No story just a question

[Jim Easton]

I had a female vocalist in to record a worship set.

When i pointed out we needed to do some of the tracks again because it was a little pitchy and had heard her sing with more expression live and thought she would want to have a good project representing herself so I asked her to do another take.

Well... she said I have friends who have pitch correction software and they wouldn't make me go through this they would just fix it in the mix.

How do you explain, yes you can fix notes but you can't breath expression in into a performance with software.

How do you handle people like that?

How much should an engineer take on, doesn't the artist have any responsibility in the music they perform any more?

I am embarrassed to let a person like that take a recording out with my name on it. You think the artist would feel the same way its there music for goodness sakes.

[Dave Martin]

I had a female vocalist in to record a worship set.

When i pointed out we needed to do some of the tracks again because it was a little pitchy and had heard her sing with more expression live and thought she would want to have a good project representing herself so I asked her to do another take.

Well... she said I have friends who have pitch correction software and they wouldn't make me go through this they would just fix it in the mix.

The right answer is to tell her that sure, you can tune her vocal track, but all she'll have is an in-tune recording of a crappy performance.

The specifics of what I tell clients like that depends in large part on the client and whether I'm hired to engineer or produce. I've talked to singers about having a recording that doesn't show them at their best embarassing them, I've talked about the recording bringing shame to their families, and in one (memorable) conversation, I tasked the singer about her apparent unwillingness to put forth any effort to glorify the Lord. (That, by the way, was my argument of last resort for that singer - if it hadn't worked, I would have printed the tuned vocal and moved on to the next project.)

[3daudioinc]

How do you handle people like that?

Use the Exciterizer.

[Jim Easton]

Use the Exciterizer.

Do you hook that up to their chair or is it like a drink mix... unfamiliar resource...

[3daudioinc]

Do you hook that up to their chair or is it like a drink mix... unfamiliar resource...

Sorry. I assumed everyone had read every post from the past week or so.

http://www.3daudioinc.com/3db/showpo...6&postcount=10

That's one thing about this forum. There's a lot of thread entangling. If you miss reading something in one section, you may not get what someone says somewhere else. It's complicated like that.

[John Whitmer]

Credit yourself as the engineer, but make her the producer. Seriously...around the producer's neck is where the product goes.

[skywaveTDR]

Hello Jim,
Many times having to deal with talent that is into themselves is a bit of a task. I have done recording of people of all kinds of music in Churches because of a radio show that was produced and I was the one who selected the music. Any singer or musician that knows what they are doing will be happy for a technical person to help them get to a finished product. Have them sing the thing again and give them a cassette or CD of the two performances and let them decide. If you are good at what you do, you will only have to prove it once and then from then on they will be asking your opinion. Recording correctly will be spine tingling while just recording just any way will be just a recording. I come from a tape deck repair background so my machines are doing the best they can, it is then up to the recording engineer to know his equipment- that happens to be me too.