# Biggest pet peeves as a sound engineer/ producer



## jackfiltraition (Apr 5, 2012)

I hope this is the correct place to post this. Feel free to move it 

So the "Biggest guitarist habit pet peeves" thread sparked some interesting discussion. http://http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/music-theory-lessons-techniques/172184-what-your-biggest-guitarist-habit-pet-peeve.html 

I was thinking a similar thread but directed towards sound engineers/ producers would spark some really interesting discussion and be a great opportunity for the audiophiles to vent some frustration that comes with recording musicians and bands. 

From the bands that bring in 10 friends and their girlfriends during sessions to the horrible musicians that come in ill-prepared and constantly ask "can you just fix it?". What are some of your biggest pet peeves when it comes to recording and dealing with bands?




http://http//www.sevenstring.org/fo...t-your-biggest-guitarist-habit-pet-peeve.html


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## Metalus (Apr 5, 2012)

Guitar/bass players that come in thinking that theyre gonna finish all their tracks in an hour 

"Yeah bro our shit is easy. We'll finish tracking 45 min tops"


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## Chris Finster (Apr 5, 2012)

Lack of funds.


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## DivusPennae (Apr 5, 2012)

currently, being in school to learn to be an engineer, I find forgetting equipment in the studio when recording three floors down in the recital hall to be quite irritating.


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## jackfiltraition (Apr 5, 2012)

Metalus said:


> Guitar/bass players that come in thinking that theyre gonna finish all their tracks in an hour
> 
> "Yeah bro our shit is easy. We'll finish tracking 45 min tops"



I've had that one a few times 

It's especially annoying when it comes from someone you know is going to struggle. "yeah man we are only going to book one day 'cause we know the songs really well and our stuff isn't really that technical" 

One thing that really gets to me is when bands come in and argue about the arrangement of something once the song has already been tracked and edited. 
SINGER: " Hey man, isn't the 2nd chorus only supposed to repeat once!" 
DRUMMER: "No way dude I've been playing it with 2 repeats in practice for weeks!" 
GUITARIST: "I thought it repeated 3 times"

This applies for guitarist's arguing over how a riff goes etc. 

FFS Do you ppl know how to play your own damn songs!!!!! haha


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## KingAenarion (Apr 5, 2012)

Guitarists who don't want to retune their guitars...

"Didnt I tune like a minute ago?"

Anyone, but particularly Drummers who think they can play perfectly In time to a click without having ever practiced to a metronome before. 

Guitarists who refuse to turn the gain Down. 

Bands who want 808 bass drops in every fucking song.

Guitarists live who refuse to turn down. No one gives a flying shit about your boutique amp's power stage saturation. 

Vocalists live who cup the mic...


I'll think of more sooner or later


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## Oxidation_Shed (Apr 5, 2012)

KingAenarion said:


> Vocalists live who cup the mic...



There is nothing on this Earth more irritating than the horrible, muffled, feedback inducing sound of a lack-luster harsh vocalist cupping the mic. "It just makes it sound more brutal." No it doesn't. Sit down.


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## Metalhead77479 (Apr 5, 2012)

Bands that come in and have thousands of dollars worth of gear, thinking that they will play amazing and saying things like "I really like the tone of this $3000 Music Man" yet they refuse to put on new strings, tune or even remotely try to track a serious take.


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## TonyFlyingSquirrel (Apr 5, 2012)

Not enough pre-production.

Not enough advanced rehearsal. 
Not knowing in advance what overdubs, fills will be implemented.
No schedule of which parts to lay down first, 
No documentation of tempo/meter starts/stops & changes. (This is especially important if playing with a click in a DAW)
Drastic band gear tweaking mid-recording without being directed by engineer or producer.

The list goes on.

My old band once did a 7 song recording in 3 10 hr days including mix down and the only way we remotely accomplished that is because we were prepared in every way when we went in.

We had documented our primary parts, secondary parts, overdubs, individualized voices for synths rather than recording in multitimbral mode in order to take full advantage of individual treatment of each synth part, etc...

It all matters and the more prepared you are, the better you will sound for less money.


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## KingAenarion (Apr 6, 2012)

Metalhead77479 said:


> Bands that come in and have thousands of dollars worth of gear, thinking that they will play amazing and saying things like "I really like the tone of this $3000 Music Man" yet they refuse to put on new strings, tune or even remotely try to track a serious take.



Oh God yes!

Restring your fucking guitars. 

Reskin and learn how to tune your drums or pay for someone to do it for you.

Restring you bass! I will get out my bass regulalarly which I restring once every 3 months or so. It's a cheapish Yamaha, and not amazing. If my bass sounds better than your $3000 music man then you need to restring it!


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## KingAenarion (Apr 6, 2012)

Double post... Half an hour apart... I don't even know how...

Pls delete


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## fassaction (Apr 6, 2012)

Oxidation_Shed said:


> There is nothing on this Earth more irritating than the horrible, muffled, feedback inducing sound of a lack-luster harsh vocalist cupping the mic. "It just makes it sound more brutal." No it doesn't. Sit down.



As someone who was a metal vocalist for many years......I am ashamed to say that this was me. I didnt "cup the mic" completely, but I definitely found that a holding it higher up, and wrapping a couple fingers around the filter definitely gave my harsh vocals a much needed clip.

I was always told how nasty (good nasty) it sounded live.....and then I realized how fucking terrible I was when I had to track vocals for our recordings. I sounded like I was trying to strangle a cat.

Then I quit smoking, thinking i would get better....nerp, actually got worse. And then I decided i didnt like being a front man anymore and just stuck to guitar


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## Konfyouzd (Apr 6, 2012)

KingAenarion said:


> Guitarists who don't want to retune their guitars...
> 
> "Didnt I tune like a minute ago?"


