Editing is the process of correcting or fixing something that we missed in the recording phase. We can edit either audio or midi recordings. For example, you have recorded a piano using vst instruments. Editing means that you want to move or delete some notes that are wrong or even if you want to copy and paste some parts of your recordings. Also the same happens in audio recording. You have recorded a guitar or vocals for your songs. You are going to follow the same way to edit some notes or parts that you want to get better results of them
Many students and friends ask me very often if we must edit during the recording phase or after that. This is what I suggest to do. Don’t do both at the same time. Don’t say to yourself “I will edit this or I will fix that later in editing or in mixing”. It’s so wrong! You must focus to perform as better as you can,so you can avoid more time in editing and even in mixing. You maybe excited about editing but as the years are passing by you will see that editing is a waste of time if you focus on your performing and getting better results on this phase. Everything starts on recordings! Record your best! This will save you a lot of time and energy!
When you have finished your recordings, I suggest you listen all that takes of your recordings and take some notes where you can edit to improve your total result. This way the next time you schedule to work in your home studio, you know what to do exactly. I used to do this mistake very often when I first started out in my home studio ,but I saw that I couldn’t focus on recording and I was losing the feeling how to perform. As I told you earlier, if you have perform very good in your recordings , you won’t have to spend so much time in editing.
Also I want to give you a tip on editing. I suggest that you finish all the editing you have to do and after that you can copy and paste any part of your recordings you like. This way you don’t have to edit the same part two or more times.
In upcoming posts we are going to talk more about editing and how we can edit on various instruments. Please leave a comment below and tell me how much time do you spend on editing.