Bands are a pain in the...

[Zed10R]

But really, why do engineers expect every musician out there to play perfectly? They're paying you to put their heart and soul on record.....

The question and the answer are both right there. The musicians ARE putting their heart and soul on record. Is their heart and soul a shitty, out of tune, out of time, overly dramatic wank of guitar solo? Sometimes yes, but my point is you should be able to play your own shit pretty damn well. It's just sad if you can't.


[/QUOTE]Something that ticks me off about "professional" engineers is trying to force drummers to play with clicks, forcing the band to track one instrument at a time. Musicians are generally a little insecure in the studio. You're putting a drummer in a cell and forcing him to play in a way that takes alot of adjusting to, and on top of all that you have the rest of the band in the control room where the drummer knows that they can hear his every fault, and yet you still expect him to play well? Geezz, the nerves of playing something that is going to be permanant aloan can make you play like crap, never mind everything else that's going on.[/QUOTE]

See my previous response about musicians needing being able to play their own shit. If you can't play your own shit in time, you suck. Go home and practice. ESPECALLY drummers. A drummer should have no problem playing to a click. A drummers JOB is to KEEP TIME for chrissakes.


[/QUOTE]Keep in mind that they are not paying you to record your record. It is their record. PERIOD. If they just want a hi-fi jam tape with some mistakes punched in, or covered up with reverb, it's your job to give it to them.[/QUOTE]

I agree with you 100%. That is EXACTLY why I personally am very selective about who I record. Thank GOD I don't make my living recording whoever will pay. I'd shoot myself.

 

[deafsound]

Good song, good musician, good performance, bad engineer= good recording
Bad song, bad musician, bad performance, great engineer= lame recording
You can stick a broken peavey mic plugged into a peavey PA head with all the high end turned all the way up, in front of a piece of shit acoustic guitar, record it onto a noisy mini cassete recorder, and have someone like Duke Levine play the crap out a great song, even if his tempo waivers and it's gonna be more interesting than some badass studio production that's been beaten into perfection with a gazillion dollars worth of gear.
Ever heard Bitches Brew? That record kinda sounds like crap, but in a good way.
BTW, complaint C should include the band who plays to a click track, then speeds up and swears that the click is slowing down.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

yup, you probably just created a buzz word.
might steal it

Go ahead, my trademark registration is tied up in red tape...I can't find a postage stamp.

Hey, the more people with chops like yours that use the term, the more legitimate it sounds to others. When one is the only "digital media engineer" on the planet, it's a much harder sell

All I ask is that you use it wisely, young Frasshopper

G.

 

[STAT1STICK]

Great post. I have worked with a few people like that. They have no patience for anything and believe that they know EVERYTHING. I think that's one of the reasons I went solo.

 

[Scottgman]

Stupidity comes from both sides of the recording equation. Especially nowadays when any yahoo with some cracked software and a Behringer mixer is all the sudden a "recording engineer."

I had this experience recently with an ex-bandmate. He is one of those guys that thinks he is a world-class recording engineer. He seriously seems to think that he is the only one who "gets it." Here are some nuggets of wisdom that he has shared with me.

- Condenser mics don't exhibit proximity effect

- You should ALWAYS normalize EVERY track

- You should ALWAYS run noise reduction on EVERY track

- Covering your entire room in egg crate foam is a "good idea"

- Buying hardware is a waste of money when you can just use amp and mic modellers and drum samples

- A Nady mic into an ART toob pre is a desirable signal chain for vocals

- No reason to re-track or punch-in when you have Autotune

- If the first take doesn't sound good, no problem because it can be fixed in the mix with one or more plug-ins

- Recording in 16-bit is just as good as 24-bit

- Recording acoustic guitar direct sounds great

- There is nothing wrong with mixing and mastering on computer speakers

- A V-AMP sounds just as good as a boutique tube amp mic'd with a quality signal chain

- If you question any of this recording wisdom, you don't "get it"

I just had to share this stuff with people who could appreciate it. This whole digital revolution thing is great in that it makes it possible for anyone to make reasonable quality recordings at home. But the downside is that it's allowed millions of wannabes to delude themselves into thinking they are a world-class recording engineer. Ahh, it's a great time to be alive.

 

[LfO]

- Recording acoustic guitar direct sounds great

I'm at a loss for words.


Not laughter, though, plenty of that.

 

[giraffe]

All I ask is that you use it wisely, young Frasshopper

G.

i shal do my best, sir of the glen.






and as for the original content of this thread, here's a big secrete from me to you. (you being anyone who cares to read this)





















i always learn the most from the biggest ass holes. because even if what they want is the dumbest shit you ever heard of, at least they know what they want........ and won't be happy until they have it.

it's a f*'d up blessing.

 

[Zed10R]

- If you question any of this recording wisdom, you don't "get it"

I just had to share this stuff with people who could appreciate it. This whole digital revolution thing is great in that it makes it possible for anyone to make reasonable quality recordings at home. But the downside is that it's allowed millions of wannabes to delude themselves into thinking they are a world-class recording engineer. Ahh, it's a great time to be alive.

Well, Sir, that is EXACTLY why I say "do it right or don't do it at all." GOOD work, both on the recording side and on the musician side will ALWAYS be superior to the garbage your buddy (and 99% of all home recording musicians) is (are?) creating. The sad thing is, most people just can't hear the difference between an "acoustic" guitar recorded direct, played poorly, and patched up with auto tune and a perfect take played on a decent acoustic and tracked with condensers and a high end pre. But hey...those of us that can hear the difference have people to make fun of.

 

[SidGuatama]

You are a paragon of brevity!

That's my new favorite sentence. I'm going to try to work it into at least one conversation, every day, for the rest of my life...regardless of context.

 

[bleyrad]

after all as an engineer, you write lyrics, get huge guitar sounds out of 10" crate practice amps, and can fix all vocals in post right.

Well, actually.... 10" practice amps can be the epitome of huge guitar sounds in the studio

Drink in the studio.

Meh. They're not the only ones guilty of that.

Have wrestling matches in the main space of the A studio next to a crop of 30 mics.

All part of the fun! Although, if they do hit the mics, that's a different story...

Don't know what song they are going to play when they arrive at the studio.

Too bad for them - they're paying hourly!

Think Reverb covers Bad Vocals.

Well, it does. Doesn't mean it makes them sound good, but it can certainly cover them.

 

[GreenDank]

...

wow, funny stuff!

LOL: tell them about using a plug in for the guitar sound and they give you a dissertation on the benefits of analog.