If you didn't notice any edits, that means the audio engineer did their job well and properly. It reminds me of that one Futurama quote, "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
I was reading about this in a book written by former Decca classical engineers, and they were basically like “fix all mistakes including correcting pitch of notes, and remove all noises, including extraneous instrument sounds, of course”. I’m not even sure the musicians are always aware of how many little fixes the engineers do to their recordings. But in classical it has to be done very carefully: it is VERY easy to make something sound obviously unnatural, which is even more unacceptable than a mistake. In pop, often things don’t sound “natural” from the beginning and certainly don’t after all the production processing they go through, so this isn’t much of an issue.
Thank you for this Nahre. I was thinking a lot about this topic recently when I recorded a piano piece I wrote. I'm never shy about editing my "pop" music, but I obsessed about getting a note-perfect, complete take of the piano piece, largely due to this notion about recorded classical, and also that I was filming. But it created an incredible amount of anxiety. Even when I got "the" take, I still ended up tweaking things in editing. Music producers love to talk about how mistakes are cool, and add to the humanity of the record. Sometimes this can be the case, and you can have happy accidents. But I think the best argument for insistence on perfection in the recorded medium is based on repeated listens. In a live performance, a mistake is lost to time, if it's even noticed, and other live performances will not have the exact same mistake. A mistake in a recording can be anticipated after the first listen, making it worse. It also comes off as voluntary to some extent, because there was a choice whether or not to edit it. In live performance, any mistake is involuntary, which changes how it's perceived by the listener.
Obligitory "Glen Gould wan't a normal human" story: In the 90's I met a recording engineer who worked with Glen back in the days of big reel to reel tapes. He told me that Glen could wind back the reel while listening to the playback and stop on the note he missed for a punch in. A decade and a half on that engineer was still in awe of that ability because he and all his colleagues, who wound back tape for a living, couldn't do that.
I feel like the script is flipped for jazz recordings. A lot of times I'd rather listen to live recordings (especially videos) because of the spontaneity of the performances. Plus watching the players exchange looks and change their playing in real time is magical!
I believe this is the case for a lot of classical music listeners as well, as the video said about live being the main venue, i.e. what the music was written for. For me I feel the best experiences come from live performances. But, there's this perfectionist drive as well to make everything not just note perfect but beyond that nail every dynamic, etc. A lot of older recordings have quite some "mistakes" comparatively speaking, but they are nonetheless great recordings. I think and hope that this perfectionist view is shifting towards thinking more about musicality rather than technical perfection these days.
yeah, imagine finding out that, oh BTW, all of Coltrane and Bird's improvisations were "edited." :) Guess I'm old fashioned about classical recordings too, it's about capturing the players (and conductors) performance, not creating one digitally out of bits and pieces.
Not just that but the actual quality of the music too! For some reason the way a lot of modern studios handle jazz recording just seems to squish the life out of it.
I am in shock. I had no idea. I grew up listening to classical music, but I am 76 years old and there was no editing except for takes. I do live improvisational piano, and there is no editing. I just accept the music that comes out. To me, there is a real advantage to relaxing around “mistakes” and focusing on authenticity. Thank you for sharing this information.
By the way, I would love to interview you for my new video blog, The Improvisational Pianist, on my UA-cam channel, Beth Green TV. I really want to support classically-trained pianists to just relax and return to the heart -- even if they are playing written music. I've got two blogs up already, and I have an interview scheduled for next week with a teacher. I would love to have you on, too. You are fantastic. I am classically trained, became disabled at 15, couldn't play the piano at all and discovered improvisation at 73 (if I only improvise and don't play for too long a time, playing the piano does not completely cripple me), and I am now performing a weekly livestream with over 10,000 fans on Facebook. Could you please contact me about doing an interview? Your contribution could be SO helpful. I see so many young people dropping out of music altogether. Here's the link to the playlist: ua-cam.com/play/PL7Llv6w5efB3EwwlTlRxI0x479v_SRIS-.html. Please email me at beth@bethgreen.org. In any case, thanks for what you're doing.
The thing is, recordings are played over and over and over by many people, generally way more than a live performance, not to mention a live performance goes past and is gone the moment each note moves to the next. And it may be the only recording of that piece they have ever heard. Do you really want them to be hearing a wrong or out of tune note or some squawk or noise or whatever every time anyone hears it, as their only and repeated experience of that piece of music? It’s not just about the ego of the performers, but wanting to present the composition in its best light and provide listeners with the most transcendent experience achievable.
Having edited classical music myself, I can confirm that the pressure for a 'perfect take' can really affect someone's recording session, because of this pressure they end up with more mistakes and are often less happy with results because they 'had to resort to editing'. Back in the day you were only able to interact with the medium of music through going to a concert, once music became a storable medium we started looking at it differently. Most of my recording work is a single night live concert, so I don't get any splicing opportunities, however, mixing is another thing which could be argued to be deceiving. Using close mics oppose to a stereo pair in the audience gives a 'perfect' representation instead of colouration of the room. It can have different effects on different instruments...all depends on the style of piece
Really enjoyed this one, especially the hilarious quote from Schnabel! Another consideration for why there is a stigma in classical music against editing is rooted in classism. It costs a lot of money and time to work up a piece of music, book a recording session, and get that perfect take. Most folks don’t have the budget or time for all of that even if they are incredibly talented. If they can create an engaging performance but come to it in a way that is more economical more power to them. While I’d never agree with Gould that the concert is dead his analogy to film production resonates. Film and live theatre aren’t the same even if they come from the same tradition. Why not think about music recordings and performances the same way? Thank you as always for these great topics y’all explore on SF!
It seems like some of the "VST or real?" examples compared high-fidelity VSTs to real instruments that were either unfaithfully recorded or designed to subvert our expectations of what they should sound like. The piano one that both hosts got wrong stuck out the most as an example of this.
Yes, that comparison was intentionally misleading. It's basically a "What I think sounds better" comparison, instead of actually knowing the VST's or how they sound. The first piano VST was obviously cheap and terrible (a high quality grand piano VST sounds completely indistinguishable), while the real live drums were clearly poorly recorded compared to the clean VST. To me, both of the orchestras sounded fake, and could've easily both been achieved with VST's. The second piano example also both sounded terrible and fake, so it's again intentionally misleading.
@@FreakieFan Yeah exactly! The most interesting thing that they could have compared each VST to is the instrument that it was sampled from/modeled on, or the closest available alternative, provided that the real instrument was recorded in a similar room, with similar mics in similar positions, etc. In fact, I'm surprised that the developers of high-quality VSTs don't use this kind of comparison to demonstrate the authenticity of their products, especially for percussive instruments and plucked instruments.
Most modern VST's are simply recordings of live instruments spliced for every single note with multiple levels of dynamics and different styles of articulation. There's also Pianoteq, which models exactly how a real Steinway Grand piano creates sound, and is so realistic that Steinway officially endorsed them. Given this, it's no surprise that it's hard to tell the difference! Most of the time, they literally are real instruments!
with that logic, a single single sine wave oscillator is a real instrument as it generates its own sound rather than being sampled a very broad concept. a lot of things are literally real instruments, but still sound like shit :D the latter has little to do with the former. pianoteq wasn't all that until version 4, 3 still had the problem where it either sounds good on the high registers but not on the lower, or the other way around. but yeah, pure romplers seem to be on their way out a bit and slowly replaced by hybrids that also include acoustic models.
The way I could tell Is if you listen to the direction the sounds are coming from via surround sound headphones you can very easily tell cause the real recordings will sound much less dynamic when it comes to the direction of the sound.
@@artemis3392 This doesn't match the reality of how VSTi's are sampled, usually with MORE mic positions and articulations than live performances. The VSTi has more dynamic options than the average human player. Now, you are correct when you talk about, eg. programmed drums in rock and pop where the producers 127 the hell out of velocities, but if you don't do that, its indistinguishable from real drums...because they ARE real drums. And a much better drumset recorded with much better mics that the vast majority of drummers will ever have access to
@@Tritium21 I think she is trying to say what you said, but didn't say it as well. Because virtual instruments have top notch recording set-ups, the one that surrounds you more is more likely the virtual instrument.
Great video! My producer and I experienced a lot of this when making our first album. For the second piano real vs virtual clip, my theory is that the first clip was a virtual patch simulating a real one, and the second was a real player playing a digital piano.
Wait....this is allowed? THIS IS ALLOWED? My god....I can feel the weight off my shoulders lifted from this pressure of being flawless during recordings. Not saying we shouldn't strive to be our best possible self in our element, but the pressure of "having to get it right, or else...." just feels gone now that I've heard these professionals speak to this topic. Thank you so much for creating this video. You have no idea how much I needed to see and hear this message!
Thank you for doing this segment highlighting the negative impact editing has on the mental health of classical musicians. It is such an important message that needs to be shouted from the rooftops! Even the greatest musicians make technical mistakes, and that’s ok!
the crazy thing is how accessible all of this audio/video editing software has become. It's not just famous artists with record deals, but normal people using freeware with a decent pc who are making pristine composite recordings.
I've made many classical records with thousands of edits. The pressure on musicians to be perfect has made some of my clients neurotic and pressured to compete in the big leagues. As a producer and editor, I have to appease the needs of my clients and digital editing can really make the difference!
I'm a classically trained violist, a saxophonist and recently taught myself guitar(ish). my musical background makes me want to strive for one take perfectionism which is a fine challenge but I actually really like the art of editing. It is an art form too, separate but not necessarily lesser than playing a song in one take.
