As to the fellow who said, "Don't bring extra people" I will never forget these two girls. I honestly don't remember the band AT ALL, but I remember the two girls they brought with them. They were fairly nice, they didn't bother the musicians or me at all, but after being there for a few hours, on a one day mix session, one of them just blurted out "Why are you listening to this song AGAIN?"
4:24 Don't bring extra people..... I was that extra person once, many years ago in the tape days, it was mate's band and I was the driver so took them to the studio.... Recording started, drummer played the drums, it was a simply 1 2 3 & 4 drumbeat with the odd simple fill, he got it wrong half a dozen times in a row, all timing issues, so the engineer told him to take a break. They did the bass next, perfect in one take, then the guitar and the singer pretty quickly too, so finished by lunchtime. They then sent the drummer out for a pizza. While he was out the guitarist played the drums and got it in one take. When the drummer came back they sat him down, he had one more attempt, it was dreadful, but the told him great. To this day he doesn't know it wasn't him on the single, the pizza was good too.
Here’s a dumb story from the stage. I was doing sound for a band, we sound checked, did monitors, it was loud sounded ace and everyone was happy. Halfway through the gig the lead guitarist complained he couldn’t hear himself through his monitor and wouldn’t play for a good 15 minutes. After checking everything in my end on the desk I said “just turn your amp up on stage”, he proceeded to crank his Marshall stack to max in my fairly small venue completely drowning out the vocals and ruining the mix. After they had played I went on stage to help with change over for the next band where I learned he unplugged the monitor to charge his phone. 🤦♂️
When i was 16 playing my 2nd live show ever, for some reason kept having difficulty issues getting any sound out of my guitar or amp, it would start and i could start like the firat 2 bars of the songs intro and itd die out again this went on for like 15-20 mins and out of know where it just startes working completly normal and i didnt have a single issue after that for the rest of the show, it was really weird, especially since that issue never happen ever again after that and i was using the exact same guitar, cable, amp head and cab, it was literally the most bizarre thing ever, i have a CD with the video of the show on it, and about 2 years ago i watched the video anf i honestly couldnt see any reason for my guitar or amp to produce any noise, i wonder if the power outlet wasnt plugged in fully which was causing in and out power outages on the amp, who the fuck knows, but i can tell u i was super nervous as it was, then that happened and i literally felt like i was going to pass out but i pushed through and it ended up being a kickass performance, my bamd at the time played a mix of thrash/tech death/ melodic death and grindcore so most of our songs were quite intricate and technical, i remember when we would have band practice we'd literally play every song about 6-10 times in a row, to make sure we sounded super tight and precise, not gonna lie drove me nuts sometimes especially when it was a song that we had perfectly masteres
Oh, that's a funny one. I was recording this drummer, setting up up all the drums and mics, he puts the headphones on and I say "Ok, before anything else, I want to hear this snare". He says "Ok", and after few seconds of random noises he comes out of the booth *WITH* the snare, comes close to me, starts hitting it and says: "Do you like it?" :D
holly shit man, same thing happened to me then he asked if he could at least hold my SM58 that I had lying around so that he could pretend he was playing live... and then proceeds to cup the SM58 mic even tho it wasn't connected, so my condenser mic was just there recording some dude cupping an unplugged SM58 mic...
You don't need to be any of those. Protect your equipment, sure.... but if people want to waste time they paid for? Go ahead... the clock is still running, I am still getting paid.
@@AMSOfficial79 As an audio engineer I usually try to have that attitude but what you learn is that all the clients nonsense like coming in late, totally unprepared, not rehearsed sufficiently, changing arrangements in the middle of a session etc. or even showing up drunk/high will eventually all fall back on you and the studios reputation. In the best case scenario a studio is there to offer a professional service and offer the best quality possible. That is often difficult and depressing when you are working with a bunch of wanna be rock stars who are just throwing their money away and expect you to make them sound like gold.
@@Rickholly74 As a producer/engineer myself, the old adage applies: 'garbage in, garbage out'. People get what they put in. Fuck expectations, and everyone I have ever worked with knows this. You get out what you put in. Want to pay me to sit there? Cool, I'll do exactly that - and have done exactly that. I can't press 'record' if you aren't in the booth/room ready to play; it isn't a matter of my professional rep, it is a matter of THEIRS. I have had zero issues... but I won't book just anyone who comes calling, either. I scope them out, go to shows and get a sense of their vibe and sound, and work that way - as a producer should. If they aren't ready to work, they can't work with me.
Had a session once, where the client showed up, dressed in full hair-band clothing and makeup of the time (1980’s)- which was actually neither here nor there for me... But then he asked me if I had a mirror he could use; thinking he wanted to cut up lines of blow with it, I told him, “listen man, I’m not judging you or anything, but you can’t do coke in here...” (a cop owned the building I was leasing at that time). He responded with, “dude, no, I need a mirror set up in front of the mic when I record my vocals so that I can SEE MYSELF and how awesome I look when I’m singing!” I thought he was yanking my chain, so I started laughing... but he was totally serious. Oh, and by the way, and I swear to Sgt Pepper that I’m not making this up, his name was... “Garth”. 😆🤣😂
the witchfinder general - I’m no angel myself, having come of age in the ‘70’s, it was a time of “relaxed” acceptance for certain...uhm... “imbibements”... LOL. But, I was leasing half of a building that was owned by a cop; though he was a very friendly guy, sort of fascinated by what I did, so it wouldn’t have been out of the realm of possibility for him to just stop in to say hello at any given time. As mentioned, I wasn’t judgmental, but I wasn’t gonna go to jail and risk my business for some coke-snorting, glam metal, arrogant jag-off who wanted to get amped. As it turned out, I was wrong about the coke part. But the rest about him was pretty much dead-on. 😉
ClassicalQuack - well, it depends on whom you ask, Quack. If you asked Garth, or his girlfriend who was with him, they would both assure you that he was incredibly talented. If you asked me, (or any of the other guys or girls who worked at my studio in those days), we would probably tell you that he was indeed incredible... incredibly BAD. His singing resembled the sound of a cat being thrown into a blender. And, I would suggest that if him having a mirror in front of him so that he could watch himself “sing” was necessary to make him sing better, that there’s probably no mirror anywhere in the universe that would have been big enough to achieve that. 😉
I 've had bands break up. I had my head in a kick drum when a drummer decided to test it. I had a client ask if he could do his wife in my vocal booth. Countless not showing up on time. Had a kid who was miming along with his drum solo, then promptly sack himself while doing a fill on his knees! That was hilarious.
There is a big difference between can and should can you do that, yes, should you... depends on if you up charge and they are willing to pay in advance.
During February Album Writing Month, I posted on the forums that I needed a female vocalist for a project. A woman volunteered and she ended up having to do it in her bathtub using the built-in phone mic. I had to nudge the pitch and timing and clean up a couple pops, but it was, all-in-all, a really great take. That was 3 years ago, and now we're making an album together. :-)
In the late eighties I had a job miking a steinway piano in an expensive studio. It happened to be the pianists birthday and a mystery man decided to lay 10 lines of blow on the shiny steinway. The pianist sat down and just blew the blow away thinking it was some sort of dust and started playing. When I saw dissapointment on one's face the mystery man revealed himself......
I showed up to my guitarist's house, my car loaded down with equipment, ready to record tracks on the day we'd set aside two weeks prior. He was having a bonfire. He got frustrated three takes in because it was taking too long and he needed to get back to his friends. Needless to say, the songs didn't get done and that band no longer exists.
The dumbest thing I ever saw in a studio unfortunately came from me. It happened about 28 years ago. It was my first time EVER recording in a studio. I SO wanted to come to the studio prepared and ready to lay all my guitar parts down without a hitch. I practiced my ass off for a month solid and really got to where I could play my parts in my sleep. We had written the songs a whole year before we recorded so I knew my parts inside and out. Got to the studio got all set up and the engineer (who was awesome by the way) mic’ed me up and got all the levels right. Everything was perfect! As soon as he hit record and the light came on...I FUCKING FROZE!! I felt like I had forgotten everything I practiced. I just froze! The engineer/producer was so cool. He knew I busted my ass to prepare and he knew exactly the pep talk I needed to calm my brain down so I could perform.
@@umrasangus absolutely. I've performed for people and froze for a bit too. Not hard to do, and totally understandable. Good that it worked out though 👏. That's what counts!
I've been a studio engineer for almost 30 years and that's not unusual. Nerves can often get the better of us. I've always referred to it as ´red light syndrome´
I did a session with an artist, we tracked everything and halfway through we went to go get lunch. We come back half an hour later and decide to go on UA-cam and listen to a different artist that they recommended. We start listening to the song and it was extremely quiet, so naturally I turn up the monitors. My artist comes over and says, "Oh you still have talkback on." What he didn't know is that the talkback dimmed the monitors, and so without thinking he pressed the talkback button off and the speakers were so loud that they burst the treble of the speakers. After that we could only hear the tweeters! And that is the story of how one of my artists blew vintage NS10s :)
One of my bandmates is a tech at the local audio engineering college. The other week some students came to him complaining about not being able to hear the drums through the control room monitors. He had a quick look and his response was "Yeaaaah, you don't have any microphones in there lads". I wonder if catering colleges get students that don't know what knives & forks are...
Yes. They do. My step-brother-in-law started culinary school last year and came home for break and got seriously pissed and confused when I smacked a stainless steel whisk out of his hand before he put it in my $100 6-quart nonstick stock pot. When I handed him a silicone whisk he looked me straight in the face and said “dude, isn’t the boiling water going to melt this”………. This is 4 months after starting culinary school AND being a legal adult.
Back in the days when Tom Scholtz's Rockman was launched, this well known guitar player came back from the USA to Italy with one of those little black boxes, walked into the studio, told everybody how great the tones of the Rockman were, went into the live room, connected the Rockman headphone outputs to TWO amps, placed a mic in the middle, played a scrap track, came back behind the console to listen and "why is it mono?" We just could not believe...
A guitar player brought 2 full Marshall stacks. 4 - 4x12 cabinets and 2 JCM800 heads to a session. He insisted that he needed to run all of them. We put them in an iso booth, and he demanded to play in the booth for feedback. Standing in front of both stacks cranked to 11 he asked for more of his guitar in his headphone mix. Sometimes i wonder if that guy can still hear at all. Oh and the drummer forgot his snare stand and told me he could just sit it on a trashcan. We let him borrow a stand!
