Retracking a poor bass performance, unethical or necessary?

[joelpatterson]

Originally Posted by henryrobinett

reasonable? Who said i was REASONABLE??

Will you STOP ARGUING WITH ME!

[christmasjones]

[henryrobinett]

LOL! I told you I'm NOT REASONABLE!!!

[joelpatterson]

And i'm telling you that you are!

[Quint]

Originally Posted by James Krumhansl

Lets get some opinions. I run a small project studio out of the home and on occasion I have had bassists so bad come in that once the band left I re-tracked the bass lines myself. I make no change (or nothing outstanding) to how the song was written just a means of having a better performance. These tracks turn out much better than any mixing techniques that could be applied to the original take. Do you other engineers think this is wrong or should learning bass be a prerequisite for any AE :-P.

Man, that is %110, completely UNETHICAL! I would be super pissed if I was in a band and found out you did that. That's no better than those engineers that go in, after the band's left, and replace drum hits with samples, unbeknownst to the band, or go in and reamp a guitar part through a POD, while the guitar player still thinks it's through his amp. Actually, nevermind, what you're doing is worse, but not by much.

Seriously, who do some of you guys think you are?

This is ridiculously WRONG! Your job is to document the performance, whatever it may be. Good or bad. If you talk to the band and everything is laid out on the table AND THEY AGREE, then, only then is something like this ok. You guys have absolutely no right to go in and do that. WOW! I mean WOW! I'm dumbfounded.

[Quint]

Originally Posted by henryrobinett

Basically I think it's completely unethical. But it depends on who and what it is. If it's a band or a songwriter -- it depends. If you aren't up front about what you're doing I think it's completely unethical.

This is what I don't agree with a lot of contemporary AE today -- It's not about the bottom line that if it sounds good that's all that matters. If I'm a musician and go in to a place, write some songs and perform then and the f***ing ENGINEER decides it's not good enough, all on his own, and decides to re-record the performances HIMSELF I might just end up killing the guy.

IT'S NOT HIS GOD DAMN F***ING CALL. He's there to record the music; to mix it and to help to sound good. He can talk to me about choices and put whatever compressor, EQ, mic he wants to. But MUSICAL DECISIONS are not his call. I don't care who he his or how qualified he his. It ain't gonna happen without him paying a serious cost.

No shit right? What's most disgusting to me is how many people in this thread actually agreed with the OP. SHAME ON EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU WHO DO THIS!

[Quint]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

Good point, in the abstract-- but from any engineer's point of view, letting out anything that's noticeably flawed is borderline suicidal. And that is just that.

NO, ABSO- ****ING-LUTELY NOT!!!

This is never, ever, ever acceptable. Period.

If you think that a band's poor playing will reflect poorly on the studio, THEN DON'T TAKE THEM ON AS A CLIENT!!

Son of a bitch. As I keep reading more and more in this thread, I'm becoming more and more awestruck. This is just ridiculous and there is absolutely NO REASON THAT THIS SHOULD EVER BE GOING ON.

NO REASON AT ALL. WOW!!!!

And, yet, some of you guys are constantly whining about how less and less people are coming to your studio. Even if cheap home studios weren't a reality, who the hell would want to deal with an ego driven engineer, such as yourselves?

[joelpatterson]

Well, thank God for boldface lettering.

Look, hombre-- let me talk about the real world for a second.

I just got back from recording a concert for a piano school. This will illustrate my point.

Everyone who played in this concert auditioned for it, and they are damn good to start with. Every so often, rarely, someone will stumble a little, hit a wrong note, back up, repeat the phrase with the right note and go on.

Naturally, of course, OBVIOUSLY I edit out those stumbles, so when you listen to the CD, the performance is flawless.

What GOD DAMNED PURPOSE WOULD BE SERVED BY LEAVING THE STUMBLES IN??? Are you NUTS? No one wants to be reminded they made a little mistake. Leave the stumbles in and you RUIN the CD and render it WORTHLESS for any purpose at all--except for reminding someone they MADE A MISTAKE!

