Electronic music - it is "not real"

[Thetyari Estévez]

Well, like I said it's getting out of one person's head into another. If quantisation is somehow cheating, then if you follow that course of logic to the very end, doing anything other than playing it live direct to tape start to finish is cheating. I've always thought of making recordings as akin to painting or sculpting ... whatever it takes is fine, because you're making a document. To me it seems if you have someone who's not getting it on the beat, slow it down, get them to get other aspects of it right, fly it in, quantise it, and off you go. :-) Even The Beatles records are all fly-ins and they were impeccable with their timing.

When I was in music school I wrote a chamber piece that was just incredibly difficult rhythmically. That was Tim Hodgkinson's fault! LOL Getting classical musicians to comprehend rock phrasing along with the nutty rhythms was ridiculous so I ended up recording it line by line, using the score as a track sheet, and quantising everything. It turned out okay and I got to hear what it sounds like. There's a great example of the difference readily available -- check out Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells in its original mix and the new issue's "fixed" version. He basically put the whole thing into something like protools and corrected all the timing mistakes that record was rife with -- you'll be amazed at the difference, and I think it's better and more exciting.

[Jerome]

Sorry have to disagree here. Quantisation is out. And playing live direct to tape (disc actually - never use tape) is my preferred method. It does mean I have to do a lot more takes until I get the performance I want but I do not agree with the copy and paste method of composing where for example a guitarist compiles a solo out of various snippets as opposed to playing the solo in one fluid movement. In my opinion - and it's only an opinion - it makes for a better performance but takes a lot longer to achieve. So be it - each to his own!

[Thetyari Estévez]

Sorry have to disagree here. Quantisation is out. And playing live direct to tape (disc actually - never use tape) is my preferred method. It does mean I have to do a lot more takes until I get the performance I want but I do not agree with the copy and paste method of composing where for example a guitarist compiles a solo out of various snippets as opposed to playing the solo in one fluid movement. In my opinion - and it's only an opinion - it makes for a better performance but takes a lot longer to achieve. So be it - each to his own!

"Better" how? In what way? Not following.

[Jerome]

Sorry not 'performance' as in physical execution but as a listening experience - i.e the sound of the guitar for example decays naturally as opposed to being 'enveloped' out in a DAW because the next few notes in the sequence of the solo were done at a different time (a separate take). A more organic recording of a performance as opposed to a cut and paste one.

[Jerome]

If you can hear it, it's real!