Squeeeeeeeaaakk!!!

[KevWind]

This just came out on PT Expert , thought is was timely, if targeted a bit more for us flat pickers ,still very interesting overall for potential

[Ty Ford]

I'ver been using RX since RX1 and it's great to have those tools. I have had a client bring me tracks for mastering. We was recording on ADATs. There was a low whine due to the ADAT motors. When I removed it, he complained that he could hear the losses in the music. I could not. We went without it.

So be careful what you scrape off!

He recorded here next time and we had no ADAT noise to worry about.

Regards,

Ty Ford

[Bob Womack]

Well, I've stayed out of this until now but I'm gonna wade in.

I use these tools from iZotope every day in audio post production for video and have actually become quite facile with them. In fact, I recently won an award for rescuing audio from an interview where the cable for interviewee's mic failed and all we had was the interviewer's mic from across the room. Unfortunately the interview was done in a crew break room with all hard surfaces and the interviewee was placed in front of a row of refrigerated vending machines and a water chiller, all thrumming along busily. Through a series of processes (RX-4 Denoiser, RX-4 DeReverb, RX-4 DeClick along with hand-written processing parameter automation) I was able to remove the mic self-noise generated from gaining up the distant voice, the thrumming of the machines and the reverberation of the room, and the clothing noises from the interviewer, all while EQing to make the voice seem bright and present. Part of the job was hiding all the artifacts generated by use of the software with post-processing automation. With all that said, it was never represented to the audience that this was a pure recording of a performance even though it passed as such.

So you can see that I use these tools unabashedly in post production for video. I'm not offering the following as condemnation but as an honest question for open discussion. I see that on this forum many of the same players who are advocating use of this software and "cleanup" also advocate what seems to me to be a rather purist concept in recording guitars with many suggesting esoteric microphone and preamp choices and room treatment. I'm not against those suggestions.

My question is, how does a push for esoteric recording practices gel with a push for using these high-tech tools which clearly change the initially pure product heavily and create their own artifacts which I, for one can hear. Now, I've used this stuff. I use Autotune on many of the vocal performances I work on if they need it. I've gone in on a slide part where one, ONE note, didn't quite make it to pitch and Autotuned it a couple of cents because it had begun to drive me crazy during the overdub and mix phases of the project. I did it. Because it was also my own guitar work I felt kind of dirty, like I was a cheat. Lots of people here decry Autotune as the spawn of the devil. When I get difficult tracks from a home studio I use processing to get rid of background noise and correct bad microphone choices and techniques. I edit performances all the time to optimize them and replace drum sounds all the time as well. I've done my share of squeak removal and such. I have assembled musical passages from single notes, building them into chord swells and changes.

But clearly, when when we reach this point we aren't talking purist recordings in any way. We, as engineers, are treating the recording as paint with which we create new paintings. At some point there is little difference between ourselves and modern rap DJs and remixers who sample an old song, change the key, change the tempo, or use just a particle from it.

We are clearly osterizing this audio. We are no longer the esoteric, white hatted, cork-sniffiadros who can look down our noses at equipment and techniques less sophisticated than our own because when we put on our pirate hats we can probably osterize many of those recordings into reasonable products with our post-production tools.

So when do we cross the line from purist to pragmatist?

Bob

If you think it is a thread hijack, we can start a new thread.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

So when do we cross the line from purist to pragmatist?

Don't know if you mean me, Bob, but tho I do have some nice gear, and like a fairly pure acoustic sound, I'm a total pragmatist. All that matters to me is how the music sounds in the end, I don't care how I get there. My comment that noise reduction software is useful for home recordists is just a recognition of the reality of recording at home. You can have all the high end gear you want, all the room treatment you want, there's still going to be a refrigerator running in the next room, a neighbor with a motorcycle, or a cat meowing at the end of a take :-)

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Ty Ford

I'ver been using RX since RX1 and it's great to have those tools. I have had a client bring me tracks for mastering. We was recording on ADATs. There was a low whine due to the ADAT motors. When I removed it, he complained that he could hear the losses in the music. I could not. We went without it.