 
This is annoying no matter what the context. I jam with a guy like this and I want to smack him every time.


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## fassaction (Apr 6, 2012)

This is slightly petty of me...but I get super annoyed when bands/people I know in bands post ridiculous bullshit on their facebook page such as: "hanging out in the recording studio today" or "tracking guitars in the STUDIO all day"

Tracking guitars on a POD plugged into your work issued laptop....in your basement.....does not exactly constitute spending time in the "studio".


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## Konfyouzd (Apr 6, 2012)

^


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## ArrowHead (Apr 6, 2012)

The self-taught recording expert. Every band has one, and they always know a "better" way to do things than the actual way you want to do things.

People that bring friends. Especially non-musician friends that want to eat, drink, and hang out around the gear.

Bands that run off to smoke dope during a session. AND DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO INVITE THE ENGINEER! 

Lastly, and close to home, perfectionists in the studio tracking. I say close to home because not only do I know how annoying it is, but still I do it myself! I'll run 20, 30 takes and just keep going, never happy with any of them. Hugely unproductive, I hate recording other people that do it, but I do it too when I record myself. No amount of preparation seems to help, so I can't even blame them for being unprepared.


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## Metalus (Apr 7, 2012)

jackfiltraition said:


> I've had that one a few times
> 
> It's especially annoying when it comes from someone you know is going to struggle. "yeah man we are only going to book one day 'cause we know the songs really well and our stuff isn't really that technical"
> 
> ...



That last one is too hilarious . I have yet to experience that one. Its so funny when they brag about how awesome they are and then seeing the expression in their face when they cant get the riff right lol. 

Engineer: "Nah bro do it again" 
Guitarist: "WHAAAATT?!?!? You kidding me?!?! That was SICK!!!"


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## KingAenarion (Apr 7, 2012)

I think we just need to summarize this entire thread as "musicians in general, but particularly guitarists"




I've got a new live one. Bands who don't finish and play overtime, and so you have to be the bad guy and cut off their sound even though there are licensing curfews and sound curfews and you still have to pack up after they leave...


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## Rational Gaze (Apr 7, 2012)

Unprepared vocalists that treat the session as warm up. Especially people that smoked a shit load, are dehydrated and tired, or have eaten a ton of really shitty food before hand, so they constantly have to stop when they push themselves too hard, and end up burping or belching during a sustained note. I've also gotten increasingly tired of singers in a matter of genres that are perfectly comfortable with doing a shit take, and then simply saying "you can pitch correct that later, right?". 

Fuck no. Do another take, don't suck, and take care of your fucking song! I can't stand half-assed performance and especially of something that the pretentious dudes that walked in think is going to impress people. At least pretend like you give a shit. At that point, I take the money, mix the shitty song, and call it a day. 

EDIT: I swear I only get this mad about things I reallllly care about.


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## jackfiltraition (Apr 7, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> The self-taught recording expert. Every band has one, and they always know a "better" way to do things than the actual way you want to do things.
> 
> People that bring friends. Especially non-musician friends that want to eat, drink, and hang out around the gear.
> 
> ...



The self taught recording expert is one that I find really hard to bite my tongue with... also the weed thing haha 

What's even worse then tracking a perfectionist is tracking someone who isn't really too good at their instrument while another member of the band sits around and points out every tiny thing wrong with the performance in an attempt to encourage the person tracking to do better. There are times when i get musicians in and I know almost instantly how far they are capable of pushing their playing until they crumble and sometimes that's not very far at all. All you can do just live with it and get the best you can out of them and make a little mental check list of what needs fixing as you're going. It's hard do this when someone's pacing around behind you calling out every single little imperfection possible. There is a fine line between encouragement and stepping on the producers toes.


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## TheBotquax (Apr 7, 2012)

For me it's people who think that simple effects like an eq can magically turn shitty sounds into professional ones. I'm no expert engineer or producer, but when people ask me "which eq should I use to make my junky freeware drum program sound like your $250 one" it makes me facepalm a bit! Even with the program I use (sd2.0) it still takes hours and hours of tweaking and tone testing to get the sound I want, and people think it should only take 15 minutes


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## KingAenarion (Apr 8, 2012)

TheBotquax said:


> For me it's people who think that simple effects like an eq can magically turn shitty sounds into professional ones. I'm no expert engineer or producer, but when people ask me "which eq should I use to make my junky freeware drum program sound like your $250 one" it makes me facepalm a bit! Even with the program I use (sd2.0) it still takes hours and hours of tweaking and tone testing to get the sound I want, and people think it should only take 15 minutes



The extension of this being "Can't you just fix it in the mix?"

This makes me want to torture them to a slow death and make the body disappear so that no one will ever find them.


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## JohnIce (Apr 8, 2012)

+1 on the "fix it in the mix" guys. I'm an old-school, practice-makes-perfect type of musician. And I studied recording and mixing only to extend my control over my own music, not because I like editing s**t in an arrange window. So I practiced even more so I wouldn't have to edit s**t 

Musicians who don't share that view are hard to work with. Partly because I don't like that attitude, but also because if I agree to produce/mix someone's album for a set fee I don't expect to spend an extra unpaid month editing and exchanging versions with the band where they want me to "turn up" drum hits that were never played.

The worst thing is when these lazy-ass musicians turn into perfectionists as soon as the recording sessions are over. They can't be bothered getting a good take in the studio, but later if my mix doesn't end up sounding like KSE then I'm not done editing it...

Another thing that stings is drum recordings. I can't play drums very well but I LOVE the act of recording and mixing them. I'll spend probably 50% of the time in a mix on just the drums. So when someone asks me to record them, I'll usually spend some time getting a great drum sound, and getting the band really pumped by doing so. Everyone loves a great sounding drum kit!

