Now this band have pissed me off...

[lebouche]

After breaking up on their first night of recording after booking me for a week to track an Album ..then getting back in the studio 24 hours later, I have just had a phone call blaming me for their recent decision (after recording all the drums) not to carry on with the recording. Apparently I can't edit drums...all I said was it was unrealistic to do a couple of hours editing on each drum track due to the time constraints the and that if we were going to do this in such a short time they needed to be extremely well rehearsed and we needed to make sure we got the takes out of the drummer. I was trying to get him keen because the other guys were getting him down...trying to psyche him up. I got him to practise an hour to a metronome the practise along with the tracks...one of which he said he hadnt played for a year.....the rest of the band skitzed when they came in...why are you wasting time!!:Mad: :Mad: :Mad:
Fuckers

[FajitaTone]

do you really need them? they need a producer to tell them, shut up and play. it's the rythm section that sells. that's where the "groove" comes from. somwhere there's a sig line: "there's no soul on a grid" tell 'em that.





or what the hell do I know. :Confused:

[CurtZHP]

Show 'em the door. Then show their @$$es the end of your foot.

Life is too short to put up with prima-donna nobodies.

Let 'em raise someone else's blood pressure.

:Thumbdown:

[McAllister]

Nice. YOU can't edit so it's YOUR FAULT that they suck as a band.
My god that is some backwards-ass thinking par excellance.

Don't try to educate them, unless they ask. Kick their sorry asses out.

Let the clueless remain without a clue.

M

[crunch]

Yeah man. Fuck those clowns.

I would kindly put it to them that if they can't act like professionals and break up at a drop of a hat, then they probably shouldn't piss their money away on booking a professional studio when they display such amateurish characteristics. I would also point out their inability to actually rehearse the songs they were going to track was the reason they're in this situation in the first place, and that you've been doing everything in your power to salvage this minor little catastrophic show-stopper; if they want to pay you to glue the drum tracks together, so be it. Be realistic about your time and make them pay for their self-inflicted blunder.

BTW, when you DO have this conversation, and you should, would it be ok if you had a mic running in the room printing this conversation for us all to hear? I think I speak for the entire womb when I say we promise we won't tell!

:grin:

:Thumbsup:

[Johnny]

"Hey, Bitch Slap, if y'all are so great, why am I editing drums at all?"

Probably the first time dude has practiced to a click...ever.

Give them a bill for their time and a bill for a drum lesson (at $50/hr.).

[Tim Halligan]

...after booking me for a week to track an Album...


...and mention to them during that conversation which you are recording - and we're not telling - that a cancellation fee will be levied, and no, they cannot have their raw tracks until all oustanding monies have been received.



Feel free to use my old sig line on them:

"No, I'm not too old...your music really does suck."

:D


Cheers,
Tim

[omikl]

I look at it this way.

I'm a sucky middle aged blues guitar player who doesn't do it for a living. Yet I feel pain when I hear a muffed note, a bit of missed timing or a brain fart imtermettzo on the playback of a live gig that was done without benefit of rehearsal or sobriety.

Now then. These dumbfucks go into a professional recording studio and can't even play their own material?

Fuck 'em.

[blackieC]

"It's your fault we suck."


In my meager experience once a fuckwit has convinced themself that thier shortcomings are not of thier own doing, it is damn near impossible to reason with them.

Don't let them waste any more of your time.

Invoice them a cancellation fee and tell them to go fuck a rolling donut.

[Scratchy Potts]

tell them to go fuck a rolling donut...:grin:

Harsh but fair!..:Thumbsup:

[Goes211]

Print this page for these clowns to read.
Then kick their asses out.

:Twisted:

[ajcamlet]

i bet they are under 25

[lebouche]

Thank you people....I had to vent.
They are sorting the finance out but mostly I'm dissapointed.
I spent ages trying to make the drum sound the best I ever recorded.
People always want to rush things and record loads of tracks in a short time. Surely better to have a great ep than a shite album!
The worst thing is I was starting to like these guys and their songs...but they are really loose and sounded dreadful live the other day.
I even offered to let them off some studio time just so we coulod do evreything properly.
Anyway thats it now, the singers going travelling and they are settling up this week.
I would have recorded our conversation if we had it in person but I ended up just freaking out via email.
Anyway....thanks for the support...made me smile.
:)

[Brendo]

So post the emails? DUH... :)

[lebouche]

So post the emails? DUH... :)

Would love to share...will if I get a written reply but the response was by phone today. I wrote it from my hotmail account and hotmail is wank because it does'nt save sent messages.
Will keep you informed on any amusing developments.
It went a little like this 'WTF!!!! Rant rant rant...I've decided to withdraw my kind offer of just paying my fees and having some extra free studio time in the interest of making a good record.'
That was my recent stupid suggestion because I'd rather work things till I'm proud of them than have them suffer because budgets are tight.

[Comte de St Germain]

It's the monkey business.


Get used to it, we live in a world where personal accountability went extinct right after the Feral Barristers became pervasive.


This biz is 125% psych-ology and mind tricks are your power, not theirs, take it back whatever way you see fit.

[eagan]

"It's your fault we suck!"

That's pretty much the full summary of this, really, isn't it?

