A lot of edm and pop is still quantized even when the drums swing. It's quantized swing, always lands on the same pocket. I think acoustic drums sound better quantized because of how hard it is to be consistent throughout a whole section/song. When programming drums you can easily make stuff swing more or less the same the whole track

another thing with editing drums vs midi sampled drums as well is, even when you edit, there is still a slight variation in timing because transients don't always hit the same. And things like cymbals and kick and snare never hit perfectly at the same time with a real kit either. While with midi, on the grid really is on the grid. So when I use midi drums I always make sure that different kit pieces don't hit at exactly the same time. You want them very close, but at the exact same time can sound kinda weird and fake

I feel like the feel also comes from different genres. In certain genres you want the drums on the grid cause they need to be tight and in the pocket. Other genres you can add some swing to get a different kind of feel. It all depends on the song and what it needs

I'm also a fan of a similar style drum editing. Putting a lot of the Quarters closer or on the grid, and allowing the 8ths, 16ths or otherwise to move more. Also, some fills or bars can feel better when rushed or slowed. I often make subtle tempo adjustments to more accurately depict the feel that I like when composing and performing as a band.

Certainly at least with the fill off the top and when he catches onto the beat. The feel with his swing was much better

Nailed it. I've always been more in a grindy/skramzy vein but I feel like you'd understand the overall sound I'm after.

Idk that first one was pretty sloppy. I needed it.

Yes, but you have to be able to hear it first, and I don't think that Jordan can. Hearing subtleties in rhythm/time takes years to master, and is arguably much harder than hearing subtleties of intonation in pitched music. The thing is that whilst most people can't hear it, they can feel it. So it matters.

@@simonwalker2073 I agree when he didn't hear it so he didn't feel it or understand it, he sure confuse - -" but I hope he will eventually understand.

You've obviously never heard of Omar Hakim......he can put any part of the kit (kick, snare, hats) ahead or behind the click, all independent of each other. I presume any good drummer can do this.

@@DonHalli You could, but it depends what you are going for. In many cases, quantizing the drums takes the feel or groove away.

@@fredflintstone1428 I had the pleasure of attending a drum clinic seminar thing with Omar. Such a great player and nice guy.

I think if you're wanting 'top charts' sound, quantized is the way to go. If you're wanting more a gritty sound, quantized is not the way to go. A great example of this is God Hates Us All vs. South of Heaven.

Agree! Editing is cool but saying "you have to do it always" is silly.

I feel it’s best to listen across different systems and rely on your ears without looking at the grid. If something is distracting, edit it. Nothing wrong? Leave it be. Art allows for value in imperfection.

What the heck is a “top charts” sound and what does quantizing have to do with it? Does it make a bad song into a good one? No, and not quantizing doesn’t turn a great song into a bad one unless it’s so badly played that even a lay person can hear it.

Exactly ! Tempos in metal back in the days were all over the place. There might be a reason why new metal bands have such a hard time to compete with the old ones.

Do you feel like that response always applies, or is there a time and a place? Horses for courses = genre & song appropriate? I tend to lean your way. Imagine quantizing John Bonham 😱

@@sham8723 I think genre/style can be the difference. For example, hip-hop, edm, pop-punk, etc. can all be thrown on a grid and be to the poofteenth tight. It seems to be part of the sound of those genres. But from my experience playing heavy rock, or metal to a perfectly gridlocked beat always feels a little restricted. Not necessarily wrong. But just a pinch restrictive, stiff, and or robostatic. As soon as I make a few small adjustments to the tempo map and play again with slightly varying bpm, it just feels right for me somehow. But I guess I spent a long time playing with actual drummers. I would suppose if you grew up playing along with nothing but samplers, perhaps you would prefer that feeling of absolute unwavering bpm?

