Good Time Mike wrote:
Nick's projects mostly involve creating every instrument from component
parts. He can make whatever he wants.
Right, and part of that is because nobody wants to come up with the money for a live ensemble anymore. I do miss that - even when I had to stay up the night before the session to copy parts because the project didn't support copyists!
But modern pop production is also fun.
For my projects, the instruments
sound like they sound and there isn't much I can, or should do to change
them. And because all the musicians are playing in the same room,
obvious changes to that presentation would be distracting.
John:
Yes, this. The way you record has to suit the performance and the
instruments used.
For what Nick is doing, the trick would be choosing sample sets to go
together and massaging the sound as needed. They may not sound fantastic
on their own, but they do need to work together, and the art is to find
sets that do so, irrespective of source and recording location.
What's interesting, and what prompted my post, is that different sample libraries can work together no problem regardless of how and where they were recorded. My big orchestral template includes different libraries within each section (e.g. flute from one, clarinet from another, etc.), as well as two different string libraries...
I'm actually using timps from two different libraries on part of a cue right now: a big blooming, softer-mallet big-hall one for downbeats, and a sharper one for other notes. They blend no problem.
Another factor: just a single live part, even a shaker, can add a whole lot of life. And recording synths through a miked amp can take away some of the sterility that can creep in if you aren't careful.
By the way, most sample libraries are recorded really well and have been for a long time - and you can still make them sound like total ass with very little work.
MIDI "programming" really is a different musical medium. It's not as hard as many other things, but it is a skill.
Ty Ford:
how often is the lead vocal in the same room as the drums?"
"I'm going to guess that it's not so much about the room as it is the plugins."
It's for separation. Obviously vocal and drum booths predate plug-ins.
And reverb plug-ins that sucked predated the modern era of computers that have enough power to run really good ones. That first changed with convolution processors (Audio Ease Altiverb mainly), but for example the Lexicon ones sound all but indistinguishable from the hardware running the same algorithms.