Old skool vs New Skool editing.

[Will.]

Is old skool editing better than new skool editing? I began my mixing career in 2008. Since then - I have learned so much skills and new plugins. I then began digging deeper into the legacy of great mixing tips that was used by great engineers and now, I seem to be stuck with their methods today. ? 

Going back and forth with plugins giving us the ability to do the same techniques, and to create the same sounds with presets in most 3rd party plugings, I still seem to find myself doing things using old techniques. It makes it exciting to mix and bring something different everytime.

What are your thoughts on this and how do you do things? Has anyone adapted the new way of mixing? What is your go to techniques - especially on sidechain. "Plugins or routing?"

I'm in my early 30's and I'm the only one in my age group of mixing engineers going about this method. Peace.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Will_Kaydo

[user 905133]

JMO: Everyone has different workflow preferences and dislikes. For me I have several workflow modalities I feel comfortable with for different music creation, performance, recording, editing, etc. tasks. I enjoy seeing others' workflows and preferences because I often learn new-to-me ideas that I can gradually incorporate into what has become personally intuitive.  Sometimes I see a new-to-me way of doing something I really like and I choose to immediately break from my ingrained patterns and start using as much as possible to retrain myself. Sometimes, though, no matter how much I try to retrain myself, it is just too easy and far more efficient to go with the flow of personal traditions.

 

 

[msmcleod]

I've got to admit, I'm pretty old-school in my approach.

When tracking, I try to record the sound exactly as I want it to be heard, which means recording it with compression  +  EQ etc already applied. The only exception to this is guitar, where I record both the dry and the effected signal. Vocals also tend to be recorded dry.

With mixing, any edits are destructive. If I'm getting rid of bleed or rumbles in silence, I'll permanently remove it. Same with any pitch or timing correction. My reasoning being that if it sounded bad enough to need to be edited, then there's no way I'd want to keep the original... though if it's someone else's performance, I'll just keep a backup of the original files. In saying that, I'm much more likely to re-record a bad take than resort to editing.

The end result is a much simpler session to work with, less plugins/automation, and much less strain on my CPU.

With Cakewalk though, you can effectively do both by archiving / hiding the original tracks and work with copies.

[Will.]

On 5/15/2020 at 2:47 PM, msmcleod said:

With mixing, any edits are destructive. If I'm getting rid of bleed or rumbles in silence, I'll permanently remove it. Same with any pitch or timing correction. My reasoning being that if it sounded bad enough to need to be edited, then there's no way I'd want to keep the original... though if it's someone else's performance, I'll just keep a backup of the original files. In saying that, I'm much more likely to re-record a bad take than resort to editing.

Oh-man! This is so right on my tongue. I stress if i don't record a take as perfectly as possible. I'd say 65% of the takes I do, I hardly need to trim the gain. On that guitars though - I seem to just do dry takes all the time. Reason for this obviously is different songs require different feel to it. So, I rather prefer doing all its processing inside Cakewalk - using old mixing methods. 

I'm a huge fan of the chorus effect on tracks, using only one take. I don't use a chorus plugin - I prefer to make my own effect with the recorded file, then hide it so it is not as noticeable in the track. Awesome stuff.  

Edited May 18, 2020 by Will_Kaydo

[Will.]

56 minutes ago, User 905133 said:

JMO: Everyone has different workflow preferences and dislikes. For me I have several workflow modalities I feel comfortable with for different music creation, performance, recording, editing, etc. tasks. I enjoy seeing others' workflows and preferences because I often learn new-to-me ideas that I can gradually incorporate into what has become personally intuitive.  Sometimes I see a new-to-me way of doing something I really like and I choose to immediately break from my ingrained patterns and start using as much as possible to retrain myself. Sometimes, though, no matter how much I try to retrain myself, it is just too easy and far more efficient to go with the flow of personal traditions.

 

 

It's just fun stuff. 

[StudioNSFW]

I've been very old skool, but am embracing tracking stuff dry now, and doing eq and compression after the fact.  Even using off board gear rather than VSTs, it's another layer of control. 

Back when my interface was just  Delta-1010s , the pre-amp had to be offboard anyway so I ALWAYS did the initial compression/EQ up front, but now with good preamps in my interface I am liking being able to non destructively twiddle the knobs until I am satisfied.  

Edited May 15, 2020 by StudioNSFW

[GreenLight]

I produce electronic dance music and don't really do any "external" recording of vocals or instruments, but I think I tend to keep too many options open anyway, saving a lot of unnecessary stuff in my projects... ?

5 hours ago, msmcleod said:

With Cakewalk though, you can effectively do both by archiving / hiding the original tracks and work with copies.

Do you guys hide a lot of tracks? I find it a bit "scary", since there's no indicator that there are hidden tracks in the session.

I recently hid a bunch of tracks and then forgot about it a day or two later, causing a lot of confusion and searching until I finally realized they were hidden... ?‍♂️

Edited May 15, 2020 by GreenLight

[StudioNSFW]

the H key on my keyboard is getting worn out...so, yeah

[Will.]

