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Music

Problem Solver

  • geek
  • technology
By michael lee ⋅ August 5, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

I just came up with a brilliant solution to a nagging problem!

I’m trying to record vocal demos of an acapella choral piece. In order to get all of the parts to line up with each other, I had been relying on one of two methods. First, I can just map out a click for the entire song, and chase it on each of the parts. This method pays a pretty hefty cost in musicality, though, especially for a piece that is going to rely heavily on a conductor’s sense of phrasing. The second option is to record one part, free of click, and then stack the rest of the parts on top of that trying to listen to and remember the timing of that first part. This works OK if the choral parts are all roughly the same, but is disastrous if you’re doing counterpoint, or any sort of aggressive part writing.

What I really need is a conductor who is capable of conducting exactly the same thing every time I go back and lay in a new track.

The solution? I shot video of me conducting through the song, loaded the video into logic, and now I’m stacking all of the other parts to the video of me conducting! The video tracks with the timeline of the song, so that I’m always following the same phrasing, same timing, but I don’t have to create a complex click map to get there.

The added bonus is that can package this whole thing up, send the project to another singer to do the high tenor parts, and they can track to the same conducting, deliver the same phrasing, same timing. I think that’s a pretty cool solution!

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Discussion

13 comments for “Problem Solver”

  1. That is a cool idea… a very cool idea.

    Who’s the high tenor? I charge $6k a track. No less than 10 tracks. That’s how we roll.

  2. That’s terrible….

    Not your idea, the Warwick hanging on your wall :P…. The idea is great :)

  3. Chad, drop the “k” from that rate and we can talk.

  4. Dude, $6,000,000 a track is just excessive.

  5. Music nerds rule.

  6. I only charge $6 per second.
    But…minimum 2 hours required.

  7. [...] Etc. « Problem Solver [...]

  8. Mike, this is why they pay you the big bucks. Brilliant.

  9. New version of Pro tools records video, so some engineers (like Tim Jaqette) have been videoing conductor as first tracks are laid down, then projecting conductor for overdubs. Same basic idea as what you did, except Pro tools directly supports it, instead of you having to record the video using some other software are import it into Logic.

    In the old days, we recorded a “count track” with the conductor or producer just talking beats onto a track of tape. It worked OK. But this new things is better.

    Isn’t this whole thing just a wee bit narcissistic?

  10. That’s very cool.

  11. Oh interesting! I didn’t know you could do that with PT now… not that I ever need it… but still, that’s a pretty cool feature.

  12. Stick, I think you should video yourself editing comps, and post it on youtube with no sound. Just hours, and hours, and hours of Stick staring blankly at the screen.

  13. Yeah, I’d have to come up with a fancy schmany title so people would think it’s some sort of serious artistic statement.

    “Neopostmodernization of the Human Species” or some such nonsense.

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