Not in my studio, but in a band I was in going into a studio we asked if it would be better to use the better amps the studio had and were told that we weren't important enough.
Band came into a studio without their band-master, nobody knew what songs and instrments to record, so we were just sitting there, figuring out what we're gonna do. When we figured it out and finally start recording, they remembered the songs have transposed to a different key (due to a new singer) and they didn't know their parts :)
When I worked at a rehearsal studio. One day, a band arrives an hour early for their rehearsal. I had just got there mere minutes before to open up the studio. They get mad at me because I hadn't turned on the PA, set up the mics, or had the heat running for long enough. They claimed that I was supposed to have the room set up an hour early for when they arrived so they could 'set up'. Mind you we provide a drum kit (with cymbal stands), 2 half stacks, a full bass rig and a full PA with monitors. So setting up usually takes like 15 minutes tops for a band. After confusion and frustration, I rush to set up the room and get them to sound good on the PA. Once they are going, not 5 minutes later, one of them comes to find me to tell me there is feedback. I go to the expensive and confusing digital mixer and see that they fucked with it. I get them going AGAIN and tell them to call me if they need me to fix anything on the mixer. Well, this happened about 3 more times. And every time it was evident that they fucked with the mixer. Anyways, after a frustrating 2 hours, they finish up and come to pay me (or so I thought). They tell me they are calling my boss and demanding I be fired, otherwise they won't come back again. They proceeded to insult me and had the nerve to tell me they weren't paying for the rehearsal time. To sum this up, my boss said they are always like that and that he forgot to warn me. He ended up coming there personally to deal with them. Wow I tried to make that short, but I literally could not, too many stupid details I HAD to include haha.
A guitar player/teacher from a small city came to my studio to record a song with 3 of his pupils. I got the drums all set up beforehand so we wouldn't loose time. We had only 1 day to record. None of the pupils present was the drummer so I asked the teacher if he's running late or something. His reply was: "Oh, he couldn't get here. I'll record the drums! How hard can it be?"...
Hey, it's Mary Z! One time I had this guy literally jump up in the air every time he sang a high note that was (clearly) out of his range as though that extra little boost would help him reach the notes (it did not). Simultaneously sad and hilarious XD
Getting upset about the producer changing your strings on your own bass guitar without your permission and still charging you for it is pretty justified
That's as bad as cleaning a jazz legend's ride cymbal of the 30 years of gunk. As an engineer you don't have the right to change the sound they came in with.
Yeah thank you, fuck that. Don’t mess with my shit. Im not changing the tubes out in your preamp, don’t change my fucking strings shithead. Plus I just gotta say, I hate the sound of brand new strings.
Yeah, doing it on your own is pretty fucked up. But bro, you do realize you are getting 20% of a bass's sonic spectrum with shitty strings. You can't even mix it later.
The girlfriend of a guitarist appeared in the Studio after he was "searching for inspiration" (to record a 10 sec guitar phrase) for two hours to "help him finding inspiration" for another two hours, € 200,-- for the hour. Afterwards she braged around, that her boyfriend recorded the most inspired solo ever, and that she helped him finding Inspiration - while the other 6 guys sat outside, waiting to go on. It was end of September, beautifull weather, so at least we were able to enjoy ourselfes - while the guitard and his girlfriend burned our money and the enginers time. Because we were on a budget we had to cut off the 4 hours of our mastering and mixing time. But the engineer dug our music and did an excellent job. I am still proud of the record, music, artwork and everything around.
have a friend with some problems so he has to spit into a can constantly, something with allergies and working conditions One day, sadly when I wasn't on chat, he drank the wrong can. suddenly he took my 'get some fine sand paper and sand the thing down so if you don't see the difference you will feel a difference,' suggestion seriously.
OK so a band I knew had some studio time and I was tasked with transporting their crap to said studio. They set up the drums first and were nearly done tracking them. Apparently the bassist had taped a large bag of cocaine up inside the bass drum, god only knows why, I guess he was hiding it from himself! Near the end of tracking I was there chomping at the bit to take that monstrosity of a kit back to the storage unit. I just happened to be watching at the time as he went into this epic fast part with the double kicks flailing. The studio dude and I could hear something f'd up happening and then while watching through the window, we saw it. I looked like a snow blower coming from the front sound whole of the kick. I guess at that moment the tape gave way and released the coke into the drum and out through the sound hole. It was so epic, the drums had become a coke dispenser and the room filled with the white powder. The funniest thing was the bassist who wasn't there that day was never the wiser, we cleaned up the stuff and had free dope, the drummer was not amused. Steve the bassist still talks about that huge bag someone "stole" from him to this day. If you read this Steve, Your a fucking jack ass. :)
We shared a room with about 3 bands and a promoter. We had a storage room to lock up some gear but some days I would show up and there would be beer cans and smokes everywhere. Things could of gone well but some people just partied more than worked. After most of my expensive cables were stolen I was all done trying to trust that many people. I donated half my gear and went to do something else with my life for a while.
We were recording an EP as a girl walked into the studio. The studio guy then told us to leave in the middle of the session so he could bang the girl on his chair. When he was done the session went on. He then said: Well I'm gonna deduct these 10 minutes of your studio bill. That's for sure.
The dumbest thing...client pays for a day, doesn't show up...no return phone calls, then asks to do it another day...yes, charged in advanced. That was dumb...of them I'd say. I truly feel for you man! Reading just a handful of the comments below is exactly why I never really joined a band. Of course, I had some friends in high school and did the whole garage band thing, we hardly ever practiced actual songs or worked on anything seriously...so I later rented an office space with one friend hoping to push it into, let's get serious mode... but when he hardly came to that, I quit spending money on being the only guy there and built a studio in the back of the house I rented so I could work on my own stuff. When the house was sold a couple years later, I set-up my gear in the garage of a house I rented with friends, would have parties and just play, improvise, and have a good time until I got married and sold it all. I never totally quit the music creating dream, always had a piano and guitar I could play and still I love improvising and writing music. Now I have a studio room in my apartment and have a monthly jam with friends and family at my cousin's who lives in Oakley where the neighbors don't complain...it's a blast...we let anyone try and play something, encourage them to get into playing an instrument, and though sometimes it's literal... s..t ...sometimes... it's magical!
I think 3 of the weirdest things that happened in my studio, #1 The vocalist of the band shot the drummer in the head with a 357 mag, blew his brains all over my new carpet and fled on foot. They never did find him #2 This Band called Tammy and the Tramadols, 4 , 16 year old guys that hadn’t bathed in years wanted to record 12 Perry Como songs they recorded the drum tracks but I couldn’t stand the smell I threw them out #3 Is just too weird to print.
Rly don't get a thing about new bass string. WTF man? Great James Jamerson played same string set all his life and sounded great. And, yeah, I got the point, that in some cases(well, in most of them, actually) fresh strings will get you better sound, but change string without telling musicians and then charge them for that is kinda dick move, IMO
That engineer probably does not listen to a lot of music or doesn’t know how to track different types of bass tones. Kinda sad he was so confident in telling this as his “worst studio moment” He must not track bass players often
While I was interning at a studio, we had a rapper send in multitracks to mix, and they didn't sound right (musically, the recording was fine). Did some analysis and figured out the song was in *3 different keys* those keys were, and I'm not joking, B A and D. His song was in the key of *BAD*. The head engineer called him and tried explaining the problem, and his response was, "Well, I've been to more countries outside the US than you, so I'm right and your wrong." It also took 45 minutes to get to that point.
Great video, dude. Kudos for the patience these folks must have when deal with idiots in their studios. It's clear that there are people who think paying for studio time makes them entitled do whatever the hell they want.
Love this, buddy.. the unfortunate, indeliberate shenanigans I've seen over the years in studios, they just keep coming... But I gotta tell ya, I've mused upon this video TWICE by the side recommendations in the last year, and as much as I enjoy it, my mind has rolled back, on both occasions, to the change-of-career-attempt scene with Mark Wahlberg and John C Reilly in "Boogie Nights", at that recording studio... "You Got The Touch !! ..." Michael Penn cameo'd as the engineer. I think the funniest thing of all was the look of utter dumbfoundedness on his face. Cheers Glenn, keep rockin' dude....
A band's "guest" wanders over. Places a freshly opened can of beer (British can, so half a litre) on top of a Marshall. "you know the rules. No liquids on the amps." "sorry mate" Moves the can... Right on top of the keys for the synth! Fuckwit!
What I never understand are people which put their Beer somewhere while not usin' their hands. Like, why the fuck do you risk it to be the Goofball who waste a whole Beer if you could just hold it in your Hand and drink it in a pleasuring tempo?
It's so interesting hearing these kinds of things. I consider myself a hybrid; I can hold my own in most positions in a rock/metal ensemble, but the last few years production has been my focus. Just by putting myself on the other side of the conversation, I think I have made myself a more useful musician with regard to studio etiquette, and knowing what the producer/engineer is trying to do. With that said, wow some "musicians" pull some BULLSHIT, I mean listen to the stories here. You imagine going to someones house, they're going to record your band, and you get so drunk you spill your beer all over their shit? Fuck that. That said; I've totally been a TEENAGE musician and spouted the "I play more emotionally when I'm intoxicated" bullshit just because I mistakenly thought it was true. If there is anyone in the world musicians should be respecting and listening to, it is the production team. At the end of the day, you can play hot as balls but it's the quality of production that determines how good you're going to sound. Respect peoples gear, respect peoples time, and try to respect your goddam self. Shouldn't be that fucking complicated.
Had a producer speak into a desk lamp for the entire session. Even though I told him after he did it for the first time that it wasn't the talkback mic...
As a little kid I changed the knobs and faders on the consoles after being told not to touch anything, because I was a little kid surrounded by tons of buttons and flashing lights who happened to like Star Trek and Star Wars.
I had a band insist on recording when I repeatedly told them they were not ready - they were loose, didn't know their own (admittedly okay) songs, and had shitty gear. But... they insisted.. and insisted. They came back a few months after the final mix and wanted to know why I made them sound so shit. I told them, okay, I admit I'm not the best engineer / producer on the planet, but even I couldn't make them sound as shit as they were.