1 hour ago, GreenLight said:

 ?

Do you guys hide a lot of tracks? I find it a bit "scary", since there's no indicator that there are hidden 

I do Hiphop/EDM/House and Pop. Give it some time. Your fingers will marry the "H" key soon.  The cool thing about all those hidden tracks is - you can always go back and change a note ect. It's like having two magical red shoes.

 ?

Edited May 15, 2020 by Will_Kaydo

[GreenLight]

On 5/15/2020 at 9:39 PM, Will_Kaydo said:

I do Hiphop/EDM/House and Pop. Give it some time. Your fingers will marry the "H" key soon.  The cool thing about all those hidden tracks is - you can always go back and change a note ect. It's like having two magical red shoes.

 ?

Hehe, I hear you! I'll give it a try!

But the more I think about an indicator that tracks are filtered, the more I like the idea. It reminds me a bit of Excel - if you have filtered a column, the text "Filtered" appears in the bottom status bar to remind you that you are not looking at the full spreadsheet. I think it's a fitting analogy - in Cakewalk you are kind of "filtering" the track view. ?

[lapasoa]

It's not a question of old school or new school. I used Cakewalk for many years reading manuals and mixing hundred of projects.  I've found myself using every way to do things, literally everything to achieve the result I like. Sometime the result is by chance. Other times after exploring  new way to make things the result also satisfies me.

There is no rule. Explore and find what you like.

[RobertWS]

When you look at a painting, do your really care if it was painted using a horse hair brush versus a nylon brush?

 

 

[Will.]

11 minutes ago, RobertWS said:

When you look at a painting, do your really care if it was painted using a horse hair brush versus a nylon brush?

 

 

Lol! Yes, kind of. ? Cause visual is everything. I totally get your analogy, definition is extremely important in both Art and Music. It's all good, no stress. ?

Edited May 17, 2020 by Will_Kaydo

[rsinger]

As a guitarist I'm not sure about old skool and new skool. It seems like a lot of guitar fx started in studios. Flanging was done by slowing down a tape reel after the signal was recorded. I thought Kramer put Jimi's guitar thru a Leslie after it was recorded. Duane Eddy's echo chamber was a water tank, and so on. I think some engineers can be pretty creative.

[Will.]

16 hours ago, rsinger said:

As a guitarist I'm not sure about old skool and new skool. It seems like a lot of guitar fx started in studios. Flanging was done by slowing down a tape reel after the signal was recorded. I thought Kramer put Jimi's guitar thru a Leslie after it was recorded. Duane Eddy's echo chamber was a water tank, and so on. I think some engineers can be pretty creative.

With New skool in guitar recording today. Most "oldskool" guys I've seen, does it completely dry into the project. Sometimes with just a little compression. Due to many option available with plugins these days. Here we can alter it how ever we want.

The question with this is. Do you use that chorus effec plugin on guitars still or Do you create your own chorus effect just by using one take on the left channel - and record a second, third and fourth take over it and end up with 16tracks on the left. Or -  do you go for a chorus plugin and do four takes. 

Edited May 18, 2020 by Will_Kaydo

[RobertWS]

7 hours ago, Will_Kaydo said:

 

The question with this is. Do you use that chorus effect on still? Do you create your own chorus effect just by using one take on the left channel - and record a second, third and fourth take over it and end up with 16tracks on the left. Or -  do you go for a chorus plugin and do four takes. 

 

What ever sounds good....is good.

[mettelus]

On 5/15/2020 at 8:47 AM, msmcleod said:

With mixing, any edits are destructive. If I'm getting rid of bleed or rumbles in silence, I'll permanently remove it. Same with any pitch or timing correction. My reasoning being that if it sounded bad enough to need to be edited, then there's no way I'd want to keep the original... though if it's someone else's performance, I'll just keep a backup of the original files. In saying that, I'm much more likely to re-record a bad take than resort to editing.

+1, and the other reason for this is to save the CPU. Repeatedly processing things that should be baked in (i.e., you are never going to want them back) creates an unnecessary burden.

[rsinger]

20 hours ago, Will_Kaydo said:

With New skool in guitar recording today. Most "oldskool" guys I've seen, does it completely dry into the project. Sometimes with just a little compression. Due to many option available with plugins these days. Here we can alter it how ever we want.

The question with this is. Do you use that chorus effec plugin on guitars still or Do you create your own chorus effect just by using one take on the left channel - and record a second, third and fourth take over it and end up with 16tracks on the left. Or -  do you go for a chorus plugin and do four takes. 

Guess I'm still confused. Are you saying using plugins is new skool?

[Craig Anderton]

The biggest difference I see (and yes, this is a generalization!) I see is that old skool engineers asked "what if?", while new skool ones ask "how do I?"

[Will.]

1 hour ago, Craig Anderton said:

The biggest difference I see (and yes, this is a generalization!) I see is that old skool engineers asked "what if?", while new skool ones ask "how do I?"

@CraigAnderton My point exactly Sir. Thank You.