Famous Songs That Have Imperfections

[ImKeN]

I'll kick this thread off with a famous song from 2002 called, "Beautiful."

 

Artist: Christina Aguilera

Songwriter and producer: Linda Perry

Mixing Engineer: Dave Pensado

 

@3:45, you can hear the most noticeable headphone bleed but you can pretty much spot it in the parts where there are no drums:

 

 

 

Here's what Dave Pensado had to say about it,

 

The song was about being beautiful and honest in EVERY way. That bleed is honest. It was one of the most honest vocal performances I had EVER heard. It was actually the scratch vocal. Christina still had the lyrics in her hand. She truly has THEGIFT. So I tried to make the mix (with Linda's guidance) as honest as I knew how. I studied "Imagine" by John Lennon and used that as a guide. To me the bleed at the end was HONEST. When I took it out, I missed it. It sounded too clean and contrived. Linda Perry (writer/producer is a real genious), and records her tracks kinda by feel, and has NO regard for traditional engineering techniques. That is what makes her so special. When I heard the bleed, I thought it would send a message to all the big time engineers (especially the older ones) that it's about the music and song, and not US. I REALLY love it, 'cause most engineers would have removed it, and taken some of the personality away. Damn I'm arrogant. Sorry, but you asked.  - Dave Pensado

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/q-dave-pensado/21106-christinas-headphone-bleed-beautifull.html

 

 

Also, here's an interview where he briefly talks about it with multi-platinum producer, Warren Huart, @9:14,

 

 

 

Hope you enjoyed it!

 

Ken

[The S]

Go to the end of the song and tap your foot/hand, keep a steady beat, then go back to the beginning of the song and try staying in the same tempo.

 

These guys had a blast recording this, one can tell by the fire!!! 

 

 

[Rudi]

On 10/6/2017 at 10:28 PM, ImKeN said:

I'll kick this thread off with a famous song from 2002 called, "Beautiful."

 

Artist: Christina Aguilera

Songwriter and producer: Linda Perry

Mixing Engineer: Dave Pensado

 

@3:45, you can hear the most noticeable headphone bleed but you can pretty much spot it in the parts where there are no drums:

 

 

 

Here's what Dave Pensado had to say about it,

 

The song was about being beautiful and honest in EVERY way. That bleed is honest. It was one of the most honest vocal performances I had EVER heard. It was actually the scratch vocal. Christina still had the lyrics in her hand. She truly has THEGIFT. So I tried to make the mix (with Linda's guidance) as honest as I knew how. I studied "Imagine" by John Lennon and used that as a guide. To me the bleed at the end was HONEST. When I took it out, I missed it. It sounded too clean and contrived. Linda Perry (writer/producer is a real genious), and records her tracks kinda by feel, and has NO regard for traditional engineering techniques. That is what makes her so special. When I heard the bleed, I thought it would send a message to all the big time engineers (especially the older ones) that it's about the music and song, and not US. I REALLY love it, 'cause most engineers would have removed it, and taken some of the personality away. Damn I'm arrogant. Sorry, but you asked.  - Dave Pensado

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/q-dave-pensado/21106-christinas-headphone-bleed-beautifull.html

 

Hope you enjoyed the read,

 

Ken

 

I cant hear anything amiss?!

[MikeRobinson]

To me, Clapton's so-called "temp flubs" were quite intentional.  It's only fairly recently that we started hearing the influence of sequencers with their lock-step (now "dub-"step) timing.  Usually, a performer would more or less ad lib, unless he was performing a part that had to be overdubbed precisely with the performance of other musicians.

[ImKeN]

6 hours ago, Rudi said:

I cant hear anything amiss?!

 

I never noticed it before, not until I heard Dave Pensado talk about it in one of his interviews. Its just headphone bleed(in the form of drums) coming from a rough vocal take.

[MikeRobinson]

28 minutes ago, Rob Ash said:

 

It's difficult to tell whether you are an instigator or just not very bright, Mike.

[...]

Whatever the case, you make ill considered and poorly intellectualized statements which barely possess the grace of being directly related to the gist of the thread.

[...]

I wish you wouldn't.

 

Please do not be offended, Rob, that I herewith simply elect to ... opt out ...

[MonoStone]

58 minutes ago, ImKeN said:

 

I never noticed it before, not until I heard Dave Pensado talk about it in one of his interviews. Its just headphone bleed(in the form of drums) coming from a rough vocal take.

 

I think the producer's reasoning is bullshit to be honest... I understand why he'd want to use the scratch vocal but he's suggesting that he had the option to remove the leaked drum track and I honestly don't think he did have that option, not without messing up her vocal by over-trimming it or losing some of the qualities in her voice. He could have made it less obvious by trimming it from the very small gaps where she's not making any vocal sound at all, but that wouldn't be enough to hide it and then it would just seem like a bad edit.... so I think it was more likely a case of - He knew that was the best vocal, and he knew that the leak wouldn't matter or even be noticed by most listeners, so he just decided f*ck it we're using that take. Dunno why he couldn't just say that.