I was in a band years ago, and when we were in the studio the other guitarist asked if he could just record his solos at home because he wanted to make sure they were perfect. We seriously had to explain to him how recording through a Boss ME50 straight into his laptop was not going to cut it.
Rappers negotiating price with me halfway through the project. Yea, I don’t really talk to them anymore. Oh yea more memories flooding back from that experience. They brought whiskey and got pretty drunk. One of them brought in their girlfriend. Played UA-cam videos while I was trying to track vocals. Oh and by the way they had no lyrics written down. It was all made up on the spot. And here’s the funniest thing. They wanted to pay me only $25 for the tracking, mixing, and mastering part. And this all took over 3 hours. Yea I think the only thing more special than a bass player, is a struggle rapper.
Yes, people generally think recording is all about having fun, but recording is actually about recording in the shortest amount of time, and to make it sound great. Sometimes it's really hard to understand people. Then again I get drunk and stoned, too... it makes everything better. ;P
dddux Like honestly I’m not really against getting a little buzzed or a little bit stoned while in the studio lol, and recording should be fun. But there has to be a little bit of professionalism.
Left my mobile gear at a drummers house where I was recording a band. I had a couple monitors set up for him via a crown 1000w amp to practice a few songs and showed him how to play back the tracks from the LRC on my HD24. He decided he wanted headphones instead and put an 1/8 to 1/4 adapter on his earbuds and plugged them into the monitor. (there was a set of PROPERLY CONNECTED HEADPHONES 3 feet away). He was balled up on the floor behind his kit crying when I came back.
Me being in the studio in 2015. After I told my band at the time, we weren't even close to being ready to record. Glad we briefly met at the URM Summit! I was the dude looking like your human billboard.
Do you have any examples of the stupidest things that an engineer or producer has done? I had a engineer / producer, drink a bottle of Scotch and want to double track my drums... on a blues track. I explained, that the grooves would be the same, that the fills were improvised. He said,"It will be great! The drums will sound huge!" I did as he asked, because that's what you're supposed to do... your job. The double tracked fills sounded like I just kicked my drums down a flight of stairs. He decided that double-tracked drums was probably not a good idea... he went with the original take, and it sounded great. Everyone was happy. I've learned a lot from your Channel, keep up the good work!
Dumbest thing heh. Our drummer decided to take off his headphones in the middle of the song and he said "This clicking sound is bothering me" of course he was talking about metronome. and moving mics around because "they are in the way" ... regardless to say he is not recording anything again ....ever. He will be replaced by VST drummer.
The one guys say the dumbest thing was when a guy complained about him changing his bass strings. Honestly that's a bit if a weird thing to do with out asking first. Like, some bass players prefer the warmer sound of not new strings right? Lol
Agreed. Simple matter is, if you don't expect people to fcuk with your equipment without asking, you shouldn't mess with theirs. Ask, or suggest yes, but not just do it. That's damned rude. Idiot.
Ah yeah, so rude for doing what’s needed to get the best sound for the job. People are acting like he repainted the body or something. No, he changed the strings. That’s something you should already be doing regularly. Idiots.
@@eggwaffle the point is he wasn't asked to do that.Hes a sound engineer getting paid to do a job by the customer. It's the customers bass and he probably was getting the dead string tone similar to flat wound sound that he wanted for his parts on his music not the engineers. Idiot.
Our bassist insisted on recording a song we prepared tempo maps for without a metronome while recording all instruments separately. Of course it was the bassist.
Insisting on having their cell phone on while tracking because they're expecting a call. And you know if you get into a massive arguement it's going to ruin the day anyway.
Having to be an impromptu psychologist and life coach. It's always the last track and laying down vocals. For some reason bands always seem to melt down on the last track and we (engineers and producers) always have to tell them that they can do it, it's gonna be awesome, they don't suck, it's totally worth it. Meanwhile, we are just praying for the session to be over. 😁
Just before we went to the studio, our guitarist bought a brand new guitar with a Floyd on it, and didn't ever bottom to set it up so it went out of tune during every song. Plus he could barely tune it himself and turned the keys really harshly and kept putting it flat/sharp
I have to ask this question. If a person is so scared of the dark they won't go through a dark hallway to pee, why don't they carry a flashlight? I'm not scared of the dark, but I always have a flashlight in my bag.
i too am puzzled by such a thing. a flashlight would be easier to carry around than a bottle. actually come to think of it, got me thinking about a belt-mounted pee bottle. just slide it round the front when its stream-time, slide it back round when its time to get back to work.
Someone wanted to sing background vocals on one of my songs once. I made them a loop of the section, wrote out the lyrics, and gave them two weeks to practice it. They showed up to the studio, stepped up to the mic, and sang "Pshr pusha pershalation" or something like that." Somehow the engineer was eventually able to get them to pronounce the actual words, but they ended up wayyyyy back in the mix.
This comment is about your channel in general. So glad you are on UA-cam. I have full access to an abandoned studio, so I'm trying to learn since my kids are musicians. Every tutorial I found has shitty music that pisses the family off! Finally I can learn stuff without hearing garbage. Thank you. 🙂
The guy changing the bass strings is kinda understandable why he’d be a bit bothered. James Jamerson, Donald Dunn, and many others swore by never changing the strings. It’s a personal preference thing. Especially if he swapped with a different gauge too. Personally I like the sound of fresh strings but that’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
So they can release a part 2 for something that obviously will get clicks. It is ok to do it that way too. 10 minutes would've been too long for short stories anyway, 5 minutes was imho perfect... and i know what you mean, there are weeks worth of stories of stupid clients.
I was gonna find you when you made this... but I was mid session, recording at my parent's place and get a text "We just got home from church, and there's some guy passed out on the lawn" Bassist had gotten dropped off, had partied a bit too hard, and nobody knew he was coming that day. (Cue a rant on bassists).
Told Jesse this on my way to the VIP dinner: bass player (friend who shall not be named) refused to track a DI and insisted on tracking the cab with an SM58. Nice meeting you out there, Glenn!
@@Smurfman256 "No low end". You sure about that? Have you ever actually tried recording a cabinet with one? Of course I think there are subjectively better mic choices. But is a 58 a dumb choice? Not really. I'm not patronizing, but it's not a good habit to limit yourself based on anecdotal evidence.
@@RedCityFormat I have. And on a bass cab, too. Without a DI to fill in that bottom end (or a more bottom heavy mic to blend in), it's gonna sound pretty anemic. If I'm gonna record a bass cab, I'm gonna use either a ribbon or a SM7 (or more recently, a Rode Podmic).
@@Smurfman256 Sometimes you don't want that much low end if your mix has the kick taking over that range. But it is again, subjective. I would be happy with a 421. The mic to me isn't as important as the cabinet.
Bringing random people into the studio and not telling/logging when a piece of equipment is broken. Oh, and my personal favourite is bribing the engineer with a bottle of whiskey to record two bands in the same session. He took the bribe and almost got away with it, only except they left a mysterious cd with the band's name which the head engineer found and started to questioned myself and my coworker about, because we make the majority of the bookings.The second band was meant to be there doing something else though and not doing a recording session.
Dumbest thing I’ve seen? In class, third year we where in the studio a singer who’s been staring down a mic for most of her life goes to set up the mic by trying to screw the XLR port onto the mic stand! I nicely asked here “ where is the clip” she looked at me like a deer in the head lights and in the corner of my eyes I saw my friends collapsing to the floor rolling in tears!!!!
I was trying to get through engineering a chaotic Gospel session and some of these folks bring like 20 people with them. All of a sudden the Control Room starts reeking of the most pungent shit you've ever smelled. I look over and see one of the women changing a diaper with the baby on top of the 2 inch machine.
Hey Glenn, I have a short question regarding preparing stems for mixing. What if I have a specific type of reverb with automation etc. going on? Would you need the plugin and automation to mix? because if you change the vocal sound for example, the rendered Reverb wouldn´t sound any different. How do Mixers deal with this kind of Issue?
I had a band refuse to play to click to make it sound 'more natural'...it sounded so natural it was practically primal sounding. Like Cavemen banging rocks.
@@blakecurtis7809 I'm not even an idiot, but it was my first band and my first recording session and even though I went to bed early, while everyone was partying the night before, they kept me awake so I ruined all the doublebass parts and missed the last cymbalhit four times. I had nailed it before, but writing the lyrics for the singer the night before might have thrown me out of distribution balance. So if you don't hear stories about drummers, it's because they are often busy making things work.
Four years later, I still don't agree with that moron changing his client's bass' strings without asking and then having the audacity to charge him for it. 1. It doesn't matter what you think. Don't modify others' property without asking. 2. You don't get to add additional expenses to what your client would be paying without asking or even warning them. If I were the client, I'd flat out refuse to pay for this and fire the moron on the spot.
This one I am still embarassed about... First band, first studio session ever. The engineer asks us to play him some records so he can get an idea of the overall sound we would like to aim for. Meaning, he wanted to hear some other artists' songs that we like. We play him our demos. Just a misunderstanding, really, and later we cleared things up, but in that moment, it really looked like we are so self-obsessed that when somebody asks us what music we like, we respond "our music". A real facepalm moment.
I understand not wanting to appear egocentric but I really believe that the best music you can write is the music you'd like to hear, metallica does this, everything they put out is a reflection of what they like to hear in a record
I had a audio engineer during my session have another client stop by to pickup mixes, then play one of the songs as I am waiting to track vocals. I guess he thought it was ok because we knew the guys in this band. On another session, This same engineer nodded out while I was tracking bass, I just stopped playing and starred at him. When he came too I asked him "not feeling it today? neither am I".
Music conservatory Horn players coming to my studio to record ,,,,,,, one of them dumps his spit valve on the carpeted floor and then they all laughed ..............I kicked them all out
Lol I can imagine they were only laughing at the quantity that came out of it (as is usually the case) and didn't intend to piss you off. Good players usually bring a towel wherever they play and it was dumb of them to do that on your carpet without even asking first though. Just so you know, it isn't spit. It's merely condensation of the hot air you blow into the instrument and brass instruments regularly need to be "emptied" or they *will* sound like shit. Just tell them to bring towels for their horn juice next time, no need to cut yourself off some money only for that
Gustru Yep, it’s condensation, not spit. As a horn player (hornist?) and a bagpiper, you have to empty them periodically. Just do it with common courtesy and you’ll be fine. My high school band played at a nursing home once. Between songs, the third trumpet emptied her valve right on the tile floor in the common room. All I could see in my head was some poor geriatric who lived through WWII being done in by a broken hip.
