Tom Petty - 100 Takes To Record a Song:

Robert Herndon said:
He'd go broke if he was on a commercial studio's payroll.

Most of what we do is three takes or less....or you'll be looking for a job.
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When we recorded at a studio here, we did our parts in fits and starts. It was pieced together from multiple takes. While I agree sometimes working to perfect things can bog it down, we never each got through a full take in one shot. It does make each part better, as it were, and the end result is as good as it can be. Producer is picky that aay.
Although I would like to try laying down some stuff with thee whole band sometime (his studio really coildn't accomodate it) just to see, I have no issue doing the same part 8 times and picking the best take, for each part of a song for each performer. Some parts were done in short order.
Think Boston 1. Likely not done in a hurry. I don't think that makes one look for a job if it is your band. I am not a studio musician that gets hired out. Imkight have been satisfied after 3 or so takes but producer wanted to do it this way.
I am ok with it. I think the end product is what counts.
 
Jethro Rocker said:
When we recorded at a studio here, we did our parts in fits and starts. It was pieced together from multiple takes. While I agree sometimes working to perfect things can bog it down, we never each got through a full take in one shot. It does make each part better, as it were, and the end result is as good as it can be. Producer is picky that aay.
Although I would like to try laying down some stuff with thee whole band sometime (his studio really coildn't accomodate it) just to see, I have no issue doing the same part 8 times and picking the best take, for each part of a song for each performer. Some parts were done in short order.
Think Boston 1. Likely not done in a hurry. I don't think that makes one look for a job if it is your band. I am not a studio musician that gets hired out. Imkight have been satisfied after 3 or so takes but producer wanted to do it this way.
I am ok with it. I think the end product is what counts.
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There's no rule that says you must do it this way or that way.

I enjoy - I make a game out of - doing things in one take. My personal rule is I will NOT overdub, ever.

Sometimes that means a second or third take, bit at $300/hour of someone else's money, I want to give them what they are paying for.
 
Robert Herndon said:
There's no rule that says you must do it this way or that way.

I enjoy - I make a game out of - doing things in one take. My personal rule is I will NOT overdub, ever.

Sometimes that means a second or third take, bit at $300/hour of someone else's money, I want to give them what they are paying for.
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Absolutely!
When it is our money, we just do whatever it takes!! I overdubbed whatever needed it, even if it sometimes didn't really improve things at all.
If we did everything in 3 takes we would do an entire song in a day. It was $1500 per song. Might as well take our time.
 
Jethro Rocker said:
Absolutely!
When it is our money, we just do whatever it takes!! I overdubbed whatever needed it, even if it sometimes didn't really improve things at all.
If we did everything in 3 takes we would do an entire song in a day. It was $1500 per song. Might as well take our time.
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@Jethro Rocker - I've worked on projects where the producer liked overdubs and, TBTH, the songs were like a patchwork quilt, but they turned out OK in the end.

Ultimately, if a producer wants me to stand on my head, I'll do it.

With Radio AtÖlia, everything is done in a single take, just like a commercial project. If i screw up a guitar part, i re-record that entire track. Thats just my personal preference.

The studio is in the drummer's wine cellar at his winery in Murieta, California, so after we knock out a song, we go out and eat and spend a good amount of time just visiting and chatting, then head back into "the hole" to mix and master.

But, we only have Sundays right now to work on Radio AtÖlia projects, so we try to get as much accomplished as possible when we meet.

Our new song, "Borrowed Time," took about 1 hour to record, start to finish. The drummer 'auditioned' several drum tracks over a period of several days, drumming along to the copyright demo, until he ultimately felt that a cross-stick technique was the "right feel" for the song.

I wrote 'Borrowed Time' - words and music - on one of my 15 breaks at Fender, from a simple phrase my drummer shared with me.

True, it's not a complex arrangement and we wanted to keep it simple from inception, but the bizarre feel and time signature were also retained to keep it faithful to the original concept.

The guitar tracks are doubled, back to back and in real time, and the notes/phrases are intentionally struck at slightly different time signatures throughout the song to give it a kind of rambling, live feel.
 