Our wind ensemble in college recorded an album every 2 years. It's definitely highly edited. That's just the process to make a quality recording and eliminate as many mistakes and poor sounds as possible. We would play the entire piece through once beginning to end for a "bed" take and then go back and record smaller sections that the recording producer snd engineer would use later to pick the best sounding clips. Definitely there's a difference between recording for near perfection and live performance. Jazz is one the few mediums that you will find less of this editing
About Jazz... Hate to tell you, but if it's from a studio then good chance it's been edited. Famously, the song "Brilliant Corners" had to be assembled from many, many takes. "Blue Train" had the piano solo spliced in from another take.
@@alice_atari emphasis on the LESS in my post. I know stuff is edited, but in compared to other music, music with improvised soloing tend to be recorded in larger takes, so requiring less overall editing. Sure, I know they might do the solos multiple times and pick the best one. but I was just speaking very generally that "creative improvised music" (aka Jazz) tends to focus less on heavy editing and more on getting the essence of the music by trying to capture bigger takes rather than micromanaging every note
Frank Zappa often overdubbed guitar, percussion, and other parts to his "live" recordings. This information was in the album liner notes. Editing is an artistic choice. As a fan, I admire FZ's transparency.
Zappa was a master in using the studio capabilities in a creative way, he even was honest about the level of accuracy in his recorded orchestral works (LSO album), i love the way he used the studio and early workstations like the synclavier to create electronic music beyond most human/instrument capabilities since the early 80s
Recording technology gives us the ability to create the perfect recording. Zappa was notorious for chasing perfection in everything he did, especially live. Check out his intro to Bebop Tango on Roxy and Elsewhere.
I'm grateful for this discussion. As any musician knows there is so much pressure for perfection. As a singer, we MAY (just from my personal position) be under even more pressure because half the time non-vocalists barely regard and respect you as a musician.To add to that, you listen to these "perfect" recordings of an aria or chanson and it becomes this incomparable standard. It's nice to have somebody lift the veil a little bit.
I consider myself a serious listener and I love recordings, editing doesn't bother me. We just need to remember that a recording and a live performance are different things.
The problem with the 'vst vs real' is it lacks one serious distinction that renders 'real or not' moot. TLDR: The comparisons were against sampled instruments, not synthesized ones. VSTs are simply containers for instruments or effects, which can either be sample based (real) or synthesized (fake). Many vsts contain instruments that use samples ie sampled recordings of piano notes across the keyboard and at different velocities. Other vsts contain instruments and effects that use synthesis ie computer processing of algorithms in real time. Your comparisons were against sampled instruments which means they're both real. The only possible comparison could be the piano but there's really only one vst that synthesizes piano convincingly and that's Pianoteq. To my knowledge no other developer has been able to come close to convincing the most trained ear that it's a real piano. Drums are much easier to tell the difference of but cymbals can be very convincing. I'm certain every comparison was against sampled instruments. I understand for the sake of time and simplicity you decided not to make the distinction but it's extremely misleading. All that could have been said was that they were compared against sampled instruments.
Shmoopy, It's not misleading because sampled instruments still aren't real. And even sampled instruments can be identified if you know what to listen for. The main challenge in producing digital instruments isn't in matching timbre or transients -it's mimicking micro-expressions in the performer's rhythm (which do get distorted in most modern music due to splicing and time-domain edits anyway, so they're not as much of a giveaway anymore), and more importantly: "room sound". The dispersion patterns of real instruments produce comb filtering and frequency-dependent, phase-shifted decay, which is nearly impossible to replicate. Recording a truly real-sounding woodwind track, for example, is pretty damn hard because the radiated sound comes from different places from note-to-note. Mic placement alone can cause huge changes, and normally your best bet is to have at least a few mics just picking up the room sound (which can cause its own comb-filtering headache). It's actually not super hard to pick out once you know it's there. That said, I think their point still stands, and most people aren't going to be able or willing to tell the difference between quality VSTs and recorded instruments in the the near future, unless they're an experienced recording engineer or a pretentious audiophile.
Also it is probably better to use the term 'virtual instrument' as there are many audio plugin API's like VST, a number of which are popular in different industries, which is why most virtual instruments/effects support multiple plugin API's, and a lot of the time they also work outside of a host/DAW. VST is a proprietary brand name, and not the essence of what that segment was about. As an audio software developer the use of that acronym in this context felt quite strange.
When I was 19, I was a member of our university's concert band. This would have been in 1965. I was amazed during our recording session for the annual LP how many takes were recorded, sometimes, in 4 or 8 bar phrases. The conductor would tell the sound engineers, "Mark that one as good. Mark that one as a maybe.", etc. Thanks for the video.
Of course edits are readily used when making creative content like this. Even Yo-Yo ma does as well. Always think "if the camera changes, theres a edit" Love the video and the perspectives!
It's always so funny to me when people outside the industry don't realize how much editing goes into pretty much all records. This is just how music production works. It's not about being authentic (most of the time), it's about the final product being the best it can be. Sometimes that means the tiny mistakes are best to be left in, sometimes fixing them is the right move. It all depends on the specific needs of the project, but neither way is disingenuous. I totally understand why the general public (or even many amateur and some professional musicians) would be confused or concerned about recordings being "faked," but that's just how this works. If the final cut of the record is like a finished painting, the composer picks the colors, the musician's performance is the paint, the recording program the canvas, and all of the equipment and plugin software are the brushes. There's a few more steps in music making than a painting (most of the time), and typically more people are involved, but as much as the composers and performers are artists, the real masterpiece is crafted by the engineer. TL;DR: Music is made with magic and sound engineers are wizards.
Not sure if anyone pointed this out yet, but at 2:54, the piece is Chopin's Op.10 No.1 Etude in C major. There might have been a mix up with Schumann's Op.13 etudes, another famous etude set.
Nowadays everything is based on the great montage. Even I knew much of these informations, this video inspired me to think how composers and performers from the past anticipated the present. Furthermore, this video brings out very important questions as: Do we need perfect performances at all? Why we need that perfection? We are human beings and music is connected with all what we feel. That feeling at that exact moment doesn't need to be manipulated or edited even if it's not perfect. On the other side, if "concert is dead" , this kind of approach made me think of so many artworks based on mimesis by using sound montage and that it could be even very creative and progressive approach to new artworks. Thank you for posting this video!
Thank you for the video, I did not really think about how classical recordings were edited, but it makes sense. I think there obviously should be a balance and it should be tasteful but I think it’s ok. If anything it made me miss going to live concerts more! The only exception would be if I watched a concert on UA-cam and it had the word “live” I expect it to not be edited. There needs to be SOME none spliced recordings so we don’t inflate our expectations when we go to an actual concert, but unfortunately there’s no way to tell right now. We need a word like “organic” for recordings
I once decided to go down the transparency route, and quickly realised it didn't quite achieve the outcome I wanted. Then I thought of chefs who don't have to give out their recipe. Let the end user just enjoy the end product, they don't always need to know the process.
So much fun. Some of the issues with listening to recorded real vs VST instruments is that further effects such as compression can create a lot of distraction (either applied at the time or added afterwards). You weren't really comparing like with like in a recording. Hope that makes you feel a little better :D
Thank you so much for this video! I had no idea classical music recordings were edited. I always assumed performers just did multiple takes and went with the best one. I agree that the standard of perfection is really harmful. I'm a piano teacher, and so many of my students have a fear of performing because they're afraid of making mistakes. I try to encourage them by emphasizing that EVERYONE makes mistakes and that it's okay. I hadn't considered how recordings can negatively contribute to that fear. I believe that the most important thing for every musician is to do your best, enjoy your music, and express yourself. Time to go and send this video to my students :)
The main difference between the sound construction in popular vs classical music is that in popular music the editing is mostly done in the vertical direction (constructed track by track) while in the classical domain it's more horizontal oriented (take by take) I've worked as a sound engineer for a company who builded the recorder/edittors that were used for a while by the Emile Berliner Haus (Deutsche Grammophon) and have editted a classical guitar album myself. 300 edits on an album is not uncommon.
Whoa this is gold!!! This really hits home - my recordings are unedited as many of them are for piano competitions which don't allow editing. My UA-cam recordings are done on a real piano with one camera angle in one take, so no editing or splicing is or can done; and so there are mistakes here and there, blemishes. I start thinking whether I should record on a digital piano to edit out mistakes like many other channels, but feel like if I start, it'll be hard to go back:P There's a healthy balance of musicality and accuracy (does a mistake or two really detract from that performance/recording?). With so many note-perfect edited recordings around, the subconscious expectation for perfectionism, especially in competitions, results in progressively less emphasis on musicality and more on the feat of note-perfect performances. It definitely takes a toll on our mental health with the pressure of note-perfect performances, and I feel this pressure. Currently I try embrace the fact that recordings may not be perfect and try to put more focus on the musicality - preparing beforehand as well as I can, but when it's time to perform or record I try to focus is on what I want to express. It's still a struggle, but it's good to know I'm not alone.
Yeah I totally agree with you and I go about my recording process in a similar way too!!! :) I remembered when I first started tracking vocals I was sooo critical of every little thing cuz esp when mixing its so obvious - but now Ive learnt to let it go - its ok to have a few mistakes here and there if the emotion and what I wanted to convey is present :)
Well said, that’s part of why I like jazz-allows improvisation on a theme with less emphasis on playing the same thing in one way with no deviation-more like what classical music used to be, ironically, from my understanding-I know chopin and liszt improvised a ton.
