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Post by seawell on May 14, 2019 21:05:58 GMT -6
Interesting video....I've certainly been guilty of over editing myself so it's food for thought!
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Post by donr on May 14, 2019 22:32:45 GMT -6
I've never tried to edit/conform any live drum performance to a grid, so I don't have any experience with it.
But why didn't Rick B. let ProTools find the average tempo from the audio, it'd likely be more accurate than him tapping tempo on a keyboard. [Try doing that, I can't be reliably consistant over 8 bars. I'm (relatively) all over the place.] Bonham's groove is of course swinging within the bars, but his meter is pretty damn good as drummers go. The 2 and 4 of the bar are pretty consistant, and a truer tempo, and therefore a truer detected beat could be calculated from the actual audio.
Of course his performance with the band is not metronomic to a fixed tempo because Zep's music wasn't. It sagged and pushed as was appropriate for the material.
Imagine hiring John Bonham to do the drums on 1990 Dee-light's "Groove Is In The Heart," or any post-modern DAW written steady tempo music. I'm sure he could have played to a click and still sounded like Bonham. But it wouldn't have been what the producers were after.
But Rick Beato's point is taken. You could make the same point about any band recording that's not constrained to a grid.
Thirty years of Pop music fashion has accustomed the listener's ear to metronomic time at this point, although hearing real humans playing without a rthymn machine or DAW today is still interesting if not downright refreshing to people young and old.
There's room for both methods of music making. What bugs me now is little drums at all on current pop music, except claps, hat and some lame ass snare sound.
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Post by Johnkenn on May 14, 2019 22:58:32 GMT -6
I would also say that there’s a difference in John Bonham being “out of time” and the local garage drummer being out of time. One is musical, one is wrong.
My favorite drummer in town often rushes fills and little things, but it’s soooo good. My favorite steel player is somewhat out of time and out of tune...but it’s sooo freaking good. But then you’ve got people like Michael Rhoades on bass that can play in front, on top or behind the beat in twenty different flavors...the guy is a machine...and he sounds incredible.
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Post by Blackdawg on May 14, 2019 23:07:06 GMT -6
Yeah I hate doing that. If I have to quantize, I try to just do it by 1 bar at a time. Keeps some of the human in there. Generally works quite well.
Best to avoid it if possible.
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Post by donr on May 14, 2019 23:23:15 GMT -6
Hypnotic, metronomic time became fashionable in the '80's. Fleetwood Mac's "Rumors" probably wouldn't have sold as well as it did without the tape loop rhythm grooves they worked up and built the tracks over.
But you almost can't imagine Bonham like that. I heard a cassette tape of a Zep rehearsal, and you heard John Bonham playing by himself on it, and it already sounded like Led Zepplin without anyone else. Just the way his limbs worked together created the groove that was the band without the band.
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Post by kcatthedog on May 14, 2019 23:52:06 GMT -6
In each clip John had me hooked on the first beat, his feel is right there.
The quantized sounds comparatively soulless.
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Post by Quint on May 14, 2019 23:52:58 GMT -6
I'm just not even going to..... I was first a drummer before any of the rest of this. Ugh.... Enough said. Again. Ugh....
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Post by kcatthedog on May 15, 2019 0:00:42 GMT -6
^^This^^ +100
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Post by Vincent R. on May 15, 2019 6:06:49 GMT -6
I like Rick’s videos a lot. I too was a little taken a back by the way he found the tempo, particularly because it seemed that Bonham slowed down a bit in the second part of the recording. In an industry where everyone is overdubbing and no one plays together any more I understand the need click tracks. I don’t love them, but I get it. I personally use a lot of tempo mapping these days for my new album, because my on first album it was crazy to sync things up when I brought in players on songs we had built around a performance of my self and an accompanist on piano. If you plan on quantizing a player it’s hard to do that if they didn’t record to a click in the first place, which makes it difficult to really extrapolate how Bonham would have sounded quantized if he had recorded with a click in the first place.
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Post by adamjbrass on May 15, 2019 10:48:49 GMT -6
Computers don’t ruin anything. People do.
