How do you deal with ....

[ptuzer]

A producer with has NO experience producing anyone at all is producing thier own project.

Very picky and hard to work with ... wants to control everything and knows very little. eg ... during tracking she wanted to track 2 musican's at the same time (to save money) so mutitasking is nessecary. She did not allow anytime (zero) to adjust recording levels between songs. So you better get it right the first time as ALL takes are kept (for ediing later). You better not press play to listen to something as she would say "What are you doing?"

She said that a lot as a matter of fact she was always asking "what are you doing?" and "why does it take so long to set up a mix?" Which brings me to mixing she wanted to adjust all the automation levels before whe added any EQ's or Comps. When I told her we needed to do that first before automation she did not want to wait and called it a " Waste of her studio time"

Now that we are into mixing all the"little" details are showing up as glaring mistakes. She wants explination on like why for example the volume jumps on 2 bars on the guitar (very bad playing)- the guitar player was very weak and is a good friend of hers. So when he could not cut it on the project and had to be replaced she was mad at all the other musicians including myself for telling her that the guy sucked and was wrecking her project.

 

Now that is the short version I will not get into how she treated the session players. That would take too long. I'll just say that lots of players booked in for session suddenly canceled or just did not show up.

The sad thing is she has a great voice and pretty good songs.

I could be a great project but her constant bombardment with her over-controlling personality is stressfull at first.

It's a big budget project - I make my living doing this so it a hard one to give up. I have only ever punted one project in my years of recording - but this one came close.

I am just not sure want to do to handle this person properly.

Any help would be great.

[Lee Knight]

I would tell her there are certain things that are unavoidable. Like the order in which you EQ and automate. You've got to do your job...

 

And... I'd try to tell her what you're doing as you do it. Think out loud.

 

It sounds like a nightmare.

[Lee Knight]

Double your plaesure

Double your fun

With two, two

Two posts in one

[boosh]

If you're not married to her,...ditch her.

[blackfish]

has she seen spinal tap?

 

point out dudes 'Doubly' chick and say "thats you! do you want to be that or this"

 

and then show her last months EQ with Linda Perry!

[Billster]

Originally posted by Lee Knight:

I would tell her there are certain things that are unavoidable. Like the order in which you EQ and automate. You've got to do your job...

 

And... I'd try to tell her what you're doing as you do it. Think out loud.

 

It sounds like a nightmare.

I like that idea. To add, I would suggest a non-studio, off the clock meeting to establish the game plan for each session.

 

• Our goals for the Tuesday session are x, y, and z
  
• I will do this, that, and the other
  
• You will do them, those, and one of the other
  
• I will do technical
  
• You will do human performance
  
• If human performance is making technical difficult/impossible, I will tell you and you will attempt another method, within limits of the humans
  
• If technical is imposing on human performance, I will attempt another method, within limits of established laws of physical science.
  
• The moment-to-moment events of knob twiddling, etc. will not be important, what is important is accomplishing the goals set out in line item 1
  

 

Write these things down as you discuss them, and keep the note pad right handy in plain sight during the session.

 

Explain that you are building a house, and if you skimp on the foundation, the walls will crumble, and all the window dressing won't matter.

[Ernest Buckley]

Unless shes paying you a lot, its not really worth the stress.