocals as they give them to me.

Keep at it Spencer, you are an inspiration!

This is honestly a fantastic video! I'm all about making sure my productions sound decent and presentable, but I'm NOT going to overdo things. I'll make sure all of my parts are well practiced before I record them, but I'm not going to quantize every single note/chord I play on guitar, bass, mandolin. However, I've been praised by local musician friends of mine (who seen me play) by how "tight" and "in time" I played with my drummer and band, and that I "never strayed away from the groove." Learned from one of my teachers to "ALWAYS know where beat 1 of the measure is." When I record, I'll program a metronome with varying tempo changes (slower verses, faster choruses, etc) and play along to that as a guide before I send it out to an amazing drummer to track on. There are some subtle discrepancies in timing, but as soon as I adjust those parts, the feel and groove are immediately lost. As for vocals? My singing has improved a LOT over the years, and I'll supply backing vocals on songs I write along with others. When I track, I'll do a scratch vocal to get perfectly in tuned and overly autotuned to provide a guideline for my actual vocals. The only time I'll adjust pitch is when the some of the notes are just a hair out of pitch to make them clash with the harmony. Definitely learned over the years that perfection is not key, and there's no sense in chasing it and overproducing EVERYTHING (just like that noticeable autotune I've heard, and you mentioned, on the newer Blink 182 album). All I expect are the parts to be done well and meet what I picture for the final product.

American Idiot is also theeee perfect example of this phenomenon. Also… The White Stripes!

There's something to say about focusing on the song and not production. I feel like a lot of people over produce because the songs fall on the mediocre side. I feel like that it's much more prevalent these days when a person can write something and record it instantly. If you take time and write a kickass song, it's going to be a kickass song even if it's a little off tempo or if it's clearly recorded on a crappy old cassette recorder.

Inspirational.

Absolutely nailed it mate.

I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU ONLY HAVE 7K SUBS CMON ALGORITHM GIVE THIS MAN HIS DUES

So good. Your ideas, commentary, song writing, composition, and humility. You are inspiring to complete projects. Thankyou for every upload.

72 seasons suffers from being over produced. ST.Anger suffers from being under produced. This sounds better than both.

Years ago my band was recording an EP. The singer put down a vocal track and we pitch corrected it. In the moment we all thought it sounded amazing because it was perfect. The following at the studio we were wrapping up the track and we re-heard the vocals with fresh ears and immediately realized how robotic it made her performance. Immediately took all pitch correction out. It has to feel real.

Really cool channel, man. So glad RU-vid suggested you. Looks like the perfect place for amateur musicians. Fun stuff. Thanks for sharing.

On par, brilliant commentary. Imperfectly perfect is the key 🤩

great points about the production on the Blink album. I love blink and I really like the album. but the mixing has no dynamics and the drums sound like a computer played them, not to mention they are mixed on top of everything else. The new heaven and hell album from Sum 41 has some incredible mixing on it.

100 percent agree. I try to get everything as close to perfect as I can while playing but unless something is really off I leave it. It's true it does add character and realness. Is something feels like it's going to bother me every time I hear my song I fix that otherwise I'm okay with slight mistakes. The thing is most people wouldn't even hear the things I hear anyway because I'm so close to the song.

I call all that the difference between human and mechanical performances. When performing "Live" even using some tools to help, what is played is what you get. In studio that dynamic is degraded by the machines perfection. Like almost everything in life, compromise (in between) generally is always the best. Stay safe.

EQ it to rid the mid mud, and slap a DONE! sticker on it.

Took me ages to figure out that quantizing midi drums took the life out of the song. This is such a good video on humanity in music

Always when I see you have a new video I grab a coffee, get comfortable and watch and listen cautiously. You never disappoint.

Neutral Milk Hotel is a rough recording? Try to withstand "Grazhdanskaya Oborona" then)))

Perhaps your best video Spencer. amazing.

Great video! Many thanks for sharing your knowledge

Great video 💙 I always found it interesting how the tempo in the song In the Aeroplane Over the Sea speeds up just a little bit with each verse.

This is the channel I hope has uploaded something every time I open RU-vid. Absolutely loving your videos and jams!

love it dude. this video was needed

My favourite production is The Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed Album. It's amazing when you get to hear the isolated tracks how they almost sound like your mates messing around on instruments. It's many miles from perfect. But the final result is magic.

Jim Croce albums were recorded before we had these wonderful tuning machines, and when you listen RAELLY close...you can hear it's a bit out of tune sometimes. Still some of the greatest songs ever.

Sonic footprint!!! FINALLY someone speaking a language i can understand. Thank you!!! I've been tooling around with that thought in my head for ages. Thinking, why should my finished product need to sound extra crisp, clear & refined just because society & time would dictate so? If i want the music to have that old-fashined analog recorded sound, i should be able to do that without being critiqued for it not sounding modern.

You're knocking on that green door down the end of the hall with the sign "Outsider Music" clearly marked on that door. Imperfection is what makes that music so interesting. Great video! As usual!

Thank you for sharing this. Im trying to write a clever message but cant find the words. So thank you again

Thanks for adressing this topic. I'm somewhere in between. I don't correct everything, I think more about the emotion during recording. I love metal music but these days, many albums are too perfect :(

Completely agree! Music must have soul. No drum machines & no auto tune

Makes perfect sense :)

How dare you making me think on a sunday morning? Great video man, so glad I came across your channel a while ago. Keep it up! 🤘

come on algo give this channel some love

A great video!! I do find it hard to tell where the line is between tidying up a track and over producing (not that I am anything more than an enthusiastic amateur!!)

The desire to do the "perfect" recording can lead to not doing any recordings any more, because of the fear not to be perfect.

You are a great musician and content creator. I love your videos.

so true!

Bingo!

TRUTH

👌

This is why I still record to tape on a Tascam 388. No computer to get in the way, No sweetening up the song with multiple plugins. Just record and mix in the 388 that's it. Although....I am thinking of incorporating a DAW sometime in the near future.

You did not come up this weekend till today, Glad you're still smashing it Spencer. Version 2 sounded cleaner but modern boring clinical Britney Spears no groove no swing.. It's hard as a solo dude to sound like a band...Prince, McCartney Wolfgang Van Halen and Todd Rundgren do well to name a few. So your first one sounded better, instruments bleeding into and out of the groove ( spilling in and out of the pulse) more like a real band...as you rewind and layer. I generally only quantize the Kick . You've smashed it and inspired again Spencer.

Are any of your songs published anywhere, like to Bandcamp or a separate channel? I liked what I heard of your outro, but I can't find any links to the full thing, which confuses me bit as I assumed it was supposed to be an advert for your music. Great video, btw!

Man I love your videos but I think that you missed the point a bit on this topic. Editing should not be about taking a bad performance and make it acceptable, it should be about taking a good performance and enhance it. Editing is a must if you wanna do competing sounding records. Obviously it has to be done with taste, without sacrificing the humanity of the recordings: that's what was done in American Idiot (that's one of my favorite records of all time), in which for example the drums were quantized a bit to make them sound professional but leaving some fills untouched. I think you're a brilliant guy, so please don't make it seem that editing is something that always sacrifices the human element; leave these boomer discussions to Rick Beato.

Dude, you use to sing your personal feelings... Why you feel lonely? I see the ring on your finger...

Thank you! ❤