Beauty of Imperfections FOLLOW UP!
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- Because this is such a vast topic, and a bunch of really great comments came in that bring up important aspects of this issue, I thought it would be good to expand and continue the conversation. I will highlight a collection really great comments and try to broaden the scope of what's being discussed. Thank you for all the thoughtful comments and questions!
If you haven't seen the video that is being discussed and want to check it out, you can do that here: audionautinsti...
Something occurred to me when writing the other day that I think this community would appreciate. If you don’t think you can’t do something it’s because you’re thinking instead of doing the thing. Just gotta boot up and scoot up
Love this, Eric. I think humans notice, deeply appreciate and connect with effort. This is a HUGE piece of this conversation IMHO. Imperfections that are additive (i.e. musical/emotional) are often cool because they're happening in the passionate pursuit of something... and that effort is conveyed, FELT/perceived, appreciated and is emotional WHEN it's within a margin of error that aligns with the accepted range of its context (genre etc). This is both in my experience as a producer and as a listener.
For example when a singer is reaching for THEIR PERSONAL highest note --- and you hear that effort -- and it's within that accepted margin of error (imperfections of pitch and/or time and/timbre) it's as if you're ROOTING for them... you're with them... and that's emotional... a narrative of effort.... it's like the musical version of Rudy or Rocky! It's the heart that comes through as a result of full-on effort... expressionistic, human effort... and certain kinds of artful imperfections convey that. Overly perfecting things can remove that sense of effort. Yes, there's artistic and emotional value in effortlessness... but it's a different vibe... and we need both I think. There's a place for both (even side by side).
Also... loads of minor imperfections make things harder to memorize so we pay attention... and then when layers of imperfection accumulate, the journey can feel new with each listen (like Jeff Buckley's "Grace" album for example)... because our attention bounces around, hearing those micro-changes, often paying attention to different variations at different times with each listen...
To look at this from the opposite end, it's like - on a quantized 4 on the floor EDM track - after we recognize the perfect 1/4 notes, we kinda stop LISTENING to them... they're just there, expressing their content-function (a beat).
We notice variation.... we often quickly ignore or lose interest in perfection... like, how interesting is it to look at a perfect line versus a line with variations; an artful scribble is more innately interesting than a perfectly straight line.... that said, sometimes it's in relationship to the perfection that we can appreciate the squiggle.
haha the subtle imperfection of a C necklace tapping on the lav mic [great content/topic btw]
I KNOW!!! I just can't seem to get that right haha!!
but sometimes it's right on tempo with your talking
@@yeowlsing he's a drummer after all...
Sounds like you’re sitting on the Pink Floyd cash register :)
Great topic and info. On the Ai stuff ... I know it doesn't fit the commercial model, but I'd love to see Ai become the assistant rather than the artist. Voice command 'hey pro tools, set up a new track with input 5 and a send to the spring reverb'
That first question was mine. That was a great answer that I’m probably going to steal for a lot of convos I tend to find myself in. Cheers!
This video reminded me how the intro to “Song For the Dead” is one of my favorite examples of a great imperfection. Listen to the way the hi hat clicks and the guitar drift in and out of time with one another. Gives me goosebumps.
I think the more hours of wide range listening you have under your belt of all genres of professionally recorded music, the more intuitive the decision 'to fix' or 'not to fix' becomes. Also, I agree - autotune in graphic mode def. preserves the integrity of a performance.
5:53 Hi Eric, thank you for your answer. Yes. The drum booth song video is fantastic. I meant more of a video where you could shed light on different Micpres for guitar recordings. That would be great. Greetings
✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼
Would love to see a deep dive of the nickel creek recordings! Both how did the recordings and the mixing
Eric do you ever use melodyne? I agree autotune to me has just become a broken plug-in, it’s far too glitchy in auto or graph mode and it’s the only plug-in I have to use sometimes that will crash a session or create obvious artifacts. Melodyne on the other hand is great in my opinion, built into protools now and much smoother to operate. I actually enjoy using it 😅 thanks so much for what you do
Can you do episide on Pan Laws (specially why some daws have a 'sound") compare to pan laws in consoles back in the day
I don’t want edit or tune or fix time. I do really want digital capture emotion as easily as my portastudio or fostex model 80. I know these conversations are old and boring but there’s still something that feels wrong when I record 4 tracks raw onto those machines vs when I do into pro tools or any other daw. I have wasted so much time trying to understand this, but I’ve just ended up at the beginning, which is to say, something still feels very off with digital. I know the whole onslaught of arguments I’ll get, but I’m sharing this anyways. I think there is still a ways to go, if not possibly rethinking how digital is captured
Loved the topic but really had a hard time concentrating with the necklace rattle!
Naked voice from Merry Clayton in Gimme Shelter: ua-cam.com/video/ChONufP0FEs/v-deo.html
Goosebumps, tears.