Doo-Mass Award

  • Thread starter Thread starter up-fiddler
  • Start date Start date

What's the dumbest the you ever did in the studio?

  • I've never done anything stupid in my life.....

    Votes: 2 5.0%

  • I MAY have messed up once.....

    Votes: 8 20.0%

  • Screwing up is the only way I know how to work.....

    Votes: 30 75.0%
  • Total voters
    40
  • Poll closed .
Of course I've done perfect takes, but have forgotten to prep the track. And I've also accidentally deleted the good track instead of the bad one (that was the last time I ever did any destructive editing). Can't say I've ever done any ridiculously dumb things. Oh, on my first recording, my bassist brought in an old ribbon mic (a bad one, so no harm) and I used it for a bass drum mic. Ouch. Luckily, it was bought at a garage sale for $5 and it didn't work properly in the first place. I researched it after it died, dreading it was a good mic. I was relieved to find that the company was a complete no-name. I can't remember it now, though, sorry.
 
I will give you the short version.

I kept having errors when attempting to back up my songs to DVD from Cubase. I tried everyting over the course of 2 weeks. Finally a tech friend came over and after 4 hours of pissing around decided he needed to take the tower home. He was going to back up or do something first and he said, "Hey, your clock says it's 2038", I said "Yeah, that thing's been acting up forever"........ The look on his face was priceless. He works with me so of course he told everyone what an idiot I was. He was right, but I did point out that he's a tech, and he only found it after 4 hours of work, and giving up.

DUMB ASS (es)


BTW, I still don't know why the clock acts up.

The monkey never learns
 
I have a Line6 Toneport which is a USB interface. I booted up the PC, and the Toneport wouldn't come on. I kept unplugging the USB cable and plugging it back in. I couldn't even hear the little noise the PC makes when you plug in a USB device.

I scratched my head for about 15 minutes until I realized I had an identical USB cable plugged in for a device that wasn't on (hence no little PC bleep). I had the wrong damn cable plugged in!
 
I recently went through an episode when i tried recording with my new line6 guitarport for the first time. I use cool edit pro to record, but i couldnt get signal from the guitarport for the life of me. I tried for a day and a half to get that thing to record. I uninstalled and reinstalled both cool edit pro and the guitarport about 3 times each, each time i made sure to set the guitarport as the audio source for cool edit. I even had to call up my guitarist who also has a guitarport for advice and he had no clue what to do. Eventually i realized that all i had to do was open up cool edit pro BEFORE the guitar port. Works like a dream now...
 
I will take the award today.

I was recording an orchestra today with 2 room mics in X/Y.
I had one of the the LDC mics facing the wrong way.

The room sounded good. :eek:
 
I picked up a distorted rattle from a cab while recording guitars. Spent half a day dismantling the cab, replacing screws, swapping mics, sealing the box, tightening EVERYTHING!!!... Then found my delta1010 inputs were overloading... :o
 
Did a live gig on a board where the solo button muted the main mix except for the solo'ed track. First song of the night, I used my phones to solo some things. 1,000 people at $25 a head heard vocals-kick-snare-bass-keys-guitars-cymbals-reverb-delay, one at a time, for about 5 minutes. :D

The thing is, I knew the board worked that way. :p
 
timboZ said:
I will take the award today.

I was recording an orchestra today with 2 room mics in X/Y.
I had one of the the LDC mics facing the wrong way.

The room sounded good. :eek:
Click to expand...


Doesn't that make you feel like a complete dumbass? I just tracked 8 songs in 2 days for some friends of mine and the drums sounded great but something was off about the snare. I went back in after we were totally done tracking and noticed the ldc was turned the opposite direction of the snare, damned baby bottle looks the same on both sides. Oh well the overheads got a good deal of the snare so I can make due.
 
At a show I played two verses and two choruses of a song in the wrong key--one fret up--whilst the rest of the band played it correctly.

Coolest thing I've seen in a long time: the whole front row looking really confused for two minutes, then me switching back into the right key and all of their faces simultaneously looking as though they just figured out what happened.

No other crowd I have ever played in front of gave me a group nod.
 
ok so i also was trying to record some tracks though the line 6 toneport with cool edit ..and to be honest ..i've spent a few weeks with this issue ...no clue what the heck is wrong, ive installed and uninstalled softwear for both, tried the opening of cool edit first then the tone port, and i've made sure that i've had it selected on the 'rec' button in cool edit. my cousin had it working on sonar with just the usb cable and it was recording like that ...and when i try it..it still dont work ..any suggestions?
 
I was recording some acoustic tracks today and when I got through with a song I realized I left the Air Conditioner on. I couldn't figure out where that stinkin' humm was coming from. LOL, we all do stupid stuff no and then.
 
My biggest mistake that I still make is laughing in the control room while somebody is doing a take. I mean I just can't help it! Fuck, some heavy-metal douchebag covered in tatoos and hair hanging over his eyes getting all serious singing retarded lyrics about the apocolypse with a death-metal gutteral growl is just fucking hilarious to me. The hardcore gangasta hip- hoppers are just as hilarious too, with their stupid-ass hand gestures trying to look all tough and hard. Fucking Hi-Lair-e-ous! Whoo-hoo! Some of these guys actually get their feelings hurt too when they see you laughing or smiling. I feel bad sometimes but fuck it, they're retarded posturing douchebags anyways. Luckily I don't have to record stuff like this too much anymore, more of a past thing. It's a bitch though when you're working for someone else and the client quits because they see you and the assitant laughing in the control room. Shit if people could play/sing in tune and not act like freakin' rock-star douchebags i'd stop laughing. I find a good aid is to think of something like cancer at these moments to keep myself from laughing, nothing funny about that. It's sort of like thinking about ernest borgnine's ug-mug while you're enganged in adult activities to prolong the happy ending of aformentioned adult activity in order to avoid early happy ending embarassment you dig!
 
I was at school troubleshooting signal flow on the SSL console for almost an hour in front of the band who had took more than one cigarette break waiting on me and I was just about to give up recording that day when someone walks up and pushes the Analog Digital button on the Alesis HD24.

That was embarrassing.
 
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I have so many stories like that from the last 30 years they could probably fill a really boring book. What I have learned is that you need to accomplish your trouble shooting in a logical order. I have found that this order is usually best when you start with the console [or device that is closest in the chain to the speakers] and work your way out toward the mic [sound source]. Had you followed that trouble shooting procedure your trouble shooting time would have been closer to two minutes than 35.

Above all else... N-E-V-E-R go about trouble shooting in an arbitrary manner... start at one end and work your way to the other end... it will save you a ton of time and agita.

To that end... also make sure you haven't accidentally muted any of the channels before you "hit red". About 8-10 years ago I was recording Anton Fig [Letterman band] on a Blondie Chaplin [the guy that sang 'Sail on Sailor' for the Beach Boys and is currently one of the backing singers with the Rolling Stones] album. Just before I hit record I lit a cigarette and through the pack onto the console... which of course hit the mute button on the kik drum mic... so we got a great take with the kik drum mic not turned on!!! It took me the better part of 6 hours after the band left to dig a new kik drum sound for that track out of the other drum tracks I had recorded [lesson learned... be careful where shit lands when you toss it near a desk].

Best of luck with all you do.
 
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