Hello dear people,
I am currently in the middle of recording piano and got curious if I am approaching this a bit too ineffective. At the start I tried to comp together a composition from multiple takes but I was never happy with the result.
Because of this I went the "hard" route, where I keep recording for hours to get the one take where I am happy with everything. This can often get pretty unhealthy, especially when I get nervous throughout playing the take and then at the last second misplay. So I was wondering if the majority of you here comps their compositions or if you also gave up on that.
If you have a nice approach that doesn't make you want to tear out your hair please let me know.
How do you record?
- Many takes and glue them together
- One perfect take
Definitely advantages to both approaches. It's nice to get it in a straight through performance but being focussed on being error free can inhibit expression.
I know producers sometimes try to 'beat the comp', especially with vocals. There's something about comping together different phrases that really focusses your mind on what you want from each section, and then sometimes if you go for a complete performance afterwards it can end up even better than what you just comped.
Multiple takes until I get it right, hoping I don't lose too much hair in the process.
Personally i can relate. Doesn't matter if i play a piece 10 times in a row perfectly, as soon as i start recording i keep messing up. I feel like i become so focused on pressing the right keys rather than being in the moment and feeling the music that it doesn't sound as good as usual. it becomes kind of robotic sometimes....
That being said. I've done both. i've done a full recording in one take (not ONE take, but i mean, played the whole thing at once) and i've also done 2-3 takes and edited them to make one. If you do this, i would recommend that MOST of the piece is already done in one take, and avoid doing too many takes... so it's only little edits and not major ones. It could become difficult to mix them together and make the final version sound a bit strange...
I used to never do this because i felt like an imposter, like i was cheating... but i've watched interviews of famous musicians such as Einaudi, Jean-Michel Blais and others, where they talk about this and how a lot more often than we think, there's multiple tracks being merged into ONE 'perfect' track.
Virtually all my solo piano pieces are improvised. When I feel the need to create I sit at the piano, set the DAW going and play whatever I feel. This could result in one piece lasting for 10 minutes including mistakes and crap playing. I then whittle it down by editing to around 3 minutes worth that I consider worthy of release. So, a bit of both options you identify.