[Dixielandjazz] "Patching" recordings

[Russ Guarino]

Larry's story  reminds me of a studio afternoon I spent with an engineer who had the latest, at that time, computer software.

I had recorded  four telephone conversations with clients who had used my band, and, with their permission I wanted to put their
comments on my demo tapes.  However there was a lot of misc. conversation that needed to be cut out so that just the pertinent comments
would be brief and to the point.

We cut out the immaterial talk and pasted the rest together, being cognizant of  voice modulations and making modulation matches, high
& low, for a proper fit.  The software showed the voice as a "earthquake jiggle" and it was possible to make matches of different
sections of the original recordings so that there was a smooth connect from place to place.

When finished, I was shocked at how perfect the "cut & paste" worked.  You could not tell that what was heard was a conversation
consisting of voice "pieces" without any breaks.

I realized that it would be possible to alter just about any recorded voice conversation and present it as an original, and by
selection of pieces,  change the meaning of the conversation to just about anything you could want.  You could "prove" just about
anything your devious mind could desire.  Shutter !!!!   Conclusion:  recorded voices should never be used in a court of law.

Russ Guarino

However

"Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis" wrote:

> I think the original point of this thread was making a "silk purse out of
> sow's ear".  Taking musicians and singers who are not very good and making
> them something they are not.
>
> It looks like it's the degree that is objectionable since everyone seems to
> do it using the technology available today.  If this technology had been
> available years ago I'm sure that they would have used it.
>
> About 40 years ago I was at Missouri School for the Blind and we had a 20 pc
> band.  We were recording a march and try as we might the second half just
> never came off very well.  Finally we got a good recording of the second
> half but the first half was bad sooooooo..... I took out my trusty scissors
> and tape and presto we had a good performance.  We have come a long way
> since then.
>
> I think you have to understand that true one take perfection is pretty
> difficult to come by and live recordings may have some glitches.
>
> Sometimes performances are memorable because of their glitches.  Some years
> ago a high school friend who was a percussionist with the St. Louis Symphony
> was doing the theme from 2001, Thus Spake Zarathustra.  They were using a
> synthasizer which was a new gadget at the time and my friend was front and
> center with an enormus drum set.  Now drum set wasn't his suit.  The
> performance promptly got more and more out of sync but he bravely hammered
> away.  No engineer could have fixed that.
>
> I recorded a recent concert and one of the cuts was pretty good except the
> singer forgot her words and got lost in one small segment.  Since the
> section repeated I was able to cut out that part without any seam.  You
> can't tell where the cut was made and no one except a real enthusiast or
> someone with a score would ever know.  IMO this saved a pretty good tune.  I
> see that as more or less like skipping a chorus or taking a cut from A to B
> to shorten a tune.  I would have no problem lopping off a bad note out in
> front of a tune.
> Larry
> StL
>
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