I have vast experience with editing recordings, having owned several recording studios over the years and have been present during my father’s recording sessions from a young age. I have produced countless albums as well as demo recordings. Yes, there is editing in Classical recordings and you might wonder how this works. You play a piece, and miss a note. So, can you put the correct note in there? How does it work? With modern technology you almost can! In previous years, not that long ago in the days of tape, it was possible to razorblade edit and you would not believe what was possible even then!
Here’s the key: To be able to get successful edits in music, you have to have a keen understanding of the work. That’s why the producer of a recording and the engineer have to understand music in a deep way. For example, if you were to try to edit a performance to make a perfect recording by playing until you missed something, then started there and continued on to the next place you missed, then going through the whole piece that way, you might get all the notes, but you probably will not get much of a musical performance. Continuity and cohesiveness has to be achieved in the editing process. So what is generally done is to play complete works several times. You choose the best take as the foundation and replace key sections to achieve accuracy.
You don’t just put in missed notes here and there, but you might take the first exposition of a sonata and maybe a development from a different take then perhaps the recapitulation will come back to the first take. If there’s a particularly thorny section of a piece of music that is really difficult to play accurately, it’s important to remember that you cannot edit in anything that you can’t play. You have to be able to play all the notes at some point! If there’s a particularly difficult section, they might have the performer play that section many times so they know it’s covered. In a worst case scenario, it’s possible to cut in before and after that section. It’s critical to know where you’re going to try to cut in later so that you don’t just try to squeeze something in.
If you have total silence, you can always cut in. A strong, decisive chord that punctuates a new section can mask edits as well. So there’s a great deal of editing in recordings, but not the way you may think. It’s not about replacing missed notes even though with digital technology that may be possible. It’s almost at the point where you can do that, but you’ll never get a fluid performance on a high level of expression and continuity trying to edit that way. You’ve got to be able to play the notes, it’s just a matter of saving time. Think how many performances you would have to do in order to get a perfect performance of a work that takes 20 or 30 minutes. You might miss one little thing here or there which may go unnoticed in a live performance, but in a recording you listen to again and again it becomes an annoyance. So, in a best case scenario, editing enables note perfect recordings in the hands of a producer who has the ability to draw out the best performance of an artist.