Last Sunday night, I had the chance to see Van Morrison in concert (cue stories about Van Morrison, plenty of people have one, be they real or myths built around this intensely private man.) Anyway, I wasn't there to get his life story but to hear his music.
He played for nearly two hours with a small band, and I was not disappointed as he ripped through hit after hit, some with unexpected twists and with some songs not done as most of us would have expected to hear them. For example 'Have I Told You Lately' was much faster and a full band, nothing like the ballad many have grown to appreciate.
As I stood there, a thought came to me that seems to return each time I'm at a great gig 'Why don't the records sound as good as this gig?'
On a call with the Expert team earlier this week I told them about this recurring feeling, and the immediate response was that records do sound better than gigs. I knew I'd not explained myself or they had got the wrong end of the stick. What I'm talking about is not the timing, tuning or sonics of the records but in my experience having seen everyone from The Police (the early 80s not the remake), Prince and Van Morrison as examples, every gig had more energy and more soul than you'll find on the records.
As we talked about it more, we started to talk about modern recording techniques that have been with us since the advent of the multitrack and even more prevalent with the DAW. For many people, modern recording starts with a click track, and then we start to layer track after track building up the song until we have the finished song. Then we set about editing the shit out of the tracks with cuts, debreath, quantize and then we pile on the plugins, after all, we need to do something to justify the 200+ plugins we've bought don't we?
I returned with the team to an earlier discussion about the iZotope Spire Studio and how much simpler it was just to throw an idea down and see what happens. I can't be the only person who finds the whole start computer, create a new session, create a click, make a track, set interface up, find the mic... etc. the creative equivalent of putting on a space suit before having sex.
There's something to be said for tracking old school and getting a well-rehearsed band in the same space and tracking them all at once, tempo drift, tuning issues and bleed, but still full of soul. I have a feeling that for some kinds of music, modern recording sucks all the life out of the ideas.
What do some top engineers believe if I ask them the same question? So I emailed and called some of my friends who have a lot more experience with this stuff. Dave Lynch owner of Echo Zoo Studios (The Magic Numbers, Duke Special), Vance Powell from Sputnik Sound (Chris Stapleton, Raconteurs, The White Stripes) and Steve Genewick from Capitol Studios in LA.
Dave Lynch has nearly three decades of recording and mixing under his belt;
"I've been recording now for 28 years, and have made records in every way possible, on nearly every format, in world-class studios, people’s bedrooms, and international collaborations with audio files flying around the world and being slotted into place. But for me, nothing beats the energy of a band on top form playing together in a room. This way of recording has led to about a third of the projects that I work on being live tracking scenarios in the studio. This is little to do with trying to be retro, or capturing an 'honest' performance and everything to do with about musicians engaging in their music in a way that simply can't be equalled through building up a track through individual overdubs. Working like this certainly puts everyone involved in a different headspace. Dynamics, arrangements and performance are suddenly a lot easier to assess instantly, and when they are lacking, they can be worked on for the next take.
A perfect example of this was a few weeks ago when I had one of my favourite recording experiences with a fantastic band headed up by an incredible piano player Mark Edwards and produced by Portishead's Adrian Utley. We decided to record the album straight to 1/2" tape and mix live, no computers, no overdubs. This is an extreme example of tracking live but the resulting music contains genuinely magical moments that would never have occurred had we been laying down individual parts and overdubbing. This was partly due to Mark playing the piano and a Minimoog live at the same time, so he had to find parts that were physically possible to play. There was a heightened sense of what is going to working as an arrangement and not relying on having to add anything to make sections bigger, if anything it was obvious we had to strip various sections down to their bare bones. After every take, we listened back in the control room together, and it was evident to everyone which take had the magic or the vibe we were after, so no brain frying tediousness of sorting through countless playlists trying to get 'the best' bit of each performance.
Sometimes I find that the playlist editing way of working can be counterproductive as some people focus way too much on small sections and miss the big picture, and too much 'good' doesn't necessarily equal something that is pleasing and emotional to listen to.
Another reason I love working like this time and money from the artist's perspective; these days, all artists and labels seem to have incredibly tight budgetary restrictions. I made a record with a fantastic artist Jarrod Dickenson a few years back. Due to financial constraints, we had to track the full record live in 3 days and mix in 1 or 2 days, including a few overdubs over the core band. The record was picked up by a major and I think they must have spent more money on trying to recreate stems to adhere to their militant system of archiving the record than it cost to make. There are many great moments on that record that could only have happened with the band all playing in the room, and actually, my favourite track is the one where we had only 40 mins to get the take down before the bass player had to leave for a gig."