...then the drummer couldn't play and I end up replacing everything but the OH's in the final mix. Thousands of dollars worth of mics on the kit and the album sounds like SD2.0 anyway. That fucking hurts.


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## KingAenarion (Apr 8, 2012)

JohnIce said:


> +1 on the "fix it in the mix" guys. I'm an old-school, practice-makes-perfect type of musician. And I studied recording and mixing only to extend my control over my own music, not because I like editing s**t in an arrange window. So I practiced even more so I wouldn't have to edit s**t
> 
> Musicians who don't share that view are hard to work with. Partly because I don't like that attitude, but also because if I agree to produce/mix someone's album for a set fee I don't expect to spend an extra unpaid month editing and exchanging versions with the band where they want me to "turn up" drum hits that were never played.
> 
> ...



This makeshift want to kill myself. You should do what I do man. Get Steven Slate Trigger, get the instrument editor and make samples of their drumkit right at the start of the recording for replacement. Sounds way better. 

As to not being able to play. When you agree to record a band, I always make them record rough demos. I make them write out structures and tempos. I make a click track straight away and tell the drummer to practice along to it at least twice a day per song. So far I've got pretty good results with this method.


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## Rap Hat (Apr 8, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> The self-taught recording expert. Every band has one, and they always know a "better" way to do things than the actual way you want to do things.



This is my biggest peeve, and actually had me kill a session once. This was one of my first on-location bands after I started offering that, and they were friends of my studio partner so I figured I could trust leaving the setup in their rehearsal space. 
The band I was recording was a standard alt-metal setup, and the vocalist was always giving EQ advice, moving mics, etc. etc. It was a headache and I'd tell him "dude, if you want to try something else let me know first, and I can tell you if it's feasible (STOP MOVING THE MICS!)". We had something like 4-5 songs fully tracked, another 3 about half done, and I'd just finished mixing their two singles for radio play later that week.

A few days before their radio debut, I come into the rehearsal space to see the vocalist sitting at the PC with Nuendo open. It was one of those moments where you KNOW everything is fucked, and the world moves in slow motion. I say "Heeeeey, whaaat aaaare yoooou doooooing" (slow motion, remember), and he says back "I just fixed the two radio edits!"

It was a disaster. He had deleted a number of tracks (guitar, vocals, drums, it didn't matter!) to "clean" things up, had completely redone every single plugin to his tastes, and somehow overwritten the backups _and _mixdowns I had made. And it wasn't just the radio mixes, but the ones we'd been tracking that week too. His "fixes" sounded horrible; scooped mids on every instrument (bass, drums, guitar, vocals, hell even the room mics!), some awful dance synths all over the tracks, obnoxious delay on all his vocal lines, and the worst use of compression I've ever seen.

I don't remember my reaction, other than vague blurs of "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO!"s and "FUCK THIS!"s. I told the band I was done, that I was packing up and leaving. They could have the masters/mixdowns to do whatever with, but I would not help them anymore.

On the day of the radio interview/singles release I decided to tune in, to see if they had pulled out. Nope! The DJ interviews the band, they talk about whatever, and then they namedrop my studio. Fuuuuuuuck. The tracks come on, and it's an abortion. They used the mixes that the singer had done, and it was even more vile than what I heard when he'd played them back for me.

Thank God barely anyone had tuned in - None of my subsequent clients ever brought it up, and it didn't seem to affect my business at all. That was enough to get me rethinking the whole "on-location" thing, and we enacted much stricter control over the mixes (locked PC, off-site backups).


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## Rational Gaze (Apr 8, 2012)

Rap Hat said:


> This is my biggest peeve, and actually had me kill a session once. This was one of my first on-location bands after I started offering that, and they were friends of my studio partner so I figured I could trust leaving the setup in their rehearsal space.
> The band I was recording was a standard alt-metal setup, and the vocalist was always giving EQ advice, moving mics, etc. etc. It was a headache and I'd tell him "dude, if you want to try something else let me know first, and I can tell you if it's feasible (STOP MOVING THE MICS!)". We had something like 4-5 songs fully tracked, another 3 about half done, and I'd just finished mixing their two singles for radio play later that week.
> 
> A few days before their radio debut, I come into the rehearsal space to see the vocalist sitting at the PC with Nuendo open. It was one of those moments where you KNOW everything is fucked, and the world moves in slow motion. I say "Heeeeey, whaaat aaaare yoooou doooooing" (slow motion, remember), and he says back "I just fixed the two radio edits!"
> ...



In situations like these, I'd rescind my involvement whatsoever. The minute people fuck with my work, it is no longer mine. Sorry dude, that must have been a real nerve-racking experience.


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## Rap Hat (Apr 8, 2012)

Rational Gaze said:


> In situations like these, I'd rescind my involvement whatsoever. The minute people fuck with my work, it is no longer mine. Sorry dude, that must have been a real nerve-racking experience.



It was a helluva learning experience, that's for sure. Looking back there was so much I could've done differently to avoid it, but I was so excited to have studio business that I let lots of stuff slide.

My advice to anyone recording other bands: don't be afraid to put your foot down. It took me longer than it should've since I was much younger than my partner and most of our clients, and our work suffered as a result.


Another peeve I just thought of: bands that have stuff recorded on a Tascam 4-track with a RadioShack mic (or equivalent) and demand you make it sound professional. I can work with a lot and try to give the band the best quality possible, but I can't "fix" a guitar track recorded with your iPhone's mic. If you can't play the part again, try something else.
Bands that use the poor recordings as part of their sound are a different story, and I love working with them to translate that kind of vision.