THEY'RE BACK! And never better, this was so much fun. One thing to add is a lot of popular music "live concert albums" are stitched together from multiple performances or on private sound stages, like what Arthur described for classical recordings. Boingo Alive, Stop Making Sense, probably many more. Even the most experienced bands might never do a flawless live take of a song, so its "true form" is by necessity a pastiche.
Excellent stuff as always guys. The reality is that production/composition/editing is COMPLETELY different from LIVE performance. They are inherently juxtaposed as a dichotomy. The BEAUTY is in both being able to produce a composition of quality for crystalization in the annals of time AND being able to replicate it as accurately and emotively as possible in a LIVE setting, where the sound is destiny bound to becoming ether and vanishing. If it's not recorded it will exist purely as a memory for those spectating. The 'edited' version is to serve as a remind for that experience. Live performance is the mastering of both crafts. Without the former the latter would be less effective, and vice versa. That reality cannot be avoided, and many a great artist have died upon it's hill in martydom to it's Truth.
What a great video. I had never considered this side of recording - my own experiences with it being extremely limited, it just never occurred to me that anybody would even have an opinion. I have never recorded in a studio - but I have been part of recording sessions for mass-choir performances and a few other such things. "Live recording" in the more accurate sense, I suppose? Things like the state choir (ACDA) performances, and university choir concerts. Nothing was ever said about takes or editing, of course - not to the choir members at least! And I honestly could not tell if any sort of editing had really been done, even to my decades-old cassettes from ACDA, except for the minimal cutting of the applause between pieces. I can certainly see that the power of editing opens different possibilities, though. And that aspect of "get it note perfect the first time" is SUCH a huge pressure. I doubt I could have articulated it back in my college days, but thinking about the one recital performance I did...yeah. I don't remember, nearly 25 years later, whether I was being recorded for that concert or not. I only remember being so anxious that I was sick halfway through (thankfully, in an intermission, not ON stage, but yikes anyway). Many artists and musicians that I know already struggle with some level of perfectionism, all on their own. To have MORE expectation of an impossible standard loaded onto your shoulders because "it didn't sound like that on the recording" - maaaaaaaan. I can't even imagine the kinds of negative feelings that would cascade, if I was in that position. This fascinated me, too, because I'm in the midst of plotting out some fiction - one of the characters HAS a recording career, and now I know more of what I ought to look for to research how that affects the musician. I'll be ruminating on the questions you raised here for quite some time!! Thank you again for such wonderful work!
Absolutely love this video. Please make some more on the subject of editing classic music. Also very detailed explanation to why I can't listen to recordings of classical music any longer. Your video literally made my day.
Love this! I also did the VSTi test to professional drummer who couldnt tell my sequenced part was fake :D (after all it was humanized in so many levels, randomization for few precentages in velocity, volume, pitch, eq, time and the actual midi sequencing was already done by imitating how you would play it plus the room reverbs, bleeding etc blabla) You can make all VSTi sound real by making em slightly random in various layers, its interesting.
I'd love to see y'all take a look at some more of the musical styles that intentionally eschew heavy studio editing. Artists as far ranging as Punk, Jazz, Jam Band, and Lo-Fi have all experimented with a "warts and all" approach to the studio, and it's intrinsically part of the intended aesthetic in many cases.
Funny topic! 👍🏻 I am in heavy metal and I can say that over here such debate was at it's peak about 20 years ago.... At first, I was against it mainly because back then I used to found myself disappointed at live shows way too often.... But, watch this! After some time the whole community accepted the idea that we have yet another way to experience each song. These is a studio version and there is a live performance. That made live show even more exciting! So, in the end it'a benefit. 🖤🤘❤️🎸😊
I would love to hear your analysis on Vocaloid and voice synthesizer technologies. The comment on playing each of the 88 keys and editing together a piece and VSTs made me think that that's exactly what Vocaloid producers are doing with the voice, and they've made it its own art form. My friend once commented on the use of a MIDI flute in a Vocaloid song, saying that even though he could tell it was MIDI, it sounded really good, unlike the usual connotations you have with midi. I'm very curious what impacts this fairly recent development of meticulously manipulating timbres, transitions, and other details that would otherwise be done "by feel" has on music in the future
I like to think of editing like use of eraser in pencil drawing. The lines you put down can be changed, they can be improved; Making marks, correcting them, remaking them, it's a modelling process.
The metaphor is not very applicable to live concert, because the moment you make a mark on paper, it remains there to be seen as a record. Even if you do livestream your drawing, the old and new(corrected) pencil make are visible together, unlike with music where a retake breaks the immersion.
With regards to the listening test to discern real instruments from VST's, there's a lot to be said for the mic that was used for thee real recordings and how they were processed after recording.
Wow I always assumed there was no editing in classical music for some reason and this video is a real eye opener. 9:09 good point on mental health well done for bringing that out, and 11:56 that picture of Bach is so funny !!!
I love to listen to music through headphones and I want the recording to be done as well as possible, in addition to the best quality of the performance
Now that's a topic completely out of left field (for me at least), but you guys have done it again: I learned something and it was fun to do so! Thanks Nahre and Arthur, and everyone at PBS!
The most common way of editing in the classical world has not been mentioned here: First recording a whole piece or mouvement in one go, then pasting in little bits and pieces to erase the mistakes. In this way, the musical flow of the whole piece is preserved despite the use of editing. In our todays perfection-loving music world this seems to be an ok aproach. Of course, if you stick together hundreds of little edits, then the flow is gone... A word to the quiz at the end: Modern drum VSTs have sounds very accurately recorded in good studio rooms with world class equipment. So speaking of the sound, it is impossible to tell if it is a VST or a "real" drum recording. The only way to tell would be the playing... Cool channel btw! Greetings from Frankfurt, Germany
Someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's splicing, which they talked about quite a lot in the video? most of the time editors will start with the cleanest take as a base and then splice in bits and pieces of other takes-- how big those pieces are is largely at the discretion of the editor, but it all falls under the umbrella of splicing.
@@elamorana7400 Yes, that's right! I just wanted to emphasize on the difference between having a natural musical flow with some minor corrections on one hand, and on the other hand sticking large amounts of pieces together, resulting in a perfect but musically inconsistent recording.
Thought-provoking video. One aspect not touched on is the way that the selective use of multiple microphones and various amounts of post-processing (EQ, reverb, etc.) distorts the performance as it would have been experienced live, even when the performance is genuinely a recording of a single continuous take of a single performance
A really interesting discussion. I once heard a world-famous pianist playing a lunchtime concert at Wigmore Hall in London. The experience was fabulous, great atmosphere, wonderful warmth and depth. I then made the mistake of listening to the live recording broadcast a week later on BBC Radio 3. I noticed quite a few mistakes, which I had simply had not noticed in the live performance, and I am a proficient amateur musician myself. The experience of the day was not conveyed through the radio to any significant degree. I also remember, from my childhood, my mother's violin class instrumental performances (including mine) recorded on a cassette deck for evaluation purposes, and we used to joke that "this thing only records the mistakes, not the music!!" - My suspicion is that by perfecting recordings beyond what's possible live, we try, futilely, to compensate for the live, direct human-to-human experience that no recording equipment will ever be able to capture. That said, I am amazed, and sometimes scared, what level of perfection even live performances have reached nowadays. I feel it is to the detriment of livelihood and humanity.
Really good video! As a music student, I've always had problems with my mental and physical health due to my uni's expectations. The pressure is incredible. I lost scholarships/grants over a few mistaken notes on piano exams! Even during the pandemic, we were expected to perform flawlessly on (almost illegally orginised) live exams. Professors who listen to perfect recordings expect the same level of perfectionism from students, which is insane. I think in this aspect editing recordings is harmful. It wouldn't be such an issue if classical musicians recognized that recordings are not the same thing as live performances, and perfection is not the ultimate goal to pursue.
Awesome video as usual. This one got me thinking quite a bit! Great job! :) For me, it really depends on the goal of the music itself. If the work is supposed to be a straightforward, performance style recording, then I prefer less editing. I'm a drummer myself, so taking drums as an example, as long as it's not poorly played, I often like to hear drums that aren't perfect. The more the drumming feels like it was fit to a click track, the less human it feels to me. It's those imperfections that give it heart. However, that's not to say that something feeling less human is always a bad thing. That's when drum machines can be interesting to me. When the piece isn't trying to mimic the performance of a human, but rather is trying to sound inhuman. That's why a lot of electronic, futuristic music doesn't bother me. Because the goal isn't to sound like a person on a stage, it's to be this external disembodied thing. Some electronic artists take this to the extreme, remaining completely anonymous, as part of the illusion. Basically it all boils down to honesty. Honesty between the listener and the musician, but also honesty between the musician and themselves. Is the artist trying to fake something by editing, or are they trying to make something by editing? P.S. With regard to live performances, I'm only a mediocre musician myself, so I am almost always impressed at a live performance. I know what they're doing on that stage, even if it they mess up here and there, is very stressful. I don't expect perfection, I just want the artist to succeed in whatever they are trying to bring to life. Sometimes that's using honesty and vulnerability, like in a lot of solo instrument performance in jazz or classical. Sometimes that is something more like a show, such as musical theater, a rock opera or a ritual-esque metal performance. Whatever it is, I try to enjoy it on its own merits, rather than comparing it to some impossible recording standard.