 

I mean if anyone knows how he could remove the leaked drums from underneath her vocal without messing up the sound of her vocal at all, please tell me! Cause I have a whole load of them to clean!

[MikeRobinson]

Rob, "let there be peace between us."  Any possible point of contention with regard to the work of Eric Clapton, "between myself and another (to me ...) perfect stranger," must necessarily merely be an artifact of the (curious, newfangled ...) Internet-forum digital medium.  Let us therefore resolve to be "two ships passing in the night," and entertain it no further.  

 

Likewise any (and every ...) conceivable "deeper interpretations" that might otherwise appear to be worthy of our mutual time.  I wish not to further engage you.  "Good day to you, sir."

[ImKeN]

11 hours ago, MonoStone said:

I mean if anyone knows how he could remove the leaked drums from underneath her vocal without messing up the sound of her vocal at all, please tell me! Cause I have a whole load of them to clean!

 

I think he wanted to save the breathing in between the lines, that's probably why he didn't take out the most noticeable bleed at the end(@3:45). Taking that out would have made the vocals sound too unnatural or something.

 

I think the best you can do is just carve out as much through intricate subtractive EQ's and precise automations with volume and low pass filters or something? I've never worked with a HP bleed issue before so I should probably create one myself and start getting some experience. 😅

[MikeRobinson]

Like many of us 'old pharts" ... a-hem(!) ... I well remember the introduction of "computer technology" to music.  

 

I was – and I still am(!) – "a computer nerd," but alas I came from a relatively poor (at least, "card-carrying working class") family.  So, while I pored over issue-after-issue of [Contemporary] KEYBOARD Magazine, I could never persuade my parents to buy a single multi-thousand dollar thing that was featured within its pages.  ("Yeah ... sux ...")

 

Nevertheless ... the earliest casualty of the computer was tempo.  Very close behind it was "the killer virtuoso-performance part that was actually ... y'know ... performed!"  (By the end of the decade, no one had any illusions that Eddie Van Halen was not "a serious (OMG!™) GOD, but that was about it ...)

 

However, "let's hear it for ad lib!"    Sometimes I think that it is extremely powerful when a musical line purposely abandons rhythm.  (I tried to do exactly that in both of the B-Part phrases of "YMWG," a song that I recently posted for critique.)  Or, when a performer purposely just speeds-up (accelerando) or slows-down (ritando).

 

Especially in these times, any such move immediately catches the audience off-guard, and thereby attracts their attention, with potentially-dramatic effect.

[MonoStone]

10 hours ago, ImKeN said:

I think the best you can do is just carve out as much through intricate subtractive EQ's and precise automations with volume and low pass filters or something? I've never worked with a HP bleed issue before so I should probably create one myself and start getting some experience. 😅

 

Yeah I didn't actually expect anyone to have an answer. When the sounds are all on one track and happen at the same time, it's just impossible to remove one sound with affecting the other to some degree. 

 

All my recordings have a bit of bleed, even though I record with closed headphones a little bit will get caught by the condenser mic, and then there are all the other little sounds ... passing cars, birds chirping, a bit of hum from equipment etc etc. All you can do is minimize it so that no one hears it, and I trim all (most of) my recordings to remove bleed/noise between singing/playing parts. It's unusual to hear it so clearly on a pro studio recording...but I agree with that producer that the quality of the vocal is more important than having a totally clean recording.... I just think he tried too hard to justify it with some arty farty explanation instead of the simple explanation  

 

Although on a couple of tracks I've deliberately kept the bird chirps and passing cars because it was my best take AND it kind of felt natural, and sometimes even adds... so I get the arty explanation in that respect.... I just don't think leaving a leaked drum track on adds any feeling of 'honesty' to her song, but again...fantastic vocal you wouldn't want to throw out! 

 

Some mistakes are serendipitous ... I think some of the best things come about that way. Just that drum leak isn't one of those mistakes that 'adds' ... as the producer seemed to hint it did.

[MikeRobinson]

IIRC, The Beatles at various times "captured certain environmental sounds of London Town," yet they nevertheless managed to make Millions of Pounds™ from them ... 

[Vara La Fey]

On 10/9/2017 at 8:42 AM, tunesmithth said:

"Heaven and Hell" from Sabbath

The drummer slows the BPM dramatically around the 25 second mark.

I love the song, feel & textures, but the drum track is inconsistent throughout. (speed & jumped "1" counts).

 

 

Tom

 

I never noticed it here - it's a slow grinding song  - but you're right. Sabbath always liked to do basic tracking live, and I think that's simply how it was done in the early days. Many Sabbath tunes have worse issues than this. (Supernaut speeds up dramatically by the end. You can hear guitar mistakes from Tony and rimclicks from Bill throughout their catalog.) It didn't help that Bill has said on several occasions that he was so drunk during H&H sessions that he doesn't remember doing about half the album. That was when he was so out of it that he let Tony set fire to him, and he's said he still has the burn scars.