Man alive, this is like talking to a brick wall.

[Quint]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

Well, thank God for boldface lettering.

Look, hombre-- let me talk about the real world for a second.

I just got back from recording a concert for a piano school. This will illustrate my point.

Everyone who played in this concert auditioned for it, and they are damn good to start with. Every so often, rarely, someone will stumble a little, hit a wrong note, back up, repeat the phrase with the right note and go on.

Naturally, of course, OBVIOUSLY I edit out those stumbles, so when you listen to the CD, the performance is flawless.

What GOD DAMNED PURPOSE WOULD BE SERVED BY LEAVING THE STUMBLES IN??? Are you NUTS? No one wants to be reminded they made a little mistake. Leave the stumbles in and you RUIN the CD and render it WORTHLESS for any purpose at all--except for reminding someone they MADE A MISTAKE!

Man alive, this is like talking to a brick wall.

Look, you aren't the customer, the band is. You are in no position, whatsoever, to make a call like this. Who are you to determine what is or isn't "right" for the song? How do you know that a part wasn't played that way on purpose? In the end, it really doesn't matter. You're the engineer, not the artist. You have no business making artistic calls. If you want to discuss something with them, fine. If they are fine with you playing a part or "fixing" something, then cool. Otherwise, you should stay the hell out and leave the artistic decisions to the client.

This is what's wrong with music these days. You guys complain about the state of music and then you turn around and do things that feed the monster. No wonder music is ****ed up these days. We've got a bunch of bi-polar engineers running around, so scared of imperfection, that they'll do anything to correct everything. This is where I think so many of you guys have lost your way. You're so consumed with perfection that you've forgotten that, sometimes, it's the flaws that make the most beautiful music. It's what makes us human.

I'm sorry, but I have absolutely no respect for this type of behavior. NONE.

[Quint]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

I do hear the chorus of voices that say leave it be and move on, but I don't hear anything like a convicing downside to improving the music. The idea that the kids' band is going to complain(?) about that is

Convincing according to who? You? Are you in the band? If not, then your opinion matters none, when it comes to the final artistic decisions.

[joelpatterson]

Well thank God for boldface lettering.

Look, hombre-- let me talk about the real world for a second.

I just got back from recording a concert for a piano school. This will illustrate my point.

Everyone who played in this concert auditioned for it, and they are damn good to start with. Every so often, rarely, someone will hit a wrong note, back up, hit the right note and them move on.

Naturally, OBVIOUSLY I fix these stumbles, so that when you listen to the CD, you're listening to a flawless performance.

I would ask you, WHAT GOD DAMNED PURPOSE WOULD BE SERVED BY LEAVING THE STUMBLES IN??? Are you NUTS? No one wants to be reminded they made a little mistake, you leave the stumbles in and you RUIN the CD, you render it WORTHLESS for any purpose whatsoever--except for reminding someone that THEY MADE A LITTLE MISTAKE!

Man alive, this is like talking to a brick wall.

[henryrobinett]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

And i'm telling you that you are!

LOL. No, no, NO! I AM NOT!!

[Quint]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

I'm going to agree to disagree, here. This is my perspective: your loyalty is primarily to the listeners who have not been born yet.

Are you nuts? YOUR LOYALTY IS TO THE BAND! They are the ones paying you. What other dimension have we entered here? Without a band, a listener does not exist, because they have nothing to listen to. You should just do your job and be an engineer instead of trying to be the next Phil Spector.

[joelpatterson]

Originally Posted by henryrobinett

LOL. No, no, NO! I AM NOT!!

..... you really think so? Well... I suppose I could be mistaken....

[henryrobinett]

No, not really. Maybe. I don't know. Do you?

[joelpatterson]

I, uh... I forget.