Hogan Bentle I’ve been playing in bands with horn sections for about 20 years , nothing un common about a spit valve. I won’t be in a band with out horns
My story: the singer of one band I helped tracked brought his mom to the session for "moral support." She spent the whole day she was there cheering him on but still got in the way. She also spilled her iced latte on my back and tried to clean it off with the bass players sweater; you can guess how much the bass player loved that. Needless to say "Mama Singer" stayed home for the rest of the tracking.
Y'all need to hire jazz guys lol, fastest recording session I ever had was 10 minutes, two takes - for a back up, didn't bring any food or drink in the booth, treated folks nice and thanked the engineer. That's what I was taught that was expected of us musicians, but then I rewatch this channel's vids lol
ADVENTURERS: We're here for your treasure! DRAGON: Here ADVENTURERS: This is way less than we were told DRAGON: Yeah but think about how many people saw you fight your in way here ADVENTURERS: So? DRAGON: The EXPOSURE dude ADVENTURERS: ...No
When working a session, I had the (pregnant) girlfriend of the vocalist call the studio and was threatening to kill herself. He refused to talk to her, so I was relaying messages to her/from him from behind the desk. Good times.
The dip one hit close to home. Used to work at a Tractor Supply. Whenever I would go to clean the changing room or the bathroom I would find wads of chew everywhere. Fukken gnasty.
the producer convinced my bandmates at the time that copy and pasting one guitar track and just changing the tone/ amp sim. was enough to distinguish them from each other and would save time so we wouldnt have to double track guitars... he was convinced that the change was enough to make the guitar sound stereo despite my protests about it still being a mono track... needless to say the album sounded very thin and weak, and despite still being acquaintances with the producer still, i personally vowed to not work with him anymore
It's not mono if the left and right channels are different though. It's not the same as double tracking, which gives you time and tone differences, but just a tone difference does make it stereo.
@@henrihell It's not *just* two speakers not playing the same thing. It's two speakers in a specific arrangement with the listener, and playing two signals that differ *just* enough (and *only* just so much) that a particular effect is achieved. Stereo is a method to approximately reproduce the 2-D spatiality of an audio event by reproducing two variants of the same event, with the variants being picked up such that the signal difference between them is defined by their spatial difference (real or simulated). And not by just throwing randomly different effects on one or the other.
If you haven't SUBSCRIBED, DO IT NOW! Glenn is dealing with a family crisis and won't be able to make videos for an indefinite period of time so every view and subscription counts right now. Thanks in advance!
Not as crazy as some of these stories but I had the bass player of the band I was recording come in to lay down his stuff. The bass is crazy out of tune and I tell him "you need to check the tuning" and he answered "but I tuned the bass yesterday before I went to bed"
I'm sure when I was 17 I was somebody's "Dumbest thing in a studio", we were busted at 8am, asleep on the floor surrounded by cans, bottles and cigarette butts the morning after our recording session, the engineer included. It was literally a rude awakening! 😁
I was have the best stories. I've done more over a longer period of time. Than anybody else here. So I got contracted for this big live recording. That included an 8 camera professional video shoot. A video truck was brought in. Along with my audio truck. This was going to be one of my biggest contract jobs, ever. The Los Angeles producer. Decided to stay in the video truck. And brought his best friend along. To put him into my truck. To act as a producer. Even though he knew nothing of the process. So we are in the middle of the big grand opening number. The band is pumping away. I've got a great stereo mix up. As I am also feeding the 24 track recorder. On my previous large Sphere Eclipse C, analog audio console with VCA subgroup automation. I had all of my VCA subgroups assigned to various faders. The 12+ channels of drums were on my left. But the VCA master Fader was on my right. When this producer asks me in the middle of this song, mix, number. What microphone was plugged into input,, 32.. I told him nothing. The Fader was up. Because it was my VCA master Fader on the drums. When this moron says there is nothing on this input? So it doesn't matter if I pull down this Fader? And he pulls it down to zero. Right in the middle of this number with the band pumping away. Right on a rest where the drums stopped playing. I screamed no! Slammed the Fader up. Just as the guy hit the drums. Coming out of that one half beat rest. It fucking freaked me out! The guy was shook. He didn't know what happened? I told him he had just pulled down the entire drum mix. He was frazzled. Embarrassed. He got up. Said to me. It seems like you are doing a good job. I think I'll go back to the video truck. And he left. He left me to fly solo. With no communications with the video truck and the producer. In the end. I got both a Grammy and Soul Train nomination for best engineered category. No thanks to him. Thanks to my fast reflexes. I mean of all the stupid fool things to do. This is what happens. When you invite people that should not be there. And what ended up getting used for the video? My live rough mix. With a quick manual gate on the entire rhythm section. For one half beat. On a rest. Thank God it was a rest. Otherwise the entire recording would have been fucked up. Because that was the big opening number. And even though we did a second take of that opening number at the end of the show. They used the actual opening number. RemyRAD
Dude I had a client do that in the past. He got drunk tried to record, then gave up and went to sleep on some church steps in my neighborhood later like WTF
3:59 Worn bass strings are totally legitimate. Some of the greatest recordings have been done on dead strings (e.g. any James Jamerson). It's an odd move for a sound engineer to make that decision and even change strings for a bassist without even discussing it. And the engineer then complaining about the bassist not being happy with it points at a certain ignorance and arrogance, honestly.
@@SpectreSoundStudios nope... shouldn't matter though. Choice of string is an artistic/personal choice of the musician. Sure if the producer wants to make them sound like any standard HiFi-Rock band... they could talk to the bassist about it. Otherwise just don't touch other people's instruments! : ) (and also: don't charge for not asked for "services")
@@SpectreSoundStudios hahah, just saw your rant on people bringing up that exact Jamerson reference :D Coinicidentally from just a few days before my comment (10th of May, "15 mistakes..."). Doesn't change my point at all; but still funny that apparently I hit a cliché here.
I was asked to put a bassline on to a previously recorded guitar track by a friend with a modest home studio who, arrogantly, fancied himself a producer. A few seconds of playing along I asked, "Hang on was the guitar in tune?" He looked blank and said, "does that matter?"
A reverse of that question: What are some of the smartest things you've seen in the studio?
Now thats something i need to see!
Well whatever they are we know they weren’t done by the bass player 🤪🤪🤪🤪
@@Jerrylumdegaard You'd be in for a surprise my friend - legend says, there are a species of bass players who shred and have good gear...
Oh I dunno... The musicians actually being prepared?
Showing up on time and focusing.
As to the fellow who said, "Don't bring extra people" I will never forget these two girls. I honestly don't remember the band AT ALL, but I remember the two girls they brought with them. They were fairly nice, they didn't bother the musicians or me at all, but after being there for a few hours, on a one day mix session, one of them just blurted out "Why are you listening to this song AGAIN?"
Pmsl.......Was she chewing bubble gum and twiddling her hair?
I...No. I just can't.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
😂😂
wooooooow
4:24 Don't bring extra people..... I was that extra person once, many years ago in the tape days, it was mate's band and I was the driver so took them to the studio.... Recording started, drummer played the drums, it was a simply 1 2 3 & 4 drumbeat with the odd simple fill, he got it wrong half a dozen times in a row, all timing issues, so the engineer told him to take a break. They did the bass next, perfect in one take, then the guitar and the singer pretty quickly too, so finished by lunchtime. They then sent the drummer out for a pizza. While he was out the guitarist played the drums and got it in one take. When the drummer came back they sat him down, he had one more attempt, it was dreadful, but the told him great. To this day he doesn't know it wasn't him on the single, the pizza was good too.
What does that have to do with extra people ?
@@nicholascowan1731 an extra person as a witness to a historical moment in a band's history
brogo ram but the extra person didn’t cause the problem
The extra person got the band to the studio.
that's golden
Here’s a dumb story from the stage. I was doing sound for a band, we sound checked, did monitors, it was loud sounded ace and everyone was happy. Halfway through the gig the lead guitarist complained he couldn’t hear himself through his monitor and wouldn’t play for a good 15 minutes. After checking everything in my end on the desk I said “just turn your amp up on stage”, he proceeded to crank his Marshall stack to max in my fairly small venue completely drowning out the vocals and ruining the mix. After they had played I went on stage to help with change over for the next band where I learned he unplugged the monitor to charge his phone. 🤦♂️
Guys like that deserve a serious beating
When i was 16 playing my 2nd live show ever, for some reason kept having difficulty issues getting any sound out of my guitar or amp, it would start and i could start like the firat 2 bars of the songs intro and itd die out again this went on for like 15-20 mins and out of know where it just startes working completly normal and i didnt have a single issue after that for the rest of the show, it was really weird, especially since that issue never happen ever again after that and i was using the exact same guitar, cable, amp head and cab, it was literally the most bizarre thing ever, i have a CD with the video of the show on it, and about 2 years ago i watched the video anf i honestly couldnt see any reason for my guitar or amp to produce any noise, i wonder if the power outlet wasnt plugged in fully which was causing in and out power outages on the amp, who the fuck knows, but i can tell u i was super nervous as it was, then that happened and i literally felt like i was going to pass out but i pushed through and it ended up being a kickass performance, my bamd at the time played a mix of thrash/tech death/ melodic death and grindcore so most of our songs were quite intricate and technical, i remember when we would have band practice we'd literally play every song about 6-10 times in a row, to make sure we sounded super tight and precise, not gonna lie drove me nuts sometimes especially when it was a song that we had perfectly masteres
lmao!!
Maybe sometimes the bassist isn't always the doofus lmao
Oh, that's a funny one.
I was recording this drummer, setting up up all the drums and mics, he puts the headphones on and I say "Ok, before anything else, I want to hear this snare".
He says "Ok", and after few seconds of random noises he comes out of the booth *WITH* the snare, comes close to me, starts hitting it and says: "Do you like it?" :D
SMH wow. Proof that musicians should pass an IQ exam before being allowed to purchase an instrument.
OMG! rofl
ChristianIce holy shit tht made me crack up
Lost it.
This is a really great one. Thanks.
Singer cupping the condenser mic.
Yep, had one try it at my place!
Good god noooo omglol!