 

I've never seen a contradiction between tracking live and using a click. The drummer has the click, do a couple run-throughs with the band, then hit Record. I was a drummer in the 80s and always clicked, even for local bar-demo CDs. I do not have a metronome in my head. I even got one or two of my bands to practice that way a few times, cause I warned 'em that I was practicing with the click and that some things would change....

[The S]

On 2017-10-09 at 5:42 PM, tunesmithth said:

"Heaven and Hell" from Sabbath

The drummer slows the BPM dramatically around the 25 second mark.

I love the song, feel & textures, but the drum track is inconsistent throughout. 

 

 

Tom

 

Forgot about that one, always when I listened to it way back when and today too, I desperately want to run up to the drummer and help him along! - Oh noo don't drop it! Come on now, pick it up!!! You can do it buddy!!!  Great great song though!

[starise]

The question is, do you want a computer deciding how and when you should play? No human being alive can maintain a perfect tempo over a long period of time. I like that sometimes emotion can play a part in the groove.

 

Don't get me wrong, sloppy playing is just sloppy playing. I'm not excusing sloppy playing, while that in and of itself might be subjective. 

 

I have to wonder if those who were raised on perfect loops might be more critical of human playing.

[Pahchisme Plaid]

I don't have the keen ear that some of you have to pick up on imperfections, but sometimes what some might consider an imperfection might just be what gives the song character.  I know when listening to guitar playing, finger picking, particularly acoustic,  sometimes you can hear the fingers sliding down the strings.  Frankly, I love that sound.  It might irritate others.  Also when it comes to timing, sometimes I think it can add to the appeal of a song to slow the drum beat or guitar strum or eliminate it for a period for effect sometimes.  That followed by something intense can sometimes have an emotional impact.

 

When doing all the music electronically, I think a purposeful imperfection, strategically placed, gives a more authentic feel.

It seems that it would be not quite so easy electronically to get such emotional inflection with the instruments as it might be when a person is "feeling" their part in relation to the rest of the music in the moment.  I hope I'm not off topic.

[starise]

I think the songs posted as examples make my point. They are mostly run away hits....with some less than stellar issues, timing included.

 

The people buying that music didn't seem to mind.

[MonoStone]

Sometimes mistakes or sloppiness works...sometimes not. In the case of that Sabbath song it's just irritating. The whole thing feels out, and it's made worse because the music sounds drunk whilst Dio sounds so sober, serious and perfect. It would have been less an issue if Ozzy was singing because then they'd all have sounded a bit drunk  

 

I'm not sure this Hawkwind thing is a mistake at all... maybe it's right.... it messes with my head every time... but to me it's like it begins with no rhythm or tempo I can really hang on to and then when the song kicks in it's like they all suddenly got just a glimpse of clarity through the acid haze... And I love the way that feels. Again, not sure it's a mistake, or even sloppy, just sounds wrong yet right to me!

 

 

[starise]

Tom, yeah, you have me all figured out. I'm a scum sucking low life with low musical standards  I don't deserve to own guitars and keyboards  There's nowhere for me to go but up.

 

I  give the casual listener a little more credit.  You can't  group all of them together in a way that gives any quantifiable evidence for the argument IMHO. Trained ears miss things and untrained ears hear things.

 

I agree, one person didn't make these decisions in times gone by, which makes these examples all the more amazing. I mean, this had to go through multiple levels of management and it STILL happened. Even a blind squirrel gets a nut every now and then. Heck, sometimes they find the mutha load.

 

4 hours ago, Rob Ash said:

Music is an organic, living thing. There is a danger in attempting to impose too closely guarded a sense of perfection or precision to it. The most adept of orchestras throughout the world are led in time and tempo by a human being. The most celebrated music of all time, and the most celebrated performances of all time did not come to be seen as such because they were slavish, soul consuming, epic, monstrously difficult, relationship destroying endeavors.

 

Imperfection is the human condition. It may even be the ultimate human strength. Attempts to eliminate all imperfection from a piece of music produces only sterile, lifeless, soulless noise. As far as music in concerned, this is the cost, and the ongoing danger to what we come to define as music at all, brought on by the advent of the digital age.

 

I read all of what you posted Rob and liked it. I like this the best.  This is where I see the need for a balance. If we decide to tango with technology I don't think we should let it rock the scale. Yes we have  incredible tools at our disposal. Sometimes they are over used. The souls ebbs and flows. Doesn't march to a cadence. If music can't be the vehicle the soul rides in what good is it?

For me it's about expression with as much accuracy as is humanly possible. In the end , if it's you, why add to that, right?

 

[Pahchisme Plaid]

Uh...weren’t we just having a light discussion? 😳.   

 

For that matter, in regards to my input, it’s totally true!  I’ve never played drums, never been in a band and I’ve only been writing a short time compared to many here and certainly wouldn’t qualify myself as a professional YET.  Tom’s comments are totally appropriate in regards to MY qualifications and should certainly be weighed differently.  I was stating from my perspective as a listener/observer.  I’m not insisting I’m right. Nope/nada/ah-uh!   I’m posing my take on it.

 

Soooo....how’s the weather?