[Rwp] To Quantize or not to Quantize - that Is the (Non-technical( Question

[Matej Golian]

I write metal + I might up recording some country-ish style music with
a friend so I guess 100% quantization does not apply. :D

2015-11-11 17:41 GMT+01:00, Chris Smart via RWP <rwp at bluegrasspals.com>:
> If it's something like electronic dance music that you're doing, quantizing
> all of it is probably what you want. That stuff is machine generated as it
> is.
>
> If it's a rock track played by real live humans, you probably don't want to
> quantize it too much. Groove and good time feel is a mysterious thing, and
> you can't always put a number on it and say "wow, that drummer's snare is
> quantized about 70%".  When it feels right, it is right.
>
> Think of pitch corrected vocals as an analogy. Too much, and it sounds
> robotic. A little, in the right places to correct more obvious problems, and
> things still sound natural.
>
> At 10:02 AM 11/11/2015, you wrote:
>>
>> Hi guys,
>> this time I don't really need any technical advice, but I'd be eager
>> to know how you approach the concept of quantization. I know that this
>> is a general recording question and so if you think that this is not
>> the right place to ask this, just ignore this message.
>> So, from what I gather quantization is very common in today's
>> recordings. I understand that it's more frequent in certain genres
>> than others, but I guess that it's safe to say that everyone working
>> with music has to know something about it. Quantization should be used
>> to fix timing issues, so that sloppy recordings don't sound sloppy or
>> so that they sound at least less sloppy if possible. So far so good.
>> But the question is: how much to quantize?
>> I know that this is subjective, just as everything, but the general
>> opinion is not to overquantize. In other words, if I for example
>> record something as MIDI and than make every note absolutely perfect
>> (in terms of length and position), the result should sound robotic.
>> But is this really so?
>> Obviously, whether one perceives something as robotic or not depends
>> on a number of factors, but I get the feeling that in some cases it
>> makes no perceivable difference whether you quantize or not. Imagine a
>> recording of only 8th notes at 200 BPM for instance. Maybe it's only
>> me and my unseasoned ears, but it seems to me that human ears have a
>> tendency to perceive things as much more regular than what they
>> actualy are - unless the recording is extremely sloppy they in my
>> uneducated opinion seem to compensate for minor imperfections - thanks
>> to or because of their imperfect nature.
>> My point is, if I slow down a fast recording, I'm able to tell how
>> much it has been quantized. If it's too perfect I might say to my self
>> that this is too perfect to be a human, but does this really matter in
>> the end?
>> Sorry for the essay. I started thinking more about quantization,
>> because I'm finally working on my first recording and I quantized a
>> part of it, but not because I thought it sounded bad, but because I
>> had the chance to easily do it.
>> So my personal conclusion is to quantize up to the point where you
>> perceive something as perfect (to keep it human), but all in all this
>> topic still puzzles me.
>> Currious to know what you think.
>> Matej
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