You can certainly take enough noise out with RX to hear the damage if you're not careful. And to the topic here, some squeaks simply can't be fixed without leaving an audible trace that's worse than the squeak. But I think also sometimes we get used to hearing a noise, like a whine or hum, and we get used to it and feel something's missing when it's gone. It's like when the power goes out, and suddenly nothing in the house is running - you never noticed the sounds while things were running, but suddenly things are so quiet it sounds a bit creepy.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

Well, I've stayed out of this until now but I'm gonna wade in.

I use these tools from iZotope every day in audio post production for video and have actually become quite facile with them. In fact, I recently won an award for rescuing audio from an interview where the cable for interviewee's mic failed and all we had was the interviewer's mic from across the room. Unfortunately the interview was done in a crew break room with all hard surfaces and the interviewee was placed in front of a row of refrigerated vending machines and a water chiller, all thrumming along busily. Through a series of processes (RX-4 Denoiser, RX-4 DeReverb, RX-4 DeClick along with hand-written processing parameter automation) I was able to remove the mic self-noise generated from gaining up the distant voice, the thrumming of the machines and the reverberation of the room, and the clothing noises from the interviewer, all while EQing to make the voice seem bright and present. Part of the job was hiding all the artifacts generated by use of the software with post-processing automation. With all that said, it was never represented to the audience that this was a pure recording of a performance even though it passed as such.

So you can see that I use these tools unabashedly in post production for video. I'm not offering the following as condemnation but as an honest question for open discussion. I see that on this forum many of the same players who are advocating use of this software and "cleanup" also advocate what seems to me to be a rather purist concept in recording guitars with many suggesting esoteric microphone and preamp choices and room treatment. I'm not against those suggestions.

My question is, how does a push for esoteric recording practices gel with a push for using these high-tech tools which clearly change the initially pure product heavily and create their own artifacts which I, for one can hear. Now, I've used this stuff. I use Autotune on many of the vocal performances I work on if they need it. I've gone in on a slide part where one, ONE note, didn't quite make it to pitch and Autotuned it a couple of cents because it had begun to drive me crazy during the overdub and mix phases of the project. I did it. Because it was also my own guitar work I felt kind of dirty, like I was a cheat. Lots of people here decry Autotune as the spawn of the devil. When I get difficult tracks from a home studio I use processing to get rid of background noise and correct bad microphone choices and techniques. I edit performances all the time to optimize them and replace drum sounds all the time as well. I've done my share of squeak removal and such. I have assembled musical passages from single notes, building them into chord swells and changes.

But clearly, when when we reach this point we aren't talking purist recordings in any way. We, as engineers, are treating the recording as paint with which we create new paintings. At some point there is little difference between ourselves and modern rap DJs and remixers who sample an old song, change the key, change the tempo, or use just a particle from it.

We are clearly osterizing this audio. We are no longer the esoteric, white hatted, cork-sniffiadros who can look down our noses at equipment and techniques less sophisticated than our own because when we put on our pirate hats we can probably osterize many of those recordings into reasonable products with our post-production tools.

So when do we cross the line from purist to pragmatist?

Bob

If you think it is a thread hijack, we can start a new thread.

I'm a little confused here Bob In looking back over the thread it appears the only two consistent contributors for the RX 4 are Doug and I. Not speaking for Doug but I'm willing to bet I am the absolute single most outspoken forum member here who's sole mantra is and always has been "it ain't the equipment". To the point that some gear heads here are genuinely and continually pissed at me. If you're referring to me you've somewhere along the line got your signals mixed up!

As to crossing some point of diminishing artistic returns there's a world of difference between using auto-tune to correct a performers lack of ability and using RX to correct a performers unfortunate sounding recording environment. Hypothetically Tommy Emanuel's perfect performance in a crappy room doesn't reflect on the artist, just the room. Using RX (at least for me) doesn't diminish the essence of his delivery. Indeed it just helps eliminate the crappy room. On the other hand auto-tuning the latest, greatest teen throb who really can't sing a lick is a totally different issue.

If in fact using RX is some slide into a degradation of artistic presentations then to of course would be anything introduced since recordings began. After all the Beatles used "over dubbing" as a normal technique from "Revolver" on. I don't see that as any more or less trickery than using RX to reduce room anomalies

[Bob Womack]

I placed no names on my post because I wasn't interested in pointing at particular individuals and didn't want to back anyone into a corner. For that matter, I didn't really keep track of who is saying what so no-one need feel attacked. And for that matter, I confessed my own involvement to disarm offense-taking. I did not say I was turning people who can't sing into stars because by and large what I do is simply gentle tweaking.

