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the worst recording experience! venting


frontlinebass

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I am in a band. duh. and we are in the process of trying to get a new album out. the studio we normally go to is moving and wont be avaliable until october. so we decide to try a new place out. Keep in mind we are a fairly good musicians and have already produced full lenghth professional album. we get there and the guy wont stop talking about what he is doing and how difficult it is. we all got about a 10 minute speach on scratch tracks and how the scratch track recording process is done. but it didnt stop there. He didnt know how to mic altranate drum setups, had a hard time getting anything to record well, and setup took way too long. these are just some of the problems. When I got in there to record it took him 45 minutes just to get my bass dialed in correctly. in my exerience it only takes 5 min max. all of this wouldnt be bad if he wasnt charging us by the hour. When it comes time to actually record and I lay down my track the engenier (who i am venting about, our producer is wonderful), says notes are not there that should be there. when he plays the track back the notes can be heard fine and they sound fine but he insists they are not there. ahh. oh well lots of other things happend that were equally frustrating but I just needed to vent. out of the many recording sessions I have done this is by far the worst. any one have others to share?
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my old old band and i once turned up to a recording session to find that the guy had gone on holiday, even though we rang him the day before to check and he didn't say anything. I have encountered muppets before but have never had to deal with one recording me.

Don't worry sometimes you get someone that thinks they're great and just has no idea, i'd replace him a.s.a.p. hes doing more harm than good.

"i must've wrote 30 songs the first weekend i met my true love ... then she died and i got stuck with this b****" - Father of the Pride
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Since you have a producer, you should discuss all this with him before you return to the studio.

 

He should have noticed what is going on and hopefully he will do something about it.

 

This business about not being able to hear if notes are there or not sounds pretty unusual, to say the least.

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When we started talking about our latest project the drummer decided he wanted to produce it and he wanted to have it done at a big name studio. None of us thought there was anything wrong with the demo that was recorded in our studio by an engineer who did a great job. Anyway, the drummer said he was paying for it so what the hey right?

We showed up at the famous studio after driving a long, long time and nobody was there. We waited awhile, went and ate, came back and still nobody. After waiting some more (a total of hour and a half or so), we left. The owner called the next day and after trying to blame us for not showing, eventually appologized. Seems the engineer was confused about what time we were coming and he showed up at 10 instead of 8. We decided not to drive all the way down again and the drummer never got his $150 deposit back.

We invested in a 24 track digital recorder/burner and after a relatively short learning curve have produced most of our 3rd CD ourselves. The beauty is, you can go to the studio and lay down tracks anytime.

 

The Moral: Drummers should not be left to their own devices. Constant supervision is required.

 

:D

"He is to music what Stevie Wonder is to photography." getz76

 

I have nothing nice to say so . . .

 

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I have lucked out as far as recording goes. My drummers dad owns a recording studio, but it is not done because he can't afford the recording equipment yet. All the PA and mics and everything we will need is there, there is just no console. So this is a problem, right?

 

Not so much because I have a friend who is an aspiring studio engineer, owns all the missing pieces to the studio, and is more than happy to work with us for free just for the expierience.

 

We have five songs written and rehearsed, we just need someone to sing them, which is going to be a much bigger challenge then recording...

 

-ChrisofDoom

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I agree with Jeremy C.

 

Have the producer stick up for you guys. If you aren't getting the right sound. Let the producer be the jerky if need by. He's there for the wellbeing of the band on many levels. It sucks but it's true. Any how, you can't do much if the sound guy isn't good. If they have equipment that isn't hooked up, if something mysteriously goes down, a computer crash. It's all a part of recording in this day and age, but it wouldn't be unheard of to ask for a discount or extra time to make up for it. Good Luck!

Mike Bear

 

Artisan-Vocals/Bass

Instructor

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Are the sounds he's getting any good?

 

If not, look somewhere else.

 

I've recorded with some eccentric engineers whose personalities have definately made me raise my eyebrow to the other guys on the session, but if the sounds they're getting are good, that's all that matters.

 

I agree that the business about notes of your bassline that are "missing" are strange. That's what your producer is there for, anyway.

 

Did he pick this studio? Are there any others in town (or in the state?).

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Originally posted by mattulator:

The Moral: Drummers should not be left to their own devices. Constant supervision is required.

 

:D

I totally agree with you. I'm putting this in my sig if you don't mind.

:D:thu:

http://www.briantimpe.com/images/LDL/dots/blue.JPGhttp://www.briantimpe.com/images/LDL/dots/black.JPGhttp://www.briantimpe.com/images/LDL/dots/fuscia.JPGhttp://www.briantimpe.com/images/LDL/dots/grey.JPGhttp://www.briantimpe.com/images/LDL/dots/orange.JPGhttp://www.briantimpe.com/images/LDL/dots/purple.JPGhttp://www.briantimpe.com/images/LDL/dots/red.JPGhttp://www.briantimpe.com/images/LDL/dots/yellow.JPG
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Back in January (2004) my singer and I were determined to record 4 demo tracks, and on the advice of a guitarist we thought was serious about the job used his "buddy" (who was only able to do 2 rehearsals prior to the studio dates) as a drummer. Long story short, two months and $3,600 we were left with three unusable tracks and one that we barely salvaged in another digital studio for demo purposes. Half of that ($1,800) was my money.

 

What did we do wrong? Among other things, we were talked out of doing "click tracks" and using a metronome by the guitarist and drummer, the guitarist insisted on recording with multiple amps in the same room, he had to layer down multiple tracks on various instruments to get that "big sound" (Jimmy Page, Tom Scholz) and we allowed the engineer to bill us for partial hours and extra setup times, even when the band was there and HE showed up late to open the studio doors. Oh yes, and we had to rehearse the drummer IN THE STUDIO and ON THE CLOCK to fix the drum parts he failed to fix in rehearsal. And we paid the guitarist and the drummer for their time with us.

 

The singer and I are currently in the other studio with new personnel, the engineer is more interested in recording quality that soaking us for studio time, and with luck we'll have the demo finished just after the Labor Day weekend. Things are going much, much better and we've learned some hard lessons this year.

 

Good luck with your current projects. If you don't manage your recording budget and you don't delegate a producer/director for your project, you will get much less than what you paid for. And studio time goes by much faster than real time, in my opinion.

:wave:

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that sucks. my bands first experience was the same way. the recording engineer did not know how to use his equipment. this was the first time in the studio for all of us. it took him three tries to get the drums miked properly. and half of the tracks have almost no bass on them.(i had to go direct because there was not room for my set up. :mad: )

well long story short we spent three days there recording. and we had 10 unusable tracks, and $800 dollars less in our pockets. but the knowledge gained is priceless.

we since have moved on to another studio. it is not as high tech as the last but the guy knows what he is doing plus he does not charge for set up. now we have a cd that we actually have gotten people to pay money for. instead of just a bunch of drink coasters and Frisbees.

it cost us half again as much as the first but it is 100 times better. :thu:

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Interesting thread and many good lessons to be learned here. I have recently started recording and luckily I have had good experiences so far.

 

But as we know, the music biz is full of flakey people. (No!, Really?) So, like anything, get recommendations and demand satisfaction. Don't let your inexperience make you shy. You are paying for a service and you should be happy with the outcome.

 

Badger

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I agree with what many people have said. Your producer should be keeping the engineer in line. You may want to make a decision VERY soon over whether or not you are going to continue with this engineer. Don't spend more money and more time getting low quality engineering.
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