In this article rather than explaining how to comp, Kevan Gallagher looks at the slightly different questions of why and when to comp.

When I spoke to a few engineer pals about writing this article, I was somewhat surprised when some of them said 'Oh, I love comping’. I personally love the end result but the journey can sometimes be pretty arduous especially when you're comping from really brilliant takes as everything is worthy of making the final cut. Most of us comp in all our productions, sometimes simple comps such as multitrack edits of whole takes to make a master or more often, vocal takes cut into a master comp sometimes line by line, sometimes word by word.

These differing types of comping are often dictated by the style of music being recorded. The above mentioned multitrack edits are often more suited to wholly live recordings such as jazz records where several takes of each composition are recorded and then the best sections chopped together to form the final master. The more surgical type is more common in pop/rock music where reality is less of an issue and a strong artistic vision can be artificially created by judicious use of detailed comping.

It's also important to think about how you will record the tracks you wish to comp from.
Will it be full start to finish takes or will it be takes recorded by section eg, a bunch of verse 1 guitars, a bunch of chorus guitars etc.

This can affect the outcome of the final comp as start to finish takes may be more dynamic, which I personally like for many things, whereas the section by section approach may all be quite full on as it's harder to remember how hard you played in the last section if you are doing sections in isolation.
Again, I feel this is genre dependent and all methods have their place.

I've been doing quite a few things lately where the arrangements are pretty sparse but the track still has to retain a solidity throughout. Whilst it's not impossible to get this type of thing in one take, it's less likely and comping in this situation can really produce a fantastically solid final part with everything containing the detail and feel needed for the final outcome.

The criteria we use to choose our desired take for any given part of the comp could be a multitude of things

• Tuning

• Tone

• Strength

• Timing

• Emotion

Whilst a generalisation:

• Tuning can be fixed

• Tone can be EQ'd

• Strength can be automated

• Timing can be moved

Emotion can't be changed so that for me is the area I comp for.

If you're having to comp purely on tuning ( which we've all done in the past) it's really not ideal and all you'll get is an in tune vocal potentially devoid of all other redeeming features. What I tend to do is not mark any takes during tracking as experience has shown me that returning to these takes objectively at a later date has shown that the 'marked' takes are not always the best. I'll then open my takes up in playlist view in Pro Tools and start at the top and audition each line one at a time going down through the available takes.

If you go by the 'emotion' criterion then the ones that elicit an emotion in you will make themselves known and therefore choosing the takes will be relatively easy. My comment about comps being arduous is more to do with the concentration required when takes are all great as that's the hardest situation to be in. If tuning and timing and emotion are all fantastic then a higher level of filtering is needed to choose the desired take.

Take for example the word 'me' which could appear in lots of lyrics. Given that all the above boxes are ticked then you're looking to find one where the word is sung in such a way that it amplifies the sentiment of the lyric and therefore does its job to the best of its ability. I am also a guitar player and quite often play on a lot of the stuff I produce and engineer and whilst nobody will be stepping over Dann Huff to get to me, the sparsely arranged things I mentioned have shown me quite a few things.

1. Play dynamically and make the part do its job properly

2. Go for it and don't worry about screwing up, you only need one good take of that difficult line so don't play safe and DO practice the part before recording

3. Prepare your instrument properly for recording as all the effort used for playing doesn't want to be wasted by having old strings, undue resonances or tuning issues, this applies to all instruments and singers.

4. Tune after every take

When listening to the takes, go by feel not by sound, I think its the subconscious 'feel' of a part that grabs our attention so as soon as you get an emotional response to a part, mark it and then see if you can mark a couple more on that same basis. Then, listen to those 3 or 4 marked takes and see which one has the most emotion for you.

I still work with pen and paper when comping and just mark down the numbers I like then filter down until one is chosen.

Comps do require a certain amount of consistency in the takes as too much timing change between takes can make it harder to piece together a master. That said, I'm happy to move things around a little providing the comp still works and the chosen take does its job brilliantly.

I'll also happily tune bits if the take is brilliant as small amounts of tuning are generally not noticeable. Some singers have a noticeable change of tone in different registers of their voice and again if the take is 'the one', I'll just automate an EQ to match the tone in that particular word or phrase. Automating level is another common practise to get the final comp as perfect as you need so slight discrepancies here are often easily fixed given the take is the right one for you.

There's a lot of options open to you when comping so I'd suggest trying different methods and see which one works best for you and best for the style of music you're working with.