Why just why lol
"Nah bro, you just don't know my sound"
holly shit man, same thing happened to me
then he asked if he could at least hold my SM58 that I had lying around so that he could pretend he was playing live...
and then proceeds to cup the SM58 mic even tho it wasn't connected,
so my condenser mic was just there recording some dude cupping an unplugged SM58 mic...
A tyrant, a babysitter, a best friend, a therapist and a bouncer. You need to be all of those to be a recording engineer.
Oh so true. I worked as an engineer in a very nice studio for about a year and I found I just don't have that "babysitter" personality.
Dont forget a music teacher
You don't need to be any of those. Protect your equipment, sure.... but if people want to waste time they paid for? Go ahead... the clock is still running, I am still getting paid.
@@AMSOfficial79 As an audio engineer I usually try to have that attitude but what you learn is that all the clients nonsense like coming in late, totally unprepared, not rehearsed sufficiently, changing arrangements in the middle of a session etc. or even showing up drunk/high will eventually all fall back on you and the studios reputation. In the best case scenario a studio is there to offer a professional service and offer the best quality possible. That is often difficult and depressing when you are working with a bunch of wanna be rock stars who are just throwing their money away and expect you to make them sound like gold.
@@Rickholly74 As a producer/engineer myself, the old adage applies: 'garbage in, garbage out'. People get what they put in. Fuck expectations, and everyone I have ever worked with knows this. You get out what you put in. Want to pay me to sit there? Cool, I'll do exactly that - and have done exactly that. I can't press 'record' if you aren't in the booth/room ready to play; it isn't a matter of my professional rep, it is a matter of THEIRS. I have had zero issues... but I won't book just anyone who comes calling, either. I scope them out, go to shows and get a sense of their vibe and sound, and work that way - as a producer should. If they aren't ready to work, they can't work with me.
Had a session once, where the client showed up, dressed in full hair-band clothing and makeup of the time (1980’s)- which was actually neither here nor there for me...
But then he asked me if I had a mirror he could use; thinking he wanted to cut up lines of blow with it, I told him, “listen man, I’m not judging you or anything, but you can’t do coke in here...” (a cop owned the building I was leasing at that time).
He responded with, “dude, no, I need a mirror set up in front of the mic when I record my vocals so that I can SEE MYSELF and how awesome I look when I’m singing!”
I thought he was yanking my chain, so I started laughing... but he was totally serious.
Oh, and by the way, and I swear to Sgt Pepper that I’m not making this up, his name was... “Garth”. 😆🤣😂
Garth any good?
lmfao
Damn at that point letting him do coke in there sounds like a better option lol
the witchfinder general - I’m no angel myself, having come of age in the ‘70’s, it was a time of “relaxed” acceptance for certain...uhm... “imbibements”... LOL.
But, I was leasing half of a building that was owned by a cop; though he was a very friendly guy, sort of fascinated by what I did, so it wouldn’t have been out of the realm of possibility for him to just stop in to say hello at any given time. As mentioned, I wasn’t judgmental, but I wasn’t gonna go to jail and risk my business for some coke-snorting, glam metal, arrogant jag-off who wanted to get amped.
As it turned out, I was wrong about the coke part.
But the rest about him was pretty much dead-on. 😉
ClassicalQuack - well, it depends on whom you ask, Quack.
If you asked Garth, or his girlfriend who was with him, they would both assure you that he was incredibly talented.
If you asked me, (or any of the other guys or girls who worked at my studio in those days), we would probably tell you that he was indeed incredible... incredibly BAD.
His singing resembled the sound of a cat being thrown into a blender.
And, I would suggest that if him having a mirror in front of him so that he could watch himself “sing” was necessary to make him sing better, that there’s probably no mirror anywhere in the universe that would have been big enough to achieve that.
😉
I 've had bands break up. I had my head in a kick drum when a drummer decided to test it. I had a client ask if he could do his wife in my vocal booth. Countless not showing up on time. Had a kid who was miming along with his drum solo, then promptly sack himself while doing a fill on his knees! That was hilarious.
At least they had the curtesy to ask :)
"Dude can I just record the vocals on my cellphone and like send them through facebook?"
I had a guitarist send me a track like that to use as a "scratch track." And no, of course he didn't record it to a click.
"Sure, you can do it in the toilet, can't you?" d= ;)
I mean I get certain kinds of grindcore really go for that digital raw thing but when you want some clean singing hell no lmao.
There is a big difference between can and should
can you do that, yes, should you... depends on if you up charge and they are willing to pay in advance.
During February Album Writing Month, I posted on the forums that I needed a female vocalist for a project. A woman volunteered and she ended up having to do it in her bathtub using the built-in phone mic.
I had to nudge the pitch and timing and clean up a couple pops, but it was, all-in-all, a really great take. That was 3 years ago, and now we're making an album together. :-)
In the late eighties I had a job miking a steinway piano in an expensive studio. It happened to be the pianists birthday and a mystery man decided to lay 10 lines of blow on the shiny steinway. The pianist sat down and just blew the blow away thinking it was some sort of dust and started playing. When I saw dissapointment on one's face the mystery man revealed himself......
I showed up to my guitarist's house, my car loaded down with equipment, ready to record tracks on the day we'd set aside two weeks prior. He was having a bonfire. He got frustrated three takes in because it was taking too long and he needed to get back to his friends. Needless to say, the songs didn't get done and that band no longer exists.
The dumbest thing I ever saw in a studio unfortunately came from me. It happened about 28 years ago. It was my first time EVER recording in a studio. I SO wanted to come to the studio prepared and ready to lay all my guitar parts down without a hitch. I practiced my ass off for a month solid and really got to where I could play my parts in my sleep. We had written the songs a whole year before we recorded so I knew my parts inside and out. Got to the studio got all set up and the engineer (who was awesome by the way) mic’ed me up and got all the levels right. Everything was perfect! As soon as he hit record and the light came on...I FUCKING FROZE!! I felt like I had forgotten everything I practiced. I just froze! The engineer/producer was so cool. He knew I busted my ass to prepare and he knew exactly the pep talk I needed to calm my brain down so I could perform.
Nothing wrong there with having too much pressure, it was your first time. It's cool that the producer helped you in there.
@@umrasangus absolutely. I've performed for people and froze for a bit too. Not hard to do, and totally understandable. Good that it worked out though 👏. That's what counts!
He said in another video that It's actually pretty common
That's not dumb, that's just normal. You get nervous in unknown situations
I've been a studio engineer for almost 30 years and that's not unusual. Nerves can often get the better of us. I've always referred to it as ´red light syndrome´
I did a session with an artist, we tracked everything and halfway through we went to go get lunch. We come back half an hour later and decide to go on UA-cam and listen to a different artist that they recommended. We start listening to the song and it was extremely quiet, so naturally I turn up the monitors. My artist comes over and says, "Oh you still have talkback on." What he didn't know is that the talkback dimmed the monitors, and so without thinking he pressed the talkback button off and the speakers were so loud that they burst the treble of the speakers. After that we could only hear the tweeters! And that is the story of how one of my artists blew vintage NS10s :)
oof, sorry bro that ones on you lol
@@FerretPercussion hahaha yea never again did i let my artists touch the desk
@@FerretPercussion Oof indeed.
good one! :D
FerretPercussion so artist touching things he should not have is on the engineer?
If a complaint about the tone of new bass strings is the dumbest thing you’ve seen in a studio, you’ve led a sheltered life.
Word, that dude seemed like a socially inept moron.
Yeah and honestly sometimes older strings can sound good on a bass but it's always best practice to change them if they're old
One of my bandmates is a tech at the local audio engineering college. The other week some students came to him complaining about not being able to hear the drums through the control room monitors. He had a quick look and his response was "Yeaaaah, you don't have any microphones in there lads". I wonder if catering colleges get students that don't know what knives & forks are...
Yes. They do. My step-brother-in-law started culinary school last year and came home for break and got seriously pissed and confused when I smacked a stainless steel whisk out of his hand before he put it in my $100 6-quart nonstick stock pot. When I handed him a silicone whisk he looked me straight in the face and said “dude, isn’t the boiling water going to melt this”………. This is 4 months after starting culinary school AND being a legal adult.
Back in the days when Tom Scholtz's Rockman was launched, this well known guitar player came back from the USA to Italy with one of those little black boxes, walked into the studio, told everybody how great the tones of the Rockman were, went into the live room, connected the Rockman headphone outputs to TWO amps, placed a mic in the middle, played a scrap track, came back behind the console to listen and "why is it mono?"
We just could not believe...
Dumbest thing I've ever seen in a studio?...
That'd be me.
Good honesty, Ajx.
So you play bass?
Drums?? Just kidding bro.....Cow bell!
A guitar player brought 2 full Marshall stacks. 4 - 4x12 cabinets and 2 JCM800 heads to a session. He insisted that he needed to run all of them. We put them in an iso booth, and he demanded to play in the booth for feedback. Standing in front of both stacks cranked to 11 he asked for more of his guitar in his headphone mix. Sometimes i wonder if that guy can still hear at all. Oh and the drummer forgot his snare stand and told me he could just sit it on a trashcan. We let him borrow a stand!
Drummer slammed his crash while I was setting up mics on the snare. I couldn’t hear out of my right ear for half the day.
had a similar thing happen while micing up a snare drum, with the drummer hitting the snare at the same time. i feel your pain!
@@fitzeflinger like. How much of a complete pile of uselessness do you have to be to not understand why that’s a bad idea…
Not in my studio, but in a band I was in going into a studio we asked if it would be better to use the better amps the studio had and were told that we weren't important enough.
Please say you canceled the session and booked elsewhere
Klocko Fett we did. We packed up and left. The guy still tried to charge us an hour.
Go Wait in the Truck Only sensible thing to do when the engineer i visibly a self-importent dick.
No Play We No Pay....Simple....
