I think this session thing really works

[Dubsounds]

You know I've been thinking (dangerous) that the tracks Danny did for his Dubby FM session are the best thing he's ever done and beat his earlier versions of these songs by miles.

Same can be said for Liquidscreamer with their really vibey live set (warts and all and stripped down).

Gavin blew me away with "See Thing" as well but not having heard these before, I can't say if they were more or less vibey than the originals but there was definitely a lot of energy in them.

I think what I'm trying to say is that by rushing you guys to complete songs at short notice and insisting that you play as much as you can by hand without over producing everything has certainly shown me that this is where the VIBE is missing from a lot of our own regular stuff. It's in the warts and all that the magic exists and the tiny timing errors (human feel) don't sound as bad as we might think when splattering everything with that dreaded quantising button.

Do you guys think there's a point here?

I think Danny in particular has probably learned a hell of a lot from hi and I doubt his approach will be quite the same.

[dlm21uk]

I agree.

Whist re-doing the parts of Watching (that I originaly did by placing the blocks in the right place within Orion etc), I looked at the same sections after playing them by hand to see how close to the quantise mark I was, and suprise suprise I was fractionaly out on about 60% of the markers, BUT it sounded so much more alive.

I will defo be heading away from perfect timing in favour of a more REAL feel in the future. It is somehow more rewarding too, cos whilst playing all the manual bits for these songs I found it best to either shut my eyes or sway my head from side to side (stevie wonder stylie) to try and feel the music rather than play it by numbers. I loved doing that.

[rpb1966]

Yes I agree here guys, Shaun you do have a very valid point, I also think doing the songs this way give a `raw feel` but too me it sounds much more alive than if you were spending at least 3 days on one drum track, quantizing to death until its sounds too fuckin robotic.....

I`ve nearly finished one of the songs I`m doing, and all I need to do now is add vocals, but doing it this way gives it a `real RAW feel` and I`m not spending weeks on the production side of things, maybe a splash of reverb here and a few drum timing issues there.

Dan, I loved your session matey, especially Mindless, sorry I never sent you my contibution to it, I never got the time to do it, I`ve been so kin busy, but a great session in all, nice one BelchyMoog ;D

Great show Shaun, and Mirror In The Bathroom was fuckin soup-herb matey. 10/10 ;D

[Gavin]

I see what youre saying Shaun.Its true having a deadline does speed up your creativity. Usually i sit on a track for a month before going back to it but doing my three like that was very refreshing.
("Keep your smile " was recorded May last year )
There is supposed to be a guitar solo on "You gotta see..." but i was having problems so just played it on the keys instead toi save time.
The drums on "Dominant" are played live with no quantising (you could prolly tell this though).

[Dubsounds]

gavin said:

The drums on "Dominant" are played live with no quantising (you could prolly tell this though).

Truthfully, no I didn't so i guess I had my listeners ears on and not my picky 0.03ms out detectors engaged That's a good thing right? Proves it "felt right" ;D

It's the working with live instruments that's the key I think.

For instance, how about this idea:

Where you have a sound with a sloping attack (like say a string sound), when you play it live, you automatically adjust your timing so that the note hits on the spot. In other words you play slightly ahead of the note. Now if you enter that into a sequencer (unless you're on the ball) you quantise the thing and bingo... all the strings are behind.

Computers don't hear music and they don't know about things like that. They just do what you tell them.

Yup, keep it human