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Post by the other mark williams on May 15, 2019 10:58:51 GMT -6
Computers don’t ruin anything. People do. Heh, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but all technologies nudge us toward working in a particular way. When people see a grid on a screen, and then notice their waveforms don't match up to that grid, they are nudged (no pun intended) toward a process of making their waveforms match that grid. Yes, of course you can hide the grid or just ignore it, but the nudge is there, regardless. When we look at screens, we are implicitly told that what is on that screen matters. Our eyes enter the equation in a way they didn't prior to DAWs. Anyway, this is not an argument for why we should all go back to tape or ADAT or DA88 or something. We live in the world we live in. Just musing on the thought. |
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Post by seawell on May 15, 2019 11:09:02 GMT -6
The method for finding the tempo was definitely wonky but you can’t let the truth get in the way of a good story 😂
This video just hit me at the right time because I’ve been itching to get a group in a room together...well rehearsed..,and make a rock & roll record. Doesn’t happen much anymore unfortunately. It’s overdub city over here 🤷🏻♂️
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Post by christopher on May 15, 2019 11:11:56 GMT -6
Sometimes computers automatically quantize midi performances, figuring humans are always off tempo. Stupid human at the controls didn't read the manual first to turn it off though.
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Post by johneppstein on May 15, 2019 12:40:32 GMT -6
Computers don’t ruin anything. People do. Respecfully disagree, unless you're talking about the difference between using the computer's crutches and using the computer for email and maybe raw storage, like a tape machine.
Of course you can say it's the people who actually do it - by choosing to use the computer.
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Post by johneppstein on May 15, 2019 12:42:48 GMT -6
Computers don’t ruin anything. People do. Heh, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but all technologies nudge us toward working in a particular way. When people see a grid on a screen, and then notice their waveforms don't match up to that grid, they are nudged (no pun intended) toward a process of making their waveforms match that grid. Yes, of course you can hide the grid or just ignore it, but the nudge is there, regardless. When we look at screens, we are implicitly told that what is on that screen matters. Our eyes enter the equation in a way they didn't prior to DAWs. Anyway, this is not an argument for why we should all go back to tape or ADAT or DA88 or something. We live in the world we live in. Just musing on the thought. Easy solution - don't look at screens.
You can use a computer just like a tape machine - no need to look at a screen at all, really, except for cueing the "tape".
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Post by adamjbrass on May 15, 2019 13:00:03 GMT -6
Computers don’t ruin anything. People do. Respecfully disagree, unless you're talking about the difference between using the computer's crutches and using the computer for email and maybe raw storage, like a tape machine.
Of course you can say it's the people who actually do it - by choosing to use the computer.
I’m not even sure I understand what you are saying here A computer can record a performance It does not alter the performance without a human telling it to |
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Post by johneppstein on May 15, 2019 13:06:50 GMT -6
Respecfully disagree, unless you're talking about the difference between using the computer's crutches and using the computer for email and maybe raw storage, like a tape machine.
Of course you can say it's the people who actually do it - by choosing to use the computer.
I’m not even sure I understand what you are saying here A computer can record a performance It does not alter the performance without a human telling it to Usually.
However many people feel compelled to partake of the "gifts" offered by the computer. You can say that the person, not the computer, is responsible, but I don't think that's entirely true, given human nature.
Tools "want" to be used.
And all too often the tools end up dictating the workflow and even the aesthetics.
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Post by jeremygillespie on May 15, 2019 13:55:47 GMT -6
I’ve edited tape to a grid before. It was done quite a bit actually.
It’s not the computer. This stuff was done before computers. It’s the person that makes the decision to change what was played by the musician, either because they sucked, or because the type of music called for the performance to be rigid.
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Post by adamjbrass on May 15, 2019 20:02:57 GMT -6
I’m not even sure I understand what you are saying here A computer can record a performance It does not alter the performance without a human telling it to Usually.
However many people feel compelled to partake of the "gifts" offered by the computer. You can say that the person, not the computer, is responsible, but I don't think that's entirely true, given human nature.
Tools "want" to be used.
And all too often the tools end up dictating the workflow and even the aesthetics.
So Let me try and unpack this one, and maybe boil it down; computers ruin things automatically after programming them to, Mainly, if not only due to; Human Nature. Interesting |
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Post by jampa on May 15, 2019 20:41:44 GMT -6
Usually.
However many people feel compelled to partake of the "gifts" offered by the computer. You can say that the person, not the computer, is responsible, but I don't think that's entirely true, given human nature.
Tools "want" to be used.
And all too often the tools end up dictating the workflow and even the aesthetics.
