First we must get something out of the way: not every music style benefits from recording acoustic instruments. There’s a whole world of music that exists because of the possibilities of electronic (analogue or digital) sound generation and manipulation. We love that too, and this Note is not about those genres. It’s about music featuring (real or simulated) acoustic instruments.In today’s music, these acoustic sounds are often coming from a computer in the form of a sample library, virtual instrument or other digital simulation of ‘the real thing’. It sounds pretty good, is easy to work with and cheap. So why would we hire a professional session musician – or play instruments ourselves – instead of programming sounds?

A phrase often used in the ‘man vs machine’ debate is the ‘human imperfections’ that humans bring to a performance. And there is some truth in that: imperfections can be welcome in a music recording and yes, happy accidents do happen sometimes. But in the context of music production, this way of looking misses an important step: every ‘imperfection’ can only make it to the final mix, if the music producer chooses to keep it there – not fix it, replace it, or use another ‘imperfection’. In short, while serendipity can play a role in creating and recording musical material, the production process that comes after it is rather deliberate, not spontaneous. That’s why we like to turn the phrase around: instead of romanticizing the flaws in human performance, why not talk about the perfection that a great player can bring and the imperfections of the digital simulations?

And excellent example was a recording session we recently did with the Dutch String Collective. In this case, they played as a 18-piece ensemble. And their playing replaced a carefully produced computer version of the string ensemble, a ‘mock-up’. In this video, you can hear an A-B comparison between sampled strings and the real players:

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Why do the real players sound so much better? Is it because of imperfections? To be sure,  there are some imperfections to be found – altough it is a good performance. What you are hearing is the third take, also the third time these players played music they had never seen or heard before. This is normal for a recording session – but for other recordings, the players might rehearse and we might do more takes. And to be fair: the computer version could perhaps also sound slightly better if we spend more time on it. So there are some imperfections, on both sides, but that’s not what makes the humans sound better than the digital mock-up.

To the contrary: we venture to say that difference in quality comes from striving for perfection: the degree of perfection these players reach in mastering their intrument after a lifelong study. Perfection in playing together. In their performance of the dynamic markings (playing gradually louder and softer). In short, perfection in the specific way in which they play this music in this specific musical context.

In the computer version, the exact opposite is happening: these computer sounds started their life as perfect recordings of a perfectly playing string ensemble – no imperfections there – but they were recorded note-for-note, not recorded for a specific musical context. When using these computer sounds, you can (rather painstakingly) program in an approximation of a human performance. But that is no match for a bunch of great musicians, organically shaping the sound of their performance in real time in response to what’s happening in the music. This goes for all the performance-related issues when using computer instruments: as a producer, you are trying to force a musical performance onto material that was originally recorded to be versatile and therefore rather generic. When you are recording a musician, it’s the other way around: you get a specific performance of a specific piece of music in a specific context. A drummer playing a groove just right, a guitar player adding some dirt to a track exactly when it’s needed – that makes all the difference.

Lastly, composers (and music producers) are musicians, but they are not necessarily the best players on any instrument. Multi-instrumentalist like Jacob Collier are rare. While we are not shy of playing our own instruments on our own music, we like to challenge ourselve (and our clients) to expect more: to get the best players for the music we are creating. Compare it to a film shoot: in some cases, you might choose a videographer who can film, direct and edit. Quick and easy. But if you want to do something a bit more ambitious, you bring in specialists and expand the crew – DOP, director, lighting, editor etera. Although it’s a rather old-school approach, we feel the same should go for a music production. Don’t use a one-man-band, expect a team of specialists. In this comparison, the session musicians would be the actors in your film. You really want good ones, that bring their best performance.

Credits

The recording featured in this Note was part of the Shared Sessions project initiated by BCMM, courtesy of Dutch String Collective and Groenland Studios.