I guess I should back the truck up here a sec. When I think about it, The main guitar parts of songs were generally recorded straight through and likely around 4 or 5 takes. Producer would pick the "best".
That said, there wasn't a huge difference between any of the takes IMO. I worked for a long time writing these parts so they were ingrained.

The backing vox took many parts together. By nature I am not a singer as such and there were strange harmonies with complex lyrics so producer played the parts on a keyboard for us to sing to. That was time consuming.
I think I was thinking about the entire process - the other guitar player singer is a very basic one and since I came up with the guitar parts, they were easy for me. For her not so much so her parts were pieced together big time.

With the vox, the producer at one point said that when both girl's were singing together, one would pronounce a certain word differently slightly from the other. So he would work on enunciating that word till it sounded the same!!
That's pretty picky but that is the stuff he listened for. If a whole band was laying down basic tracks together, one slip up from one person and it all gets done again.
 
Jethro Rocker said:
I guess I should back the truck up here a sec. When I think about it, The main guitar parts of songs were generally recorded straight through and likely around 4 or 5 takes. Producer would pick the "best".
That said, there wasn't a huge difference between any of the takes IMO. I worked for a long time writing these parts so they were ingrained.

The backing vox took many parts together. By nature I am not a singer as such and there were strange harmonies with complex lyrics so producer played the parts on a keyboard for us to sing to. That was time consuming.
I think I was thinking about the entire process - the other guitar player singer is a very basic one and since I came up with the guitar parts, they were easy for me. For her not so much so her parts were pieced together big time.

With the vox, the producer at one point said that when both girl's were singing together, one would pronounce a certain word differently slightly from the other. So he would work on enunciating that word till it sounded the same!!
That's pretty picky but that is the stuff he listened for. If a whole band was laying down basic tracks together, one slip up from one person and it all gets done again.
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Yep!!! Very important to nail the vocal phrasings.

I don't miss being in a 5 piece band and recording. It's much cleaner with just the two of us doing all the parts ourselves.
 
Robert Herndon said:
Yep!!! Very important to nail the vocal phrasings.

I don't miss being in a 5 piece band and recording. It's much cleaner with just the two of us doing all the parts ourselves.
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Oh big diff for sure! That would have been pretty easy as, again, I wrote the guitar parts.
Personally I could have lived with 2 or 3 takes and call er a day. Producer would be the ONLY one that hears any difference!!
 
I remember one of the Hendrix movies, where they were recording at Electric Lady Studios. Jimi cut off the band, and they were tracking live on limited tracks. He was saying, "No, no, no man. You guys aren't getting the feel." When starting the next take, the camera pans to Eddie Kramer, and he says "OK, Jimi here we go again. Take 57."
 
Early on, the Beatles were incredibly fast workers in the studio. But later on they did more than 100 takes on a George Harrison tune that wound up not being included on the album.
 
SG John said:
I remember one of the Hendrix movies, where they were recording at Electric Lady Studios. Jimi cut off the band, and they were tracking live on limited tracks. He was saying, "No, no, no man. You guys aren't getting the feel." When starting the next take, the camera pans to Eddie Kramer, and he says "OK, Jimi here we go again. Take 57."
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Or how Mutt Lange took 18 months to produce 'Pyromania.' Wonder how many takes that encompassed???
 
Robert Herndon said:
Or how Mutt Lange took 18 months to produce 'Pyromania.' Wonder how many takes that encompassed???
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With Lange involved, I'd be more suspect of how many hundreds of layers of overdubs were done, and the bouncing down of tracks to clean up enough tracks on the tape to record a few more. Then, mix and bounce down, record, repeat ad nauseum. And then hope you didn't screw up , and then have to start all over again, because overdub session #8 was buried on track number four with three other overdub sessions.
 
SG John said:
With Lange involved, I'd be more suspect of how many hundreds of layers of overdubs were done, and the bouncing down of tracks to clean up enough tracks on the tape to record a few more. Then, mix and bounce down, record, repeat ad nauseum. And then hope you didn't screw up , and then have to start all over again, because overdub session #8 was buried on track number four with three other overdub sessions.
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I've loved what the Mutt could do...
 
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