General Music Chat

Live music has an advantage over the recording in that there is excitement just in being live. The crowd, the setting, the stage, the mere appearance of the performers, the drinks & conversations & ambient sounds & smells & the reality of it all, all combine to enhance the experience of the music in itself.

Recorded music doesn't have that. It's more 2 dimensional. It's stuck in your living room or your car or your work. But it can make the music more filled out, &, well, bigger than a live performance can be. The producer is an invaluable asset to bring a 2 dimensional recording to "life" for the listener.

That being the case, I think that many ppl will appreciate the extras on a recording, & still enjoy a well-performed live act, & be able to accept the differences. They nearly always have, anyway.

If your solo lead is good, & similar to the recording with 2 guitars, pinkflame, your audience will accept it.

I feel like live and recordings are two different things. Lately our group has gotten pretty tight live and we do a lot of spontaneaus things that I wouldnt do recording.

I always liked Rush live cause they sounded so close to the records, of course to me they didnt have much of a live show other than their light show. One of the best Rush concerts I remember Alex broke a guitar string right before the guitar solo in YYZ. I thought this will be interesting, he threw his guitar over the amps and was thrown another one so quick that I dont think he missed more than 2 bars of music.

On the other hand if a group is getting real physical on stage and realy putting on a show I'll give them the benifit of the doubt on their sound, but those bands that just sit there looking bored you better be nailing those parts or Im walking out, hell if your just sitting there Im probably going to walk out any way.

Back to the question, when I record parts on songs I try not to get too wide from the general theme of the music cause I do like to do a good representation live of the music. I think the question was should the producer have added parts, my question is why did the producer think that he should add parts? Maybe you arent that good and he thought you needed some help to make the songs sound better.

I think Capt. Scott nailed it for me.
I want my recordings to be representive of the live sound.
To me the live sound is "THE sound of the band".

I'm going to be in the minority here, but when I see a band live I expect them to replicate the songs. To me, that's the whole point. If I wanted to see a crappy half-ass performance of the songs, I'd listen to a garage band cover them.

To me, the epitome of a live band is Dream Theater. Their stuff's complex and requires immense amounts of talent and skill; I want to see them pull that stuff off live because I know how difficult it is. I don't want to hear Petrucci skip entire sections of songs or have the band leave out a three minute instrumental section just because "it's live". I want to hear it note-for-note so I know that they're pros.

It reminds me of Vernon Reid's solo on "Cult of Personality". That was a one-take solo and he never could replicate that live. I always thought of that as kind of cheap. Then I saw Petrucci live with DT, and his solos are way more complex with parts that are way faster than anything Reid did, and he nails that stuff note-for-note. To me, that's the mark of a great player; he can replicate it.

As for live performances... If it's live and people don't want to hear a carbon copy of the album, well, that's what live is for - throw in extra stuff. Dream Theater's concerts are awesome because they'll frequently do huge medleys of instrumental sections from songs in their repertoire, and they'll throw in little instrumental bits during songs, like the Ragtime theme they threw into Metropolis for the 20th anniversary concert. That's cool stuff.

Anyway, from my perspective the bigger issue is you've got a producer putting solos on your album that you didn't play. I'd never let a producer put something on the album I didn't play myself. That's a cardinal sin in my opinion.

ColorsFade, I couldn't agree with you more...and yes, I do believe that you and I are among the minority. Regarding Dream Theater, that is why I was a big fan for many years (I've kind of moved on to other things). I have seen them live, and their performance was everything that the recordings promised-and more. And your point about them ADDING to the performance at a live show is dead on, and I think pertinent to the original question:

In other words, more is more. Less is less. If the producer in question added something to your songs that improved the quality of your material, then you either need to find a way to re-create it, or at least add something to the performance to offset what you are lacking.
I would be suprised if anyone here would disagree with me when I say that your live performance has to offer AT LEAST as much (quality-wise) as the recording.
If you went to a restaurant and saw a picture of an awesome steak on the menu, wouldn't you be upset if you received a charred piece of gristle instead?

BTW, PinkFlame-Are ya still there?

There is one other aspect to this discussion as well, and that's overdubs.

