Funny Mixing Tales

[mattr]

Then of course there are little tricks you use when the musicians don't behave in the studio or do what you want, which are kinda funny when you look at the respect with which you treat the musicians ...

Pull the vocalist right down in their headphone mix so that they subconsciously sing louder and with more attitude. Though this seems counter-intuitive to the whole idea of a good monitor mix, quite often amateur vocalists that can hear themselves well in their headphones will just happily 'sing along with themselves' and not put much effort into a take because, after all, they can hear themselves so they must be singing well enough, right!? You can often do it without them even realising, if you slyly do it once you've got initial levels right and their 'headphone mix' set up for them. Meh... too easy to fool.

With drummers who drag when they play with a click, record a bar of you clapping hard just ahead of the click, pushing ahead of the beat, and loop it along with the click track in their headphones. Sometimes they don't even realise its there, but its like someone constantly clapping loudly in their ear urging them on.

There are a few others like that which I regularly use, but those two have given me the best results

 

[tigerflystudio]

We were doing a bit of recording last night at my home studio and I was telling the guys about this thread. Well, they all thought it was great and they had funny little stories of their own - either that they'd heard over the years or things that had actually happened to them.

Here's the one that got us giggling most (like schoolgirls):
My bassist was telling us how he use to be in a band with a singer (let's call him Steve) who was totally obsessed with 80's hair-rock. Steve didn't have much musical talent, but he certainly looked the part (for a rock band) - all puffed-up poodle hair, black denim and wrist bangles etc.

Well, they go into a small studio to cut a 3 track demo. The songs are very new to them all, to be fair, and the band have only ever heard the vocals through their crappy rehearsal PA system - which produced a sound that can only be described, at best, as muffled.

So the band get busy and layer their parts down one by one and by lunch time the music side of things is all sorted. Excellent. Just the vocals to go. It's about now Steve, who's so far been sat in a corner of the control room scribbling notes studiously, jumps up and says, "Ok, let's get on with some PROPER recording!" Great start, Stevie.

The band, satisfied with their speedy progress, sit in the control room while Steve ventures into the live room with his pad of notes. Then Steve comes back and says, "but where's my monitor?" The sound tech explains there's no need for a monitor - just headphones and the condenser mic. Steve's not happy and says he explicitly requested a Shure SM58 and a wedge monitor. The band look at one another bemused.

Steve then argues with the sound tech that the only way he can capture good vocals is if he's doing a 'real' 'performance', i.e. head-banging / head-shaking, foot-on-wedge-monitor rock stance etc. Nobody in the band can believe what they're hearing. The engineer is trying his best to be respectful and not laugh.

Now, this, I thought was a pretty cool / funny story (I love to hear about retarded ego-monsters). But then it got MUCH better...

Eventually, after an hour of explanation / argument, the tech (diplomatically) agrees to set up a wedge monitor to aid Steve's 'performance' and he also (reluctantly) agrees to let him use an SM58, so long as Steve agrees to wear headphones to prevent spill into the mic. A wedge is then brought into the room but left unplugged.

Steve, against the tech's wishes, smokes his way through 20 Marlborough, saying, "this is how I get such husky rock tones". The band cringe but say nothing. Then as mid afternoon comes around Steve starts to turn in some really quite raucous performances - not exactly pitch-perfect, but certainly with some gusto. "Oh, I'm feeling pretty hammered now," he says as they prepare to start the final track. "Can someone bring me those other beers in? I'll neck 'em all now for the big finale".

It was then, as a fresh set of cans were lifted from the carrier bag beside the control room sofa, that the studio engineer noticed that the beers Steve had been downing all afternoon, and that had stimulated these rock-god performances, were, in fact, Kaliber. 0% abv.

Top that.