Week 3:
The most valuable thing that I learned during my time at George's studio last week was how important it is for an artist to come to a music studio with enough confidence to voice opinions to the producer about where the music should go, but without overconfidence which can make for an unproductive and difficult studio session.
I sat in on a session where the artist was constantly referring to George to direct the song's artistry (not strictly his job). It seemed to me that the artist was not confident in his abilities, and so was causing George to have to work overly hard to make a low-quality recording sound decent. In essence, George had to overcompensate on the technological side of things to make up for the artist's lack of direction and confidence.
I think what would have made the session (and song) better is if the artist came to the studio confident in his singing abilities so that George did not have to spend time (and the artist's money) fixing mistakes that could have been prevented, had the artist practiced his part.
The situation, though, seemed to not allow that, because the artist had to take the job of lead vocal duties, last minute. So it was a problem with his band as well.
In sum: Auto-Tune doesn't make up so well for lack of artistic direction because its designated job is to add spice to the direction that already exists not necessarily create the direction, itself.
Interesting. I guess this answers my previous question. I imagined using technology to basically "paint" a track, but you clarified that in order to "paint" the right tracks, you need a strong and varied "palate" to start with. Is that right?
ReplyDeleteWell, yes. Computers aren't sophisticated enough yet, for instance to model human voices in as effective a manner as we all would like; needless to say there is plenty of vocal synthesizer software out there that does a surprisingly detailed job.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, you could just "paint" a track, but that doesn't mean it would sound that good, especially a vocal track. So best to keep the software, right now, on the side of fixing problems with vocals, not creating the actual vocal sounds themselves.
In essence, yes, a good singer is, still, more than helpful.
Steven!
ReplyDeleteWhen's your chance to sneak into the recording studio? Have you gotten to talk with/Have you shown George your own electronic music?
You can't simply "paint" a track to create a natural sounding vocal, but sometimes you don't want something that sounds natural (ie. electronic music *cough cough* Steven *cough cough*). Does George work with any electronic music?
He does work with electronic music. He programs drum beats and whatnot for some of the hip-hop artists that come through the studio.
DeleteI love reading about this Steven!
ReplyDeleteThanks Helena
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