Quantizing Guitar and Bass

[Drew]

Not sure whether anyone 'won' at answering the guy's question.... unless there is some sort of latent bravado award up for grabs?

What, latent bravado in being able to play your own damned parts?

 

[flaik]

The more organic your recording is the better it will sound. I think its that simple really.

 

[Ryan-ZenGtr-]

The two "easy mode" production techniques are:

Side chain compression

Input key triggering noise gates

(if you have a midi source and have programmed a good representation of your part, you could use this as the input key i.e. guitar pro. Hi hats or other 16th sub division click or the kick are commonly used)

This works live, too. Mad Capsule Market (from Japan) use this production technique on stage to allow them to jump around more, but better playing is always my go to solution, if only for "latent bravado".

Most editing takes place when you have to unscramble poor guitar work, OR guitar work scrambled by latency when recording or mixing. I often have to adjust audio to account for input latency as it increases time smearing with additional tracks and plug ins.

Go google those techniques, but they are no replacement for playing like an *adult.

Thank you very much.

*Seeking politically correct descriptive similes, answers on a postcard please*

 

[Scottckr]

As previous people said, if it really needs editing that badly you'll have to work on your playing.
That being sad, if you feel like editing it anyway, cutting it up and moving the samples is the best way to go, guitars pretty much always sound like shit if you stretch it("Flex" in Logic Pro). Make sure you do crossfades when you're cutting it up.

 

[InfinityCollision]

The thing is, although these players are absolutely amazing, what ends up in the final recording is DEFINITELY not what they just record straight off (and I'm talking about more than just eq'ing). Editing does take place. You can just tell by how it sounds.

I don't think you're giving these musicians enough credit. Food for thought. I can't say for certain that track wasn't edited in production to tighten it up, but it would surprise me.

 

[cerebrate42]

Some editing may occur, yes, but what the players play (at least, the players of that caliber) is actually pretty damned close to what you hear. Their music may be incredibly rhythmically complex, yes, but Thorendal for example has spent decades practicing those complex rhythms, and is a VERY tight player for it.

Editing will make a performance sound a little tighter, but if it doesn't sound pretty good before you start, then you should go back and re-record.

Yup! I was trying to make this clear. Thordendal (along with Tosin, Misha, et al.) is an AMAZING player.

But he's not a robot. And we all are accustomed to robot-sounding music, hahaha. (I like it that way, actually.)

 

[cerebrate42]

As soon as I read "djent is incredibly complex" as an excuse for editing everything to pieces I knew this thread would make me want to kill myself.

Just play tighter. Watch J-browne.

Oh c'mon, haha.
First and foremost, maybe I should've been clearer. I'm not talking about "editing everything to pieces." I'm talking about giving things that "over-produced" almost "robotic" kind of sound.
That's what I'm (and a lot producers) are going for with this stuff.

But, yeah, who's not working on playing tighter?


As for "djent is incredibly complex" (a line I must admit I didn't say), I'm talking about incredibly complex music that happens to be djent. They can be mutually exclusive.

But, Meshuggah or AAL? That's some COMPLEX djent.

 

[cerebrate42]

Quad-tracking is effectively the reason why most big producers actually do sync transients on complex tracks to retain tightness. I see these things as going hand-in-hand.

I would agree that there should be no need to edit this way with only single or double tracked rhythm parts if the playing is tight, but quad tracking is another story to get right sometimes...

As for "answering" questions, I feel like this might actually be it! Haha

So this is what "the pros" do? Sync transients by hand?

I quad track a lot of stuff. That was one of my original points. Getting the four to align 100% is virtually impossible.

If there's no shortcut, per se, then this is it.

 

[cerebrate42]

Thanks for the replies everyone!


I probably should've been a bit more specific.



I'm *not* having "tightness" issues. I'm not trying to boast or anything, but it's not my playing that's a problem.


I'm just a major perfectionist, and I want this stuff to sound perfect.



Here's an example. This is the djentiest part from the opening track of the (concept) album I'm working on right now.
1 - A Storm Is Brewing - Progress by Peculate on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free
My problem isn't really that it's sloppy when I record it. It's just that I want to try to recreate that "inhuman" sound that I hear in the aforementioned bands.

So when I play stuff like what's above, with a bunch of 5/16, 7/16, et al. bars,
I am DEFINITELY doing this with many takes; I'm doing a ton of punching in/out.
But when I have a take done, and a few notes here and there are a 32nd note off (it's definitely noticeable at tempos like this), I just wanted to see if there was a faster way (that doesn't produce artifacts or alter the sound of the audio in question) than just going in, cutting, moving it in place, and adding some crossfades.
Although, given all my searches on forums, etc., it seems like this is really just the way to go, hahaha.

Thanks!

 

[Winspear]

Without reading everything up above, yeah - your playing does sound pretty tight. It was hard to tell from the OP to what extent you were talking. Could've easily been a noob denying that tech bands even play remotely tightly haha.
In answer to your question - yeah, all the advice you need is here now.

 

[Drew]

Oh c'mon, haha.
First and foremost, maybe I should've been clearer. I'm not talking about "editing everything to pieces." I'm talking about giving things that "over-produced" almost "robotic" kind of sound.
That's what I'm (and a lot producers) are going for with this stuff.

...and the day that sound goes away, I'll die a happy man.

But, gate the shit out of your guitar. A lot of that sound seems less to be heavy-handed editing than a gate slamming down aggressively and making the guitar go from almost full sustain to dead silence in a millisecond, so it osunds like something is getting sucked out of the room.

Listening to your clip, your biggest problem (aside from the djent influence) isn't tightness or gating or anything like that, it's that your guitars are just WAY too dark and muddy and indistinct for this sound. I'll assume this is an AxeFX rather than a real amp - dial back some of that low end and maybe try a more aggressive mic/speaker impulse. If you can't get a guitar to sound good through a SM57 close-mic'd, you're doing something wrong - I'd start there.

 

[cerebrate42]

...and the day that sound goes away, I'll die a happy man.

But, gate the shit out of your guitar. A lot of that sound seems less to be heavy-handed editing than a gate slamming down aggressively and making the guitar go from almost full sustain to dead silence in a millisecond, so it osunds like something is getting sucked out of the room.

Listening to your clip, your biggest problem (aside from the djent influence) isn't tightness or gating or anything like that, it's that your guitars are just WAY too dark and muddy and indistinct for this sound. I'll assume this is an AxeFX rather than a real amp - dial back some of that low end and maybe try a more aggressive mic/speaker impulse. If you can't get a guitar to sound good through a SM57 close-mic'd, you're doing something wrong - I'd start there.

Haha, thanks for the advice. Will do.

 

[cerebrate42]

Without reading everything up above, yeah - your playing does sound pretty tight. It was hard to tell from the OP to what extent you were talking. Could've easily been a noob denying that tech bands even play remotely tightly haha.
In answer to your question - yeah, all the advice you need is here now.

Haha, good point. My bad. Should have clarified earlier.

 

[MetalSlab]

As for "answering" questions, I feel like this might actually be it! Haha

So this is what "the pros" do? Sync transients by hand?

I quad track a lot of stuff. That was one of my original points. Getting the four to align 100% is virtually impossible.

If there's no shortcut, per se, then this is it.

Nice to see you at least considered my point. Getting four (or more) very complex rhythm tracks to align well does take some transient shifting in many cases... particularly where you are quad-tracking with different picks, pickup positions, etc, and it is a complex arrangement in general.

As for the whole 'if you can't play it tight live, then don't record it' bravado, then fair enough, but we don't quad-track live do we?...this is my point.