@Jrod Dicklington I agree, and often the band will snap to each other's imperfections (we hope), so I figure if you quantize drums.... maybe it pulls them away from the band... and now it's tighter to the metronome but not tighter to each other... and now you gotta quantize everything to bring it back together... then evaluate that change both broadly and at an individual instrument level.... Seems less absolute if you have good musicians and are concerned with preserving something inherently valuable in their performance, rather than trying to remove the shortcomings to elevate it to where it should have been if they were more talented or had been more disciplined. I think the social media age where people are connected to music by companies seeking to connect everyone with their specific interests will help break the rigid mold of radio edit mandates. While cutting a ton of potential profitability out of the industry... small subdivided monetization makes it easier for musicians to be more human and still market themselves when there are now more success metrics than the skewed radio play charts that dominated previous decades and divided things into mainstream and underground. In other words, I think in 2023, you can maybe get away with more of the human element than in 2001 and sell your music, but I could be wrong and that probably is heavily genre skewed.

@@THEJRODIUS Good hip hop producers actually don't put everything straight to a grid. Kenny beats went on record saying he moves stuff slightly off grid to get different interactions between the transients and more of a swinged feeling

i just don't like it when people put up these heavily sampled and quantized playthroughs on youtube. it's extremely misleading and it also sounds like shit.

RATM another great example.

Dave Grohl double tracks his drums, that's how tight his playing is!

@@Dave-Rough-Diamond-Dunn tight doesn't mean on the grid though.

@@Dave-Rough-Diamond-Dunn are you referring to the drums on Songs for the Deaf by QOTSA? If so yeah the shells and cymbals were done separately to eliminate bleed. I don’t think any 90s Nirvana/FF drums were doubled but if you have an example I’d love to hear it. Edit - Forgot about the doubled drums in the intro to “My Hero”

Nirvanas drums on Nevermind were definitely edited and Andy Wallace used samples. He’d trigger the snare on the backbeat and leave the fills.

No haven't seen that video, but I've seen this video and the results speak for itself. This is a hardcore channel but I guess if you want your mix to sound like Led Zeppelin 4, go for it.

​@@sqlb3rn Yeah I am going to want some parts of my mixes to sound like Zeppelin, Rush, more classic rock. But then some parts to sound hardcore. It's prog.

@@christopherharv do you have an example of prog metal that isn't quantized? I don't listen to it much, but when I think of bands like animals as leaders, it sounds nailed to the grid to me.

@@sqlb3rn Yeah AaL obviously, but idk I think the latest Arch/Matheos release isn't quantized, at least not 100%

@@sqlb3rn Someone please correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the last 2 AAL albums were spot editted/ quantized but not fully grid locked. I think Matt Garstka hated the sound of it on Joy of Motion so they took it in another direction for the next 2.

Sloppy Drummer here ... The main thing with the Gavin example that stood out for me was the change in the Hi Hats, I preferred the before. I also liked the rushing between the snare and kick for the Silverstein track, it has a different energy. The other examples had super straight grooves so benefit from tightening up. Would you quantise Dilla beats?

I think the person who made this video is listening to see which take lines up in his mind with the grid being the objective. The purpose of drums is not to be mathematically flawless but to create a groove with a feel and a vibe. It will make it easier for him as a producer to align other things to it by quantizing everything else. It is similar to how someone with no artistic skill might recreate a Van Gogh with a paint by numbers kit.

He absolutely doesn't need editing. It was a bit of a ridiculous example.

@@taks359 wasn't it just. Just completely ruined it.

@@gregchapman3519 if the musician are talented, it sounds good, doesnt need editing. Human small mistakes are part of the beauty, are part of the emotion. ( If mistakes are not too obvious of course.) Music nowadays sounds too robotic and flat, too perfect, like photoshop, when they make the skin perfect.

100%. Off grid played by an elite musician is the best way.

Yes, I like Jordan's production videos too, but he is wrong on this issue. Also, a few weeks back he was saying that AI won't end up doing mixing because humans look for that "human thing" in music, and yet here he is advocating for the removal of human feeling in music (not in the first example-that was an obvious improvement, but certainly for the second two).

If I were in the position of hiring a producer to help me make a hit record, this is one of the last people I would ask. Why? Because he’s making it all about himself and his knob twiddling skills. It reminds me of recent graduates of Full Sail, who think just because they got a degree that they know everything. Meanwhile there’s no soul, no fire, just bland shit that never stands out.

