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#38803 10/08/09 04:57 AM
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If you sold more than 20 million albums of your work, and were doing the latest...well here is Michel Buble's take on that. His new album comes out this week, and he's on Opra on Friday, though I've never seen that show...the article is here:

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/mus...-personal-touch


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Glad you passed that along, John.
Quote:

"The more tiny imperfections that I heard, the more organic it felt to me, the more authentic it felt for me, the more I felt this is what turns me on. This is what made me fall in love with Sinatra and Nat and Basie and Ella and Louis ..."



Kinda makes me wonder why are we Forum tunesmiths trying to "scrub" our own stuff free of imperfections. Of course he never said what the nature of those imperfections were. Or what was tolerable. Still, the more you try to refine, the more you lose that initial energy - there's a trade-off I guess. Midi, RTs and RDs have their limits.
Guess the thing is to have some "live" (hopefully vocal;)) elements in each song we produce.

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Doesn't sound to me like this person really knows much about the recordings of Sinatra and Nat and Basie and Ella and Louis, many of which are still the "goto" example of great recording technique, Mastering and, of course, performance.

CBO's famous "April in Paris" session comes to mind immediately, among many others. Classics, recorded well, performed without flaw. Single take stuff, no overdubs, everybody in the same room, maybe that's what the fellow really is trying to say.


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Maybe he's just not too happy hearing the cut and paste method of providing a bass or drum line in a tune, etc. The concept of using the sequencer to loop the nicer parts throughout the song. There's a sort of musical 'perfection' in that method, but it can sound a bit artificial. One doesn't suspect Ole Blue Eyes of using a harmonizer or pitch adjuster, either. Ditto for The Count's music. I believe there's an organic feel to a tune that is recorded live, with the musician's playing off each other instead of a lot of overdubbing taking place.

Of course, I've been accused of being old fashioned in that respect, and indeed I am. But that kind of recording has a certain soul and charm for me, as opposed to using Pro Tools to do so much cleansing.


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Least I say anything to offend my Canadian brothers...

Buble ... he radiates an infectious enthusiasm for what he does and where he is...and accepts tiny imperfections....

Well, lah-de-dah and an extra do-dah for luck!

He's got the God given pipes...he vocalizes...and practices to keep
that voice "solid" and that boyish enthusiasm and accessability really sell.

Of course there's always some very good male competition out there
so getting the first-call musicians, the best recording set ups, and good orchestrators are the key. They are expecially important today as the record industry feels the pressure of the internet.

Buble hits those vowels and stays on 'em, he has perfected his gift for swinging along with the material...and no doubt like every band singer, he "love the book" of the American (for the most part) Standards Song Book.

It's just that....ahh....well...he doesn't strike me as someone who paid dues and lived life to the fullest, like you know who.....
(not me) altho I tried, in my own small way...

Guess you can tell if a singer really has lived it. That's why I get mesmerized by gals like Shirley Horn, Peggy Lee...and lots more...
even Keeley Smith and Jane Russell..now there are two great big
mesmerizing things!! Oh...were talking voices and song interpreters/one-takers?? Even Jack Jones, Sammy Davis had that
I've been there done that lilt and look. Buble, to me, is a pretty boy with lots of talent!


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When we record a band, we always try to get the initial tracks down with everyone playing.
The feel and interplay are a lot more 'real' that way. We use line out on everything but the drums. That way all the tracks are clean takes of each instrument. If someone insists on micing and recording their cabinet, it gets done later.

Of course we have to go back and redo vocals, as there is always drum bleed. Often the vocalist is also the guitar player, so we don't try to isolate him during the initial recording. We try to get a real good performance from the vocalist afterwards, so I guess we do a mix of sterile and live here.

Then each track is scrutinized for 'oops' and often a note or two can be borrowed from elsewhere. In the real world, it is not often that you get to record the kind of talent that can nail it all in one take. There are lots of bands that want to be recorded, and not all of them can pull off the one shot performance.

The great artists can. Many live recordings to verify that. However, not all of us spend the day recording that level of talent! Often those 'cleansing tools' are a necessary part of the day.


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Well, I agree with the above. Pro Tools is a life-saver for erasing the fews flubs and mistakes and making the tune really shine.

My only concern was using a sequencer in place of good musicians. I've always believed that the fine musicians sounded better, even if not perfect. It's the tiny imperfections that make the music interesting to me, and give it character.