Band came into a studio without their band-master, nobody knew what songs and instrments to record, so we were just sitting there, figuring out what we're gonna do. When we figured it out and finally start recording, they remembered the songs have transposed to a different key (due to a new singer) and they didn't know their parts :)
When I worked at a rehearsal studio. One day, a band arrives an hour early for their rehearsal. I had just got there mere minutes before to open up the studio. They get mad at me because I hadn't turned on the PA, set up the mics, or had the heat running for long enough. They claimed that I was supposed to have the room set up an hour early for when they arrived so they could 'set up'. Mind you we provide a drum kit (with cymbal stands), 2 half stacks, a full bass rig and a full PA with monitors. So setting up usually takes like 15 minutes tops for a band. After confusion and frustration, I rush to set up the room and get them to sound good on the PA. Once they are going, not 5 minutes later, one of them comes to find me to tell me there is feedback. I go to the expensive and confusing digital mixer and see that they fucked with it. I get them going AGAIN and tell them to call me if they need me to fix anything on the mixer. Well, this happened about 3 more times. And every time it was evident that they fucked with the mixer. Anyways, after a frustrating 2 hours, they finish up and come to pay me (or so I thought). They tell me they are calling my boss and demanding I be fired, otherwise they won't come back again. They proceeded to insult me and had the nerve to tell me they weren't paying for the rehearsal time. To sum this up, my boss said they are always like that and that he forgot to warn me. He ended up coming there personally to deal with them.
Wow I tried to make that short, but I literally could not, too many stupid details I HAD to include haha.
Good that your boss knew what they were like and stood behind you. Not all do !
Yeah, that's when I tell my boss that I need a bonus for getting railroaded like that
A guitar player/teacher from a small city came to my studio to record a song with 3 of his pupils. I got the drums all set up beforehand so we wouldn't loose time. We had only 1 day to record. None of the pupils present was the drummer so I asked the teacher if he's running late or something. His reply was:
"Oh, he couldn't get here. I'll record the drums! How hard can it be?"...
Did he suck then?
Hey, it's Mary Z!
One time I had this guy literally jump up in the air every time he sang a high note that was (clearly) out of his range as though that extra little boost would help him reach the notes (it did not). Simultaneously sad and hilarious XD
Getting upset about the producer changing your strings on your own bass guitar without your permission and still charging you for it is pretty justified
That's as bad as cleaning a jazz legend's ride cymbal of the 30 years of gunk. As an engineer you don't have the right to change the sound they came in with.
Yeah thank you, fuck that. Don’t mess with my shit. Im not changing the tubes out in your preamp, don’t change my fucking strings shithead.
Plus I just gotta say, I hate the sound of brand new strings.
Yeah, doing it on your own is pretty fucked up. But bro, you do realize you are getting 20% of a bass's sonic spectrum with shitty strings. You can't even mix it later.
yeah, that one was dumb. Old bass strings do sounds better most of the time
Id have twatted him......Im a lot more mellow now but back in the day.....lol.....
Gun? I usually bring my axe cuz I’m TRVE KVLT.
Lol
+rve kvl+
that would be great but I would need go to you cuz my gearsucks
The girlfriend of a guitarist appeared in the Studio after he was "searching for inspiration" (to record a 10 sec guitar phrase) for two hours to "help him finding inspiration" for another two hours, € 200,-- for the hour.
Afterwards she braged around, that her boyfriend recorded the most inspired solo ever, and that she helped him finding Inspiration - while the other 6 guys sat outside, waiting to go on.
It was end of September, beautifull weather, so at least we were able to enjoy ourselfes - while the guitard and his girlfriend burned our money and the enginers time.
Because we were on a budget we had to cut off the 4 hours of our mastering and mixing time.
But the engineer dug our music and did an excellent job. I am still proud of the record, music, artwork and everything around.
Still smiling at "one night he didn't drink the water". :-)
Not many bands drink water... unless it's vodka.
have a friend with some problems so he has to spit into a can constantly, something with allergies and working conditions
One day, sadly when I wasn't on chat, he drank the wrong can.
suddenly he took my 'get some fine sand paper and sand the thing down so if you don't see the difference you will feel a difference,' suggestion seriously.
@whiterthan hitler considering how bad most beer tastes that is possibly an improvement.
I don't understand why it's a problem he didn't drink the water...
@@leomignonneau1765 because he drank from the other bottle....
OK so a band I knew had some studio time and I was tasked with transporting their crap to said studio. They set up the drums first and were nearly done tracking them. Apparently the bassist had taped a large bag of cocaine up inside the bass drum, god only knows why, I guess he was hiding it from himself! Near the end of tracking I was there chomping at the bit to take that monstrosity of a kit back to the storage unit. I just happened to be watching at the time as he went into this epic fast part with the double kicks flailing. The studio dude and I could hear something f'd up happening and then while watching through the window, we saw it. I looked like a snow blower coming from the front sound whole of the kick. I guess at that moment the tape gave way and released the coke into the drum and out through the sound hole. It was so epic, the drums had become a coke dispenser and the room filled with the white powder. The funniest thing was the bassist who wasn't there that day was never the wiser, we cleaned up the stuff and had free dope, the drummer was not amused. Steve the bassist still talks about that huge bag someone "stole" from him to this day. If you read this Steve, Your a fucking jack ass. :)
"one night he didn't drink the water" took me a second to grasp what was going on there. 🤣🤣🤣
We shared a room with about 3 bands and a promoter. We had a storage room to lock up some gear but some days I would show up and there would be beer cans and smokes everywhere. Things could of gone well but some people just partied more than worked. After most of my expensive cables were stolen I was all done trying to trust that many people. I donated half my gear and went to do something else with my life for a while.
We were recording an EP as a girl walked into the studio. The studio guy then told us to leave in the middle of the session so he could bang the girl on his chair. When he was done the session went on. He then said: Well I'm gonna deduct these 10 minutes of your studio bill. That's for sure.
Sigma grindset
The dumbest thing I’ve done in the studio is let my bassist record his own parts
That's the second dumbest... allowing him to even be there was the first problem.
David504 don’t approve your comment.
@@rickdelpino472 Pmsl...good one
@@rickdelpino472 Davey504 is really a guitar player he just doesn't know it yet!
The dumbest thing...client pays for a day, doesn't show up...no return phone calls, then asks to do it another day...yes, charged in advanced. That was dumb...of them I'd say. I truly feel for you man! Reading just a handful of the comments below is exactly why I never really joined a band. Of course, I had some friends in high school and did the whole garage band thing, we hardly ever practiced actual songs or worked on anything seriously...so I later rented an office space with one friend hoping to push it into, let's get serious mode... but when he hardly came to that, I quit spending money on being the only guy there and built a studio in the back of the house I rented so I could work on my own stuff. When the house was sold a couple years later, I set-up my gear in the garage of a house I rented with friends, would have parties and just play, improvise, and have a good time until I got married and sold it all. I never totally quit the music creating dream, always had a piano and guitar I could play and still I love improvising and writing music. Now I have a studio room in my apartment and have a monthly jam with friends and family at my cousin's who lives in Oakley where the neighbors don't complain...it's a blast...we let anyone try and play something, encourage them to get into playing an instrument, and though sometimes it's literal... s..t ...sometimes... it's magical!
I think 3 of the weirdest things that happened in my studio, #1 The vocalist of the band shot the drummer in the head with a 357 mag, blew his brains all over my new carpet and fled on foot. They never did find him
#2 This Band called Tammy and the Tramadols, 4 , 16 year old guys that hadn’t bathed in years wanted to record 12 Perry Como songs they recorded the drum tracks but I couldn’t stand the smell I threw them out
#3 Is just too weird to print.
Rly don't get a thing about new bass string. WTF man? Great James Jamerson played same string set all his life and sounded great. And, yeah, I got the point, that in some cases(well, in most of them, actually) fresh strings will get you better sound, but change string without telling musicians and then charge them for that is kinda dick move, IMO
Yeah. Some players swear by the sound of worn in bass strings
That engineer probably does not listen to a lot of music or doesn’t know how to track different types of bass tones.
Kinda sad he was so confident in telling this as his “worst studio moment”
He must not track bass players often
While I was interning at a studio, we had a rapper send in multitracks to mix, and they didn't sound right (musically, the recording was fine). Did some analysis and figured out the song was in *3 different keys* those keys were, and I'm not joking, B A and D. His song was in the key of *BAD*. The head engineer called him and tried explaining the problem, and his response was, "Well, I've been to more countries outside the US than you, so I'm right and your wrong." It also took 45 minutes to get to that point.
Great video, dude. Kudos for the patience these folks must have when deal with idiots in their studios. It's clear that there are people who think paying for studio time makes them entitled do whatever the hell they want.
Love this, buddy.. the unfortunate, indeliberate shenanigans I've seen over the years in studios, they just keep coming... But I gotta tell ya, I've mused upon this video TWICE by the side recommendations in the last year, and as much as I enjoy it, my mind has rolled back, on both occasions, to the change-of-career-attempt scene with Mark Wahlberg and John C Reilly in "Boogie Nights", at that recording studio... "You Got The Touch !! ..." Michael Penn cameo'd as the engineer. I think the funniest thing of all was the look of utter dumbfoundedness on his face. Cheers Glenn, keep rockin' dude....
A band's "guest" wanders over. Places a freshly opened can of beer (British can, so half a litre) on top of a Marshall.
"you know the rules. No liquids on the amps."
"sorry mate"
Moves the can...
Right on top of the keys for the synth!
Fuckwit!
What I never understand are people which put their Beer somewhere while not usin' their hands.
Like, why the fuck do you risk it to be the Goofball who waste a whole Beer if you could just hold it in your Hand and drink it in a pleasuring tempo?
@@DaroriDerEinzige the beer gets warm if you hold it too long ;) but that only means you are drinking too slow anyway...
@@fitzeflinger Exactly - A Liter Beer has to be drunken in 20 to 30 Minutes.
@@DaroriDerEinzige Thats the law.....
@@wideyxyz2271 And we all know what happens if you don't obey the law here ...
Asked if they could bring food, brought two rotisserie chickens and dropped one entire chicken on my favorite rug in the control room
It's so interesting hearing these kinds of things. I consider myself a hybrid; I can hold my own in most positions in a rock/metal ensemble, but the last few years production has been my focus. Just by putting myself on the other side of the conversation, I think I have made myself a more useful musician with regard to studio etiquette, and knowing what the producer/engineer is trying to do. With that said, wow some "musicians" pull some BULLSHIT, I mean listen to the stories here. You imagine going to someones house, they're going to record your band, and you get so drunk you spill your beer all over their shit? Fuck that. That said; I've totally been a TEENAGE musician and spouted the "I play more emotionally when I'm intoxicated" bullshit just because I mistakenly thought it was true.
If there is anyone in the world musicians should be respecting and listening to, it is the production team. At the end of the day, you can play hot as balls but it's the quality of production that determines how good you're going to sound.
