Is there anything quite like recording ...

[digitalscream]

I see a lot of solo's being comp'ed these days. Make a playlist of 5 or 6 takes, create a new comp track under it and copy and past the best bits from the playlist to the comp track below. Crossfade the joints and bingo ..... a perfect solo

Yeah...we try to keep the cuts to a minimum, though, and in direct opposition to the OP...there's nothing quite like the feeling when you've been struggling for take after take, and then you nail the whole thing all in one.

[guitarfishbay]

I see a lot of solo's being comp'ed these days. Make a playlist of 5 or 6 takes, create a new comp track under it and copy and past the best bits from the playlist to the comp track below. Crossfade the joints and bingo ..... a perfect solo

I still like slight imperfections, so I always use a whole take with my own stuff. I don't mean bum notes, but I don't mind the feel not being totally clinical.

There is definitely a trend towards very clean playing in recorded rock and metal music, and I'm sure a lot of comping is going on in rhythm tracks. I also know melodyne is being used to tune and sometimes time align bass DI and single note guitar DIs also.

Don't feel bad if you can't play things perfectly in one take, there is probably more studio magic going on in your favourite tracks than you realise.

[thereformant]

I see a lot of solo's being comp'ed these days. Make a playlist of 5 or 6 takes, create a new comp track under it and copy and past the best bits from the playlist to the comp track below. Crossfade the joints and bingo ..... a perfect solo

If you check out some of the experiences of the guys on the andy sneap forum it sounds like even rhythm tracks are often comped at the note level and then edited to buggery. That must be absolutely soul crushingly boring to track though. We ended up essentially doing complete sections at a time with very minor editing of the drums.

[BucketheadRules]

Heh...the guys won't let me get away with that, unfortunately. After I'd done the aforementioned monstrously difficult solo, they came out with this little gem: "You know what that fast bit needs? HARMONIES!".

[monquixote]

I tend to get frustrated when I'm playing that I fall back too much on cliches, but when I listen to it back I'm usually pleased that it doesn't sound like total shit.

[RocknRollDave]

Found it quite depressing to play a whole song through and only a few bars were kept and looped instead, but it sounds like that's kind of normal, so maybe I'm just being harsh on myself.

It doesn't help that the drums and bass were laid down very quickly with very little tinkering required (although there were a couple of wee timing glitches that needed tidying up)...but hey ho, t'is what it is..

[digitalscream]

And if you're good, I may even let you hear it. We did have a video camera running, but it ran out of space just before the good take of the original part of the solo. That made me swear, too.

[Danny1969]

If you check out some of the experiences of the guys on the andy sneap forum it sounds like even rhythm tracks are often comped at the note level and then edited to buggery. That must be absolutely soul crushingly boring to track though. We ended up essentially doing complete sections at a time with very minor editing of the drums.

Yeah I know what you mean. Once it's tracked to a click you can then use either Beat Detective or Elastic Audio to basically quantize it to the grid. There's a few things you can do to huminize it a bit, stuff like randomize and tempo mapping to inject a bit of feel but it's still a souless way of doing things

My fave method of working is to gobo the drummer, bass player and guitarist off from each other but still have them all play together. Then have them record the song with nothing more than a scatch vocal and no solo's. All I'm after is the basic drums, bass and some guitar. If I can get a good backing track like that then it's just a case of then tracking the vocals, BV's and solo's. I had one band do 7 songs in one day using this aproach.

[frankus]

I remember listening to my playing at the IGF08 - we played Kinda Blue I played the last solo, as it happened I listened to the first second and third solos and thought they were okay, then the song ended. It's the first time I've been able to listen to myself and offer fair criticism rather than something like a hot-housing dad heckling unhelpfully from the sidelines.

I don't like hearing myself or playing with a metronome but when else do we hear ourselves as others do ... if I don't practice it I don't manage the level of acceptance a bloke in a pub musters listening to another musician. ddlooping was the last guitarist I heard in a pub.. or Guthrie they were both good at what they did; what they did was very different; but very good.

[ESBlonde]

Part of the trouble is that we have got used to the digital perfection in modern recordings. I remember hearing Pet Clarks 'Down Town' on the radio yesterday and thinking the timings not perfect, but that was recorded in one session during 1964 and featured Big Jim Sullivan and Jimmy page on guitar (so you get an idea of the quality of musicians). We seem to have become obsessed with quantized time on all our compressed tracks. What happened to the feeling, the art, the soul.

Oh yea, Downtown got two grammys and sold over 400,00 in two six weeks in the UK.