I heard that many musicians complained they could hear the edits in Gould's music where he spliced pieces together. He would ask him to point out where, and they always got it wrong.
@@gabrielsroka In the analogue days, it was painfully evident where the edits were. In the digital remasterings of Gould’s recordings, it is virtually impossible to find most of them.
Artur Schnabel: "recorded music is an evil betrayal of life because the human being the original is forgotten" Its so weird hearing this as a negative, cause like, music being this almost otherworldly entity made by humans initially but existing on its own eternally is one of the reasons I like music at all. I especially like video game music BECAUSE of its disconnection to humans. The surrendering of the ego, creating music to serve an atmospheric and emotional function rather than speak to the specific performant skill of the creators is so satisfying to me. Not that I don't then go and appreciate the people behind it, but that further understanding of them is usually irrelevant to my enjoyment of the piece and I think that's amazing. The music becomes an autonomous entity.
that's a great way to put it, I totally agree. I think for schnabel, music was this ephemeral thing, existing only in the performance space and then lost as soon as its played. that is the 'human' quality to it. of course, music can be a ton of different things at once and that's what's so great.
Superb, superb topic to delve into. Virtually all music students place their musical heroes at "god-level" in their minds and forget that even the best musicians' recordings are not one takes, but a high-level recording process. Dispelling this false notion is important. Totally supportive of this ✊
I love this channel. I like how these episodes give classical music publicity, while not condemning contemporary music. Having Nahre as the classical music representative and Arthur as the modern representative is really refreshing.
I got all the comparisons answers correct. However, I could not say why, as they were indeed very similar. All I can think is that there were some very subtle nuances in timbre purity, and dynamic shifts or fading, that hinted at a kind of perfection that would be unlikely to come from even the most skilled hands.
In the ‘90s (1994) I was asked to go to Saint-Eustache church (in Quebec) to help a team to wrap the recording stage of the Symphonic Orchestra of Montreal. So I arrived I bit earlier and slide into the place quietly between takes. It was a huge stage with 200+ choir and all the orchestra in standby. The director was Charles Dutoit and they were recording Berlioz’s Troyennes. They were late on schedule. So Dutoit was quite impatient. Then I was surprised to see they were making _punch-in_ and other overdubs. Dutoit had a small wedge monitor at his feet and they started about 8 measures of playback, Dutoit started to beat the tempo and they literally punch-in ALL orchestra + choir in the shot. Nobody was intended to make a single mistake for this (you could feel the pressure). It was so stressful that at the next standby I went to see the control room Decca had installed in another part of the church. Everything was recorded digitally on bulky recorders about the size of dishwasher each; there was about three or four of them if I recall. I’m a professional musician myself, made a lot of studio sessions, but never thought you could edit such a huge orchestra like this with choir, especially with punch-in!! My view of classical orchestra’s recording changed radically that day. This OSM album earned a lot of prizes and honors afterwards.
The obviousness of real vs. sampled instruments (what you refer to as "VST") depends strongly on the music and instrument. Percussion instruments (including piano) are easily imitated in samples while the differences for winds, strings and especially vocals are much easier to detect. Also, some music lends itself well to sampled instruments and the distinction is difficult to discern while some music makes the difference extremely obvious. For example, the first part of the Copland clarinet concerto (the slow part) is likely difficult to discern between live and sampled instruments, even for professional musicians. But continue on to the cadenza that follows and the difference is easy to discern.
I think VSTs realistic-ness is felt mostly on performers. MIDI data like velocity can only store from 1-127 different dynamic ranges from pianissimo to fortissimo; compare that to a piano that has an infinite amount of dynamic range. Of course there are ways to enhance virtual performances like reverbs or delays, but ultimately an acoustic instrument has an experience no artist is willing to replace.
It was a bit of time ago when I went to music school in germany (i reckon maybe in the USA it would be different) - but I wish that for the future musical recording (at least the theory) should be taught maybe as much as music theory. I put some energy into learning what is possible in the mixing room the whole last year (for some reason I didnt got booked for concert.. who knows why) and now I feel so much more confident listen to recordings. But as well as I am again hitting the practice room (sorry, me was so lazy)I listen to my practicing with different ears.
I love a few one off live recordings I have of classical music. Mahler 9th with Berlin Phil and Bernstein, where the trombones(?) are missing in a segment of the last movement, is still just crackling with an immediacy that is wonderful. Another is Richter's live recording of Pictures at an Exhibition where he obviously falters on the opening, but pulls through for a wonderful performance despite the limitations of live recordings at the time. I do treasure these idiosyncrasies or mistakes that bring me closer to being an audience member.
In metal production, a select few samples are used for certain instruments (drum kick for example) and it often makes different bands sound more similar. Nobody intended it to be like this, but you can't restrict engineers from picking the same kick. I feel like we just need to be mindful of this and not to cheat ourselves or water down the value of both the performance and the engineering.
Super interesting topic. :) Melodyne and Izotope RX are lifesavers, especially when there is only one take to work with (which is all one artist I work with ever does - one and done, whole sonata all the way through from beginning to end, all the movements, just like a live performance…). Fantastic performances with noticeable blemishes can be turned into just plain fantastic performances without blemishes. (For a string playing at least, it would be hard to make much out of a mediocre performance besides make it sound competent. But you can’t add magic if it wasn’t there.) The piano VST one was deceptive because the real piano was just very badly recorded, whereas real VST samples are often recorded with great care. The difference isn’t in the sound of the instrument, but in the limits of articulation, which might not be obvious at first or in all passages. (I thought the first one was VST, then wasn’t sure after the second one sounded so much worse in tone.) Strings etc are easier, but even then sometimes only after more than a few seconds of listening - again, they are high-quality recordings of real instruments. Where they fall down is in their lack of variability, expressiveness, phrasing, realistic range of articulations.
I appreciate that a recording exists and that recordings are like the idealized version of a piece. I do appreciate transparency and I don't think it's cheating to edit. Perfection at the expense of people's mental health isn't worth it.
This is a total sidenote from this episode, but I would love a crossover episode with Terrell Grice where him and Arthur nerd out over Gospel like maybe on more specific aspects than the previous Gospel episode. This one could talk about shouting or improv or the role/history of a music director (especially since Terrell + his team are so great at finding the BEST, most musical artists)
10:09 "Expectation from mistake-free recordings also puts a lot of pressure on recording musicians" I am quite relieved that I am not alone in this journey and fully accepted/embraced the unavoidable mistakes as part of the learning process 🙂
I'd never thought about this much in relation to classical music I play mostly traditional folk, and recording edits usually mean "fix the obvious mistakes," but I can see how the mental health pressure can be on a whole other level as classical musicians try to recapture a "perfect" studio recording in a live environment. One unexpected thing I've found in my own listening is that I actually appreciate a bit of accidental noise in recordings. The goal is, of course, to have as pure and distraction-free a performance as can be, but if I'm listening to a piece and hear a rustle of sheet music or the creak of a chair, I suddenly feel like I'm right in the room with the musicians, and the experience becomes much more immersive.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
*TwoSetViolin:* _"Wait, it's all edited?"_
*Audio engineers:* _"Always has been"_
If you didn't notice any edits, that means the audio engineer did their job well and properly. It reminds me of that one Futurama quote, "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
This episode was very fun to put together! It leaves me to think about so many more things related to this topic… Cheers 🧡
sound field, pls pin the comment
I was reading about this in a book written by former Decca classical engineers, and they were basically like “fix all mistakes including correcting pitch of notes, and remove all noises, including extraneous instrument sounds, of course”. I’m not even sure the musicians are always aware of how many little fixes the engineers do to their recordings. But in classical it has to be done very carefully: it is VERY easy to make something sound obviously unnatural, which is even more unacceptable than a mistake. In pop, often things don’t sound “natural” from the beginning and certainly don’t after all the production processing they go through, so this isn’t much of an issue.
Great to have you back, Nahre!!
Thank you for this Nahre. I was thinking a lot about this topic recently when I recorded a piano piece I wrote. I'm never shy about editing my "pop" music, but I obsessed about getting a note-perfect, complete take of the piano piece, largely due to this notion about recorded classical, and also that I was filming. But it created an incredible amount of anxiety. Even when I got "the" take, I still ended up tweaking things in editing.
Music producers love to talk about how mistakes are cool, and add to the humanity of the record. Sometimes this can be the case, and you can have happy accidents. But I think the best argument for insistence on perfection in the recorded medium is based on repeated listens. In a live performance, a mistake is lost to time, if it's even noticed, and other live performances will not have the exact same mistake. A mistake in a recording can be anticipated after the first listen, making it worse. It also comes off as voluntary to some extent, because there was a choice whether or not to edit it. In live performance, any mistake is involuntary, which changes how it's perceived by the listener.
Obligitory "Glen Gould wan't a normal human" story:
In the 90's I met a recording engineer who worked with Glen back in the days of big reel to reel tapes. He told me that Glen could wind back the reel while listening to the playback and stop on the note he missed for a punch in. A decade and a half on that engineer was still in awe of that ability because he and all his colleagues, who wound back tape for a living, couldn't do that.
You can also hear evidence of this in his electronic pieces, such as “The Idea of North”!