My comments a couple posts up - I'm mostly referring to passages in a song that require note-for-note precision. There's other parts of songs that, at least from a guitar player's perspective, you don't have to replicate note-for-note. So it really depends on the piece of music.

A couple of examples to illustrate:

First example: "Metropolis" from Dream Theater. The instrumental sections require precision (and the fans know them note-for-note anyway). The band was smart about it when they recorded that song though, and they didn't dub duplicate instrument parts, so they can reproduce that stuff live without having to rely on Milli-Vanilli cheats. They can do that note-for-note, and really, if they didn't, it would sound weird.

Second example (other end of the spectrum): Tonic's "If You Could Only See" - it's got about six different guitar dubbed parts on the album version. But they're filler - they exist to add texture to the song, not as defining note-for-note pieces themselves. Check out a live performance of that song though - two guitars, one acoustic, one electric, and the electric plays a 'mesh' of the parts on the album. It sounds a bit more raw, but it works because the vibe of the verse/chorus comes through.

So... I think it really depends on the song, the particular section in question, and the impact it has on the song - how much do the note define that part of the song. If it's a technical section, or something that stands out on its own in a big way (like the piano part to Coldplay's "Clocks"), you have to replicate it note-for-note. Fans expect it. On the other hand, if it's a mesh of sounds that produce a particular tone/mood/key, you can get away with a stripped-down version of the same thing.

CF, I do believe that I'm agreeing with you, somehow, to a point.

Okay - take Phish's "Stash." An amazing piece of music with stupid goofy lyrics, imho. When they played it live, they did play it note for note, meaning (to me) that it was a composition piece, & not just a "jam." (They were often accused of being a jam band, & I think it pissed Trey Anastasio off, too!) It was awesome to hear those licks & the entire arrangement never stepping a single note away from the recording.

I'll admit that when it's done & done right, duplicating a recording can be great.

However, if every song you do is like that, it detracts from the show, rather than making it a great one. I wanna see the guitarist or the keyboardist or the bass guy step away from the norm & gimme something more. Wow me. And when I buy a recording, I expect it to be impressive & representative of the composer's idea of what it would sound like in a perfect world.

Therefore, I think it's perfectly okay to have a song with a nice big production, which you strip down to play in person, due to the confines of your band's pieces.

If I'm making a demo to display my talents to bars & other venues, then no, I'd never misrepresent myself as a performer who can play all that stuff live, & yes, I'd consider that a misrepresentation.

However, we're not talking about a demo. A recording you put out for sale is not necessarilly representative of a band's performance, but a combination of the composer's or the band's vision & the abilities of the producer to produce that vision.

As a composer, I tell the producer that I want to hear "Mexican horns" in my country song, like Johnny Cash did with "Ring of Fire." (Actually, I think it was "angellic horns" that he wanted, but he got the Mexican mariachi sound.) Doesn't mean those short bursts of melody have to be played live on horns if the part can be played on another instrument in the band you're using. Signature lick is intact. The song still works without the horns. If you're rich enough to be able to hire those mariachi horn-blowers to tour with you to play on only one song, then go for it. Otherwise, cover it as you will.

Now I can understand if some ppl would rather not have the band play certain songs live if they can't replicate them, but certainly you wouldn't deny the composer the right to record his vision, would you?

I'm surprized to find myself in the minority on this subject, really.

Take Paul Simon. A huge talent either as a soloist or when travelling with a kick-ass international band. Does it bother you to hear him perform "American Tune" or "America" without Garfunkel on the latter or the recorded production on either? I love to hear his work most times no matter how it's presented. (I have heard him really destroy "Bridge Over Troubled Water" when he tried it in a reggae-ish style with African singer backups, but although I thought it was a poor rendition, the song still stood up to the assault.)

For me, I prefer when a band does have some of what I call "composition pieces," that are to be played by rote, but they should be kept to a few, & they should be difficult enough to wow me when they're done right. Recording, for me, is more of a representation of what the author hears in his head when he writes the song, & it's up to the producer to bring that idea to life. Live music is much more open to personal expression of the moment, & the limitations of the particular combo's instrumentation.