Respect peoples gear, respect peoples time, and try to respect your goddam self. Shouldn't be that fucking complicated.
Had a producer speak into a desk lamp for the entire session. Even though I told him after he did it for the first time that it wasn't the talkback mic...
He needed new drugs or new glasses.
As a little kid I changed the knobs and faders on the consoles after being told not to touch anything, because I was a little kid surrounded by tons of buttons and flashing lights who happened to like Star Trek and Star Wars.
I feel like this is why you don't allow kids in studio. Id charge extra for that
I had a band insist on recording when I repeatedly told them they were not ready - they were loose, didn't know their own (admittedly okay) songs, and had shitty gear. But... they insisted.. and insisted. They came back a few months after the final mix and wanted to know why I made them sound so shit. I told them, okay, I admit I'm not the best engineer / producer on the planet, but even I couldn't make them sound as shit as they were.
I was in a band years ago, and when we were in the studio the other guitarist asked if he could just record his solos at home because he wanted to make sure they were perfect.
We seriously had to explain to him how recording through a Boss ME50 straight into his laptop was not going to cut it.
Rappers negotiating price with me halfway through the project. Yea, I don’t really talk to them anymore.
Oh yea more memories flooding back from that experience. They brought whiskey and got pretty drunk. One of them brought in their girlfriend. Played UA-cam videos while I was trying to track vocals. Oh and by the way they had no lyrics written down. It was all made up on the spot. And here’s the funniest thing. They wanted to pay me only $25 for the tracking, mixing, and mastering part. And this all took over 3 hours. Yea I think the only thing more special than a bass player, is a struggle rapper.
Yes, people generally think recording is all about having fun, but recording is actually about recording in the shortest amount of time, and to make it sound great. Sometimes it's really hard to understand people. Then again I get drunk and stoned, too... it makes everything better. ;P
dddux Like honestly I’m not really against getting a little buzzed or a little bit stoned while in the studio lol, and recording should be fun. But there has to be a little bit of professionalism.
OF COURSE it's rappers, hahahah. REALLY not surprised at all.
I actually back the guy that preferred the “warmer, older bass strings”….I’m all about that.
yeah that "producer" is an idiot
Left my mobile gear at a drummers house where I was recording a band. I had a couple monitors set up for him via a crown 1000w amp to practice a few songs and showed him how to play back the tracks from the LRC on my HD24. He decided he wanted headphones instead and put an 1/8 to 1/4 adapter on his earbuds and plugged them into the monitor. (there was a set of PROPERLY CONNECTED HEADPHONES 3 feet away). He was balled up on the floor behind his kit crying when I came back.
Damn. What happened to him after that?
He was ok after a few days. Not sure if he learned his lesson, but we can hope.
I am curious about what exactly happened, did he get a electric shock, or was the music too loud so his ears hurt? I want to know!
Me being in the studio in 2015. After I told my band at the time, we weren't even close to being ready to record. Glad we briefly met at the URM Summit! I was the dude looking like your human billboard.
Do you have any examples of the stupidest things that an engineer or producer has done? I had a engineer / producer, drink a bottle of Scotch and want to double track my drums... on a blues track. I explained, that the grooves would be the same, that the fills were improvised. He said,"It will be great! The drums will sound huge!" I did as he asked, because that's what you're supposed to do... your job. The double tracked fills sounded like I just kicked my drums down a flight of stairs. He decided that double-tracked drums was probably not a good idea... he went with the original take, and it sounded great. Everyone was happy. I've learned a lot from your Channel, keep up the good work!
Dumbest thing heh. Our drummer decided to take off his headphones in the middle of the song and he said "This clicking sound is bothering me" of course he was talking about metronome. and moving mics around because "they are in the way" ... regardless to say he is not recording anything again ....ever. He will be replaced by VST drummer.
The one guys say the dumbest thing was when a guy complained about him changing his bass strings.
Honestly that's a bit if a weird thing to do with out asking first. Like, some bass players prefer the warmer sound of not new strings right? Lol
Agreed. Simple matter is, if you don't expect people to fcuk with your equipment without asking, you shouldn't mess with theirs. Ask, or suggest yes, but not just do it. That's damned rude. Idiot.
@@2112jonr To top it off, he CHARGED them for it! What a bastard!
Ah yeah, so rude for doing what’s needed to get the best sound for the job. People are acting like he repainted the body or something. No, he changed the strings. That’s something you should already be doing regularly. Idiots.
@@eggwaffleputs bong down* hey maaan you sound like you got them ass burgers...
@@eggwaffle the point is he wasn't asked to do that.Hes a sound engineer getting paid to do a job by the customer. It's the customers bass and he probably was getting the dead string tone similar to flat wound sound that he wanted for his parts on his music not the engineers.
Idiot.
Our bassist insisted on recording a song we prepared tempo maps for without a metronome while recording all instruments separately. Of course it was the bassist.
Insisting on having their cell phone on while tracking because they're expecting a call. And you know if you get into a massive arguement it's going to ruin the day anyway.
Mobile phones are on my personal top nr.3 detest list in the studio.
Having to be an impromptu psychologist and life coach. It's always the last track and laying down vocals. For some reason bands always seem to melt down on the last track and we (engineers and producers) always have to tell them that they can do it, it's gonna be awesome, they don't suck, it's totally worth it. Meanwhile, we are just praying for the session to be over. 😁
I read that KISS story where their recording engineer wore a whistle and screamed at them non-stop to get what KISS says is their best record.
Just before we went to the studio, our guitarist bought a brand new guitar with a Floyd on it, and didn't ever bottom to set it up so it went out of tune during every song. Plus he could barely tune it himself and turned the keys really harshly and kept putting it flat/sharp
I have to ask this question. If a person is so scared of the dark they won't go through a dark hallway to pee, why don't they carry a flashlight? I'm not scared of the dark, but I always have a flashlight in my bag.
i too am puzzled by such a thing. a flashlight would be easier to carry around than a bottle. actually come to think of it, got me thinking about a belt-mounted pee bottle. just slide it round the front when its stream-time, slide it back round when its time to get back to work.
@@pepe6666 Just slide it back around? It's full of pee now! Ugh, guys.
Someone wanted to sing background vocals on one of my songs once. I made them a loop of the section, wrote out the lyrics, and gave them two weeks to practice it. They showed up to the studio, stepped up to the mic, and sang "Pshr pusha pershalation" or something like that." Somehow the engineer was eventually able to get them to pronounce the actual words, but they ended up wayyyyy back in the mix.
This comment is about your channel in general. So glad you are on UA-cam. I have full access to an abandoned studio, so I'm trying to learn since my kids are musicians. Every tutorial I found has shitty music that pisses the family off! Finally I can learn stuff without hearing garbage. Thank you. 🙂
Lol... Started the video... I'm a photographer. Apologies from all photographers everywhere. Lol!
The guy changing the bass strings is kinda understandable why he’d be a bit bothered. James Jamerson, Donald Dunn, and many others swore by never changing the strings. It’s a personal preference thing. Especially if he swapped with a different gauge too.
Personally I like the sound of fresh strings but that’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
how is this only a 5 min video ?
So they can release a part 2 for something that obviously will get clicks. It is ok to do it that way too. 10 minutes would've been too long for short stories anyway, 5 minutes was imho perfect... and i know what you mean, there are weeks worth of stories of stupid clients.
I was gonna find you when you made this... but I was mid session, recording at my parent's place and get a text "We just got home from church, and there's some guy passed out on the lawn" Bassist had gotten dropped off, had partied a bit too hard, and nobody knew he was coming that day. (Cue a rant on bassists).
Told Jesse this on my way to the VIP dinner: bass player (friend who shall not be named) refused to track a DI and insisted on tracking the cab with an SM58.
Nice meeting you out there, Glenn!
I've worked with lots of great tracks that had just a dynamic mic on a bass cab. Even a 58
@@RedCityFormat yes, but the 58 has no low end.
@@Smurfman256 "No low end". You sure about that? Have you ever actually tried recording a cabinet with one?
Of course I think there are subjectively better mic choices. But is a 58 a dumb choice? Not really.
I'm not patronizing, but it's not a good habit to limit yourself based on anecdotal evidence.
@@RedCityFormat I have. And on a bass cab, too. Without a DI to fill in that bottom end (or a more bottom heavy mic to blend in), it's gonna sound pretty anemic. If I'm gonna record a bass cab, I'm gonna use either a ribbon or a SM7 (or more recently, a Rode Podmic).
@@Smurfman256 Sometimes you don't want that much low end if your mix has the kick taking over that range. But it is again, subjective. I would be happy with a 421. The mic to me isn't as important as the cabinet.
Bringing random people into the studio and not telling/logging when a piece of equipment is broken. Oh, and my personal favourite is bribing the engineer with a bottle of whiskey to record two bands in the same session. He took the bribe and almost got away with it, only except they left a mysterious cd with the band's name which the head engineer found and started to questioned myself and my coworker about, because we make the majority of the bookings.The second band was meant to be there doing something else though and not doing a recording session.
Ask people about traffic and they all complain about the other drivers, but each one thinks he is a great driver.
Dumbest thing I’ve seen? In class, third year we where in the studio a singer who’s been staring down a mic for most of her life goes to set up the mic by trying to screw the XLR port onto the mic stand! I nicely asked here “ where is the clip” she looked at me like a deer in the head lights and in the corner of my eyes I saw my friends collapsing to the floor rolling in tears!!!!
I was trying to get through engineering a chaotic Gospel session and some of these folks bring like 20 people with them. All of a sudden the Control Room starts reeking of the most pungent shit you've ever smelled. I look over and see one of the women changing a diaper with the baby on top of the 2 inch machine.
Hey Glenn, I have a short question regarding preparing stems for mixing.
What if I have a specific type of reverb with automation etc. going on? Would you need the plugin and automation to mix? because if you change the vocal sound for example, the rendered Reverb wouldn´t sound any different.
How do Mixers deal with this kind of Issue?
someone was on an acid trip and freaked out. Threw a chair through a window above the very expensive ampex 2 inch tape machine in the isolation room.
I had a band refuse to play to click to make it sound 'more natural'...it sounded so natural it was practically primal sounding. Like Cavemen banging rocks.