Van Morrison regards modern studios as ‘boring’ and much prefers tracking fast.
Vance Powell is clear about why in some circumstances getting a band in the room all at the same time is worth it.
"When you do the one part at a time approach, the feeling of the band working off each other is lost. Plus when you track the band all in the same room there's an energy, some people will say "but what about things like bleed?" Who cares? It only matters to people who think it matters. There are moments when you mix the tracks, and you'll get little bits of bleed off other mics, it's what I call the ghost in the machine, and I love it, most people listening to the tracks won't even notice it's there."
Vance has many stories of how he has tracked everyone from Clutch to the recent Stray Cats album and set them up as a band in the studio so he can capture the energy.
"When I tracked the Stray Cats we set them up at Blackbird Studios as the band and then spent time getting the sound just right. What's important is that the band know the tracks before they get to the studio and they arrange the tracks so that when the vocals come in there is space to hear them. I had to mix another band recently where so many instruments were crowding out the vocals it made mixing so much harder, so I said to the band that I need to mute about six guitar parts if this is going to sound any good. Listen to any of the old Sinatra recordings, a masterclass in how to arrange songs for a live recording session. You get the big band blasting at the start and then when Frank came to sing the dynamics dropped down to give him space."
If anyone knows about working like this it's three-time Grammy nominated recording engineer, Steve Genewick, based at Capitol in LA and often working alongside recording legend Al Schmitt.
"I think you hit the nail on the head with your statement about the energy of a live show. Anytime I'm recording a band I want to get as many of the players in the room, and playing at the same time as I can. By having everyone playing together, you can create and capture that energy. The parts are worked out as a unit, and more importantly, the dynamics are worked out naturally. Players can commit to sounds and parts because they know what everyone else is playing, and they can hear and react to one another.
A lot of what we do today as mixers is adjusting the dynamics within a song that was pieced together. When everything is recorded at once, or a majority of it, mixing is a much easier, quicker and enjoyable process.
Lastly, IT'S WAY MORE FUN! What's better than hanging out with your friends making music, laughing, eating, drinking and generally having a good time."
As I spoke to these engineers and producers, it was clear that this kind of recording technique isn't possible for all genres; in some cases, modern recording techniques work better.
Vance Powell also thinks that practical considerations are a factor.
"Many people are recording in small rooms; they don’t have the space you need and can't fit a band in so they have to record a part at a time."
What's clear is that it's not a one-size-fits-all approach. Modern recording technology allows us to work on tracks and infinitely manipulate them. However, our quest for sonic perfection may be stopping us from capturing the energy of the performance, that’s the soul of the song and the heartbeat of the story the song is trying to tell.
Here's a little test if you have time, I tried it on one of my favourite tracks and in fact one of Billboard's top songs of all time 'Every Breath You Take' by The Police. Listen to the original and you’ll see it’s tempo is drifting by the fourth bar and that’s drums played by Stewart Copeland, one of the best drummers in the world. I brought it into a DAW and went through and time corrected every beat and every bar, so the song was a consistent tempo throughout. I'm sure you can guess the punchline? It sounded terrible and lost all its soul. Try it on most classic tracks and the same will apply, the magic is wrapped up in imperfection. Just imagine how often you’ve done that to a song you are recording and killed it even before it has a chance to breathe?
Dave Pensado once said during an interview with Vance Powell “there’s a moment when you catch the best photograph ever.” It’s a powerful analogy and it reminds me if there’s one thing I hate about most weddings it’s when the photographer takes an inordinate amount of time to do all the posed shots. This is the reason when I got married we went for reportage style pictures, which captured moments that can never be grabbed when you ask people to pose for the camera, below is one of my favourite pictures from the day, behind my wife is my Mum smiling and son Jack laughing, it’s a precious moment in time and could never be captured by them saying cheese!… there’s not enough reportage style recording going on in my opinion.
Modern recording techniques tempt us to overcomplicate and over-engineer the songs. Sometimes what your songs need is the band in the room, well-rehearsed and ready to nail the take... then it might just capture the soul you know your song has.
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