​@@simonwalker2073listen to Linkin Park: they have perfectly aligned drums (sometimes they're even programmed) but they don't feel unnatural. That's because feel in drums is way more than timing, it's dynamics that really make or break. Does it freak you out not to have tempo fluctuations? Adjust the BPM to change in different parts of the song!

Just a curiosity...so, did you quantized Gavin Harrison on Nick Johnston 's record?

Dude, I just thought the same thing))) I feel like, quantized drums just don’t drag your attention from something more important in the mix. Quantized drums just feel more “relaxed” to your brain. I guess you can use it as a trick to highlight some of the parts in the composition

That's just not true

Or use a click track to achieve the same purpose allowing you to gain drums with a soul.

@@sword-and-shield I do use a click track?????

@@lylaznboi01 Then the drums don't need to be on a grid to help the band with recording as you posted. Hey, its art, and more important your art, create it as you wish. For sure there is no rights or wrongs, just creative decisions. I was offering up an alternative.

@@sword-and-shield Well, there wasn't any need for that kind of advice. You do what you want to do when it comes to drums and I'll do it my way.

@@lylaznboi01 Yeah there was, you just don't comprehend it, clearly.

Would you mind elaborating on your last sentence? Other than feel, is there a particular reason why you might pull drums off the grid slightly during an exposed part?

Exactly it’s all about velocities. Feel has to do with dynamics of each hit

Not everyone likes modern metal production though. If you want to sound like every other boring band, produce your album just like they did.

@@skaldlouiscyphre2453 well, yeah? If a band wants to sound like the modern bands that many people listen to, then modern production techniques need to be applied. There are always exceptions (Iron Maiden have never played to a click), but that's what they are. Exceptions.

@@mrcoatsworth429 I'm not sure why someone would make their goal to have an unlistenably bad mix, but if you imitate every other band with that sound, you'll get it. The whole idea that that's the only solution to the question of how to mix your metal album is the problem I'm pointing out.

@@skaldlouiscyphre2453 Yeah, nobody is saying you have to do that to the music you're mixing or making yourself. But people come here to learn how to sound like... I don't know... Architects, Periphery, Silverstein,... and then they're shocked that they have to quantize the drums and tune the vocals.

@@DerSilvano I hear what you're saying. But consider this: You're a mixing engineer and a band wants you to mix their album. They send you a bunch of modern metal tracks with quantized drums and tuned vocals and say, "make it sound like that." Are you gonna do what it takes to sound like that or what?

I feel the Same way here, the feel was gone as soon as it was quantized to grid, sounded like a drum machine, I think that good editing is to know when to leave it alone and when to align to the grid.

Especially the last one

Gotta disagree with you on this. Quantized drums sound like what the drummer was meaning to play but just couldn’t quite do. Most of the “feel” in the drum groove isn’t from the drums being unquantized it’s from the change of tone and perceived volume of the quarter note, eight note, and sixteenth note hits typically coming from the drummers hi hat or ride pattern. Now quantizing every instrument can become problematic but in my experience I want drums on the grid as the glue in the track and the other instruments can play behind or ahead of the beat depending on what feels right. That’s my personal preference anyway. Everyone is different.

I hear you bro, though. You wouldn't want to leave it all "unquantized" because of all in the name of machinery feel or human feel on drums you will have to quantize the bad parts which will make you wanna fix the other remaining parts you left on purpose... So I agree with him💪

Do you play the drums, by any chance? Your perspective seems to be that of a musician. Every musician does not want their performance tampered with, because they feel that they are “good enough“ all by themselves. I felt this way initially, too. However, the first time that I went in in quantized the drums on a track, I really did get the feeling that I was that much closer to having a radio ready track. Keep in mind that what you were doing here is not for you; it is for the listener. Much of what you were doing is Bringing out the best in the recordings. Sometimes, that is going to mean that you have to quantize the drums to the grill, because the drummer isn’t nailing the part (most drummers won’t). I will say this, as well: he makes an excellent point that you do not hear anything on modern radio that is not quantized, so, if you do not quantize your drums, or at least edit them to get them very close to the grid, you are putting your track at a disadvantage. While we as engineers can, see the “artistic value” in raw, sounding recordings and tracks, the vast majority of the audience will not see it that way. They will see it as an amateur sounding performance.

