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- Parts that needs to be removed: At the opposite side of filling the gaps, there are times when to cut away the silent parts is suggested: especially for drums, is suggested to cut some silent parts, for example on toms, which are actually played just for few seconds every few bars, in order to eliminate the unwanted "Bleeds", which are the sounds of the other drum pieces, taken from the microphones (for example the hi-hat microphone will surely have a large amount of snare bleed). The hi-hat, snare and kick bleeds are best not to be removed, but the microphone bleed of drum parts that are not played continuously, such as the crash or toms can surely be cut/muted when the part is not playing, in order to reduce the bleed effect.
Another thing that is often cut out is the noise of electric guitars: often, especially with distorted and microphoned electric guitars, you can hear a strong background noise (or "hum"), which, if summed in many tracks, can become unbearable. This problem can be solved by using a Noise Gate, but this option often takes away from the guitar sound some good harmonic too, so many producers tends to solve this problem just by cutting away the silence parts, where only the hum is perceived.
- "Combing": This is an editing technique which is used used for Vocals and Guitar Solos, but it can be used on any other audio recording:
Combing consists into combining two or more takes in order to create the "perfect take".
There are two methods for combing:
The "Full Take Method": Some producer prefers to have the singer to perform numerous "from top to tail" recordings, taking note while the singer is performing of the parts of the recording to be kept, and what needs to be discarded, in order to take the best part of each version, in order to create the best take possible. This method is more fatiguing for the singer, but sometimes lets the music flow more naturally and gives the producer some interesting interpretation nuance that with the other method would be lost.
The "Patchwork" method: this one is less time consuming, and consists into singing the single part (for example a verse) again and again until it's satisfying, and then pass to the next one; this method lets the performer to focus on the single small part, and usually works better on amateur recordings.
There is also another use for Combing: if you feel that, when recordings are finished and can not be re-done, there are parts repeated more than once in the song (for example, a chorus), and some of these repetitions are not satisfying, we might as well take the best version and just copy-paste it in the place of the other repetitions too, and as long as there are not particlularly distinctive elements, the listener won't notice that, for example, the guitar under the second chorus is exactly the same take copied from the first one.
There are many Audio Editing Softwares around, some of them even Free and Vst Compatible.
Among these we recommend: Wavepad, Wavosaur, Ocenaudio. Give'em a try!
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