'90s*
I feel like the script is flipped for jazz recordings. A lot of times I'd rather listen to live recordings (especially videos) because of the spontaneity of the performances. Plus watching the players exchange looks and change their playing in real time is magical!
That is an interesting contrast.
I believe this is the case for a lot of classical music listeners as well, as the video said about live being the main venue, i.e. what the music was written for. For me I feel the best experiences come from live performances. But, there's this perfectionist drive as well to make everything not just note perfect but beyond that nail every dynamic, etc. A lot of older recordings have quite some "mistakes" comparatively speaking, but they are nonetheless great recordings. I think and hope that this perfectionist view is shifting towards thinking more about musicality rather than technical perfection these days.
I want to know if Hiromi edits...
yeah, imagine finding out that, oh BTW, all of Coltrane and Bird's improvisations were "edited." :)
Guess I'm old fashioned about classical recordings too, it's about capturing the players (and conductors) performance, not creating one digitally out of bits and pieces.
Not just that but the actual quality of the music too! For some reason the way a lot of modern studios handle jazz recording just seems to squish the life out of it.
I am in shock. I had no idea. I grew up listening to classical music, but I am 76 years old and there was no editing except for takes. I do live improvisational piano, and there is no editing. I just accept the music that comes out. To me, there is a real advantage to relaxing around “mistakes” and focusing on authenticity. Thank you for sharing this information.
By the way, I would love to interview you for my new video blog, The Improvisational Pianist, on my UA-cam channel, Beth Green TV. I really want to support classically-trained pianists to just relax and return to the heart -- even if they are playing written music. I've got two blogs up already, and I have an interview scheduled for next week with a teacher. I would love to have you on, too. You are fantastic. I am classically trained, became disabled at 15, couldn't play the piano at all and discovered improvisation at 73 (if I only improvise and don't play for too long a time, playing the piano does not completely cripple me), and I am now performing a weekly livestream with over 10,000 fans on Facebook. Could you please contact me about doing an interview? Your contribution could be SO helpful. I see so many young people dropping out of music altogether. Here's the link to the playlist: ua-cam.com/play/PL7Llv6w5efB3EwwlTlRxI0x479v_SRIS-.html. Please email me at beth@bethgreen.org. In any case, thanks for what you're doing.
The thing is, recordings are played over and over and over by many people, generally way more than a live performance, not to mention a live performance goes past and is gone the moment each note moves to the next. And it may be the only recording of that piece they have ever heard. Do you really want them to be hearing a wrong or out of tune note or some squawk or noise or whatever every time anyone hears it, as their only and repeated experience of that piece of music? It’s not just about the ego of the performers, but wanting to present the composition in its best light and provide listeners with the most transcendent experience achievable.
@@matthewv789 All popular music recording from the 60's contains those things. Only since Glen Gould is classical piano music edited.
Having edited classical music myself, I can confirm that the pressure for a 'perfect take' can really affect someone's recording session, because of this pressure they end up with more mistakes and are often less happy with results because they 'had to resort to editing'. Back in the day you were only able to interact with the medium of music through going to a concert, once music became a storable medium we started looking at it differently. Most of my recording work is a single night live concert, so I don't get any splicing opportunities, however, mixing is another thing which could be argued to be deceiving. Using close mics oppose to a stereo pair in the audience gives a 'perfect' representation instead of colouration of the room. It can have different effects on different instruments...all depends on the style of piece
Really enjoyed this one, especially the hilarious quote from Schnabel!
Another consideration for why there is a stigma in classical music against editing is rooted in classism. It costs a lot of money and time to work up a piece of music, book a recording session, and get that perfect take. Most folks don’t have the budget or time for all of that even if they are incredibly talented. If they can create an engaging performance but come to it in a way that is more economical more power to them.
While I’d never agree with Gould that the concert is dead his analogy to film production resonates. Film and live theatre aren’t the same even if they come from the same tradition. Why not think about music recordings and performances the same way?
Thank you as always for these great topics y’all explore on SF!
It seems like some of the "VST or real?" examples compared high-fidelity VSTs to real instruments that were either unfaithfully recorded or designed to subvert our expectations of what they should sound like. The piano one that both hosts got wrong stuck out the most as an example of this.
Yes, that comparison was intentionally misleading. It's basically a "What I think sounds better" comparison, instead of actually knowing the VST's or how they sound.
The first piano VST was obviously cheap and terrible (a high quality grand piano VST sounds completely indistinguishable), while the real live drums were clearly poorly recorded compared to the clean VST. To me, both of the orchestras sounded fake, and could've easily both been achieved with VST's. The second piano example also both sounded terrible and fake, so it's again intentionally misleading.
@@FreakieFan Yeah exactly! The most interesting thing that they could have compared each VST to is the instrument that it was sampled from/modeled on, or the closest available alternative, provided that the real instrument was recorded in a similar room, with similar mics in similar positions, etc. In fact, I'm surprised that the developers of high-quality VSTs don't use this kind of comparison to demonstrate the authenticity of their products, especially for percussive instruments and plucked instruments.
These comments are so nice I feel like I’m reading the notes left in my yearbook 😭😭😭 HAKAS!
Indeed. Not copying and pasting the same dumb memes or the same opinions over and over again. Really a gem in youtube in these turbulent times.
I’m so happy Nahre is back! Great episode, guys!
Most modern VST's are simply recordings of live instruments spliced for every single note with multiple levels of dynamics and different styles of articulation. There's also Pianoteq, which models exactly how a real Steinway Grand piano creates sound, and is so realistic that Steinway officially endorsed them. Given this, it's no surprise that it's hard to tell the difference! Most of the time, they literally are real instruments!
with that logic, a single single sine wave oscillator is a real instrument as it generates its own sound rather than being sampled
a very broad concept.
a lot of things are literally real instruments, but still sound like shit :D
the latter has little to do with the former.
pianoteq wasn't all that until version 4, 3 still had the problem where it either sounds good on the high registers but not on the lower, or the other way around.
but yeah, pure romplers seem to be on their way out a bit and slowly replaced by hybrids that also include acoustic models.
The way I could tell Is if you listen to the direction the sounds are coming from via surround sound headphones you can very easily tell cause the real recordings will sound much less dynamic when it comes to the direction of the sound.
@@artemis3392 This doesn't match the reality of how VSTi's are sampled, usually with MORE mic positions and articulations than live performances. The VSTi has more dynamic options than the average human player. Now, you are correct when you talk about, eg. programmed drums in rock and pop where the producers 127 the hell out of velocities, but if you don't do that, its indistinguishable from real drums...because they ARE real drums. And a much better drumset recorded with much better mics that the vast majority of drummers will ever have access to
@@Tritium21 I think she is trying to say what you said, but didn't say it as well. Because virtual instruments have top notch recording set-ups, the one that surrounds you more is more likely the virtual instrument.
Great video! My producer and I experienced a lot of this when making our first album. For the second piano real vs virtual clip, my theory is that the first clip was a virtual patch simulating a real one, and the second was a real player playing a digital piano.
Wait....this is allowed?
THIS IS ALLOWED?
My god....I can feel the weight off my shoulders lifted from this pressure of being flawless during recordings.
Not saying we shouldn't strive to be our best possible self in our element, but the pressure of "having to get it right, or else...." just feels gone now that I've heard these professionals speak to this topic.
Thank you so much for creating this video. You have no idea how much I needed to see and hear this message!
Thank you for doing this segment highlighting the negative impact editing has on the mental health of classical musicians. It is such an important message that needs to be shouted from the rooftops! Even the greatest musicians make technical mistakes, and that’s ok!
the crazy thing is how accessible all of this audio/video editing software has become. It's not just famous artists with record deals, but normal people using freeware with a decent pc who are making pristine composite recordings.
I've made many classical records with thousands of edits. The pressure on musicians to be perfect has made some of my clients neurotic and pressured to compete in the big leagues. As a producer and editor, I have to appease the needs of my clients and digital editing can really make the difference!
The song at 1:19 is “Sideways” by Nahre Sol for anyone wondering
Thank you stranger!
I'm a classically trained violist, a saxophonist and recently taught myself guitar(ish). my musical background makes me want to strive for one take perfectionism which is a fine challenge but I actually really like the art of editing. It is an art form too, separate but not necessarily lesser than playing a song in one take.
Our wind ensemble in college recorded an album every 2 years. It's definitely highly edited. That's just the process to make a quality recording and eliminate as many mistakes and poor sounds as possible. We would play the entire piece through once beginning to end for a "bed" take and then go back and record smaller sections that the recording producer snd engineer would use later to pick the best sounding clips.
Definitely there's a difference between recording for near perfection and live performance. Jazz is one the few mediums that you will find less of this editing
About Jazz... Hate to tell you, but if it's from a studio then good chance it's been edited. Famously, the song "Brilliant Corners" had to be assembled from many, many takes. "Blue Train" had the piano solo spliced in from another take.
@@alice_atari emphasis on the LESS in my post. I know stuff is edited, but in compared to other music, music with improvised soloing tend to be recorded in larger takes, so requiring less overall editing. Sure, I know they might do the solos multiple times and pick the best one. but I was just speaking very generally that "creative improvised music" (aka Jazz) tends to focus less on heavy editing and more on getting the essence of the music by trying to capture bigger takes rather than micromanaging every note
Frank Zappa often overdubbed guitar, percussion, and other parts to his "live" recordings. This information was in the album liner notes. Editing is an artistic choice. As a fan, I admire FZ's transparency.