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## MF_Kitten (Apr 8, 2012)

people who abide by certain standards without thinking it over. Like scooping mids nad boosting the lows because "that's what makes for a beefy tone". I tweak their amp while they play, they get an epiphany because "OMG mids and roary sound?!", and then they are RIGHT BACK to scooping it later, because they don't feel right straying from their preconceived notions.

I remember this one guy who complained that something was wrong with his pickups or wiring, because they were feeding back like crazy, and they were really noisy. They were EMG 81s/85s. I plugged his guitar into his amp, started with a neutral low-gain setting, and turned the gain up until it got a good chug and roar, and dialed the tone in to sound clear and growly in the mids. Not a squeal, no noise. Controlled feedback faded in slowly if i let go of the strings. Perfect!

Did he learn? nope.

People sticking with certain brands, and straying from others, because of traditional values and because they just "feel right" with that whole "team". 

People who love a modern sound, but only buys vintage gear, and complains that they are having problems nailing that tone they like.

People who value "badassery" over "not being an idiot". You know, that guy that refuses to wear earplugs, and wants everything super loud with the bass knobs on full, because "FUCK YEAH POWER BWAAAH!". Sure, everyone is bleeding from their ears, can't hear what's going on, and is in severe pain at this shrill and boomy mess you're presenting, and your hearing won't last long enough for an entire tour,but at least it's BADASS, right?!

People who have strong opinions on fucking EVERYTHING. "You actually LIKE brand X gear? time to cause a shitstorm!"


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## Genome (Apr 8, 2012)

KingAenarion said:


> Bands who want 808 bass drops every four bars



Fixed


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## JohnIce (Apr 8, 2012)

One thing I kinda brought upon myself, was recently when I recorded a prog band, and all their synthesizers were midi-files. We only had three days to record the full band so I said as long as the midi-files were good, I could tweak the sounds to the band's tastes after we were done recording. It was the only way we could do it, but it was a horrible idea nonetheless.

It took the better part of a month to do  And about 20 different uploads to Soundcloud. So much back and forth, bypassing and reactivating plugins, tweaking advanced synths, automating everything, and digging through my backups half the time because "it sounded better before...".

Granted, if I'd been charging by the hour it'd been a different story. Sadly, I didn't. I charged a set price for production and mixing, and a pretty generous one too because I used to be in a band with the bass player. Little did I know I'd spend 90% of the time editing rather than mixing.


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## Rational Gaze (Apr 8, 2012)

This one is about other engineers, and virtuoso musicians that do not understand engineering, but I had an acquaintance, Garret, decide he wanted me to mix his band's debut. Garret is a brilliant kid. Young, naturally gifted with insane hands and ears. So I suggested a few places they could go to record drums, as they could do the rest of the instruments direct into their own setup. Well, they were "on a budget", so they went to some place in Hyattsville, MD. Whatever, I didn't figure it would be an issue. 

So a few weeks later, Garret comes over with the session files, jots down a few notes for me, and leaves. My setup is as minimal as you can get. I tend to do most of my mixing work in the box, some outboard compressors, etc. But I tend to do work with plugins, until I can afford better gear. I digress. Well, I export all the files into SONAR, do some basic panning, and begin listening to the raw tracks. Now, here is a word of caution to bands that operate in the prog/fusion jazz/rock area: do NOT, EVER take your shit to a budget rap engineer/producer. Like EVERRRRR!!!

The instruments/vocals were fine. The bass especially was recorded beautifully. No issues there. The drums however sounded like someone used a midi drum pack from 1996, and applied it to a fusion rock recording. I've NEVER heard shit like this before. The kick was triggered to this really beefy, clicky metal kick that came straight from Demanufacture (because any band that uses guitars is automatically a metal band). The snare was triggered awfully (imagine someone punching a box that's made entirely of snare strings), and while I could hear the ghost notes through the hi-hat mic bleed, there were none on the actual track. The dude straight up decided these were the definite tracks, and didn't even leave an option for me to mess with the drum mix. The triggers were to tape. The Toms had this awful thing on them where the triggered sounds actually were just a single sample per tom. The engineer didn't have a multivelocity trigger on these. It sounded fucking terrible. And on THESE the trigger sound was blended with the actual drum sound, but there was a noise gate in the chain TO TAPE, and it wasn't set properly, so I had this breathing sound of the drums suddenly appearing in this ridiculous stereo pattern whenever the toms were hit, only to go away with possibly the fastest release time known to man. Like....what the fuck. I couldn't believe this guy was actually making any money.

So...yeah.....I spent about a month toiling away at this shit. The drums alone took me about three weeks to figure out. I completely threw the book out on this and just did some insane routing patterns. It was a shitstorm. My session looked like shit. Ugh...never again. Pay an extra 100 dollars for a decent drum recording, because assholes like this will make mixing engineers' lives a living hell.

Also, Garret has now decided to record a second album. This time he had the brilliant idea that he wanted to capture his band's live sound. So....he decided to record the band in a garage on a budget ZOOM microphone........

I can't even.....

Insanely talented kid, but believes I can make a single stereo wave form sound like a fucking 5.1 mix. I'm not that insane.


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## KingAenarion (Apr 8, 2012)

^ This is why I saved and invested in decent drum microphones and an interface good enough to handle multiple channels well. 

Fucking shit drums are useless. I have a couple of times now had my bands drummer bring his TD-20 over and had their drummer re-track the drums through Superior or Steven Slate just to get a half decent drum sound.


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## MrPepperoniNipples (Apr 8, 2012)

well i just learned a shit-ton of what not to do when working with a producer


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## KingAenarion (Apr 8, 2012)

MrPepperoniNipples said:


> well i just learned a shit-ton of what not to do when working with a producer



Experience tends to trump "but the guys on Gearslutz said..." in terms of practical USEABLE knowledge.


