Copy & Paste

[mr. torture]

Do engineers now copy & paste guitar parts in the studio as opposed to having the player play song all the way through?

Let's say you want to layer 12 tracks of guitar for a song, would you play the verse one time for each take, then copy and paste them where you need it? Then do the same with the Bridge, chorus etc??

Or would you play the song all the way through 12 times? Just curious as to how todays studio engineers do things.

[Kadden Heart]

oh man,...i might bein the minority here but
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i usually make em' play each one a few times.
i usually do metal, punk, rock, etc... in which i would like to hear it just sound more "natural" and real, not too "fall out boy"

i'll usually just have the guitarist play each part twice, then duplicate if needed, TOO much humanity can get messy.

copy and paste just seems to inoraganic to me, ad too much work that i don' tihnk is part of my job description unless absolutly necessary.

[leaper]

I also insist on multiple takes. Actually, it seems uncanny at first when a guitar player will do an alternate take that is almost EXACTLY the same as the original, even the same mistakes or sloppy phrasing. But i guess it makes sense..style is personal.
Nothing beats the natural chorusing of honestly recorded guitar takes.
Sometimes in a mix there might be a few notes from a tricky duplicate that aren't precise enough or one take has a fret squeak when it shouldn't. Then I will just paste in the note from another track. It isn't noticeable amongst the general mush.
Don't think i've ever tried to layer 12 tracks though.. there comes a point when the power of multitracked guitars gets over run by too much repetition. 12 tracks is maybe too much of a good thing!

[Roc Mixwell]

Cookie cutter methods don't work unless the artist is SO F'd UP HE/SHE CAN"T PLAY. Just kidding.

Have the artist play it through, other wise, what we be the point of playing the instrument. You can send them home and program it??