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Well, rharv, I view the recording of a guitar band as being vastly different from the recording of the instances given in this thread, namely jazz singers accompanied by bigbands.

Two entirely different situations with two entirely different goals.

The guitar band studio methodology is centered on the multitracking situation, the overdub, manipulation, editing, etc. Many of the classics in this genre could not have been created otherwise.

Then again, on the other hand, I've heard a few attempts to record bigbands using way too much multitracking technique and IMO, it generally always suffers from the effort.

Kind of hard to take isolated line outs from the trumpets and saxophones, besides that, I think that something physical happens when their sounds mix in the air that does not happen the same way at all when mixed via digital or analog electronic summing busses...


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"something physical happens when their sounds mix in the air that does not happen the same way at all when mixed via digital or analog electronic summing busses..."

Agree whole-heartedly.


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Just picked up Mr Buble's CD. It is OK.

Track List:
1. cry me a river
2. all of me
3. georgia on my mind
4. crazy love
5. haven't met you yet
6. all i do is dream of you
7. hold on
8. heartache tonight
9. you're nobody till somebody
10. you've got what it takes
11. at this moment (my fav track)
12. stardust
13. whatever it takes

Also, 99% of the CD was mixed and produced by David Foster

Trax

Last edited by Muzic Trax; 10/09/09 12:18 PM.
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So a new article surfaced today about this:

He said:

"Don't get me wrong," he says. "I'm really proud of my first three records. But they were done in a very slick way. They sound really good; sonically, they're beautiful. They're all about perfection -- everything is recorded onto ProTools, and if something isn't perfect, you pull it out and fix it. There are no mistakes.

The producer was David Foster. The article is below.

http://www.lfpress.com/entertainment/music/2009/10/10/11363021-sun.html

Last edited by John Conley; 10/10/09 03:30 PM.

John Conley
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So anyone got a comment after the 2nd post, Steven Foster being the one involved and the new info?

Of course I suppose that David Foster being a can eh dian means he's knowin' squat about music too.


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FYI, I don't know if anyone ever retracts what they say, but the fact he doesn't know what he's talking about needs a second look. Read the link to the article above and consider that his producer, David Foster worked as producer for the following musicians. David Foster's clients are:

* Whitney Houston
* Céline Dion
* Barbra Streisand
* Cher
* Andrea Bocelli
* Christina Aguilera
* Josh Groban
* Charice
* Donnie McKlurkin
* Renee Olstead
* Sheena Easton
* Kenny Rogers
* Michael Bolton
* Deniece Williams
* Night Ranger
* Donna Summer
* Faith Hill
* The Corrs
* Vikki Moss
* Brandy
* Luis Miguel
* Peter Allen
* Richard Marx
* Cheryl Lynn
* The Bee Gees
* Mariah Carey
* Gordon Lightfoot
* Kenny G
* Destiny's Child
* Red Army Choir
* Vanessa Williams
* Anne Murray
* Olivia Newton-John
* Deborah Blando
* Lisa Marie Presley
* Lara Fabian
* Dolly Parton
* Julio Iglesias
* Jennifer Love Hewitt
* Michael Jackson
* Madonna
* Alice Cooper
* Gloria Estefan
* Blake Shelton
* George Harrison
* Rod Stewart
* Seiko Matsuda
* All-4-One
* Ricardo Montaner
* John Parr
* Al Jarreau
* Kenny Loggins
* Az Yet
* Janet Jackson
* Natalie Cole
* Yolanda Adams
* The Tubes
* Michael Bublé
* Chicago
* Peter Cetera
* Katharine McPhee
* Air Supply
* Paul McCartney
* Joseph Williams
* Brian McKnight
* Backstreet Boys
* 'N Sync
* Kevin Sharp
* Peter Cincotti
* Dionne Warwick
* Boz Scaggs
* Toni Braxton
* Jessica Simpson
* Chaka Khan
* Earth Wind and Fire
* The Keane Brothers
* Seal
* Bryan Adams
* DeBarge
* Daryl Hall and John Oates
* Clay Aiken
* Kelly Clarkson
* Barry Manilow
* William Joseph
* Tommy Bolin
* Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds
* Marilyn Martin
* Gary Barlow
* John Travolta
* Leann Rimes
* Monica
* Roger Daltrey
* Restless Heart

Wow the Red Army Choir....