Yes full transparency might be the solution.
Zappa was a master in using the studio capabilities in a creative way, he even was honest about the level of accuracy in his recorded orchestral works (LSO album), i love the way he used the studio and early workstations like the synclavier to create electronic music beyond most human/instrument capabilities since the early 80s
Recording technology gives us the ability to create the perfect recording. Zappa was notorious for chasing perfection in everything he did, especially live. Check out his intro to Bebop Tango on Roxy and Elsewhere.
@@aqualili Thanks. I know the tune. I need to listen to it more often!
I doubt artistic altruism is the only factor at play in "editing".
I'm grateful for this discussion. As any musician knows there is so much pressure for perfection. As a singer, we MAY (just from my personal position) be under even more pressure because half the time non-vocalists barely regard and respect you as a musician.To add to that, you listen to these "perfect" recordings of an aria or chanson and it becomes this incomparable standard. It's nice to have somebody lift the veil a little bit.
I'm an audio engineer/audio editor. Let's face it people. I'm also an artist.
Yes you are!
@@SoundFieldPBS O wow you reply to comments! lol.
An audio program advertised on the NYC subway that way. A picture of a mic, and the title, there’s an artist on both ends
You are “fixing” something that is imperfect using a machine, are Monsanto biological engineers artists too? You could make the argument
To clarify, not saying you aren’t. I think all engineering has an element of artistry
I consider myself a serious listener and I love recordings, editing doesn't bother me. We just need to remember that a recording and a live performance are different things.
Any time Sound Field uploads my day is made 💕
I loved finding out how wrong I was during the Real vs Vst test :P Super fun!
That was so fun to edit hahaha
Bruh, getting drums AND piano wrong along with them had me shaking lol
The problem with the 'vst vs real' is it lacks one serious distinction that renders 'real or not' moot. TLDR: The comparisons were against sampled instruments, not synthesized ones. VSTs are simply containers for instruments or effects, which can either be sample based (real) or synthesized (fake). Many vsts contain instruments that use samples ie sampled recordings of piano notes across the keyboard and at different velocities. Other vsts contain instruments and effects that use synthesis ie computer processing of algorithms in real time. Your comparisons were against sampled instruments which means they're both real. The only possible comparison could be the piano but there's really only one vst that synthesizes piano convincingly and that's Pianoteq. To my knowledge no other developer has been able to come close to convincing the most trained ear that it's a real piano. Drums are much easier to tell the difference of but cymbals can be very convincing. I'm certain every comparison was against sampled instruments. I understand for the sake of time and simplicity you decided not to make the distinction but it's extremely misleading. All that could have been said was that they were compared against sampled instruments.
Shmoopy,
It's not misleading because sampled instruments still aren't real.
And even sampled instruments can be identified if you know what to listen for.
The main challenge in producing digital instruments isn't in matching timbre or transients -it's mimicking micro-expressions in the performer's rhythm (which do get distorted in most modern music due to splicing and time-domain edits anyway, so they're not as much of a giveaway anymore), and more importantly: "room sound".
The dispersion patterns of real instruments produce comb filtering and frequency-dependent, phase-shifted decay, which is nearly impossible to replicate.
Recording a truly real-sounding woodwind track, for example, is pretty damn hard because the radiated sound comes from different places from note-to-note. Mic placement alone can cause huge changes, and normally your best bet is to have at least a few mics just picking up the room sound (which can cause its own comb-filtering headache).
It's actually not super hard to pick out once you know it's there.
That said, I think their point still stands, and most people aren't going to be able or willing to tell the difference between quality VSTs and recorded instruments in the the near future, unless they're an experienced recording engineer or a pretentious audiophile.
Also it is probably better to use the term 'virtual instrument' as there are many audio plugin API's like VST, a number of which are popular in different industries, which is why most virtual instruments/effects support multiple plugin API's, and a lot of the time they also work outside of a host/DAW.
VST is a proprietary brand name, and not the essence of what that segment was about.
As an audio software developer the use of that acronym in this context felt quite strange.
When I was 19, I was a member of our university's concert band. This would have been in 1965.
I was amazed during our recording session for the annual LP how many takes were recorded, sometimes, in 4 or 8 bar phrases.
The conductor would tell the sound engineers, "Mark that one as good. Mark that one as a maybe.", etc.
Thanks for the video.
Of course edits are readily used when making creative content like this. Even Yo-Yo ma does as well. Always think "if the camera changes, theres a edit"
Love the video and the perspectives!
It's always so funny to me when people outside the industry don't realize how much editing goes into pretty much all records. This is just how music production works. It's not about being authentic (most of the time), it's about the final product being the best it can be. Sometimes that means the tiny mistakes are best to be left in, sometimes fixing them is the right move. It all depends on the specific needs of the project, but neither way is disingenuous. I totally understand why the general public (or even many amateur and some professional musicians) would be confused or concerned about recordings being "faked," but that's just how this works.
If the final cut of the record is like a finished painting, the composer picks the colors, the musician's performance is the paint, the recording program the canvas, and all of the equipment and plugin software are the brushes. There's a few more steps in music making than a painting (most of the time), and typically more people are involved, but as much as the composers and performers are artists, the real masterpiece is crafted by the engineer.
TL;DR: Music is made with magic and sound engineers are wizards.
Not sure if anyone pointed this out yet, but at 2:54, the piece is Chopin's Op.10 No.1 Etude in C major. There might have been a mix up with Schumann's Op.13 etudes, another famous etude set.
Happy to see a Sophie track as an example of heavy processed electronic music :')
I watched Zimmerman’s recording of the Chopin Ballades so many times, and didn’t notice the bench switch.
Nowadays everything is based on the great montage. Even I knew much of these informations, this video inspired me to think how composers and performers from the past anticipated the present. Furthermore, this video brings out very important questions as:
Do we need perfect performances at all?
Why we need that perfection?
We are human beings and music is connected with all what we feel. That feeling at that exact moment doesn't need to be manipulated or edited even if it's not perfect.
On the other side, if "concert is dead" , this kind of approach made me think of so many artworks based on mimesis by using sound montage and that it could be even very creative and progressive approach to new artworks.
Thank you for posting this video!
Don't mind me... just posting to boots the algorithm. This whole channel is criminally unrated!
We love to see it
Thank you for the video, I did not really think about how classical recordings were edited, but it makes sense. I think there obviously should be a balance and it should be tasteful but I think it’s ok. If anything it made me miss going to live concerts more! The only exception would be if I watched a concert on UA-cam and it had the word “live” I expect it to not be edited. There needs to be SOME none spliced recordings so we don’t inflate our expectations when we go to an actual concert, but unfortunately there’s no way to tell right now. We need a word like “organic” for recordings
this show is so good
I once decided to go down the transparency route, and quickly realised it didn't quite achieve the outcome I wanted. Then I thought of chefs who don't have to give out their recipe. Let the end user just enjoy the end product, they don't always need to know the process.
speaking of editing, the editing in this video is spot on!
Hey thanks so much 🙏🏽
I found the background music when people were talking really distracting.
@@paulmdt1 Me too
Excellent episode. I never thought about edited classical music.
So much fun. Some of the issues with listening to recorded real vs VST instruments is that further effects such as compression can create a lot of distraction (either applied at the time or added afterwards). You weren't really comparing like with like in a recording. Hope that makes you feel a little better :D
These were my thoughts
Terrific topic. Great panel and hosts. A treat to have Nahre back. 😎🎶🤔🎵😎
This was a great episode! Thank you, Nahre! Thank you, LA!
Such a great episode!! Y'all never miss with these 🖤
Thank you so much for this video! I had no idea classical music recordings were edited. I always assumed performers just did multiple takes and went with the best one. I agree that the standard of perfection is really harmful. I'm a piano teacher, and so many of my students have a fear of performing because they're afraid of making mistakes. I try to encourage them by emphasizing that EVERYONE makes mistakes and that it's okay. I hadn't considered how recordings can negatively contribute to that fear. I believe that the most important thing for every musician is to do your best, enjoy your music, and express yourself. Time to go and send this video to my students :)
The main difference between the sound construction in popular vs classical music is that in popular music the editing is mostly done in the vertical direction (constructed track by track) while in the classical domain it's more horizontal oriented (take by take)
I've worked as a sound engineer for a company who builded the recorder/edittors that were used for a while by the Emile Berliner Haus (Deutsche Grammophon) and have editted a classical guitar album myself. 300 edits on an album is not uncommon.
Whoa this is gold!!! This really hits home - my recordings are unedited as many of them are for piano competitions which don't allow editing. My UA-cam recordings are done on a real piano with one camera angle in one take, so no editing or splicing is or can done; and so there are mistakes here and there, blemishes. I start thinking whether I should record on a digital piano to edit out mistakes like many other channels, but feel like if I start, it'll be hard to go back:P There's a healthy balance of musicality and accuracy (does a mistake or two really detract from that performance/recording?). With so many note-perfect edited recordings around, the subconscious expectation for perfectionism, especially in competitions, results in progressively less emphasis on musicality and more on the feat of note-perfect performances. It definitely takes a toll on our mental health with the pressure of note-perfect performances, and I feel this pressure. Currently I try embrace the fact that recordings may not be perfect and try to put more focus on the musicality - preparing beforehand as well as I can, but when it's time to perform or record I try to focus is on what I want to express. It's still a struggle, but it's good to know I'm not alone.