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## GXPO (Apr 8, 2012)

You guys have scared the shit out of me... 

I'll tell the producer at the start how to not take my shit and he'll be on SSO a day later talking about this up-tight motherfucker who refused to talk to him, tell him what sound he was looking for or bring his own amp 

I joke of course, gonna need that pinch of salt..


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## Rational Gaze (Apr 8, 2012)

Feedback is wonderful. It's a lot easier to know what an artist is aiming for, than when people walk in cold, and you sit there for about two hours ensuring the mids are correct and the tone sounds just like Periphery.


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## JohnIce (Apr 8, 2012)

KingAenarion said:


> ^ This is why I saved and invested in decent drum microphones and an interface good enough to handle multiple channels well.



Good move. To be honest, a song is often only as good as its drums. It's so easy and cheap nowadays to get great guitar tones, good vocal mics can cost $100, bass and midi keys aren't even an issue at all... so what really separates home-made mediocrity from professional records is often the drum sounds.

It's funny, often when people hear my mixes they ask about what samples I used for the drums, and I say they aren't sampled, that's why you think they sound good  Blending in samples for more transients or sub etc. can sound great, but a consistent drummer + a good kit + careful mic choices and placement almost always sounds better than any of the common drum samplers (SD2.0, EZD, BFD2, Slate etc.).

-edit- As for live sound peeves... band members who don't wait their turn during sound checks. Or just make unnecessary noise. All to many musicians see sound check as either a) warmup chops practice, or b) a chance to scare off the other bands on the bill by exercising your frighteningly fast scale runs through the P.A.

How hard is it to wait for your turn, chug a chord when the sound engineer wants you to so he can EQ you or evaluate the mic placement, then when he's happy, shut up!

What might be even worse than this however, is guitarists who think it's rock n' roll to be louder than anything else, by turning up their master volume as they please during the show. Not only do they ruin the sound for the band and audience alike, half the people in the audience will blame the fucking SOUND GUY for it! I was meeting a couple of people planning a one day festival where they wanted me to do the sound, and one of the arrangers (who was also a headlining guitar player), said: "I don't get why sound guys always have to be such pussies about you changing amp settings when you're playing, don't they know anything about rock n' roll?". I grabbed my jacket and left, pretty much


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## squid-boy (Apr 8, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> Bands that run off to smoke dope during a session. AND DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO INVITE THE ENGINEER!



That's unacceptable!

Refusing to re-string and set the guitar up (proper intonation, buzz-lacking action, yadda-yadda) properly would be a big pet peeve if I had experience working and recording with other musicians.


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## MrPepperoniNipples (Apr 8, 2012)

Rap Hat said:


> It was a disaster. He had deleted a number of tracks (guitar, vocals, drums, it didn't matter!) to "clean" things up, had completely redone every single plugin to his tastes, and somehow overwritten the backups _and _mixdowns I had made. And it wasn't just the radio mixes, but the ones we'd been tracking that week too. His "fixes" sounded horrible; scooped mids on every instrument (bass, drums, guitar, vocals, hell even the room mics!), some awful dance synths all over the tracks, obnoxious delay on all his vocal lines, and the worst use of compression I've ever seen.


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## jackfiltraition (Apr 9, 2012)

JohnIce said:


> Granted, if I'd been charging by the hour it'd been a different story. Sadly, I didn't. I charged a set price for production and mixing, and a pretty generous one too because I used to be in a band with the bass player. Little did I know I'd spend 90% of the time editing rather than mixing.



Yeah it's funny how picky people will become when you're not charging by the hour . I personally am in the middle of the tricky transition of moving from charging by song/ day to by the hour. It honestly is way too much work and time to sit around editing, sending mixes back and forth and playing psychiatrist to the members in the band that are being waaaay to picky!!!


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## JohnIce (Apr 9, 2012)

jackfiltraition said:


> Yeah it's funny how picky people will become when you're not charging by the hour . I personally am in the middle of the tricky transition of moving from charging by song/ day to by the hour. It honestly is way too much work and time to sit around editing, sending mixes back and forth and playing psychiatrist to the members in the band that are being waaaay to picky!!!



Amen to that  Producing and mixing can be a very creative and musical process, and that's why it appeals to me as a musician, but editing stuff is just not why I got into it. Maybe next time I'll go with "I'll produce and mix your album for free! But editing is $10 per bar."


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## Rap Hat (Apr 9, 2012)

I have mucho respect for you guys who are sticking with it, especially charging per-song! I reminisce a lot about running a studio and all the great and terrible shit that happened, but it was just never steady enough for me, and after nine years I decided to focus on my own music. At least now I can make a shitty 5-min mix and not have someone bitching why it doesn't sound pro...

And there's another peeve. The band decides right after tracking that they want a rough mix, and if you trust them enough (or get a deposit) you spend 15-20 minutes with them sitting right next to you, mixing the track. You get a call the next day from the guitarist, "Dude, I compared the song to a Korn track and *list of things to be changed*". You try to explain you're not actually doing the mixing, you're the engineer, but they still, for some inexplicable reason, want their pre-mix mix to sound spotless.


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## JohnIce (Apr 9, 2012)

Rap Hat said:


> I have mucho respect for you guys who are sticking with it, especially charging per-song! I reminisce a lot about running a studio and all the great and terrible shit that happened, but it was just never steady enough for me, and after nine years I decided to focus on my own music. At least now I can make a shitty 5-min mix and not have someone bitching why it doesn't sound pro...
> 
> And there's another peeve. The band decides right after tracking that they want a rough mix, and if you trust them enough (or get a deposit) you spend 15-20 minutes with them sitting right next to you, mixing the track. You get a call the next day from the guitarist, "Dude, I compared the song to a Korn track and *list of things to be changed*". You try to explain you're not actually doing the mixing, you're the engineer, but they still, for some inexplicable reason, want their pre-mix mix to sound spotless.



