Singers Sound Perfect With Music Industry Secret (Not Auto-tune)

No, this article isn’t about auto-tuning (the use of electronic gadgetry to artificially enable a person to sing perfectly).

However, there is another secret in the music industry… one which also allows artists to sound perfect without putting in as much effort as you would have otherwise: comping.

When one hears the final product of a singer’s work, one might assume that it was the result of dozens of takes- until the singer finally manages to sing the entire song without error.

That’s not how the music industry works.

Indeed most songs are “comped”, which is short for “composite”, where the best bits of multiple takes are cut out and pasted together.

Comping isn’t a new invention either, as it has been used for decades by “even the best best best best singers,” according to producer/ mix-engineer Ken Lewis who was hired to comp for Mary J Blige, Usher, David Byrne, Lenny Kravitz, Ludacris, Soul Asylum, Diana Ross, and Queen Latifah.

“Comping is not the thing that makes something sound robotic. Actually I would say it does the opposite.”
“Comping doesn’t have to do with the quality of the vocalist,” Lewis says. “Back in the Michael Jackson days—and Michael Jackson was an incredible singer—they used to comp 48 tracks together, from what I’ve read and what I’ve heard.”

This is unlike auto-tuning, which can make singer sound robotic if applied at maximum settings (human emotion and variations in singing are deviations from perfect pitch).

The tone, energy, rhythm and even personality of the individual singer is what draws the listener, according to VICE. Thus, comping chooses the bits of each take where these attributes are most discernible.

“This is the epitome of all that is unglamorous in music, but very necessary for the best possible presentation of the most important element in the mix,” according to music producer Frank Gryner who wrote to inRecording Magazine. He has recorded for Rob Zombie and Tommy Lee. “I’ve yet to work on a major-label record that didn’t involve vocal comping to arrive at the finished product.”

“Often, I’ll have a three-syllable word in the middle of a line, and I’ll use the first syllable from take 3, the second syllable from take 7, and the third syllable from take 10,” Lewis writes in a blog post. “Not kidding.”

Comping used to be a tedious affair, where editors would need to use a razor blade to cut segments of a tape reel out and paste them together with adhesive tape.

It has since become much easier, with programs that allow editors to simply drag and drop the segments that they believe to be perfect.

The objective of comping isn’t just to ensure that the singer sounds perfect; it is also important to ensure that the editing cannot be easily discerned by an attentive listener.

“It’s rare that you hear a really bad vocal comp,” says says recording engineer Mike Senior, acolumnist for Sound on Sound and author of Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio; other instruments on the track can mask the edit.

Senior states that there is a clumsy edit 20 seconds into Aguilera’s “Genie in a bottle”. However, it was hidden by a heavy drum beat. “If you think how many drum beats typically occur in a mainstream song, you can think how many places you can edit without it being heard.”

While the edit might be virtually invisible, so too are certain other variables: it is still possible to identify a comp… by straining your ears to hear that which is missing.

In Adele’s song “Someone Like You”, you can hear that the opening breath is missing in the first few verses. The background mic noise also cuts out at certain points, signalling that an edit was made.

“That’s one of the beauties of comping—you get to search for the most magical piece of every take.

People have a very idealistic view of a producer or recording engineer’s job. If people really knew how records were made, they’d be much more jaded,” says Lewis. “But if you go into record making with the idea that you need to sing the song down from start to finish, come what may, you will rarely find the true magic.”

Sources: VICE

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