In part 1 of To Edit Or Not To Edit? That Is The Question, we looked at reasons as to why you should edit the audio that you’ve recorded or you’re about to mix.  In part 2 community Member Nilas Blixt is considering reasons, or actually the only reason you shouldn’t edit. Over to you Niklas…

Like Taking A Photograph

In an interview with the Swedish producer Christoffer Lundquist he said:

”Recording music is very much like taking a photograph. It’s about capturing a moment!”

I think it’s a great way to look at it. Not that I’m against using the technology and the tools available in Pro Tools. But I believe that sometimes it’s the small things that isn’t perfect that makes it magic. 

Working with music in a computer based environment it’s easy to become obsessed about getting everything perfect because you can. What I mean is that you can snap every beat to the grid and you can make every not perfectly in tune with a few mouse clicks. 

Back In The days Of Tape Recorders Before Pro Tools

Back then the tape recorder was your capturing device. You didn’t have the possibility, as you have today, to manipulate the recorded audio. What got caught pretty much was what you had, unless, you decided to do another take. However to do another take wasn’t as easy as it is today recording to hard drive. You had to take the degradation of the tape quality into consideration as well as every drop in was destructive, there was no going back. Today you don’t have those problems, you can do a million retakes if you have enough hard drive space. Not to mention how easy it is to do minor edits, like cutting out breaths, etc. that you don’t want ending up in the final product. 

The path of least resistance

Even though I’m not old enough to have been around when tape recorders was the standard. All my professional life as a session drummer and music producer I’ve been working in Pro Tools. Still I treat my Pro Tools rig pretty much like a capturing device rather than a creating device. I must admit though that it’s a sliding scale whether I’m using Pro Tools to create sounds and music or if I’m capturing music with it. In part 1 I described that I usually edit if the flaws I’m hearing draws attention away from the music itself. If it does distract I need to consider if I’m going to edit or do a retake. 

Edit Or Retake? That is another question

If it takes me less time to edit it than to re-record it, I’m editing. If it’s the other way around I’ll re-record it. In the end it’s about creating good music! But what do you think?

About Niklas Blixt 

He started to play drums back in 1998 and it evolved from there picking up the interest for music production along the way. Today he works as a session drummer and music producer, based in Eskilstuna Sweden but works with people all around the globe. You can find out more about him here.