But we are talking about removal of what some consider a performance flaw, a string squeak. So the question remains for discussion for those who aren't challenged by it: where do we go from purist to pragmatist?

Bob

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

But we are talking about removal of what some consider a performance flaw, a string squeak. So the question remains for discussion for those who aren't challenged by it: where do we go from purist to pragmatist?

Bob

I think that's an artistic choice. Nearly every guitarist squeaks, and if you remove all squeaks, it may sound phony. But say you got a great take - feels good, musical, performance of a lifetime - but there's a blood curdling squeek in the middle somewhere. The kind that will lift listeners out of their seat. Do you leave it, and say "hey, that's what I played, take it or leave it?" Or do you punch in and fix that? Or do you click on the squeak and remove it?

This all gets into philosophy, but to me, making a recording isn't a documentary - it's creating something for a listener to enjoy. When you go to the movies, you expect to see what the director wants you to see - and not to see flubbed lines, or a camera knocked over, or a stage hand walking in front of a camera. You expect them to fix those things and present the vision (or illusion) they want to present. Music's no different. The minute the sound is coming out of speakers instead of directly from the guitar, it's not "pure", anymore, so I'd say "make music". If it requires a loud squeak in the middle to present your vision, great, leave it in! If it requires no squeak, that's cool, too, and there are multiple ways to get rid of it, from going home and practicing more, to a punch-in/retake, to using some software to so some minor cleanup to an otherwise good track.

BTW, like Joseph, I thought I was to the point of sounding like a broken record in saying that you can make perfectly fine recordings with low end gear, and that if you can't, you probably won't sound good using high end stuff either. I've had more than my share of battles here over "it ain't the gear". I kind of got tired of debating it, so if you were referring to me, maybe you missed those conversations.

[Bob Womack]

One of my recording heroes made one of my favorite recordings with a four-track and basic mics in the cabin of 72' sailing yacht. I, myself, am a pragmatist as well and I'm comfortable in it. I don't care how it gets there as long as I like the sound in the end. And again, I wasn't pointing fingers.

I'm just interested in the two two forces tugging at young recordists on this and other boards. Both are argued vociferously and it just seems a good discussion to have. Forgive if I have interrupted.

Bob

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

But we are talking about removal of what some consider a performance flaw

But we've been using "punch-in" since the dawn of history. Isn't that the godfather of removing performance flaws? I'm trying to think of a session over the last several (or more) decades in which I didn't punch something in?

It's difficult for me (especially after all these years) to find the technique of punch acceptable but the RX software somehow modern-day trickery.

[KevWind]

I am not an audio pro like either Bob or Joseph, so I tend to look at it from the perspective of something I was a professional at, finish carpenter . While there is no substitute for knowledge experience and skill and it is true that no matter the quality of tools being used, the tools themselves will not make a master carpenter out of a beginner.
That said in general the better the tool the easier it is to do the job regardless of skill level and as a master carpenter I always used the best tools I could afford.
Perhaps another analogy is the fact that many of the tools that actually do the most to transform the raw wood into something beautiful are subtractive tools.
With which the real skill is knowing when to use them, what to subtract and when to stop. Especially because in carpentry there is no such thing as non distructive editing

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by KevWind

in carpentry there is no such thing as non distructive editing

I like that!

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I like that!

Yes basically in Jackson Hole in the high end custom home builds I worked on, it was stain grade instead of paint grade, and putty or filler even matched color, was painfully obvious if more than 32 nd to a 16th inch max, in thickness.

What it did for me was give me the skill set to build my own studio desk & rack . Out of left over job scrap even (Knotty Alder trim)

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by KevWind

What it did for me was give me the skill set to build my own studio desk & rack . Out of left over job scrap even (Knotty Alder trim)

Nice setup! Want to come out west and build one of those for me? :-) Mine's made of laminated desktops from Ikea...

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Nice setup! Want to come out west and build one of those for me? :-) Mine's made of laminated desktops from Ikea...

Well thats a thought. Have to wait until I get done putting aspen over the interior walls here first. And at my retired pace that could be a while