|
Studio
|
|
|
My studio is a full featured analogue/digital studio in PC environment and I’m working mainly in Nuendo editing software, but also Samplitude, Sonar and Audition depending on the nature of the project. All editing software have pros and cons in different situations so there is really no meaning to be tied to only one alternative. In that way one can get the most out of every one of them.
The most recent project was producing my own album, which is among the most difficult things I've ever done! Not technically-wise, but rather psychologically. Working with a material half of which is containing your own mix of your own recordings of you playing your own music is no walk in the park! Fair and balanced judgements? Yeah, right. Luckily I got used to it quite fast...
Among other commissions and projects I’ve prepared a master for "Svenskt
Militärhistoriskt Bibliotek" (Swedish Library of Military History) with
107 drinking-songs
Sonic surgery
Editing music is a trade that, in my opinion, demands a certain type of personal qualification and disposition. It’s not about having perfect pitch, a certain type of musical training or such, but rather a natural feeling for details and knowing what’s going to ”work” musically in a listening situation. Maybe the most important qualifications are a good and trained ear and being able to alternate between an objective and a subjective listening. It’s often necessary to make adjustments according to both the objective and the subjective aspects of the music to be able to make wise decisions.
When editing, the music is cut along the time axis and in this way one has great possibilities to influence the playing of the musician. Furthermore, if there are many takes that are different from each other, one can influence the dynamics a bit too. A tone that comes too early or too late can be cut out and moved to the right place. What editing music amounts to is actually trying to ”fool your own ears” by processing the recordings so well thought-out musically that it doesn’t sounds like the material has been edited even in greater detail.
When classical music is being edited it is a clear advantage to have the sheet of music in front of you so that it’s possible to edit the music with respect to the noted values in the printed music - something especially important when it comes to rubatos, ritardandos etc. In other words, the editor should have the same “rhythmical perspective” as the musician in order to be able to make corrections without rendering a completely different interpretation of the music that the musician doesn’t recognize.
There is a difference between what I call “technical editing” and “musical editing”. The first is about ordinary editing when the good parts of the material is cut out and pasted together, and the latter is editing from a musical/artistic perspective in greater detail. Lets say that a musician has recorded sessions in a fantastically sounding hall but unfortunately didn’t succeed, for example because of lack of time, a bad day or something else. In this case musical editing can be applied in problematic areas in order to correct phrasing, rhythm and dynamics to get a better result even though the session didn’t go as planned. This latter type of editing is extremely difficult and time consuming, so often it is much easier to make another recording instead of trying to "repair" the old one.
Is editing the same as cheating?
One cannot make beautiful music using editing tools. At all. The natural flow of playing is almost impossible to imitate with convincing results. If an recording really sounds awful musically the only solution is to make another, better, recording - not by refurbishing it digitally. Editing is used to correct things played wrong by mistake as well as other mishaps during recording. It is not an creative tool as such. So, one might say that editing is cheating to the same extent as cleaning your apartment is cheating when expecting visitors. Get it? It's about making the best of things, not cheating. If music where not to be edited, one would have to do a considerable amount of recording to get each piece to sound satisfactory. If a sound engineer was hired to do these recordings the costs would soon become sky-high, considering the fee. In these times all public recordings are being edited, even live recordings.
As a listener one actually expects a public recording to be more or less flawless, since its purpose is to represent “the best” of the musician and it is intended to be played an infinite number of times. In many ways the concert can be considered to be the opposite of the recorded material, as the music is played only once from start to finish. The audience get to hear only one of an infinite number of different “live versions” of the music, as it is presented on site. This is the essence of live music which separates the concert from the recorded material. A concert is not solely about the music - rather, the music makes one of many ingredients in a performance as a whole. A concert is not at all perceived as entertaining by the audience solely because the musician plays flawlessly. It's more to it than that. However, if the recording requires a lot of editing to sound good, one should think twice before making the decision. If the recording is over-edited one risk getting a result that one cannot reach in real life, which rather can be considered as “trick-recording”. (THIS is cheating, by the way!) Besides, the music often looses its “swing” and may become tedious in the long run. After all, as a sound engineer one often realizes that the small faults makes a lot of the charm and warmth in a recording - as long as they are insignificant enough not to ruin the music.
Mixing
A classical recording is not mixed in the literal meaning of the word, but is rather optimized/corrected to sound as natural as possible. One doesn’t ”create” the sound, one ”recreates” - which is quite a difference. As the reproduction of the recorded sound is going to be played through various kinds of sound reproduction systems, as CD-players, CD-walkmans etc., the recording needs to be corrected in order to sound natural since the particular medium used to play the recording is always colouring the material to some extent. Unfortunately, one cannot record the music and leave it just like it is on a CD.
In this correction/optimization equalizers are used and sometimes, but far from always, compression and limiting. Equalizers are used to correct the frequencies of the material by cutting the volume in frequencies that the material doesn’t take advantage of and boosting frequencies that are characteristic for the instrument and important in making the recording come alive and give a truthful listening experience. A common reason why many classical recordings often sound ”weak” and noisy is the fact that many sound engineers within the classical recording industry are purists, willingly cutting frequencies but unwillingly boosting them. The reason for this is that they ”don’t want to add something that wasn’t already there” by additive equalization, compression or limitation – which sometimes makes the volume ”unnecessarily” low. It’s also common that the recording in itself is very noisy due to the engineer using old, expensive analogue equipment without correcting the recording using noise reduction. If a recording is noisy one have, in my opinion, REALLY ”added something that wasn’t already there”! The tradition that I, and many others, assume is simply: ”do whatever necessary to make it sound as good as possible, but do it in such a way that it doesn’t alter the nature of the instrument or reduce the sound quality”. Sounds simple, but it isn’t.
Mastering
Mastering is the last step in a production and involves putting the material on a master CD that will work as an original in the duplication. It's also the very last chance to get the material to sound "ready", which often calls for even further corrections, as noise reduction, compression, equalization etc. One last mixdown is made from 32-bit down to 16-bit by use of dithering algorithms that reduces the quantisation noise. Classical music is rarely mastered that much, as one wants to preserve the natural dynamics and sound of the instrument. Pop music, rock, etc. are on the other hand mastered quite a bit in order to attain a certain sound and to make the recording sound as loud as possible, which is never the purpose of a classical recording. Yet.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
