Demo - Part five - Editing

In the studio today I was reminded of that old commercial, "you can pay me now or you can pay me later."

The story goes, I heard three spots in the demo that needed help and went to the studio to fix them. I practiced beforehand, tuned up, and expecting to play and go. Instead, I watched for an hour as Ben manipulated the file making me sound like I know what I'm doing. I never picked up the guitar.

Ben made a really interesting point, he said in the old days, musicians would practice for days getting the song perfect. They'd then go into the studio, record the song a few times and select the best cut. With today's technology, you don't need to be perfect (or even competent like some singers I won't mention). You can use editing features to smooth over any mistakes. You can decide at a later time to add accompanying instruments, back-up vocals or add an introduction (like we did yesterday). The sky's the limit. However, this new technology doesn't save time, it just adds time on the back end versus time practicing.

The lesson to me is to find the balance between perfecting the song and using technology. Walking into the studio prepared will save money, however, its nice to know that I don't need to be perfect!