[Quint]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

I would ask you, WHAT GOD DAMNED PURPOSE WOULD BE SERVED BY LEAVING THE STUMBLES IN???

That's entirely dependent on the artist and you have no way of knowing what an artist is trying to achieve. Who are you to determine what is and isn't a mistake? Let the artist decide what is or isn't a mistake and what level of perfection is acceptable to them. Do you really think Tom Waits would sound like he does, if everything was autotuned and time aligned to death? His music would be boring and lifeless if someone like yourself was in the control room. His music is REAL and needs room to breath, flaws and all. That's what makes it beautiful. Attitudes like YOUR'S are the reason why music generally sucks today. No one has any concept of humanity anymore.

Go back and listen to some old Hendrix or Zep. You can hear "mistakes" here and there, yet those songs kick ass. Why is that? It's because they have life and life comes from a performance as a whole, not something that's been "fixed" to death in the computer. Now if you're recording top 40 pop music, that pretty much requires this sort of surgery, God save your soul.

[slaves666]

Originally Posted by Quint

That's entirely dependent on the artist and you have no way of knowing what an artist is trying to achieve. Who are you to determine what is and isn't a mistake? Let the artist decide what is or isn't a mistake and what level of perfection is acceptable to them. Do you really think Tom Waits would sound like he does, if everything was autotuned and time aligned to death? His music would be boring and lifeless if someone like yourself was in the control room. His music is REAL and needs room to breath, flaws and all. That's what makes it beautiful. Attitudes like YOUR'S are the reason why music generally sucks today. No one has any concept of humanity anymore.

Go back and listen to some old Hendrix or Zep. You can hear "mistakes" here and there, yet those songs kick ass. Why is that? It's because they have life and life comes from a performance as a whole, not something that's been "fixed" to death in the computer. Now if you're recording top 40 pop music, that pretty much requires this sort of surgery, God save your soul.

There has yet to be an artist I have worked with, besides my band, that I didn't use some sort of drum editing, tuning, or copy pasting.

If we were all recording Zep and Hendrix......I honestly don't think we'd be talking about this.........

Bands these days seem to expect to keep a mediocre performance, and I am the one to fix it. They know all the "major" bands tune, edit, comp, line up drums....so they think they can achieve the same success doing the same thing.

After spending 1 hour editing drums, another hour tuning vocals, and more time copying and pasting parts so they sound consistent.......honestly, what is the difference in re-tracking a part that is unusable?

[Quint]

Originally Posted by slaves666

There has yet to be an artist I have worked with, besides my band, that I didn't use some sort of drum editing, tuning, or copy pasting.

If we were all recording Zep and Hendrix......I honestly don't think we'd be talking about this.........

Bands these days seem to expect to keep a mediocre performance, and I am the one to fix it. They know all the "major" bands tune, edit, comp, line up drums....so they think they can achieve the same success doing the same thing.

After spending 1 hour editing drums, another hour tuning vocals, and more time copying and pasting parts so they sound consistent.......honestly, what is the difference in re-tracking a part that is unusable?

I'm saying that none of these things should be going on, at any level. No secret retracking by the engineer, no autotuning, no time aligning, no nothing. And, and this is a big AND, this stuff should ONLY be happening if the band is fully aware of it. None of this is acceptable but at least if the band is in on it, things aren't unethical. It's still lipstick on a pig, just not unethical lipstick on a pig.

Besides, how do you know you're not recording the next big thing? Do you think the guys in the studio knew they were recording the next big thing when they recorded Hendrix? Maybe those "mistakes" are integral to their sound and now you've robbed them of that? The point is that you should just stay the hell out and leave the music to the musicians.

[slaves666]

Originally Posted by Quint

I'm saying that none of these things should be going on, at any level. No secret retracking by the engineer, no autotuning, no time aligning, no nothing. And, and this is a big AND, this stuff should ONLY be happening if the band is fully aware of it. None of this is acceptable but at least if the band is in on it, things aren't unethical. It's still lipstick on a pig, just not unethical lipstick on a pig.