So Let me try and unpack this one, and maybe boil it down; computers ruin things automatically after programming them to, Mainly, if not only due to; Human Nature. Interesting Your core arguments are both right - Tools "want" to be used AND people ruin things. I don't have to use this reply button and I don't have to ruin this conversation but I probably can't help myself It doesn't mean it's the only way |
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Post by Mister Chase on May 15, 2019 22:33:53 GMT -6
Computers don’t ruin anything. People do. Heh, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but all technologies nudge us toward working in a particular way. When people see a grid on a screen, and then notice their waveforms don't match up to that grid, they are nudged (no pun intended) toward a process of making their waveforms match that grid. Yes, of course you can hide the grid or just ignore it, but the nudge is there, regardless. When we look at screens, we are implicitly told that what is on that screen matters. Our eyes enter the equation in a way they didn't prior to DAWs. Anyway, this is not an argument for why we should all go back to tape or ADAT or DA88 or something. We live in the world we live in. Just musing on the thought. Yes - this is Steve Albini's point about computers as well. He said something to the effect of - it's like driving a Ferrari at 35 mph, at some point the capabilities of the machine will tempt you and you will use them. His analogy holds some truth. "Well, it would be so easy just to tune this, just to move that" Before you know if you've been doing it for an hour or two and have gone too far because you are too far from the shores of sanity.
With my own music, I have found that I can be very disciplined and use the digital world like a tape machine most of the time. I'm working on some Buddy Holly instrumental covers of my own right now and every song is created using a guide track I make with no click. Not going to punch any tracks unless I really have to either. I think I made one punch in the 2 songs I've done so far out of maybe 8-10 tracks each.
My motivation is the antithesis of the quantized world, and that keeps me disciplined. I'm also lazy so it's way easier not to have to touch anything after it's recorded.
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Post by the other mark williams on May 15, 2019 22:48:13 GMT -6
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Post by notneeson on May 16, 2019 10:33:41 GMT -6
Heh, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but all technologies nudge us toward working in a particular way. When people see a grid on a screen, and then notice their waveforms don't match up to that grid, they are nudged (no pun intended) toward a process of making their waveforms match that grid. Yes, of course you can hide the grid or just ignore it, but the nudge is there, regardless. When we look at screens, we are implicitly told that what is on that screen matters. Our eyes enter the equation in a way they didn't prior to DAWs. Anyway, this is not an argument for why we should all go back to tape or ADAT or DA88 or something. We live in the world we live in. Just musing on the thought. Yes - this is Steve Albini's point about computers as well. He said something to the effect of - it's like driving a Ferrari at 35 mph, at some point the capabilities of the machine will tempt you and you will use them. His analogy holds some truth. "Well, it would be so easy just to tune this, just to move that" Before you know if you've been doing it for an hour or two and have gone too far because you are too far from the shores of sanity.
With my own music, I have found that I can be very disciplined and use the digital world like a tape machine most of the time. I'm working on some Buddy Holly instrumental covers of my own right now and every song is created using a guide track I make with no click. Not going to punch any tracks unless I really have to either. I think I made one punch in the 2 songs I've done so far out of maybe 8-10 tracks each.
My motivation is the antithesis of the quantized world, and that keeps me disciplined. I'm also lazy so it's way easier not to have to touch anything after it's recorded.
But also, businesses need to be pragmatic and there's been an HD rig at Electrical for several years now. |
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Post by johneppstein on May 16, 2019 10:44:37 GMT -6
Usually.
However many people feel compelled to partake of the "gifts" offered by the computer. You can say that the person, not the computer, is responsible, but I don't think that's entirely true, given human nature.
Tools "want" to be used.
And all too often the tools end up dictating the workflow and even the aesthetics.
So Let me try and unpack this one, and maybe boil it down; computers ruin things automatically after programming them to, Mainly, if not only due to; Human Nature. Interesting Computers don't kill music, people kill music.
I suppose on some level you're right.
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Post by Mister Chase on May 16, 2019 10:46:30 GMT -6
Yes - this is Steve Albini's point about computers as well. He said something to the effect of - it's like driving a Ferrari at 35 mph, at some point the capabilities of the machine will tempt you and you will use them. His analogy holds some truth. "Well, it would be so easy just to tune this, just to move that" Before you know if you've been doing it for an hour or two and have gone too far because you are too far from the shores of sanity.
With my own music, I have found that I can be very disciplined and use the digital world like a tape machine most of the time. I'm working on some Buddy Holly instrumental covers of my own right now and every song is created using a guide track I make with no click. Not going to punch any tracks unless I really have to either. I think I made one punch in the 2 songs I've done so far out of maybe 8-10 tracks each.
My motivation is the antithesis of the quantized world, and that keeps me disciplined. I'm also lazy so it's way easier not to have to touch anything after it's recorded.
But also, businesses need to be pragmatic and there's been an HD rig at Electrical for several years now. Yes indeed. I don't think it's meant to be taken as an endorsement to be exclusively analog but rather a caution and maybe a minus column entry for digital. It is a good insight into human nature as it relates to music making if we are trying to be cognizant about it. |
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