Ouch  Rough mixes are an under appreciated thing though, they're actually pretty important if you're leaving the tracks to be mixed by someone else, as it gives the mix engineer an idea of what the song is before opening up the project file. Opening up a multitrack without knowing what's in it can be daunting, and you'll spend an unnecessary amount of time just figuring out what the hell is going on.

Regardless, you're right in that it's not supposed to sound pro of course. The rough-mix is meant for the next mix engineer, not for the band


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## Aftermath1 (Apr 9, 2012)

Not my story, but a friend of mine was once recording drums for a local band and he gave the drummer some headphones to use. Drummer then replies that he doesn't need them as his £30 in-ear headphones are probably better. After about 10mins of trying to persuade the guy to use the proper headphones my friend gave up.


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## sevenstringj (Apr 10, 2012)

KingAenarion said:


> Vocalists live who cup the mic...



Somebody doesn't appreciate that remark...


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## KingAenarion (Apr 10, 2012)

sevenstringj said:


> Somebody doesn't appreciate that remark...



Yea, if I was Suffocation's live sound guy and Frank Mullen kept cupping the mic I'd tell him to get fucked or I'll just keep muting him... or more precisely, muting his monitors so that it won't feed back.

Same as I'll tell any guitarist that refuses to turn their amp down, that if they don't I'll be forced to turn pretty much everything else down just to that the venue is still within the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) guidelines for noise limits. Or if the PA isn't huge I'll just tell him that I physically can't make the band any louder... or If I do the system will blow up and the venue will bill him for it.



That's another one! Bands who interfere with Live Sound equipment because they think they know better. I had a horror story of a band who just didn't get it through their thick skulls that I physically couldn't turn up the PA any louder without it blowing the speakers. I was doing sound in this pub, and they were a hard rock band. The guitarist had his full double cab marshall stack and just refused to turn it down. It was like a largish medium wattage PA system, so it would've been fine but he had the master on like 8... so you basically couldn't hear anything else. When I told them to turn down they kept yelling at me to turn the PA up. Eventually the vocalist walked over to the PA Amplifiers and turned them all the way up. Then the drummer counted in and they started to play a riff before I realised what had happen. 

The speakers were not rated to handle the amplifier at that level. They were rated at like 500 Watt Speakers and the amp was 1000 Watts a side. There was even a little note on the amps for the sound guy that said "Don't turn above this point, speakers are not rated for this" or something like that.

Anyways... BOTH the tweeters blew out... and one of the cones actually tore itself off its housing so was flapping violently.

The band ended up having to pay a significant amount to replace the speakers, the dumb fucks... the owner also called the pubs and clubs association and had them blacklisted or something.


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## Edika (Apr 10, 2012)

As a non professional musician that has a rudimentary knowledge of sound engineering I find your peeves very very logical and not at all unreasonable. I have witnessed this kind of behavior in other bands especially in live situations. The worst people in my experience were the super hyper brutal underground bands that don't really play music. How is it justified in a live situation to have a Marshall valvestate (80 watts) with the gain all the way up and a distortion pedal in front with the gain all the way up and expect to hear anything else than squealing noises rather is beyond any sane persons comprehension.
It is very important to choose a sound engineer that knows the genre you are playing or otherwise there will be no communication and the result will be unsatisfying for both parties. This goes for the mixing engineer also and live sound engineers.
As an example to this, we were prepared to play live as a support group and we were making the sound check. One of the sound engineers then approaches and says that the kick drum is tuned to F so the bass and guitars should also tune to F and proceeds to help the bassist starting tuning his bass to F. At that point we realize what is going and kindly but firmly asked the sound guy to stop and deal with the actual sound or if possible help tune the kick in E (which would not make the slightest difference in a thrash death black metal concert, even though it didn't sound like an F to me).
Even so if you discuss with the guy behind the console and explain what you are trying to do and have a relative idea of how frequencies work then you should be able to have a good result. But who in our day discusses and even better listens and tries to understand what the other person is saying?


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## JohnIce (Apr 10, 2012)

Aftermath1 said:


> Not my story, but a friend of mine was once recording drums for a local band and he gave the drummer some headphones to use. Drummer then replies that he doesn't need them as his £30 in-ear headphones are probably better. After about 10mins of trying to persuade the guy to use the proper headphones my friend gave up.



I encourage the drummers I record to use their own phones if they want to. Some drummers turn their monitoring up to all hell to be able to play along with it, if they decide not to do it in my headphones I'm a happier guy


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## KingAenarion (Apr 10, 2012)

Edika said:


> As a non professional musician that has a rudimentary knowledge of sound engineering I find your peeves very very logical and not at all unreasonable. I have witnessed this kind of behavior in other bands especially in live situations. The worst people in my experience were the super hyper brutal underground bands that don't really play music. How is it justified in a live situation to have a Marshall valvestate (80 watts) with the gain all the way up and a distortion pedal in front with the gain all the way up and expect to hear anything else than squealing noises rather is beyond any sane persons comprehension.
> It is very important to choose a sound engineer that knows the genre you are playing or otherwise there will be no communication and the result will be unsatisfying for both parties. This goes for the mixing engineer also and live sound engineers.
> As an example to this, we were prepared to play live as a support group and we were making the sound check. One of the sound engineers then approaches and says that the kick drum is tuned to F so the bass and guitars should also tune to F and proceeds to help the bassist starting tuning his bass to F. At that point we realize what is going and kindly but firmly asked the sound guy to stop and deal with the actual sound or if possible help tune the kick in E (which would not make the slightest difference in a thrash death black metal concert, even though it didn't sound like an F to me).
> Even so if you discuss with the guy behind the console and explain what you are trying to do and have a relative idea of how frequencies work then you should be able to have a good result. But who in our day discusses and even better listens and tries to understand what the other person is saying?



