"Don't polish the Turd" Myth

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DimensionX

New member
This is something I have been wondering for quite some time now, the "don't polish the turd myth"...

As a person who picks up pieces of garbage and things that look abandoned to make them into a family of similar pieces to become something beautiful, I have never really agreed with this way of thinking but maybe theres something important im missing (which is why im posting this thread). Anyway, I always find myself looking at parts that I didn't mean to record, usually subby bumps and clicks and slides and using those and it makes me think, why not polish a turd when you can just layer different parts of the waveform (transients, body's, tail's, etc) and process them individually to add/subtract attractive/unattractive frequencies? Is this type of mentality based on getting things finished in a hurry and that's why it's better not to spend too much time on these kinds of things?

What do you think?

Thank you
D
 
Probably not the response you were hoping for but.. Wouldn't that still be considered polishing a turd? Processing it to make it more bearable would be polishing in my book, but sometimes those bumps and clicks are what makes a record sound old (not a bad thing), which is ok if you're aiming for a classic, old sounding song. If you listen to old vinyl stuff, you hear that crackling and stuff right? It doesn't make it bad, because it was the standard back then.

BUT, if you are making modern music.. That will probably not come off well in most situations. It depends on what kind of music your making. If it adds to the feel of the song, then yea do it. If not, then don't. I'd like to hear what you're talking about though.. Got any music online?
 
It isn't a myth.
Spending time trying to save a badly written song, poorly arranged, averagely performed and tracked with a rough mix is just spending your time on an useless task. If things are bad from the beginning, no good result can be expected even after zillion hours of hard work. A polished golden plted turd is still a turd.
 
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At the end of the day, I can't tune, edit, or process a terrible vocal recording to make a bad singer comparable to any well recorded singer you hear on a radio. In the best case scenario, I'd make the best sounding track and give tips on what could have been done to improve in at recording or production.

Not all "bad" recordings are unusable though.
 
You don't have to polish the turd. Just make it into something that you can live with and understand regarding the circumstances. Learn from your bad turds so you can have good turds in the future.
 
I just got job mixing and mastering an album and man, the project he sent me was terrible. horrible eq on bounced audio, under compressed vocals that boom every consonant, loops that are boring and cheesy. Needless to say it is a turd by all definitions. you can totally treat shitty audio. high q factor cuts, grouping through busses, multi tracking, equing and panning crappy scooped out guitar tones to fill out at least some of the empty space and etc etc. If a client gives you a turd, at least make it a golden one.
 
If you love what you do, even with a tight schedule, we always should try to do the best out of a turd... even if it's the worst turd you ever found. Professionalism and loving what you do, are always hand in hand!
 
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