Band Walks Into Your Studio...But doesnt know the tempo of the song....

[Guitargodgt]

Well I have my solution. (I bet you didn't read it.)

No no no no. I was throwing you a gold clap for that epic sentence.

It had nothing to do with what you said. Click or not it doesn't matter as long as your happy with the result.

 

[wiguan88]

No no no no. I was throwing you a gold clap for that epic sentence.

It had nothing to do with what you said. Click or not it doesn't matter as long as your happy with the result.

Ah, I see... It seems I misunderstood.

Yeah, agree with your last sentence...
Sometimes people are too absorbed in theory and terminology that they forgot the real goal.

 

[Beat Poet]

Personally, I usually prefer my songs too fast over too slow. Factor in the loss of "energy" from the live show to the studio, and bumping the tempo up might offset that.

I don't think rounding down a song by a max of 4 BPM will make a song "too slow"

 

[RAMI]

I don't think rounding down a song by a max of 4 BPM will make a song "too slow"

A difference of 3BPM's will make a differnce, in my opinion. If you round down from 123 to 120, I think it will definitely make a difference and can be too slow.

 

[Captain Ego]

So wait.. the real question is... as an "engineer".. do you give a rats ass about the band you are recording, or do you just want to milk them for what you get by recording their failure? Is that how it is Lt. Bob. I'm so glad I don't have to record people to make house payments or whatever. On the engineering side as the guy manning the bards, encouraging them to get their shit straight first saves you a lot of time with them trying to polish the turd unless they want to deal with it themselves for the next session. NoYou can be mercenary and hand someone something embarrassing and pocket the loot.. and never see them again.. but all my studio experience was hammered out ahead of time if I was playing for it, and all my recordist experience was nothing like what is described. Just guys that are tight enough want to make a recording of the mselves, rap/metal/whatever didn't matter, but I would tell em if it was something that would sound lame unless they tightened it up. The fat person only takes it personally because culture tells them that's an appropriate response from a society that leans towards coddling them. The person who wants to make a lasting work of art needs a bit more honesty. Not a good analogy. Besides, most small-time-bands dont have a "producer", sorry, so he wont step in to save face for you, its just you, and the guys that need some work.

 

[Lt. Bob]

So wait.. the real question is... as an "engineer".. do you give a rats ass about the band you are recording, or do you just want to milk them for what you get by recording their failure? Is that how it is Lt. Bob. I'm so glad I don't have to record people to make house payments or whatever. On the engineering side as the guy manning the bards, encouraging them to get their shit straight first saves you a lot of time with them trying to polish the turd unless they want to deal with it themselves for the next session. NoYou can be mercenary and hand someone something embarrassing and pocket the loot.. and never see them again.. but all my studio experience was hammered out ahead of time if I was playing for it, and all my recordist experience was nothing like what is described. Just guys that are tight enough want to make a recording of the mselves, rap/metal/whatever didn't matter, but I would tell em if it was something that would sound lame unless they tightened it up. The fat person only takes it personally because culture tells them that's an appropriate response from a society that leans towards coddling them. The person who wants to make a lasting work of art needs a bit more honesty. Not a good analogy. Besides, most small-time-bands dont have a "producer", sorry, so he wont step in to save face for you, its just you, and the guys that need some work.

I didn't say that. I just said that you have to handle people differently. Some people will not want to be told anything at all.
But you go ahead and call me mercenary and talk down to me from your righteousness when you don't know a single thing about me and also completely and totally mischaracterized what i said.

 

[FunkDaddy]

Who says you need the tempo when you're recording a band? If they don't play to a click track, don't make them start the day they're recording a demo

And yes, arbitrarily rounding down/up the BPM can very much screw with the groove of a band.

 

[Guitargodgt]

I'm rounding down to the nearest whole number, not to the nearest pretty number. haha

In other words, if the drummer played at 128.458 (what I analyze his track at), I round down to 128. Trust me the difference doesn't matter. haha

 

[Farview]

IF the band doesn't play to a click, don't make them start once the clock is running at the studio. Comfortable musicians give you the best performances. The best performances don't necessarily line up to a grid.

A tempo map and playing to a click are necessary for easy editing and overdubbing, but have nothing to do with a good take, great recording or getting an emotional performance.

It's only been very recently that most productions were done to a click at all. The Stones reference earlier in the thread is a perfect example, as would be just about any popular rock record from that era or before. It started when drum machines started to get used more and more and still wasn't the norm for most band recordings until computer editing showed up.

