[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Rudy4

Hi Jim,
The subtle shifts in timing / tempo are indeed part of what I was referring to when I made the inference that "timing irregularity" was IMHO preferable to regimented step time in recorded music. (Please don't interpret this as being derogatory toward your comments...) I've heard about as much regimented rhythm / auto-tuned studio production as I can stand. I've actually been on the receiving end of working in a studio where the tracks were quantized until they had the life choked out of them. It really opened my eyes to the difference between performance and engineering; I prefer the former, it's what music is all about IMHO.

I don't mind tracks that ebb and flow with energy and display the human factor in music.

All this is just my opinion, and obviously it ruffles a lot of feathers.

I also did some session work at Pogo Studios with Mark Ruble (now of Blackbird Studios) and really learned a lot in the short time working with him. Mark loves to do recording with as much of a live feel as possible, and I totally dug his vibe. (Oh, There was no click track to be found in any of the session work I did there...)

My intent was to offer an alternative that I thought as superior to me, but obviously there's no room for an alternative viewpoint here unless you word your responses very carefully so they can't be used against you.

I understand this at the "Gearsluts" forum, but I was a bit surprised at the reaction it garnered here.

"The subtle shifts in timing / tempo are indeed part of what I was referring to..."

I don't consider any shift in tempo that's obviously discernable as "subtle", but evidently that's a hard concept to get across.

sub·tle: (adjective, especially of a change or distinction) so delicate or precise as to be difficult to analyze or describe.

Perhaps if you stopped including completely unnecessary quips like ("but evidently that's a hard concept to get across." ) the GS style responses you state you are "surprised by" might stop also ?????



So with that in mind how bout we start over ?

First: Yes indeed playing to scratch track as opposed to click is a completely valid method. But then so is playing to click. Neither one is "inherently" superior to the other, (except for in the realm of personal preference). Implying that one process is somehow intrinsically a superior method to the other is fallacy , and that does indeed go both ways does it not?

Fact : A human plying an instrument or singing to a click will also and absolutely have subtle timing shifts in the performance, because unlike a digital click or drum machine, a sample accurate human does in fact not exist.

Fact : Quantization and auto tune are entirely different processes and subjects than playing to a click and have no inclusive relationship. Even so most prominent modern DAWs have quantization algorithms that include percentage and randomization options that result in subtle timing variations that do not consistently fall directly on the grid.

Fact: A click , a quantization algorithm , or pitch correction program , ect. are simply tools. If they are misused or over used, that is a human failing not a failure inherent of the tool and no different than EQ, Compression or Reverb.

So while I would completely agree a performance with the "life choked out of it" does happen and is not desirable. But lets not forget that is happening because of the specific human decisions being made, not because of any actual causal relationship with the tools being used .