Yeah I totally agree with you and I go about my recording process in a similar way too!!! :) I remembered when I first started tracking vocals I was sooo critical of every little thing cuz esp when mixing its so obvious - but now Ive learnt to let it go - its ok to have a few mistakes here and there if the emotion and what I wanted to convey is present :)
Well said, that’s part of why I like jazz-allows improvisation on a theme with less emphasis on playing the same thing in one way with no deviation-more like what classical music used to be, ironically, from my understanding-I know chopin and liszt improvised a ton.
Who's gonna talk about music schools and competitions that require that tapes be "unedited" yet only accept recordings that are note perfect? 🤔
I seriously doubt that they expect note perfection. This isn't your lie in April ... They do expect technical capabilities and excellence though.
I can't even compose note perfect
THEY'RE BACK! And never better, this was so much fun. One thing to add is a lot of popular music "live concert albums" are stitched together from multiple performances or on private sound stages, like what Arthur described for classical recordings. Boingo Alive, Stop Making Sense, probably many more. Even the most experienced bands might never do a flawless live take of a song, so its "true form" is by necessity a pastiche.
Excellent stuff as always guys.
The reality is that production/composition/editing is COMPLETELY different from LIVE performance. They are inherently juxtaposed as a dichotomy.
The BEAUTY is in both being able to produce a composition of quality for crystalization in the annals of time AND being able to replicate it as accurately and emotively as possible in a LIVE setting, where the sound is destiny bound to becoming ether and vanishing. If it's not recorded it will exist purely as a memory for those spectating. The 'edited' version is to serve as a remind for that experience. Live performance is the mastering of both crafts. Without the former the latter would be less effective, and vice versa.
That reality cannot be avoided, and many a great artist have died upon it's hill in martydom to it's Truth.
What a great video. I had never considered this side of recording - my own experiences with it being extremely limited, it just never occurred to me that anybody would even have an opinion. I have never recorded in a studio - but I have been part of recording sessions for mass-choir performances and a few other such things. "Live recording" in the more accurate sense, I suppose? Things like the state choir (ACDA) performances, and university choir concerts. Nothing was ever said about takes or editing, of course - not to the choir members at least! And I honestly could not tell if any sort of editing had really been done, even to my decades-old cassettes from ACDA, except for the minimal cutting of the applause between pieces.
I can certainly see that the power of editing opens different possibilities, though. And that aspect of "get it note perfect the first time" is SUCH a huge pressure. I doubt I could have articulated it back in my college days, but thinking about the one recital performance I did...yeah. I don't remember, nearly 25 years later, whether I was being recorded for that concert or not. I only remember being so anxious that I was sick halfway through (thankfully, in an intermission, not ON stage, but yikes anyway). Many artists and musicians that I know already struggle with some level of perfectionism, all on their own. To have MORE expectation of an impossible standard loaded onto your shoulders because "it didn't sound like that on the recording" - maaaaaaaan. I can't even imagine the kinds of negative feelings that would cascade, if I was in that position.
This fascinated me, too, because I'm in the midst of plotting out some fiction - one of the characters HAS a recording career, and now I know more of what I ought to look for to research how that affects the musician. I'll be ruminating on the questions you raised here for quite some time!!
Thank you again for such wonderful work!
I have seen this video days ago and looked forward to listening, and even at 00:10 I am happy with the subject and the authors. THANKS!
Absolutely love this video. Please make some more on the subject of editing classic music. Also very detailed explanation to why I can't listen to recordings of classical music any longer. Your video literally made my day.
Love this! I also did the VSTi test to professional drummer who couldnt tell my sequenced part was fake :D (after all it was humanized in so many levels, randomization for few precentages in velocity, volume, pitch, eq, time and the actual midi sequencing was already done by imitating how you would play it plus the room reverbs, bleeding etc blabla) You can make all VSTi sound real by making em slightly random in various layers, its interesting.
I'd love to see y'all take a look at some more of the musical styles that intentionally eschew heavy studio editing. Artists as far ranging as Punk, Jazz, Jam Band, and Lo-Fi have all experimented with a "warts and all" approach to the studio, and it's intrinsically part of the intended aesthetic in many cases.
Funny topic! 👍🏻
I am in heavy metal and I can say that over here such debate was at it's peak about 20 years ago.... At first, I was against it mainly because back then I used to found myself disappointed at live shows way too often....
But, watch this! After some time the whole community accepted the idea that we have yet another way to experience each song. These is a studio version and there is a live performance. That made live show even more exciting! So, in the end it'a benefit. 🖤🤘❤️🎸😊
I would love to hear your analysis on Vocaloid and voice synthesizer technologies. The comment on playing each of the 88 keys and editing together a piece and VSTs made me think that that's exactly what Vocaloid producers are doing with the voice, and they've made it its own art form.
My friend once commented on the use of a MIDI flute in a Vocaloid song, saying that even though he could tell it was MIDI, it sounded really good, unlike the usual connotations you have with midi.
I'm very curious what impacts this fairly recent development of meticulously manipulating timbres, transitions, and other details that would otherwise be done "by feel" has on music in the future
This is so refreshing! Thank you for this!
I like to think of editing like use of eraser in pencil drawing. The lines you put down can be changed, they can be improved; Making marks, correcting them, remaking them, it's a modelling process.
The metaphor is not very applicable to live concert, because the moment you make a mark on paper, it remains there to be seen as a record. Even if you do livestream your drawing, the old and new(corrected) pencil make are visible together, unlike with music where a retake breaks the immersion.
You guys really never miss. Every episode is interesting new and fun. Keep it up!
With regards to the listening test to discern real instruments from VST's, there's a lot to be said for the mic that was used for thee real recordings and how they were processed after recording.
Wow I always assumed there was no editing in classical music for some reason and this video is a real eye opener. 9:09 good point on mental health well done for bringing that out, and 11:56 that picture of Bach is so funny !!!
I love how well thought out and detailed these videos are. great work!
The fact they showed the MAGIC BENCH as the first clip has me so ready for a good episode.
I love to listen to music through headphones and I want the recording to be done as well as possible, in addition to the best quality of the performance
you always have incredibly interesting topics.
that's a huge compliment thank you
This series is so well done! Hoping you all get so much more engagement!! 👍 Love the hosts and their unique perspectives! The flow is great.
Now that's a topic completely out of left field (for me at least), but you guys have done it again: I learned something and it was fun to do so! Thanks Nahre and Arthur, and everyone at PBS!
The most common way of editing in the classical world has not been mentioned here: First recording a whole piece or mouvement in one go, then pasting in little bits and pieces to erase the mistakes. In this way, the musical flow of the whole piece is preserved despite the use of editing. In our todays perfection-loving music world this seems to be an ok aproach. Of course, if you stick together hundreds of little edits, then the flow is gone...
A word to the quiz at the end: Modern drum VSTs have sounds very accurately recorded in good studio rooms with world class equipment. So speaking of the sound, it is impossible to tell if it is a VST or a "real" drum recording. The only way to tell would be the playing...
Cool channel btw! Greetings from Frankfurt, Germany
Someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's splicing, which they talked about quite a lot in the video? most of the time editors will start with the cleanest take as a base and then splice in bits and pieces of other takes-- how big those pieces are is largely at the discretion of the editor, but it all falls under the umbrella of splicing.
@@elizar.7037 Yep thats splicing
@@elamorana7400 Yes, that's right! I just wanted to emphasize on the difference between having a natural musical flow with some minor corrections on one hand, and on the other hand sticking large amounts of pieces together, resulting in a perfect but musically inconsistent recording.
THANK YOU FOR KEEPING IT REAL. ALWAYS.
These videos are always so interesting. Thank you for the work you do!
The quality of the production seems really high in this video, i love it
Thought-provoking video.
One aspect not touched on is the way that the selective use of multiple microphones and various amounts of post-processing (EQ, reverb, etc.) distorts the performance as it would have been experienced live, even when the performance is genuinely a recording of a single continuous take of a single performance
A really interesting discussion. I once heard a world-famous pianist playing a lunchtime concert at Wigmore Hall in London. The experience was fabulous, great atmosphere, wonderful warmth and depth. I then made the mistake of listening to the live recording broadcast a week later on BBC Radio 3. I noticed quite a few mistakes, which I had simply had not noticed in the live performance, and I am a proficient amateur musician myself. The experience of the day was not conveyed through the radio to any significant degree. I also remember, from my childhood, my mother's violin class instrumental performances (including mine) recorded on a cassette deck for evaluation purposes, and we used to joke that "this thing only records the mistakes, not the music!!" - My suspicion is that by perfecting recordings beyond what's possible live, we try, futilely, to compensate for the live, direct human-to-human experience that no recording equipment will ever be able to capture. That said, I am amazed, and sometimes scared, what level of perfection even live performances have reached nowadays. I feel it is to the detriment of livelihood and humanity.
Really good video! As a music student, I've always had problems with my mental and physical health due to my uni's expectations. The pressure is incredible. I lost scholarships/grants over a few mistaken notes on piano exams! Even during the pandemic, we were expected to perform flawlessly on (almost illegally orginised) live exams. Professors who listen to perfect recordings expect the same level of perfectionism from students, which is insane. I think in this aspect editing recordings is harmful. It wouldn't be such an issue if classical musicians recognized that recordings are not the same thing as live performances, and perfection is not the ultimate goal to pursue.
Amazing episode! Really interesting discussion!
