OT: Getting the most from a average perfomance?

[storm-01]

I recently bought autotune 4 after a long debate with myself as to wether it is neccessary. I must say that I am very happy with the results so far. It is fairly easy to learn and I really like the tutorials in the back of the book. In fact, after editing with AT 4 for an hour, I had to stop because I began to over-edit (very easy to do with AT 4). Then I thought, this vocal performance wasn't bad. Notes were in tune for the most part, BUT the performance itself lacked. This guy wrote these songs and performs them live with a lot of energy and excitement, without drinking to get into the "mood".

How do you guys basically take a descent performace, and guide the vocalist/performer to an even better recording. I have been very diplomatic about issues for years, trying to say or do different things to help the performace. Unfortunately, great talent doesn't always knock on my door.

I don't want to offend anyone by telling them, "that was a good take, but let's try it again with more excitement, energy, feel, etc. How do you guys/gals handle these situations with average performers? Any tips or tricks would be cool. Do you guys chunk away 4-8 bars then stop and review? Or an entire verse/chorus, etc.?
I hope this makes sense.

Thanks,
Stormy

[mpark9000]

What capacity are you acting in? As a producer, you may need to take a break and give 'em a pep talk (or whatever producers do). As an engineer, you need to capture their lackluster performance as accurately as possible. As an executive producer you probably need to throw more money at it

I've done sessions where I'm the engineer and the so-called "producer" is sitting on the couch without a clue. That usually lets the artist run wild and start adding all kinds of stuff that would be better off empty. Depending on the vibe, and if I like them and am getting some respect, I'll chime in with whatever I think is helpful. Sometimes an honest opinion is appreciated, sometimes not. Sometimes getting a great performance from an average performer isn't going to happen, no matter what you do.

BTW, I love AT. I usually use it fairly sparingly these days. Depending on the performer, I'll usually just take certain parts of the vocal track and AT it on a seperate comp track or Audiosuite it to a new region, leaving most of it "au naturale". I also have been fixing instrumental stuff with it. Works great, well worth the price of admission.

[RingoFire]

hi stormy,

my experience is that a vocalist does not feel offended by a clear statement. but its hard to handle cloudy things like "more feel". you should ad something like more aggressive, less cheasy etc.

what i do is: creating a trusty and creative athmosphere. figure out with the artist whats going wrong. point out the rhythm, timing, tuningproblems

once I recorded a platinum selling artist with 20 years of experience who did it like this:
lay down lots of different takes of the whole song,
find the best parts,
seperate the best version of every verse,phrase or word to a new track
edit evering using all the tools you have to make it perfect
than work on doubling this edited track from start to end
clear the edited track

takes a little time but you get a living performance

good luck, ringo.fire