What Digital editing has Done to my Brain...

[Electricide]

Driving home last night, heard "With or Without You" come on. Cool.

Know the first word in that song?
It's "haaaaahhHHHHH"

Wow, never noticed that breath before. There's another one. Man, that engineer could've ducked that.

Wow, another one. Another. .Is Darth Vader overdubbing here?

Boy, Bono's breath control is terrible.

All the while missing the fact that, hey, he sings this song pretty fuckin amazing.

[stevemoss]

heh... I hear ya.

With digital editing, I really enjoy having the ability to blow away all those little moments or tweak things, but depending on the mood you're going for, you might make the aesthetic/artistic choice to leave some/all of them in.

That's likely the choice U2 made - it's a really emotional song, and to me, it would seem odder if he was delivering this empassioned performance with perfect cleanliness around the words.

[JGriffin]

Then there's the old industry story of the engineer who took all the breaths out of a Barbra Streisand vocal (and this was on analog tape in the '70s) and was told to put them all back in as Babs thought it ruined the feel of the vocal.

And yeah, the "Bono Exhale" is such a signature part of his sound it became a cliche in our local music community back in the '80s.

[uqbar]

Of course you could also blame the compressor for this, right?

m

[Electricide]

sorry m, don't follow your train of thought there.

[stevemoss]

While the compressor would boost the level of incidental sounds like a singer's between-line breaths, the engineer would still have the option of ducking those sounds out of the final mix.

[I'm Painting Again]

i like those and any other sounds that sneek into a recording if i like them.

more importantly does anybody think about the impact of technology on the conceptual development and physical evolution of the brain? tool makers can verywell be the most important people, shaping evolution of the brain and mind. ?!

[heylow]

Driving home last night, heard "With or Without You" come on. Cool.

Know the first word in that song?
It's "haaaaahhHHHHH"

Wow, never noticed that breath before. There's another one. Man, that engineer could've ducked that.

Wow, another one. Another. .Is Darth Vader overdubbing here?

Boy, Bono's breath control is terrible.

All the while missing the fact that, hey, he sings this song pretty fuckin amazing.

Gee.....thats funny....and here its little things like that that remind me music isnt completely dead yet.

Son, I'm going to have to have you drop the cursor and step AWAY from DAW.



heylow

[heylow]

more importantly does anybody think about the impact of technology on the conceptual development and physical evolution of the brain? tool makers can verywell be the most important people, shaping evolution of the brain and mind. ?!

Hmmmmm....

Excellent point! Hopefully it IS a well crafted though and not some freaky "trip" offa the pain killers!

Seriously....a heavy thought. Kinda like how many people cant accept a guitar or snare sound not done with a 57 because thats the sound that has become synonymous with those instruments. And how some people HAVE to have Autotune on even the greatest, most human of vocals because thats how vocals sound nowadays.

Man......FUCK that. DOUBLE fuck all that. I'm sticking to breaths, guitar squeaks, the occasional wavering vocal note, and all else that was the signature of a moment that will never be again. VIBE above ALL ELSE. There are moments where a slightly cracked note can send shivers down my spine (in a good way) and if it does, it stays (with MY music at least).



heylow

[MoreSpaceEcho]

Awhile back i spent the entirety of one evening editing a drum take to make it sound like I could actually keep time. There were a lot of little things i liked about this take, otherwise i would've just done it over, but there were just way too many late snares and whatnot...i had to fix it. Anyway, that was like 5 hours straight of super nitpicking. The next morning I put on the last Fugazi record and couldn't believe how loose it was...it was actually bothering me to hear flams and such. I realized it was me who was fucked...my ears were still in "millisecond mode". ugh.

I haven't nit-picked a drum take like that since.

And 'the argument' sounds just fine again.

[heylow]

Awhile back i spent the entirety of one evening editing a drum take to make it sound like I could actually keep time. There were a lot of little things i liked about this take, otherwise i would've just done it over, but there were just way too many late snares and whatnot...i had to fix it. Anyway, that was like 5 hours straight of super nitpicking. The next morning I put on the last Fugazi record and couldn't believe how loose it was...it was actually bothering me to hear flams and such. I realized it was me who was fucked...my ears were still in "millisecond mode". ugh.

I haven't nit-picked a drum take like that since.

And 'the argument' sounds just fine again.

HA! I've been there TOO many times....Millisecond mode.....great term for it!



heylow

[I'm Painting Again]

yea i was excited that this post might be about brain evolution as it relates to technology.

there is a good book on the subject called the evolution of lateral asymmetries, language, tool use, and intellect by john bradshaw and lesley rogers that deals with this theory if your interested.

[charlie]

Mm.

There once was a girl named Anna Log. She was warm. She made people smile, sigh, and sometimes even dance. She held a sort of goodness that seemed so organic - angelic, even.

She was crossing the street one day to buy flowers for a dear friend. Out of nowhere, she was killed by the evil parochial schoolteacher, Nun Linnear. Nun Linnear hadn't been paying attention because she was driving so fast in her Ford Fairlight. Granted, when people needed a ride somewhere, they asked Nun Linnear for a lift - Nun Linnear was one speedy babe.

But life died the day Anna was killed. Now all that's left is a bunch of evil speed demons with bad habits.


Charlie

[MoreSpaceEcho]

Man......FUCK that. DOUBLE fuck all that. I'm sticking to breaths, guitar squeaks, the occasional wavering vocal note, and all else that was the signature of a moment that will never be again. VIBE above ALL ELSE. There are moments where a slightly cracked note can send shivers down my spine (in a good way) and if it does, it stays (with MY music at least).



heylow

word.

my singer and i got in an argument awhile back over this one vocal phrase. she wanted me to swap it out with another one because her pitch was a little off. i said no way because her delivery was amazing and totally gave me the shivers. i guess it wasn't really an argument because i just refused to change it. but yeah, the cracked notes are what i'm looking for in a vocal. if they don't crack any notes, they aren't really feeling it!

[uqbar]

While the compressor would boost the level of incidental sounds like a singer's between-line breaths, the engineer would still have the option of ducking those sounds out of the final mix.

Well you don't want them gone - or it sounds sterile, but too much compression and they really stick out. So in the end you really end up doing some sort of equivalent of riding the fader (which was what the compressor was supposed to do for you).

I think there are a couple of kinds of brain scrambling going around. One is that overexagerrated breaths, etc from megacompression sound 'normal' on a vocal track, the other is that the complete lack of them from over zealous cutting, sounds 'normal.'

Each is kind of an issue, I think. And ultimately, by using automation to help you ride the fader, you can minimize the need for overediting and overcompression. But its a lot more work...

mark