Awesome video as usual. This one got me thinking quite a bit! Great job! :)
For me, it really depends on the goal of the music itself. If the work is supposed to be a straightforward, performance style recording, then I prefer less editing. I'm a drummer myself, so taking drums as an example, as long as it's not poorly played, I often like to hear drums that aren't perfect. The more the drumming feels like it was fit to a click track, the less human it feels to me. It's those imperfections that give it heart.
However, that's not to say that something feeling less human is always a bad thing. That's when drum machines can be interesting to me. When the piece isn't trying to mimic the performance of a human, but rather is trying to sound inhuman. That's why a lot of electronic, futuristic music doesn't bother me. Because the goal isn't to sound like a person on a stage, it's to be this external disembodied thing. Some electronic artists take this to the extreme, remaining completely anonymous, as part of the illusion.
Basically it all boils down to honesty. Honesty between the listener and the musician, but also honesty between the musician and themselves. Is the artist trying to fake something by editing, or are they trying to make something by editing?
P.S. With regard to live performances, I'm only a mediocre musician myself, so I am almost always impressed at a live performance. I know what they're doing on that stage, even if it they mess up here and there, is very stressful. I don't expect perfection, I just want the artist to succeed in whatever they are trying to bring to life. Sometimes that's using honesty and vulnerability, like in a lot of solo instrument performance in jazz or classical. Sometimes that is something more like a show, such as musical theater, a rock opera or a ritual-esque metal performance. Whatever it is, I try to enjoy it on its own merits, rather than comparing it to some impossible recording standard.
This episode it's amazingly intresting! Thank you 🙏🙏🙏
Super interesting vid! I honestly didnt expect classical music to have any edits besides mixing ones
This is gonna be a super insightful video!
Glenn Gould loving recording is funny since he wouldn't stop singing along with his playing. You can actually hear him on many recordings.
I heard that many musicians complained they could hear the edits in Gould's music where he spliced pieces together. He would ask him to point out where, and they always got it wrong.
@@gabrielsroka In the analogue days, it was painfully evident where the edits were. In the digital remasterings of Gould’s recordings, it is virtually impossible to find most of them.
Artur Schnabel: "recorded music is an evil betrayal of life because the human being the original is forgotten"
Its so weird hearing this as a negative, cause like, music being this almost otherworldly entity made by humans initially but existing on its own eternally is one of the reasons I like music at all.
I especially like video game music BECAUSE of its disconnection to humans. The surrendering of the ego, creating music to serve an atmospheric and emotional function rather than speak to the specific performant skill of the creators is so satisfying to me. Not that I don't then go and appreciate the people behind it, but that further understanding of them is usually irrelevant to my enjoyment of the piece and I think that's amazing. The music becomes an autonomous entity.
would be interesting to hear what Schnabel would have to say about tracker music lmao
that's a great way to put it, I totally agree. I think for schnabel, music was this ephemeral thing, existing only in the performance space and then lost as soon as its played. that is the 'human' quality to it. of course, music can be a ton of different things at once and that's what's so great.
Superb, superb topic to delve into. Virtually all music students place their musical heroes at "god-level" in their minds and forget that even the best musicians' recordings are not one takes, but a high-level recording process. Dispelling this false notion is important. Totally supportive of this ✊
I love this channel. I like how these episodes give classical music publicity, while not condemning contemporary music. Having Nahre as the classical music representative and Arthur as the modern representative is really refreshing.
I got all the comparisons answers correct. However, I could not say why, as they were indeed very similar. All I can think is that there were some very subtle nuances in timbre purity, and dynamic shifts or fading, that hinted at a kind of perfection that would be unlikely to come from even the most skilled hands.
1:54 please tell me the name of that song is fr "Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin!)" 😂😭🤣
In the ‘90s (1994) I was asked to go to Saint-Eustache church (in Quebec) to help a team to wrap the recording stage of the Symphonic Orchestra of Montreal.
So I arrived I bit earlier and slide into the place quietly between takes. It was a huge stage with 200+ choir and all the orchestra in standby. The director was Charles Dutoit and they were recording Berlioz’s Troyennes. They were late on schedule. So Dutoit was quite impatient.
Then I was surprised to see they were making _punch-in_ and other overdubs. Dutoit had a small wedge monitor at his feet and they started about 8 measures of playback, Dutoit started to beat the tempo and they literally punch-in ALL orchestra + choir in the shot. Nobody was intended to make a single mistake for this (you could feel the pressure). It was so stressful that at the next standby I went to see the control room Decca had installed in another part of the church. Everything was recorded digitally on bulky recorders about the size of dishwasher each; there was about three or four of them if I recall.
I’m a professional musician myself, made a lot of studio sessions, but never thought you could edit such a huge orchestra like this with choir, especially with punch-in!!
My view of classical orchestra’s recording changed radically that day. This OSM album earned a lot of prizes and honors afterwards.
The obviousness of real vs. sampled instruments (what you refer to as "VST") depends strongly on the music and instrument. Percussion instruments (including piano) are easily imitated in samples while the differences for winds, strings and especially vocals are much easier to detect. Also, some music lends itself well to sampled instruments and the distinction is difficult to discern while some music makes the difference extremely obvious. For example, the first part of the Copland clarinet concerto (the slow part) is likely difficult to discern between live and sampled instruments, even for professional musicians. But continue on to the cadenza that follows and the difference is easy to discern.
I think VSTs realistic-ness is felt mostly on performers. MIDI data like velocity can only store from 1-127 different dynamic ranges from pianissimo to fortissimo; compare that to a piano that has an infinite amount of dynamic range. Of course there are ways to enhance virtual performances like reverbs or delays, but ultimately an acoustic instrument has an experience no artist is willing to replace.
I think the new version of Midi is going to have a higher velocity resolution.
It was a bit of time ago when I went to music school in germany (i reckon maybe in the USA it would be different) - but I wish that for the future musical recording (at least the theory) should be taught maybe as much as music theory. I put some energy into learning what is possible in the mixing room the whole last year (for some reason I didnt got booked for concert.. who knows why) and now I feel so much more confident listen to recordings. But as well as I am again hitting the practice room (sorry, me was so lazy)I listen to my practicing with different ears.
I love a few one off live recordings I have of classical music.
Mahler 9th with Berlin Phil and Bernstein, where the trombones(?) are missing in a segment of the last movement, is still just crackling with an immediacy that is wonderful.
Another is Richter's live recording of Pictures at an Exhibition where he obviously falters on the opening, but pulls through for a wonderful performance despite the limitations of live recordings at the time.
I do treasure these idiosyncrasies or mistakes that bring me closer to being an audience member.
In metal production, a select few samples are used for certain instruments (drum kick for example) and it often makes different bands sound more similar. Nobody intended it to be like this, but you can't restrict engineers from picking the same kick. I feel like we just need to be mindful of this and not to cheat ourselves or water down the value of both the performance and the engineering.
Super interesting topic. :) Melodyne and Izotope RX are lifesavers, especially when there is only one take to work with (which is all one artist I work with ever does - one and done, whole sonata all the way through from beginning to end, all the movements, just like a live performance…). Fantastic performances with noticeable blemishes can be turned into just plain fantastic performances without blemishes. (For a string playing at least, it would be hard to make much out of a mediocre performance besides make it sound competent. But you can’t add magic if it wasn’t there.)
The piano VST one was deceptive because the real piano was just very badly recorded, whereas real VST samples are often recorded with great care. The difference isn’t in the sound of the instrument, but in the limits of articulation, which might not be obvious at first or in all passages. (I thought the first one was VST, then wasn’t sure after the second one sounded so much worse in tone.)
Strings etc are easier, but even then sometimes only after more than a few seconds of listening - again, they are high-quality recordings of real instruments. Where they fall down is in their lack of variability, expressiveness, phrasing, realistic range of articulations.
because making recording materials is all about to capture the greatest version of our playing at that moments
I appreciate that a recording exists and that recordings are like the idealized version of a piece. I do appreciate transparency and I don't think it's cheating to edit. Perfection at the expense of people's mental health isn't worth it.
I got all but the symbols right on the quiz at the end. Genuinely a pretty fun quasi-ear-quiz.
This is a total sidenote from this episode, but I would love a crossover episode with Terrell Grice where him and Arthur nerd out over Gospel like maybe on more specific aspects than the previous Gospel episode. This one could talk about shouting or improv or the role/history of a music director (especially since Terrell + his team are so great at finding the BEST, most musical artists)
What a great episode!
10:09 "Expectation from mistake-free recordings also puts a lot of pressure on recording musicians"
I am quite relieved that I am not alone in this journey and fully accepted/embraced the unavoidable mistakes as part of the learning process 🙂
I'd never thought about this much in relation to classical music I play mostly traditional folk, and recording edits usually mean "fix the obvious mistakes," but I can see how the mental health pressure can be on a whole other level as classical musicians try to recapture a "perfect" studio recording in a live environment.
One unexpected thing I've found in my own listening is that I actually appreciate a bit of accidental noise in recordings. The goal is, of course, to have as pure and distraction-free a performance as can be, but if I'm listening to a piece and hear a rustle of sheet music or the creak of a chair, I suddenly feel like I'm right in the room with the musicians, and the experience becomes much more immersive.
How fo you finance this?! This is insane! You are doing SOO great WORK!
Look at the logo in the top left corner of the screen lmao
great video, loved the real vs vst section, really funny.