#32

I didn’t read “single take” as “first take” … I usually record multitrack in a single take performance, but I might do it 3 to 5 times and choose the best one.

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#33

Further, if you’re locked to tempo, it’s relatively casual to gather the best parts from several takes, skip past long stretches of parameter tweaking, structure a piece from disparate jams, etc.

Editing a performance doesn’t strictly require layers.

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#34

I meant it in the same way, because personally, unless it is something extremely short, I tend to gravitate to different moments in different performances of a piece so I’d go crazy if I didn’t use the parts I love the most.

I think it would actually be easier to just do a 1st take than to resist the urge to edit different versions together.

#35

I tend not to edit that much… I generally do a take, listen, do a full new take, listen, etc until I’m happy with one as a whole. But my music is very improvisational, so editing together takes is usually not going to happen.

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#36

Sometimes I interrupt a take when I realize I could have developed a section better, or if I tried something and it didn’t work, or pushed something too hard or too fast.

But probably more than 90% of the time, I end up keeping the first full take that I finish, don’t keep the partial takes, or record another take and piece together the best bits. Most of what I do isn’t very performance-oriented, or focused on exact nuances of musical gestures, and to me the spontaneity is more important.

I don’t want to fall into the trap of making changes just because I’ve been listening to the same thing for the past 3 hours and anything different sounds “better” :grin:

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#37

Sometimes I take my half-takes or other recordings I didn’t use and make samples out of them :slight_smile:

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#38

To me that’s the number one difficulty in making art, balancing my judgment between enjoying something because it’s new and fresh or because it’s balanced and well composed/performed.

Both should contain spontaneity but the former can get me stuck in a labyrinth of constantly adding elements after I lose the initial excitement over the piece while the latter can give me false sense of quality or enjoyment due to the usual long hours spent working on it.

Finding a process is harder than finishing the actual works in my opinion. Once you find it, just stick to it and you should be able to sleep well at night :wink:

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#39

Before getting into modular, and the desire to make experimental/ambient electronic based music, I recorded the ‘traditional’ rock band way. I’d get a mostly live takes from drums, bass and some guitars, and then overdub everything else to my heart’s content. What happened is that it would take me forever to finish stuff, because I was the one overdubbing and mixing, and I would go through these periods of self-doubt and put the project aside when I thought stuff wasn’t sounding right. By the time I ended up finishing (if I actually finished it), I’d be so sick of it the tunes, and maybe even had moved onto new stuff. This long form way of working works for bands/artists that have budgets and fanbases, because inevitably the songs get new life in them when people hear them for the first time and you tour on them. I never had the luxury of having my own music get to that level, so it started to become disheartening to put all that energy into a recording.

Enter the modular synth and me having a baby… by nature of the instrument and by necessity I needed to do something immediate. So, I set rules for myself that there would be no overdubbing allowed. I essentially make a patch, record it direct to stereo, and mix it live the best I can live. It forces me to be in the moment. If the track gets released, mistakes are sometimes edited out and sometimes left in, depending on how I’m feeling. The only other thing I do is adjust fades, and sometimes, I’ll shorten a piece if I feel like it gets boring in parts. Then I “master” it too.

I’m thinking I may bring some over dubbing at some point soon, because I want to start adding other instruments back into the mix. I do play guitar/lap steel along with modular, but I’ve managed to do that live as well. I’d like to record that better though with overdubbing.

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#40

I like to improvise, and showing the results of the particular moment I was recording seems more honest for me than presenting some sort of Frankenstein edit job. Plus I can’t really stay emotionally connected to material that I second guess in that way. I might occasionally overdub another layer on something that is too sparse or replace / enhance something that didn’t get recorded properly or didn’t mesh with the overall effect, but beyond that it starts to feel like a job.

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#41

Live to stereo, usually just one take unless there are technical issues.

#42

I have only really ever recorded modular straight to a single stereo track. I hope to eventually get to where @emenel is, because sometimes—not always—I like a track well enough to want to be able to go in and polish it up a bit. That’s my thinking, anyways. I remain super apprehensive that if I start down this path, I’ll start spending way too much time in my DAW, which is definitely not what I want. I don’t want to keep being drawn into @Foxhood’s labyrinth.

