Rick Beato on quantising in rock music

roberty · April 2019

Freebird said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:
I've done a fair bit of research in this area as part of my job, and basically all any of the software packages are doing is adding some gaussian noise to the note start position in order to simulate humanness.

But that actually isn't what humans do when they're playing music.

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Source: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/PT.3.1650

An LRC is a long-range correlation. It's basically a description of how a drummer adjusts their synchronisation with the rest of the music over time. This affects the perceived humanity of the performance.

It would be nice to have a system where you could set the BPM per bar or section, with algorithmic control over the rate of increase/decrease.

You can set tempo and time signature changes in Pro Tools, and most DAWs I expect

Stuckfast · April 2019

Try the timing correction in Melodyne 4 if you ever get a chance, it's amazing what it can do while retaining a natural feel.

But recording to metronomic beats has been around since the 1970s at least. It's pretty much the sound of disco at least from the Bee Gees onwards.

Freebird · April 2019

roberty said:

Freebird said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:
I've done a fair bit of research in this area as part of my job, and basically all any of the software packages are doing is adding some gaussian noise to the note start position in order to simulate humanness.

But that actually isn't what humans do when they're playing music.

----

Source: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/PT.3.1650

An LRC is a long-range correlation. It's basically a description of how a drummer adjusts their synchronisation with the rest of the music over time. This affects the perceived humanity of the performance.

It would be nice to have a system where you could set the BPM per bar or section, with algorithmic control over the rate of increase/decrease.

You can set tempo and time signature changes in Pro Tools, and most DAWs I expect

Yeah, you can, but I'm thinking about something much better than that which mimics a real drum player

Freebird · April 2019

roberty said:

Freebird said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:
I've done a fair bit of research in this area as part of my job, and basically all any of the software packages are doing is adding some gaussian noise to the note start position in order to simulate humanness.

But that actually isn't what humans do when they're playing music.

----

Source: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/PT.3.1650

An LRC is a long-range correlation. It's basically a description of how a drummer adjusts their synchronisation with the rest of the music over time. This affects the perceived humanity of the performance.

It would be nice to have a system where you could set the BPM per bar or section, with algorithmic control over the rate of increase/decrease.

You can set tempo and time signature changes in Pro Tools, and most DAWs I expect

Yeah, you can, but I'm thinking about something much better than this. A fully controllable intelligent algorithm which can mimic a real drummer, and can recreate the timing, energy and velocity changes of a real live performance.

Stuckfast · April 2019

I actually think the idea that quantising is the problem is misplaced. A good studio drummer is perfectly capable of playing bang on the click to a pretty high degree of precision, without quantising. Gridding things is only really necessary for sloppy musicians or when you actually want it to sound unnatural.

For me the real problem is that people stopped making rock records by recording a band playing together. Instead they got into this thing where the drums would be tracked first and then everything else got built up through overdubs.

WiresDreamDisasters · April 2019

Stuckfast said:

I actually think the idea that quantising is the problem is misplaced. A good studio drummer is perfectly capable of playing bang on the click to a pretty high degree of precision, without quantising. Gridding things is only really necessary for sloppy musicians or when you actually want it to sound unnatural.

For me the real problem is that people stopped making rock records by recording a band playing together. Instead they got into this thing where the drums would be tracked first and then everything else got built up through overdubs.

But even in the 1960's music was made in a multi-tracked fashion. You couldn't say that The Beatles for example were ruined by their multi-track approach.

Asynchronous multi-track recording dates back even further, to the 1940's. Les Paul apparently was the pioneer of that approach.

Point being - there definitely has been an increase of relying on editing to fix sloppy musicians, and there definitely has been an increase in relying on the tools for tightness.

Freebird · April 2019

Stuckfast said:

I actually think the idea that quantising is the problem is misplaced. A good studio drummer is perfectly capable of playing bang on the click to a pretty high degree of precision, without quantising. Gridding things is only really necessary for sloppy musicians or when you actually want it to sound unnatural.

A good drummer can absolutely play on the click, but a lot of the time they don't want to. They like to drive the song by speeding up and slowing down using techniques such as dragging and rushing, and they also do stuff like playing off the beat, etc. If you load some old songs into a DAW you can see how far they drift off the click.

Stuckfast · April 2019

Well, exactly -- if you have a good drummer you can choose whether you want that person to play in a metronomic fashion or in a freer way. The invention of quantising made it easier to do the metronomic thing but by itself it isn't responsible for a lack of 'feel' in modern records. There are rock records that are deliberately metronomic and sound great, like some Krautrock stuff for instance, or early Devo. One of the earliest uses of a drum loop in a pop hit was on the original version of Step On by John Kongos, which is an ace record and has a ton of feel.

Also, I don't think the Beatles made many records entirely through overdubbing, did they? Most of them started with a band performance to which vocals, bass and some other overdubs would be added later.

roberty · April 2019

Stuckfast said:

Also, I don't think the Beatles made many records entirely through overdubbing, did they? Most of them started with a band performance to which vocals, bass and some other overdubs would be added later.

Yeah the default way of recording rock is everyone tracks together to get the vibe and then you throw everything out except the drums

Tom Morello posted this in IG the other day, looks like RAtM did record live in the studio:

PolarityMan · April 2019

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Grumpyrocker said:

I use Easy Drummer 2 for my meagre recordings and it has a humanise feature to avoid hard gridding. Makes the beats sound so much more natural.
I've done a fair bit of research in this area as part of my job, and basically all any of the software packages are doing is adding some gaussian noise to the note start position in order to simulate humanness.

But that actually isn't what humans do when they're playing music.

"People often perceive perfectly timed computer-generated
beats as artificial and lacking a human touch. Professional
audio editing software therefore offers a humanizing feature
that artificially generates rhythmic fluctuations. However,
those built-in functions are essentially random number generators
producing only uncorrelated fluctuations—white
noise. The result is a rough ride: a rather bumpy, jerking
rhythm. As an alternative approach to humanizing music,
one could more closely imitate the human type of imperfection
by introducing rhythmic deviations that exhibit LRCs.
To test how humanized music is received by listeners,
our group, in collaboration with a recording studio, edited a
pop song into two different versions—one humanized with
white-noise fluctuations, the other humanized with LRCs.
Asked for their preference, respondents significantly chose
the LRC version over its white-noise counterpart."
Source: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/PT.3.1650

An LRC is a long-range correlation. It's basically a description of how a drummer adjusts their synchronisation with the rest of the music over time. This affects the perceived humanity of the performance.

I could pretty accurately predict where my drummers inaccuracies would be and simulate him...not sure that would help though

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Rick Beato on quantising in rock music

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