Post- Production
With the flexibility and possibilities offered by hard-disc editing, it is important not to edit all the
musicality out! We believe that good music editing should show the best of a performer, whilst not
losing the sense of the piece of music being performed. How this is best achieved varies from
performer to performer, with the intended purpose of the project, and with the repertoire. We try to
remain flexible and sensitive to those needs.
Music editing (of classical music) essentially involves joining takes together; that is to say that it
presents a sequence of sounds that were played and recorded. It is not about creating notes that
were never played, or changing ones that were into ones that weren’t!
The usual chain of events is that some time after the recording sessions, the music editor creates
a ‘first edit’, picking the best takes he/she can find, following the instructions and score-markings
provided by the producer. Artistes are then sent a listening copy of this first edit, and asked for
their feedback. (In larger groups such as a choir, usually only the conductor, accompanist and
any soloists would be sent listening copies).
With the points from the first edit in mind, artistes are usually then invited to attend a second edit,
in which further options and improvements may be investigated. Sometimes it will be necessary
to create further listening copies, but often by the end of the second edit, the musical side is
complete.
Many projects then undergo a ‘beauty edit’ where extraneous noises (such as clicks, creaks,
even page turns) can be removed or suppressed. By reducing the distraction of these extraneous
noises, we allow the listener to concentrate more on the musical performance.
Many recordings will be made at a higher resolution than that in which they will ultimately be
released. Be it longer word-length, higher sampling rate or both, we always edit at the higher
resolution, only making the change down at the mastering stage.
The majority of music editing is stereo, but the same principles apply to multi-channel editing, e.g.
for surround sound.