I will put a recording of a great performance that speeds up and slows down up against the sort of stiff performance you will get out of a band that isn't used to playing to a click any day of the week.

The point of music is to elicit an emotional response from the listener, not to look pretty against the grid in you DAW. It doesn't matter how it gets done, just that it does get done.

 

[Massive Master]

Success Kid says:

 

[Guitargodgt]

On another note I did have a band that walked in with the score of each instrument ready to go. Tempo, notation everything. They did it up in guitar pro and then used that to play and reference to when they recorded.

I about shat my pants. haha

 

[Beat Poet]

I remember a bass player I was in a band with and he wrote all his basslines with some complex computer program, and he always turned up at practise with a lever-arch of sheets. Any time we started on something new or changed the chords, he was like "dude, I can't play this yet, I need to run the chords through my program". Despite that, he was the best bass player I've ever played with, 4, 5, 6 string and fretless. He even played violin!

 

[WarmJetGuitar]

Tell them that the recorder won't bite them and just try different takes with different feelings.

 

[Supercreep]

do you give a rats ass about the band you are recording, or do you just want to milk them for what you get by recording their failure?

The answer is "it depends". Receiving a stipulated wage for a stipulated service isn't exploitation. "Hammering out" a studio performance is a pretty relative term when you consider the broad range of area talent, and there is a limit to the amount of cat herding and turd polishing most people are willing to do without charg.....milking...the less prepared and less experienced musicians for the added time.

If I had a studio that seriously took clients I'd have an entire room full of quality esoteric (for rock) instruments such as sitars, tablas, bagpipes, steel drums, pedal steel, etc. There would be no clock in that room.

 

[Farview]

So wait.. the real question is... as an "engineer".. do you give a rats ass about the band you are recording, or do you just want to milk them for what you get by recording their failure?

You really have to be able to assess the capabilities of the band at that moment and push them to do the best they can. But there is no reason to subject a bunch of high school kids in their first band to the same standards as you would a major label project. It will do nothing but convince them that you are an elitist asshole that doesn't understand, or worse, you could convince them that they aren't any good and should just give up.

What I do is figure out where they are at, what they are comfortable doing and work around that. After everything is done, I will talk to them about some of the problems we faced and how, through preparation and practice, those problems can be avoided in the future. Every single time I've done that, the bands have come back the next time with their shit together on everything we discussed last time.

A recording is a snapshot in time, I'm just trying to get a great recording of what these guys actually did that day. Whether it's good or bad is on them.

I'm so glad I don't have to record people to make house payments or whatever.

This explains some of the attitude...

On the engineering side as the guy manning the bards, encouraging them to get their shit straight first saves you a lot of time with them trying to polish the turd unless they want to deal with it themselves for the next session.

I charge by the hour. If they want me to quantize a crap performance, it will cost them a lot of money. If they would rather pay than practice, so be it.

NoYou can be mercenary and hand someone something embarrassing and pocket the loot.. and never see them again..

99% of all the bands that have come in here and played poorly realize that it was their poor performance and not anything to do with the engineering. Generally, I hand them a great sounding recording of their crappy performance and they are happy with it for what it is.

I used to have your attitude. I lost way more customers thinking as you do than I do now simply helping people do what they can when they show up.

 

[RAMI]

Band Walks Into Your Studio...

Then they need glasses.

 

[RAMI]

Band Walks Into Your Studio...

Then they need glasses.

 

[GuitarLegend]

There is an alternative... they can play at whatever tempo you like. The chances that it will change radically by the bar is low so break up the track into sections and use the time stretch facility that any good DAW has. It doesnt change the pitch, just pulls them back into time. It's a little bit of work but probably less work than trying to get them to do it right. Sometimes if you get the drummer to play to a click track, the corrections are so dramatic that you wish you didnt. Just let em play and do small time stretches where you need to

 

[Beat Poet]

Sometimes if you get the drummer to play to a click track, the corrections are so dramatic that you wish you didnt. Just let em play and do small time stretches where you need to

Yeah, if they've never played to a click while writing and they've got all these impromptu tempo changes going on, it's better not spring a click on them in the studio. Half the time'll be spent by them trying to relearn the song!

 

[guitaristic]

What do you guys normally do in this situation. I know count the number of beats in 15 seconds and multiply it by 4 will get you close. Just curious about how other producers/studio owners go about this.

I tell them they should know the tempo of their song. I'm the guy who records them...not their mama