Besides, how do you know you're not recording the next big thing? Do you think the guys in the studio knew they were recording the next big thing when they recorded Hendrix? Maybe those "mistakes" are integral to their sound and now you've robbed them of that? The point is that you should just stay the hell out and leave the music to the musicians.

You keep avoiding my point......

THEY WANT THESE "MISTAKES FIXED"......it is no secret that bands with less talent realize the power of autotune and drum editing....so to me re-tracking a bass part is part of the fixing.....so is guitar.

This isn't a situation where a band walks in and CLEARLY states, they want to record organically, no edits, no tuning, no drum replacement or anything.....that's a different story.....then you take another approach if the goals aren't being met.

[henryrobinett]

If they want the mistakes fixed that's no problem. But that presupposes you've discussed this with them. The whole premise of this argument is folks are doing this WITHOUT discussing this first.

[henryrobinett]

Wow, I think this website is messing up. I just posted something to this and I can't find it.

If the band wants them fixed that's no problem. That would however presuppose that this conversation occurred. The entire issue here is about not talking to the band about those fixes.

[Quint]

Originally Posted by henryrobinett

Wow, I think this website is messing up. I just posted something to this and I can't find it.

If the band wants them fixed that's no problem. That would however presuppose that this conversation occurred. The entire issue here is about not talking to the band about those fixes.

Yeah, I noticed that too. I had a bunch of posts before this one and now they're gone. Those posts would have probably explained my point to slave666. I really don't feel like explaining again.

Slave, if my posts reappear above, read those. If not, read this as my response. Basically, it's unethical as hell. You should leave the artistic decisions to the artists and just do your job as an engineer. Doing anything behind the band's back is wrong. I would be really pissed if my band was in your studio and found out you did this. If however, you've actually discussed retracking the part yourself, with the band, then go ahead and knock yourself out. I still think this kind of nonsense is what is hurting music as much as anything right now but do whatever you want. At least it's not unethical.

[joelpatterson]

Originally Posted by Quint

Go back and listen to some old Hendrix or Zep...

Earth to Quint, Earth to Quint...

If you don't think the engineers working on Hendrix and Zep bent over backwards and did double flips to fix EVERYTHING they could to make the BEST PRODUCT THEY COULD you are a resident of some parallel universe.

It's like you think there's something golden and magically authentic about a sloppy performance! Get real, friend. Tom Waits doesn't just reel off whatever inept first take and tie his hands behind his back and tell his engineers to send it to the record stamping plant.

When someone stumbles when they're striving to play a Chopin etude, no one needs to tell anyone it's a mistake. What kind of moron is going to ask them, "Hey, does your adherence to some ridiculous standard of purity mean you want me to leave your mistake in, when i could fix it?"

No one is talking about your straw man, running every tracking through autotune and snapping everything to a grid, we're talking about FIXING MISTAKES! As in, FIXING! As in, MISTAKES!

If I take my car to be painted, I don't want to hear the guy say, "Yeah, there were a few rust spots, but we didn't do anything BECAUSE WE THOUGHT YOU WANTED THEM LEFT LIKE THEY WERE."

This is just idiocy.

[dannygold]

I think it makes you a man.

[slaves666]

I noticed that I am missing a post as well, but for some reason it was quoted, so it is there......

I do understand the other side of the "argument".......but from this side, there is no drawback to doing it......

The analogy I use is a "white lie"......you know, when you get invite to someones house you don't like, and you say you are away for the week-end......no one gets hurt and you don't have to sit though a horrible dinner.

The same with the re-tracking.....no one will know, not the band, not the fans, no one, but the end product is better and your work will be better.

As I stated, I produce bands for the most part. I rewrite parts, write new riffs, and the list goes on.....for me to re-track a part to make it better is just part of the whole picture.