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Yes, David Foster has worked on MANY top selling projects, and I have a lot of respect for him.
I have a couple of his own solo albums too (David Foster)
However his reply to Buble sums up his recording methodology-

Buble-
"I said, 'I need to do this in a different way. It has to be far more organic. I don't want to record to a click track. I don't want to tape everything separately. I want to shove those microphones in the room and I want the band just to go in there and play. I don't care if the tempo speeds up or slows down. I just want it to feel great. I want those drums to be bleeding into the bass, and the bass bleeding into the strings, and them bleeding into my vocals. I want this to have some real edge.' "

Foster's response? "He said, 'That's not what I do.' But eventually he said, 'OK, we'll give it a shot.' "


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John,

What are you trying to get at with this thread?

Here are my opinions for what they are worth.

1. I don't care if anyone is Canadian or not as it pertains to music. I like quite a bit of music that comes out of Canada, if I actually find out that's where it's from. Some radio stations I used to listen to back in Detroit actually were Windsor-based stations. I listened to them specifically because they didn't play the standard pop music that came from the US-based stations. Nowadays, most of my in-vehicle listening is podcast downloads from across the world. If it's interesting music to me, I listen to it no matter where it's from.

2. I don't listen to many of the artists listed as being produced by David Foster as I find them quite boring - excellent songcraft and production from Mr. Foster notwithstanding. This includes Michael Bublé. Of that list, only The Corrs, Seal and The Tubes grab my attention as artists that interest me musically. Many of the rest of them belong to a large group of general pop music that only gets heard by me when I'm at the dentist or in the supermarket and these artists are on the radios there.

Neither of these opinions reflect an attitude that Mr. Foster knows nothing about music. It's quite obvious that David Foster will likely go down in history as one with the Midas touch as it pertains to writing and producing popular music. There are perhaps a small handful of persons alive today that could also be categorized as such.

I quickly breezed through the articles you referred to and I don't believe either of them infer that he doesn't know about music.

All that I can infer from the articles is that Michael Bublé wanted to try things a different way this time - recording 'off the floor' would be a new way of doing things for him. I don't see it any different than when I get an itch to play in a rock band now and then - instead of just doing my solo home-recording experiments. There's a different juice that flows with each. Go without one for long enough and you'll long for the other.

-Scott

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It's about discussion, have at it.

He talks about pro tools and click tacks.

And, let us be fair, if you get recorded live, or in studio (home or otherwise), do you fake the music?

I have all his albums, don't know why, my daughter and wife buy stuff, and we have his book for his previous album, lots of key changes, but he did write some of the songs. I need to look at it, but I think Foster's daughter was involved in writing songs M. Buble performed, and the title says he was the author with her....

Have at it...do we play walrus bones, or as one of the recent posters, the Chicago Champ who is the best singer and arranger has a point, it's all AMERICAN. Forget North American...just good old Yankee know how, to heck with the rest of us unwashed, seal killing ('m all for it), beaver trapping (I've done that), tree cutting, (ya we sold the wood to you cheap), bad baseball playing, Canucks...( yeah, as a country we only won 2 world series.). And been in the league 3 minutes...Oh wait, it was 'mericans we hired to do it...mostly.)

Crack me us some more....

Buy out PG music and move it to Dallas......go ahead...

I dare ya...
LOL

Darn it's below zero an snowing.. jeez...



John Conley
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Quote:

It's about discussion, have at it.

He talks about pro tools and click tacks.

And, let us be fair, if you get recorded live, or in studio (home or otherwise), do you fake the music?

I have all his albums, don't know why, my daughter and wife buy stuff, and we have his book for his previous album, lots of key changes, but he did write some of the songs. I need to look at it, but I think Foster's daughter was involved in writing songs M. Buble performed, and the title says he was the author with her....

Have at it...do we play walrus bones, or as one of the recent posters, the Chicago Champ who is the best singer and arranger has a point, it's all AMERICAN. Forget North American...just good old Yankee know how, to heck with the rest of us unwashed, seal killing ('m all for it), beaver trapping (I've done that), tree cutting, (ya we sold the wood to you cheap), bad baseball playing, Canucks...( yeah, as a country we only won 2 world series.). And been in the league 3 minutes...Oh wait, it was 'mericans we hired to do it...mostly.)

Crack me us some more....

Buy out PG music and move it to Dallas......go ahead...

I dare ya...
LOL

Darn it's below zero an snowing.. jeez...







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