The approach I’ve been contemplating is to always record everything multitrack—just in case—but continue to try to get it all right the first time. I already use a WMD Performance Mixer, so that should easy (if expensive) to set up. But how do I resist the temptation to monkey around with the individual tracks when it’s not worth it? If it seems worth it, is it better to jump in there immediately, or wait a while until you’re able to be more “objective” about the track?

#43

I’d argue that you should always give some distance before you immediately start arranging or mixing single elements.

Also, I personally can’t edit and mix a project without a preconceived concept I need to achieve or else I fell like I’m just chopping and mixing stuff for no apparent reason and get lost in the sounds instead of the idea.

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#44

I always separate my music making from my music mixing/editing/production. The mindset and activities are so different, and I definitely need space from the music to think about mixing it… I always usually want to mix in the context of where the music is going (album, project etc).

I tend to record all the pieces that I want for a project, then mix the whole thing at once… more like working with a band in the studio, something I’ve done for years and is probably where this habit comes from. Composing, practicing, tracking, mixing, and mastering are all separate activities for me and require different mindsets, approaches, and techniques.

Treat this as a habit. Sometimes people think of their behaviours and habits as inevitable, that if you start down that path you will have no choice. That’s not true… if you want to find a balance then treat it as a practice, practice self awareness and correction so that you develop habits that support your creativity.

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#45

Definitely separate tracks for me, but I’m definitely still experimenting and searching.
I did experiment with several things over the years, from creating everything as MIDI tracks first, and then recording one thing at a time (I didn’t have a multi-channel interface) to just recording the stereo out.

Two things seem to somehow work for me, depending on the type of track I’m making:

  • Either treat everything as if it was a field recording (I have to thank Matthias Puech for opening my eyes on this!) or
  • play the whole thing as if it was a liveset (after rehearsing it for a bit) and then do a multi-track recording (thankfully I now have an interface with enough inputs)

The first one seems to work better for my normal practice, because I think that I tend to compose in the DAW by cut, pasting and mangling audio. I do use a lot of field recordings, so I guess I tend to apply the same logic to synthesized sound as well. I often come up with a patch consisting of just one voice, record that and store it on my HD. Later I’ll maybe combine that with some other sounds to make a track.

The downside of this approach is that for me it does not work well for more structured composition. That’s where the multi-track approach is a lot better.

Now, the challenge is probably to find a way to combine the two somehow. That’s where I’m kinda stuck right now.

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#46

Usually when I try to record with overdubs I end up preferring and releasing the individual tracks separately :smiley:

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#47

“treat everything as a field recording” is a nice Oblique Strategic approach. Did that come out of another forum discussion?

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#48

I liked this notion a lot too, so I looked it up. Seems to maybe be from this interview.

I realized I had to treat it like a natural space and adopt the same position as an ecological field recordist seeking to capture a cascade or birdsong. I accepted that I am only a spectator of my own experiments; that my only grasp on the process was to know when to press ‘record’ and how to assemble the snapshots, these fragments of life, to construct a story.

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#49

Of course I have it from this interview here:

http://www.horizontalpitch.com/2018/06/matthias-puech-explicit-intentions/

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#50

I think you can have it both ways, in that the way I often work means the ‘live’ single take becomes the layered track. I often spend a session or two finding some sounds I like and not doing any ‘live’ take or any idea of an arrangement. Later I just jam these sounds and hit record, so its a single take at this point. I might leave in for two weeks before listening back.
But then I’ll go back and expand and layer / arrange from this point…
A lot of tracks I made this way might be a 20 minute single take and arranged into a 5 minute track. Typically with me there is always bars and bars or nothing really happening or minial developent in a live take which you can just cut straight out. Of course I never delete anything and its always there in case you later change your mind.

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#51

Live single take to stereo for me. I delved into eurorack due to it’s “in the moment” nature.
Multitracking is too complicated for me i guess :smiley: