Ever sent someone home to practice?

[pipelineaudio]

Some of you guys have some naieve 1970's JukeBox Hero dreams shit going on here.

There are commenets like "what kind of hack band would get any attention anyway?"

LOL

How many bands today do you think have even PLAYED an instrument attributed to them?

Of that small subset how many have played the performance attributed to them?

lay a modern song on a grid in any daw. Figure out the bpm then move it around till a bar lines up. Look at how perfectly those beats fit on the grid. You think a human played it like that?

Get real.

For many of us today our job is to give the illusion that this group of actors has played the song you are listening to.

THis is the age of the Million Dollar Demo. EVERY note is expected to be in tune and in time. Creating THAT performance thru editing and trickery is no more real or no less real than having someone else play the part.

Its all an illusion. Pay no mind to the man behind the curtain

 

[moon]

You just do the job as a producer and you coach the artist as much as possible.
Listen to the band before you do the recording, especially live.
Ask them what they want.
What's the purpose of the recording.
How much time are they willing to spend on the recording.
Show them that it saves time to really know what they want and to know every part of there songs.
It's called a decent planning.
You don't want to tell them when they enter the studio just before the recording.

You just can't send a band away in the middle of a recording because they suck.
In that case you didn't do a good job.

 

[omtayslick]

Jesus Christ.

Who do you guys think you are, anyway?

Mixerman?

No. We're all trying to be like the legendary engineer Chessrock, who used to hang around these parts.

 

[Elton Bear]

I miss Chessrock

I also, seriously, miss the days when anybody could ask a question here without being told to go to the Newbie Forum or (more frequently) give up audio / living.

 

[Daisy]

I miss chessrock, too.



But I'm not sure that the two things you miss are necessarily congruent.

 

[Steve Henningsgard]

I miss chessrock, too.



But I'm not sure that the two things you miss are necessarily congruent.

Ooooooh yeah, I forgot you re-registered. Nevermind, I'm done with this argument. Last time you acted like a four-year-old on here, you got banned: hopefully something similar might happen this time around...

 

[JuliánFernández]

Because my name's on the CD/EP/Demo and producers/engineers are judged mostly by our previous work...

Or maybe you should fuck yourself and stop trying to act like an expert on said "hack home recording board". I know how to use a damn compressor. If you'd read the post (which almost nobody responding actually did) you'd notice I suggested every solution to said problem from the get-go (parallel compression, 2nd compressor/limiter, turning everything else down), and was simply asking what other peoples' preferred methods were. Somehow it turned into a "steve.h doesn't know shit" fest, which is what I was trying to avoid. Those who have heard some of my work wouldn't give me such a hard time. (https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=249161)

(*EDIT: I saw you're commenting on SouthSideGlen's post, and thus removed this comment)

I've put up with your unnecessary pokes and suggestions that I'm not a very good engineer/producer for longer than strictly necessary, and now I'm done with it. All I wanted was to hear other peoples' opinions on sending bands home to practice before recording them, and somehow it turned into a "no, and you suck at being an engineer, and you'll never make it, and my mom says you suck" fest.

Eat a dick.

Good stuff, man! I enjoyed the track... Do you mind sharing the signal chain used on that particular session? Thanks!

 

[Daisy]

One of the bands he let stick around.

 

[Farview]

What I normally do is make little suggestions, easy things that they can do to make things better. I will let them use my equipment, I will just put triggers on a crappy sounding drumset that I won't be able to tune, then use Drumagog to replace the drums.

If the CD sounds good, but the songs are bad or the performance sucks, no one will blame the engineer.

If you help raise them up, they will get better and they will keep coming back.

It also keeps you on your toes... Recording great musicians that have great gear and great songs isn't very hard compared to recording a bunch of highschool kids and making them sound like something.


The only time I get tweaked is when someone my age comes in, tells me that guitar is life (for 3 hours straight) and can't play a three chord rhythm part in time. Then I go over and pick up my guitar and play it with him to help teach him the timing (BTW. I stopped playing guitar close to 15 years ago), and he starts getting pissy and telling me about how he has been playing for 20 years and blah,blah,blah... That is when I point out the difference between playing guitar for 20 years and drinking beer with a guitar in your hand for 20 years.

But that has only happend 3 times in 15 years.

 

[giraffe]

When the band theselves has no idea how bad they are, they are never going to be happy with the results; they are unhappy customers just waiting to happen.

G.

all true.

for the record, the one time i did it it was because they were going to start by laying guitar to a click and do the drums later. The guitar player COULD NOT DO IT.

he was also the drummer.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

he was also the drummer.

I guess that takes recording them live in one take out of the list of options .

I don't understand why this is such a contentious issue. Steve was just asking for other people's opinions and experiences. Do what works for your business model and let others do what works for them, and before you know it, there's actually a decent market equalibrium. The more wankers that turn away from me, the more business there is for the guy who wants to legitimately bottom feed. The busier he is teaching these guys which side of the microphone they are supposed to be singing into, the freer I'll be to do my thang. We compliment each other instead of competing against each other. I personally would go nutz if I had to make my living dealing with wankers all day, but that's my choice. If someone else chooses to pick up my slack there, and seizes that vertical market for themselves, more power to them. No reason for anyone to get their colon in knots over this subject

I think everybody is just plain tired of winter and getting a bit edgy.

And - another personal choice - if you want a grid, go to a mapmaker. I don't do grids. If I'm going to use the control room as an instrument, it'll be in a way that adds soul to the recording, not takes it away. If that means I never get my name on a Hannah Montana or Coldplay record, so be it. I'll still pay my bills and feed my family anyway, thank you very much.

G.

 

[pipelineaudio]

ana amazingly parallel thread

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/21900/937/

 

[TerraMortim]

I usually don't put it that way, but yes, all the time. It's not a good idea to go with inferior takes. You can do some studio trickery, but the better the take is in the first place, the better the output. So, don't be shy to speak up if something doesn't work, or if something needs a bit more time. I can't imagine NOT giving any creative input on something I was recording...sure, if I was hired to do a simple job like, adding orchestral arrangements to a piece that's already recorded, I would probably not do that, but if you're responsible for recording the music, it's somewhat of your duty to see that the recording will make sense musically, AND sonically. As you said, it IS your name on these, and poorly performed, badly arranged music is going to sound horrible no matter what you do to try to salvage it. Just always have tact in how to approach criticism, creative input. It's a bit different with each person, but there's a certain dance you have to learn, and you can begin to get good at spotting character traits of the person you're going to do some work with before you choose how to handle things. Even in the same band, I'll often handle one member slightly differently than another. One guy I could say, hey that doesn't work.. another one maybe more like... hey I have a good idea, let's try it like this, we can record both ways and we'll choose.. it couldn't hurt to do (they usually tend to choose the one I want, in my experience).

But, more generally..

Just saying.. don't come back until you can play the song, would, in my opinion, be slightly counter-intuitive. It would just make the player feel like crap, which will either make them get defensive, or second guess their playing even when they're doing fine. The mistakes, and bad takes usually go hand in hand with the player second guessing what they're playing, instead of just feeling it. Players/singers will perform much better takes if they feel confident and pumped about what they're playing.

I'll usually put it more of, I think we should come back to this one later, it needs some time to develop. Why don't we work on that other track, and we'll try this one a different session.

Just have in mind a handful of songs that you could work on in any session..if you only go into a session planning to work on one specific song, it may not be what the player is feeling as much, or like you put it, they might not have practiced the part enough, and then if you have nothing else ready to go, you have to call the session, or just waste time recording stuff that you won't be using anyway.

 

[TerraMortim]

well said.......and if you intended to STAY in buisness for very long,....you'd better take this approach.

it's possible to give creative input in a positive and constructive way...which will give you much better results, which will keep people coming back to you in order to get those results (not to mention bring in new clients who love the style of your work)

If you just let whatever happen that will happen, you're kind of gambling with your reputation.

 

[TerraMortim]

Not necessarily. You may find yourself in a tight knit local community where the sound of a band sucking can be attributed, wrongly, to your recording skill. It happens. This is why a lot of engineers go to see the band first.

I find that's almost ALWAYS the case. Making a garage band sound like real pros will definitely get you further than just documenting the suck, taking the $1.50 they scrounged up to pay you and moving on to the next suck.

 

[TerraMortim]

Personally, as a musician, I'd rather have someone tell me I'm sucking (in a polite way of course) than let me suck it up and be disappointed later on.

Of course, if the record sounds good, it's the band's fault: if it sounds bad, it's the engineer's/producer's fault. :/

me too. I'd much rather know objectively what it sounds like when I'm on "the other side of the glass". I've had great frustration actually trying to get that objective criticism, instead of... hey that sounds real good, let's all go for a beer, why do any more takes, it was ...perfect. Then I spend all this time trying to figure out how to fix my own playing, that if I were the one recording someone else, would have spoken up,had a great take, and that would have been the end of it. As much as we can all joke about typical musician behavior..I actually find that most musicians deeply enjoy getting input in the studio, and working on their creations beyond what they could do by themselves, as long as, and this is the most important, you handle it in the right way for the situation. Sure, if you just criticize the shit out of them, you'll just piss them off, or make them want to give up, but there's nothing wrong with coaching them to get better and better takes, in a way that makes them feel good about what they're doing.

In a way it's kind of like acting as a team with the player... not.. I'm some god of music and you don't know shit so do what I say, but more in the way of working together to get the best possible take. It doesn't HAVE to always be an act of locking horns with the players...there are plenty of annoyances, but I haven't really found that this particular issue is something I ever lock horns with a player about.. they're usually very happy to play with different ideas, and are very very excited when it ends up sounding better (it's like you see a light bulb go off, and A HA!)

Then again, there has to be a noticeable improvement with every suggestion you make, or they'll just start to lose their trust in you. If they trust your input, it will be that much easier to skip the pussyfooting around and make a fucking record.

 

[TerraMortim]

They are very novice,...and I simply do not have the time or patience to teach them how to play the respective instruments.
........cruel world ain't it.

then you might miss out on a total gem (not all really really good albums have great players on them) I find that there are even some very novice players that can turn out some amazing stuff if you help them get to that point.

 

[TerraMortim]

I'm working with people who don't need guitar lessons.



That's at least a start.

.

there's a difference between an artist and a musician. You can be both, but you can also be one without so much of the other. Now... Musicians buy stuff for the musicianship... everyone else buys stuff for the artistry (unless of course it's some commercial candy pop music, in which case people buy it for fashion's sake) Is that supposed to impress people? I've worked with so many seasoned musicians, playing guitar for longer than I've been alive, sometimes they're great, sometimes it's just the same old musical wankery to impress other musicians, and leave out the rest of the world. I've also worked with more modest players, and sometimes I get the best material from the modest player vs. the "technician". I love good musicianship myself, being a musician, but I realize that I'm the minority, not the status quo.

 

[TerraMortim]

i agree. unless asked, neither their performance nor the musical content is the engineer's concern.



again, I agree. If i'm paying the dude to put something down, he puts it down correctly and to my satisfaction or he doesn't get paid. If i'm being paid to record someone and they're not performing well, then perhaps I'll try and hint at it if i think they're open to it.




Well I kinda disagree there. If I'm the producer, its up to me to be the 3rd party "emotionally detached" from the project. I should be the one who decides whether a performance is good enough, whether it needs another couple of takes, or whether a session musician needs to be called. If someone isn't nailing a part, they need to know. If they need to go and practice whilst we record piano overdubs, they need to hear that.

Whether the band listens to me or not, is another matter.



Of course, this is strictly pointing out the differences (in my opinion) between engineering and producing..

gotcha you're making the distinction between approaches.. fair enough. Since, I'm not a big time guy, stuff I work on is often engineered and produced by me, unless I'm working in a situation that would require the help of a dedicated engineer. So, the process of engineering and producing is one in the same.. but that's more of my working style anyway. I like to have a hand in both the recording and creative side of things as much as I can, even when there's a dedicated engineer, I like to twiddle knobs with them, do some editing, etc.

But then again, it's never approached in a them vs. us type way.. it's always a team effort.

 

[Daisy]

Do you, like, have to reply to every single person in the tread?