Same 😂
These are hilarious! Expected to hear more horror stories about drummers.
me too
Us drummers have become wiser in later generations. However there are plenty of typical idiot drummers out there still.
@@blakecurtis7809 I'm not even an idiot, but it was my first band and my first recording session and even though I went to bed early, while everyone was partying the night before, they kept me awake so I ruined all the doublebass parts and missed the last cymbalhit four times. I had nailed it before, but writing the lyrics for the singer the night before might have thrown me out of distribution balance. So if you don't hear stories about drummers, it's because they are often busy making things work.
@@Chrisisplays - The night before?
@@sirkayda7205 THE NIGHT BEFORE, as if the Job was already done.
Four years later, I still don't agree with that moron changing his client's bass' strings without asking and then having the audacity to charge him for it.
1. It doesn't matter what you think. Don't modify others' property without asking.
2. You don't get to add additional expenses to what your client would be paying without asking or even warning them. If I were the client, I'd flat out refuse to pay for this and fire the moron on the spot.
This one I am still embarassed about... First band, first studio session ever. The engineer asks us to play him some records so he can get an idea of the overall sound we would like to aim for. Meaning, he wanted to hear some other artists' songs that we like. We play him our demos. Just a misunderstanding, really, and later we cleared things up, but in that moment, it really looked like we are so self-obsessed that when somebody asks us what music we like, we respond "our music". A real facepalm moment.
I understand not wanting to appear egocentric but I really believe that the best music you can write is the music you'd like to hear, metallica does this, everything they put out is a reflection of what they like to hear in a record
I had a audio engineer during my session have another client stop by to pickup mixes, then play one of the songs as I am waiting to track vocals. I guess he thought it was ok because we knew the guys in this band. On another session, This same engineer nodded out while I was tracking bass, I just stopped playing and starred at him. When he came too I asked him "not feeling it today? neither am I".
Dude that had to deal with the gallon of urine guy wins the trophy in my book.
Thank you. I'll take the trophy.
I do wonder who the guy who told that story is...
Music conservatory Horn players coming to my studio to record ,,,,,,, one of them dumps his spit valve on the carpeted floor and then they all laughed ..............I kicked them all out
Lol I can imagine they were only laughing at the quantity that came out of it (as is usually the case) and didn't intend to piss you off. Good players usually bring a towel wherever they play and it was dumb of them to do that on your carpet without even asking first though.
Just so you know, it isn't spit. It's merely condensation of the hot air you blow into the instrument and brass instruments regularly need to be "emptied" or they *will* sound like shit.
Just tell them to bring towels for their horn juice next time, no need to cut yourself off some money only for that
Gustru Yep, it’s condensation, not spit. As a horn player (hornist?) and a bagpiper, you have to empty them periodically. Just do it with common courtesy and you’ll be fine.
My high school band played at a nursing home once. Between songs, the third trumpet emptied her valve right on the tile floor in the common room. All I could see in my head was some poor geriatric who lived through WWII being done in by a broken hip.
Sounds like you don't record many horn players if you think that's uncommon.
Hogan Bentle I’ve been playing in bands with horn sections for about 20 years , nothing un common about a spit valve.
I won’t be in a band with out horns
@@youthmanrecords420 I remember a trombonist friend educating me about this interesting feature (which he much preferred to call the 'WATER KEY'!) :)
My story: the singer of one band I helped tracked brought his mom to the session for "moral support." She spent the whole day she was there cheering him on but still got in the way. She also spilled her iced latte on my back and tried to clean it off with the bass players sweater; you can guess how much the bass player loved that. Needless to say "Mama Singer" stayed home for the rest of the tracking.
Girlfriends, mates and parents. No. Never.
@@2112jonr Agreed!
Y'all need to hire jazz guys lol, fastest recording session I ever had was 10 minutes, two takes - for a back up, didn't bring any food or drink in the booth, treated folks nice and thanked the engineer.
That's what I was taught that was expected of us musicians, but then I rewatch this channel's vids lol
ADVENTURERS: We're here for your treasure!
DRAGON: Here
ADVENTURERS: This is way less than we were told
DRAGON: Yeah but think about how many people saw you fight your in way here
ADVENTURERS: So?
DRAGON: The EXPOSURE dude
ADVENTURERS: ...No
"Should I spit out my dip" I fucking died!!! Haha
When working a session, I had the (pregnant) girlfriend of the vocalist call the studio and was threatening to kill herself. He refused to talk to her, so I was relaying messages to her/from him from behind the desk. Good times.
The dip one hit close to home. Used to work at a Tractor Supply. Whenever I would go to clean the changing room or the bathroom I would find wads of chew everywhere. Fukken gnasty.
the producer convinced my bandmates at the time that copy and pasting one guitar track and just changing the tone/ amp sim. was enough to distinguish them from each other and would save time so we wouldnt have to double track guitars... he was convinced that the change was enough to make the guitar sound stereo despite my protests about it still being a mono track... needless to say the album sounded very thin and weak, and despite still being acquaintances with the producer still, i personally vowed to not work with him anymore
It's not mono if the left and right channels are different though. It's not the same as double tracking, which gives you time and tone differences, but just a tone difference does make it stereo.
@@henrihell It makes it different. It doesn't make it stereo.
@@Anvilshock Please elaborate. What is stereo if it can't be defined as two speakers not playing the same thing?
@@henrihell It's not *just* two speakers not playing the same thing. It's two speakers in a specific arrangement with the listener, and playing two signals that differ *just* enough (and *only* just so much) that a particular effect is achieved. Stereo is a method to approximately reproduce the 2-D spatiality of an audio event by reproducing two variants of the same event, with the variants being picked up such that the signal difference between them is defined by their spatial difference (real or simulated). And not by just throwing randomly different effects on one or the other.
If you haven't SUBSCRIBED, DO IT NOW! Glenn is dealing with a family crisis and won't be able to make videos for an indefinite period of time so every view and subscription counts right now. Thanks in advance!
Let me go ahead and remove "become recording engineer" off my list.
Not as crazy as some of these stories but I had the bass player of the band I was recording come in to lay down his stuff. The bass is crazy out of tune and I tell him "you need to check the tuning" and he answered "but I tuned the bass yesterday before I went to bed"
I have heard a few "gun in the studio" stories here in LA
I'm sure when I was 17 I was somebody's "Dumbest thing in a studio", we were busted at 8am, asleep on the floor surrounded by cans, bottles and cigarette butts the morning after our recording session, the engineer included.
It was literally a rude awakening! 😁
I was have the best stories. I've done more over a longer period of time. Than anybody else here.
So I got contracted for this big live recording. That included an 8 camera professional video shoot. A video truck was brought in. Along with my audio truck.
This was going to be one of my biggest contract jobs, ever. The Los Angeles producer. Decided to stay in the video truck. And brought his best friend along. To put him into my truck. To act as a producer. Even though he knew nothing of the process.
So we are in the middle of the big grand opening number. The band is pumping away. I've got a great stereo mix up. As I am also feeding the 24 track recorder. On my previous large Sphere Eclipse C, analog audio console with VCA subgroup automation.
I had all of my VCA subgroups assigned to various faders. The 12+ channels of drums were on my left. But the VCA master Fader was on my right. When this producer asks me in the middle of this song, mix, number. What microphone was plugged into input,, 32.. I told him nothing. The Fader was up. Because it was my VCA master Fader on the drums.
When this moron says there is nothing on this input? So it doesn't matter if I pull down this Fader? And he pulls it down to zero. Right in the middle of this number with the band pumping away. Right on a rest where the drums stopped playing. I screamed no! Slammed the Fader up. Just as the guy hit the drums. Coming out of that one half beat rest. It fucking freaked me out!
The guy was shook. He didn't know what happened? I told him he had just pulled down the entire drum mix. He was frazzled. Embarrassed. He got up. Said to me. It seems like you are doing a good job. I think I'll go back to the video truck. And he left. He left me to fly solo. With no communications with the video truck and the producer.
In the end. I got both a Grammy and Soul Train nomination for best engineered category. No thanks to him. Thanks to my fast reflexes. I mean of all the stupid fool things to do. This is what happens. When you invite people that should not be there. And what ended up getting used for the video? My live rough mix. With a quick manual gate on the entire rhythm section. For one half beat. On a rest. Thank God it was a rest. Otherwise the entire recording would have been fucked up. Because that was the big opening number. And even though we did a second take of that opening number at the end of the show. They used the actual opening number.
RemyRAD
oh man so intense and so lucky. would you mind sharing which band this was?
I had a dream the other night that I recorded a whole song with 2 vocalists with the mic backwards..... It was just a dream.
Had 5 musicians start drinking and by the end of the recording session they were wasted then went to church!
Dude I had a client do that in the past. He got drunk tried to record, then gave up and went to sleep on some church steps in my neighborhood later like WTF
Entertaining vid. You've a knack for this stuff, it can't be denied.
3:59 Worn bass strings are totally legitimate. Some of the greatest recordings have been done on dead strings (e.g. any James Jamerson). It's an odd move for a sound engineer to make that decision and even change strings for a bassist without even discussing it. And the engineer then complaining about the bassist not being happy with it points at a certain ignorance and arrogance, honestly.
Hear any Motown on this show?
@@SpectreSoundStudios nope... shouldn't matter though. Choice of string is an artistic/personal choice of the musician. Sure if the producer wants to make them sound like any standard HiFi-Rock band... they could talk to the bassist about it. Otherwise just don't touch other people's instruments! : )
(and also: don't charge for not asked for "services")
@@SpectreSoundStudios hahah, just saw your rant on people bringing up that exact Jamerson reference :D Coinicidentally from just a few days before my comment (10th of May, "15 mistakes..."). Doesn't change my point at all; but still funny that apparently I hit a cliché here.
@@MRegah that’s ok, a bass player that can think for himself is exceptionally rare!
@@SpectreSoundStudios :D :**
I was asked to put a bassline on to a previously recorded guitar track by a friend with a modest home studio who, arrogantly, fancied himself a producer. A few seconds of playing along I asked, "Hang on was the guitar in tune?"
He looked blank and said, "does that matter?"
Story starting at 1:27 made me laugh really loud.
Somewhy I thought about Iron Maiden with their "Fear of the Dark"
the two guys eating pizza out of the box on the floor really solidifies that these are real audio engineers
4:44 I thought that guy was wearing a shoulderless dress