I think I remember you telling this story before...

"It's tuned to F"... Dafuq?


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## sevenstringj (Apr 10, 2012)

KingAenarion said:


> Yea, if I was Suffocation's live sound guy and Frank Mullen kept cupping the mic I'd tell him to get fucked or I'll just keep muting him... or more precisely, muting his monitors so that it won't feed back.








Sounds pretty good to me...


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## signalgrey (Apr 10, 2012)

1.) People who go to the studio and just treat it like moms basement. If you are in the booth or in the control room, you should be participating positively in some way. Suggestions, support, honest feedback etc... if not.. get the FUCK out. If the studio is a place for you to fuck around and take pics so you can put them on facebook and pretend to be relevant somehow...dont be alive anymore.

2.) I was in a signed band here in Korea and I dealt with a front-woman who was super condescending to the engineers at the studio, then say they did it wrong when her takes sounded like shit even though she was the one that re-EQed everything or did other stupid shit like that. If you are hiring an engineer or a producer, you should also trust their insight and experience. This doesnt mean you cant question it or throw in the odd veto and get your way, but for the most part....fucking listen.

3.) All the gear idiots, and people who thing they know everything about everything and are unwilling to do anything they dont think is right. Or people who choose to be contrary because they thinks it makes them sounds like perfectionists.

4.) If you cant play the music that you wrote and you expect everything to be punch-ins and done via editing...fuck you. You dont deserve to be a musician. Its a craft and a skill and it should be a method of catharsis and emotional expression. if you are OK with photocopying a chorus because you cant be fucking bothered to play it again, fuck you.


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## KingAenarion (Apr 10, 2012)

sevenstringj said:


> Sounds pretty good to me...




Yea... and the sound guy probably spent ages getting it to sound good


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## DrewsifStalin (Apr 10, 2012)

6/8 of people who use compressors


signalgrey said:


> 4.) If you cant play the music that you wrote and you expect everything to be punch-ins and done via editing...fuck you. You dont deserve to be a musician. Its a craft and a skill and it should be a method of catharsis and emotional expression. if you are OK with photocopying a chorus because you cant be fucking bothered to play it again, fuck you.



sounds like someone isn't very good at editing takes quickly


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## JohnIce (Apr 11, 2012)

DrewsifStalin said:


> 6/8 of people who use compressors



 



DrewsifStalin said:


> sounds like someone isn't very good at editing takes quickly



I think there's a difference between doing that sort of thing yourself in your own home-studio, taking up your own time to do all that work because it's part of your vision with your music, than dumping the workload onto someone else. If you aspire to play metronome tight progressive metal, but rely entirely on someone else (the engineer) to even get close to that vision, then I'm with signalgrey entirely, you should set your priorities straight and get to practicing more. Or learn a DAW. Not saying you _have to_, as evident by every Top 20 chart since the 80's, but it's my personal opinion. I can't imagine it being very fulfilling not being able to play your own music.

Some editing should always be expected with no shame I think, with my band we practice incessantly on small timing details and work to get close to metronome tight takes in the studio but I still edit it.  And I have no qualms about spending a day or so on someone else's album just editing stuff. That's reasonable.

But I've also had the misfortune of mixing bands that couldn't play, but want to sound like Dream Theater anyway. When the time it takes to edit things is more labour-intensive and time-consuming than getting a good mix, then I honestly don't see any enjoyment in working for that band.


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## TonyFlyingSquirrel (Apr 11, 2012)

I'd have to agree with you Johnny 100%.
Preparation is everything, and rehearsal is the most basic, and most important aspect of that. Humility is the other, if musicians cannot take constructive criticism that is ultimately for their own benefit, then the whole project is going to suffer for it.


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## jsaudio (Apr 11, 2012)

Thought i would share this here cuz this is ridiculous, got this message the other day froma band trying to book.




Dude.







yes sir?







So, we probably have about 9 minutes total of material. Like some songs are like 20 seconds. It would be super silly for us to pay 100 dollars for a 20 second song, ya know? Like a band could go to you, record 2 songs for 200 and get the same length of stuff. Like realistically, how much would you charge us for an ep that's no more than 9 minutes. You probably won't even have to mix it, cause we'd want like a raw punk sound. So like, 11 minutes, like 250?







How many songs total man? And you have to understand how recording works man. No matter how long the song I still have to mix and master which still takes and equal amount of work on my end lol. Tell me how many songs and about the length of them and I'll give u a quote







We don't want em mixed. We want a raw sound. And it'd be like 7 tracks. Maybe 8. Longest one is 1:57





......I have a problem with this....


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## TonyFlyingSquirrel (Apr 11, 2012)

jsaudio said:


> Thought i would share this here cuz this is ridiculous, got this message the other day froma band trying to book.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I'd likely forward that to my junk folder, or tell them to go by a used Roland VS880 & do it themselves...


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## Rap Hat (Apr 11, 2012)

jsaudio said:


> Thought i would share this here cuz this is ridiculous, got this message the other day froma band trying to book.
> 
> ......I have a problem with this....



Haha! I feel kinda bad laughing because I know what that's like, but I always crack up when a band thinks they've found a way to beat the (recording) system.