@@DerSilvano That is an excellent point. And I've seen that sort of thing happen a lot. However, if you're watching an energetic band on stage, any inconsistencies in the performance can be attributed to the stage show. It's hard to play every riff perfectly when you're jumping around. We, the audience, accept that. Consider also that most bands (big and small) play along with backing tracks these days, which helps keep the performance from straying too far away from the recorded version. Now consider that in a recording, there is no visual element to distract you from performance inconsistencies. Kiss figured this out in the '70s when they released "Alive!" They multitracked the recording at the shows, corrected mistakes in the studio, created loops of audience noise to create the desired ambience for each moment, and they layered recordings of canon explosions on top of the sound of the pyro. The goal was to capture (in Paul Stanley's words) the "essence" of a Kiss show. And in my opinion, it worked. That album is an awesome listening experience. These days, record producers simply take that same approach and apply it to studio recordings. I think the decision to follow Jordan's recommendations or not comes down to how you view the purpose of recording music. Is it to create an awesome listening experience for the audience? Or does it serve as a time capsule of sorts, documenting what a band is capable of at a given time? Ulitmately, the band and/or producer needs to make the choice. I heard Joe Satriani in an interview once say that "there are no rules, just cause and effect." I think he's right. Sometimes I quantize the parts, sometimes I don't. But my reasons will be determined by the song rather than an overriding philosophy. In this case, I think Jordan's absolutely right when he suggests developing this skill. You never know when it will come in handy, even if you don't believe in it as a general rule. I'd also add that the producer is the one who usually gets blamed for a band's sloppy performance on a record. It's not always fair, but it's been my experience.

+1

I agree that it’s a nuanced issue with a lot of impossible questions lol. I’m delving into it recently and one thing I noticed straight away was that the mix I’d already done on a tune, prior to editing the drums, became clearer. I was thinking how this makes sense, if the beats are in the ‘right’ place, the transients of the instruments around the beats can better express themselves in relation to the beat. If it’s a band tracking live the argument is that the musicians push and pull against each other to form the groove, but the drummer is most likely playing to a click the others aren’t hearing anyway. So, the drummer will be adjusting to the click and the others to the drummer, rather than say, the drummer and bass player covering for each other slipping. So how ‘organic’ is it if it’s tracked live? If it’s a well rehearsed band that tracks tight live, you could kill the groove by quantising, but if the parts are tracked individually, there’s not really a good reason not to quantise the drums and have everyone else track to that. But I remember a post from gearspace an engineer said a good song with a good vocal trumps everything else you can do in the recording or mixing stage. The Strokes did that well when they came out, just as an example 🤙🏼

@@tommy9951 for me It again depends on the band and the music, if an iconic drummer is known for keeping a bit of shuffle on the 8 or 16th notes or vice versa is it right to quantize him? At the same time would we like to hear unquantized blastbeats from archspire or lorna shore? Of course is nuanced..

Great idea

I was thinking the same thing. I’d like to hear these examples within the entire mix

I watched a video by shootie school, he states that Ezdrummer3 midi are all ready humanized by default. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/a9OJpJl8mMq0d40.html here is the video , I assume that they where quantized too , and you had to humanise manually but that doesn't seem to be the case according to this guy.

I was going to reply something similar.... imo you can't judge the feel of a song by listening and working the drums alone... the feel is about the entire arrangement... and if you tracked all in a single session and just quantize the drums this is not going to end well - and if you instead quantize everything then... I'd like to A/B between all unquantized and all quantized :) And, finally, what if the song has unconscious speed fluctuations? With quantize you're doomed...

I do all my time-editing chops manually. It's tedious and takes a lot of time but it's SO worth it. It's best to go through and do all of your "chops" first. Then go back to the first downbeat and use the mouse to drag each instrument to the grid.