So they figured on recording a full album in a week, but couldn't be bothered to actually fucking rehearse what they were going to record.

Yes, I'll join in and also state what's obvious to everybody except the clowns in the band in question.

They're utterly clueless. They're fiercely determined to remain utterly clueless, despite your earnest efforts to help, undoubtedly with some massively delusional ideas about this being a component of their artistic integrity.

These fools, absolutely, need not just a studio equipped with an enginner, but a producer to hold their hands and babysit and occasionally smack them, as they obviously have no fucking clue about what's needed to record something decent in a short time.

If that has to be you, then a good serious focused conversation is needed about the subject of production, and what you will expect if you're going to also wear the producer's hat.

I really feel for anybody trying to engineer in a small studio facing these kinds of clowns who expect magic, and, specifically, expect the engineer to fulfill all the responsibilities of a producer, but without any of the authority or compensation of a producer.


JLE

[lebouche]

I get the feeling you've been in similar situations...
Thanks for the sympathy.
I'm over it now...still to get my cashish but none the less.
Thanks!

[mousdrvr]

I get the feeling you've been in similar situations...
Thanks for the sympathy.
I'm over it now...still to get my cashish but none the less.
Thanks!

Hey Lebouche.

I agree 100% percent with all the comments in this thread. The one thing I'd like to add is that, provided you are fair and not vindictive or mean spirited, you NEVER need to worry about your reputation with the delusional wanker bands. They all hang out with other delusional wanker bands and perpetuate their delusional wankerhood. The bands with their shit together avoid these guys like rotting meat. Moreover, there IS always the chance that a delusional wanker band, or more likely some members thereof, will come to their senses, if this happens they will actually appreciate your having NOT put up with their crap, again assuming you were not mean spirited, which I can't believe you would be.

-mous

[eagan]

Le Mous has added a good point to all this. Summarize it as "what are ya gonna do?".

There is probably an encyclopedia of experiences with this stuff among people here. That includes people sitting in the engineer's chair dealing with dipshits like this, or people who have suddenly realized beyond denial that they were IN one of these delusional wanker bands and it was time to bail out, immediately, or even both at different times.

The nastiest part, of course (it's fun to state the obvious!), is that in the recent past, the shift toward DAW based recording has brought in an extra new delusion, that all things can be made perfect and wonderful and just, like, totally awesome, dooood, with a few quick mouse clicks.

All you can do is record these goobers, play things back, and hit them in the face with reality at 100dB. A crappy performance is a crappy performance, and if somebody comes in and starts showing possible signs of delusional wankerhood ("we've never done a serious recording before, but we figure we can record a great album in a week of studio time"), the best you can do is patiently sit with them and the details of how time will likely be budgeted out ("what do you mean we'll be working on getting the drum sound? don't you know what you're doing?"), and make it clear that they had better come in ready to knock out rock solid performances of the tunes in no more than a few takes.

That's about all you can do.


JLE

[lebouche]

Well its all a learning curve!
However the one thing I can say about Mous's comments apart (from cheers n cool) is that even the bands that have their shit together can be wanky and delusional. Last Sat I went to see one who I recorded a few years ago and nearly got arrested because they were set on winding up the bouncers and the police.
Gotta laugh really....
and no I won't be mean but I always tell people if I think they need to step it up..and I always tell them that they probably have a great take in them.
Thanks

[Comte de St Germain]

Live it's all smoke and the studio is all mirrors.

A shattered mirror never reveals the soul when it is reassembled with human hands just a glued together image of what it could be.

Editing can make a band sound good but not great.

This is the only "power up" you have.

They need to make the WOW or settle for being good, or worse, not good.

The best edits one can make are what could be done with a single note punch. That my friend, is the equivalent erasing a pimple on an otherwise incredible Playmate's ass.

[lebouche]

Thats FFing funny!!!:lol: only in real life you cant spray her ass...you have to squeeze the shit out of it (the spot) but you dont want to compress an ugly spot cos its gonna get worse like one of those zits that needs 5 squeezes over three days b4 its satisfied with the nice scar its left behind. Thats whats happened lately as I've worked on my latest tracks...too much squeezing, tweaking and processing now theyre scarred.

[magicchord]

That's a good way of putting it.:Thumbsup:

[Mixerman]

When people act in a comletely unreasonable manner, clearly unwilling to listen to logic or common sense; when people give you grief for trying to help them, and when you make every attempt to provide them with an "out" to answer their objections; when people act out on one another and then turn their aggressions towards you; when people are like this, there is no reason to second-guess any of your decisions or moves where they are concerned. It is human nature to wonder if you could have done something, anything, differently to garner a different result. But based on your description of the events, it is obvious to me and just about everyone here, that you were merely in the wrong place at the wrong time to witness the self-destruction of yet another band that didn't have a fucking clue what it takes to be in a band.

Next year they will be working at Starbucks, and (with any luck) you will be recording yet another band. A different band. Hopefully, a good one. Hopefully, like, THE one. Or it could be yet another disaster. Either way, you'll be there again, another year later. And so on, and so on...

Enjoy,

Mixerman

[lebouche]

One thing I can do is edit...bout the only thing I'm sure of.
They are coming back soon apparently.
I quite like them, it was ust a dissapointing experience.
Thanks for all the support.:Thumbsup: