I got a couple thoughtful responses about yesterday’s digital recording rant. At some point while writing one response, it became another blog. So I thought I’d post it here…

1) I agree that musicians ought not perform digital surgery on crappy performances to make them something they’re not. You need to start with something strong to end with something strong. In making the debut record we’re working on now, my partner and I made a pact to really practice and aim to know takes cold before ever pressing record. But even then you end up pressing the record button a lot to get what you’re looking for. And it’s never perfect.

2) As far as the “latency, sample delay” business, those are just inevitable issues you encounter when recording in the computer realm (the machine sometimes lags and places different tracks delayed by milliseconds in either direction and the result is exponentially negative)… Combine that with natural human timing imperfections (and like NPR said, maybe ones that aren’t necessarily “bad”), other quirks associated with layering tracks on top of each other, and outside programming (beats or synths etc.) and there’s bound to be some stuff that’s best adjusted one way or the other, unless you want it to sound disjointed. But it all depends on the creation process, style of music, and the end result you’re looking to achieve. To make another poor literature analogy: if it’s going to contain fiction, make sure it’s a good story.

3) Most would agree, the digital tools in question aren’t the problem. I think it’s up to the artist to use them, if at all, in ways that bring out what’s already there, not fake something that’s absent. And again, that’s going to be different for every project (I don’t think Daft Punk and Bon Iver share the same production methods). It’s up to the artist to make good choices for themselves and the material. (Coincidentally, we’ve already decided that for the record after this one, we’re recording it “free-form,” no metronome… The sound of a click track when you close your eyes at night is probably not healthy.)

One of NPR’s music blogs, Monitor Mix, recently ran a piece by Douglas Wolk titled “The Death of Mistakes Means The Death of Rock.”

The crux was that the digital age is sterilizing modern recordings. It’s never been easier to snap away timing errors, bend pitch faults, and overdub takes into oblivion. So, Wolk argued, the crucial intricacies and imperfections of human performance are now routinely eradicated in exchange for more technically perfect, computer-manipulated performances—but ones void of feeling, definition, and swagger. “Sloppy” has become a bit of curse word in the recording world but without it, he continued, you wouldn’t have wild organ solos like the one on James Brown’s “Sex Machine” or revolutionary rock recordings like The Beatles “Rain.”

Unfortunately, I’d say all that is true. But it also got me thinking about the flip side, from the perspective of a project with limited members and resources.

A (good) band ebbs and flows in a sort of symbiotic nature, playing music together at one point in time. So if you record a (good) band doing that, without doing really anything else with digital trickery, you’ll have a recording that represents exactly that.

But if your project has one or two people, the process of laying things down track-by-track is a slightly different animal. Tracks recorded at several different times aren’t always swaying in that agreeable unison. They’re coming from different places. Add some programming, shifty latency and sampling delays and you have a recipe for some funky clashing.

Sure, with digital editing, you can suck the feeling out of a performance and snap every note to a grid. But you also have the option to tastefully and creatively compensate for certain issues between tracks, with otherwise strong performances, while keeping your aesthetic intact. Why is that anything but a good thing?

Think of it like a novel. No one wants to read something full of typos and mistakes. If your favorite book was never edited, your opinion of it would probably change. Editing and revision are integral parts of the creative process. But so is practiced spontaneity—you don’t want to read prose that’s over-edited to the point that it becomes generic or homogenized. Quantizing a Miles Davis horn solo would be like putting conventional punctuation in one of James Joyce’s stream of consciousness paragraphs. So it’s a constant balancing act between the material and the execution of it. And the way people make and appreciate art is always changing, so no matter how much we speculate and analyze the subject, there’s no magic formula for hitting the sweet spot. Thankfully.

“Over-editing” is something every musician should consider when making a recording in the current environment. But it’s not the tools; it’s how you use them.

(I could also list songs we wouldn’t have without creative use of a computer, but that’s a whole another rant).

Thanks to DJ Willem for the fun interview.

Big thanks to DJ Loos for this write up from the Netherlands:
http://oorbijter.blogspot.com/2009/09/dakotafish-landlocked.html

Not sure exactly what it says but that makes it even more cool, right?