Overdubbing
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Overdubbing (the process of making an overdub, or overdubs) is a technique used by recording studios to add a supplementary recorded sound to a previously recorded performance.
Tracking (or "laying the basic tracks") of the rhythm section (usually including drums) to a song, then following with overdubs (solo instruments, such as keyboards or guitar, then finally vocals), has been the standard technique for recording popular music since the early 1960s.
Overdubs can be made for a variety of reasons. One of the most obvious is for convenience; for example, if a bass guitarist is temporarily unavailable, the recording can be made and the bass track added later. Similarly, if only one or two guitarists are available, but a song calls for multiple guitar parts, a guitarist can play both lead and rhythm guitar (such as in Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love", when it would have been physically impossible for Eric Clapton to solo and play rhythm guitar simultaneously). Singers who also play an instrument find overdubbing a convenience, since it allows them to focus on one role at a time.
Many vocalists use overdubbing to effectively sing harmony with themselves, as did Harry Nilsson, Laura Nyro and George Harrison (who credited himself as the "George O'Hara-Smith Singers"). The members of Queen overdubbed their voices numerous times, to create the chorus effect for "Bohemian Rhapsody". Singers in particular have often used the practice to perfect the recorded version of a performance over time. Dusty Springfield is widely reported to have painstakiingly assembled individual phrases over time in order to record the ultimate performance. If one listens closely to Madonna's "Vogue", one can clearly hear the overdubs in the records "rapped" section, as the timbre and atmosphere are not perfectly matched from stanza to stanza.
Numerous recording artists have made albums with only (or mostly) themselves performing, using overdubs to serve as their own 'one-man band'. Such artists include Paul McCartney (McCartney, McCartney II, and 2005's Chaos and Creation in the Backyard), Mike Oldfield (Tubular Bells), Todd Rundgren (Something/Anything?), and Prince on many of his 1980s classics.
Overdubbing has sometimes been viewed negatively, when it is seen as being used to artificially enhance the musical skills of an artist or group, such as with studio-recorded inserts to live recordings, or backing tracks created by session musicians instead of the credited performers. The early records of The Monkees were made by groups of studio musicians pre-recording songs (often in a different studio, and some before the band was even formed), which were later overdubbed with the Monkees' vocals. While the songs became hits, many critics cried foul, and Michael Nesmith in particular disliked having to "duplicate someone else's records" for their television show. No cheating was intended in the practice (with the emphasis on the TV program, and with the four members not an experienced group, it was felt that using studio 'ringers' would be more efficient), and numerous other singers and groups had studio help, but this didn't save the Monkees from critical and public scorn.
While all multitrack performances are technically "overdubs" the moment they are reduced to stereo (also known as bouncing-down in the U.S. and "reduction" in the UK), there are subtle distinctions in the usage of the term. Currently it is taken to mean the adding of further material once a recording is considered finished (the work is "revisited"), or the overlay of additional material after an initial bounce-down of the multitrack. Before the digital era (when an extremely high signal to noise ratio was perfected), overdubbing was always considered a degradation of the recorded clarity.
[edit] History
Perhaps the earliest commercial issue of recordings with overdubs was by RCA Victor in the late 1920s, not long after the introduction of electric microphones into the recording studio. Recordings by the late Enrico Caruso still sold well, so RCA took some of his early records made with only piano accompaniment, added a studio orchestra, and reissued the recordings.
Sidney Bechet made a pair of famous overdubbed sides in 1941, "Sheik of Araby" and "Blues of Bechet". Multi-instrumentalist Bechet recorded on six different instruments; each version had to be recorded onto a new master disc along with the preceding performance, with consequent loss of audio quality. The novelty was issued as "Sidney Bechet's One Man Band". The American Federation of Musicians protested the recording, putting an end to experiments with commercial overdubbing in the United States for years.
The invention of magnetic tape opened up new possibilities for overdubbing, particularly with the development of multitrack recording. The first commercially released overdubbed recording made on multitrack magnetic tape was by guitarist Les Paul, whose 1947 record "Lover (When You're Near Me)", featured eight different electric guitar parts. His later work would be seminal in the popularization of multitrack recording.
[edit] Reference
- Modern Recording Techniques, by David Miles Huber and Robert E. Runstein