You should take them in, give them a single take per song, and run straight to mixdown . Well actually no, that's a terrible idea that will lead to headaches all around, but I've always wanted to do that.


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## Rational Gaze (Apr 11, 2012)

signalgrey said:


> 4.) If you cant play the music that you wrote and you expect everything to be punch-ins and done via editing...fuck you. You dont deserve to be a musician. Its a craft and a skill and it should be a method of catharsis and emotional expression. if you are OK with photocopying a chorus because you cant be fucking bothered to play it again, fuck you.



I hate this shit. HATE it. I cannot stand when people expect you to fucking patch together a really, really shitty recording session, simply because they are absolutely awful at their craft, or just have to sound perfect and robotic, and flawless.


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## fps (Apr 12, 2012)

jsaudio said:


> ......I have a problem with this....



What's not to like? Easiest recording session ever, give em what they want!


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## KingAenarion (Apr 12, 2012)

jsaudio said:


> Thought i would share this here cuz this is ridiculous, got this message the other day froma band trying to book.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Charge them by the hour. Say if you honestly feel that it won't take long, I will charge you by the hour.

Make them sign a contract... That way when you do "no mixing" on it and give them a sample of the work (so about 30 seconds of 1 song) they'll be like "Dafuq man" and you'll be able to say "That's what you asked for"...

Then they'll ask for a mix and you'll charge them by the hour!


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## Edika (Apr 12, 2012)

KingAenarion said:


> I think I remember you telling this story before...
> 
> "It's tuned to F"... Dafuq?



Yes you are right, in the guitar pet peeves! It was so note worthy that and had to do with sound engineers so I had to mention it again hahahaha!


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## Oxidation_Shed (Apr 13, 2012)

We had to do a stupidly hurried recording session because my drummer was retarded enough to forget that the uni he applied to required some tracks of things he had contributed to musically, until just under a week before the deadline -.-

Anyway, because of the last minute nature, I didn't have time to engineer the whole session. I left the bassist in charge because his primary instrument is drums and he does A2 level music tech so I figured he must have some knowledge of how to do a recording - seeing as he gets graded on one at the end of this year. Boy, was that a mistake.

Firstly, I was around for the setting up of the drum mics and we got the best possible sound that we could (because of time restraints, there was no money or time for reskinning drums so we used some week old skins, they didn't sound too bad because the school's kit is barely used - it's a Yamaha Stage Custom I think, so it could be a lot worse sounding). I came back halfway through the drum tracking to find that one of the overhead tracks wasn't making any sound: he hadn't turned on the channel strip on the mixing desk -.-

I then sat through just about everything else, until we got to vocals. We did four preliminary takes, I took the best and then did some quick comping. So far so good but, inevitably, some notes were out of tune enough to be problematic. I didn't have much time before having to leave the studio so I just cut and deleted all the notes that were off and told my bassist to track them again until we got good takes. 
Disaster.

Instead of re-tracking the whole line or phrase, he just got the singer to record the words that were out. i.e. If he had to record "Summer felt so long", it was "Summer" "Felt so long".
The vocals came out sounding like a fucking automated answering service. No amount of editing could make it sound remotely realistic. In the end I had to copy and paste stuff around the place because of time restraints.

So yeah, engineers who don't know what they're doing. The phrase "Adam can just fix it in editing" was banded around rather a lot between those two morons. -.-


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## KingAenarion (Apr 13, 2012)

Got a new one...

Going somewhere, using their cables and realising the fact that the people before were fucking TERRIBLE at rolling cables!



I don't want to be spending 10 minutes at the start of every fucking session fixing poorly rolled cables just so I can use them


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## JohnIce (Apr 14, 2012)

KingAenarion said:


> Got a new one...
> 
> Going somewhere, using their cables and realising the fact that the people before were fucking TERRIBLE at rolling cables!
> 
> ...



 

My band did a tour project with another pretty good but inexperienced band, and one of the first things I did after the first gig was to gather everyone around me and teach everyone how to properly roll a cable  It paid off though, the cables are still good as new.


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## jsaudio (Apr 15, 2012)

KingAenarion said:


> Charge them by the hour. Say if you honestly feel that it won't take long, I will charge you by the hour.
> 
> Make them sign a contract... That way when you do "no mixing" on it and give them a sample of the work (so about 30 seconds of 1 song) they'll be like "Dafuq man" and you'll be able to say "That's what you asked for"...
> 
> Then they'll ask for a mix and you'll charge them by the hour!




Yea that is what i should do, actually already thought about it, the thing is its gonna come out semi-mixed anyways, cuz i would just track them into a previous mix i have done lol 

So yea it would be a really easy recording session, but at the same time they are gonna make MY work sound like shit by telling me to make it sound like shit...haha im not down with it lol


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## JohnIce (Apr 16, 2012)

jsaudio said:


> Yea that is what i should do, actually already thought about it, the thing is its gonna come out semi-mixed anyways, cuz i would just track them into a previous mix i have done lol
> 
> So yea it would be a really easy recording session, but at the same time they are gonna make MY work sound like shit by telling me to make it sound like shit...haha im not down with it lol



Have them sign a contract saying they can't name you as being involved with the record. You don't have to put your name on it if you feel it could damage your name or career.

Come to think of it, I think Max Martin took his name off from producing Bon Jovi's "It's my life" because he was so dissatisfied with the end mix.

- edit - That said, you should never expect ALL your preferences to end up on the final mix. The artist or record company will almost always tell you to go with some choices that you voted against. Which is fair, because they hired you, not the other way around. It stings but it's how it works. I'm currently mixing a singer/songwriter duo that asked for far more reverb than I think sounds good, and it takes away so much beautiful intimacy from their voices, but in the end they decide.


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