Does This Studio Owe Me An Apology?

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The difference in that situation is whether the assistant made the effort or whether the artist made the decision on his own. It's a slippery road sometimes.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

but if one of my guy's would have gone behind the back of an outside engineer in order to get the gig. i would have wanted to know about it and pull the guy off of the session.

I would have had management take care of that. Having the benefit of that interface is so clean.

[cgarges]

I can see how that might be nice.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[nick_a]

yeah, this kind of thing is no good in my book. Smells of desperation on the part of the studio manager with the staff to pay. No excuse. He should have asked YOU, the guy responsible for running the session, how things were going FIRST. Then, he can bro down with the band and check the status. Not the other way around. Not in a band vs. recorder way, just in a "who's responsible for this ship sailing" way. I hope, chris, that it didn't mess with your confidence, because you're a good dude that makes good work. (you worked at the bastille and inner ear with my good friend, weatherbox!)

[cgarges]

Thanks, Nick.

The experience didn't shake my confidence at all. Probably because the incident was so weird because I knew that everything was cool with the band.

I had a great time working at Inner Ear and The Bastille. Hoping to get back up there next year to do some more.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[JeffT]

The difference in that situation is whether the assistant made the effort or whether the artist made the decision on his own. It's a slippery road sometimes.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

but if one of my guy's would have gone behind the back of an outside engineer in order to get the gig. i would have wanted to know about it and pull the guy off of the session.

I would have had management take care of that. Having the benefit of that interface is so clean.

in ref to "my guy's" I was management.

[daved]

I really don't see much gray area here... if you booked the session, it was YOUR session, Chris. Regardless of who wrote a check etc... etc... etc... You booked it. You are the client.

A good studio manager is on top of bookings and should know this. It's his/her responsibility to keep things moving and protect the facilities reputation. Even if you were doing something deeply wrong, the appropriate response would be to first mention the issues to YOU and suss out details. After the session, if things still seem weird a followup with the band might be in order, but only to assure them the weirdness was on you, not them. Essentially an apology/courtesy call. But NOT a sales call. Etiquette and common sense requires the manager to establish a relationship first, sell later.

If I were the studio owner I'd be pissed at this manager. He just released a regular bird-in-hand, chasing a flighty bird-in-bush. I'm stuck with a reputation as an unethical douche, for a few hundred lousy bucks, with little hope of future return. A working engineer or producer, even one running a competitive facility, can deliver a steady stream of referrals over time, even if she never works with you directly again. Bands break up, and the members wind up selling insurance or burgers or some other non-music related activity that pays for groceries. Professionalism is sometimes common courtesy, but often rooted in enlightened self interest. This clown's a greedy fool... he deserves the referrals he won't be getting because he was unable to keep it in his pants during the foreplay.

[joelpatterson]

I've always heard it said... or maybe not always, but I heard it said once, at a formative point in my career-- that there's two types of people running studios.

One type, the good type, are truly dedicated to creating lasting, timeless audio-- they realize nothing comes easily, it's all a game of how many attempted field goals actually make it between the posts, but there's an integrity and a humility and an innate human goodness.

The other type-- not so forthright, and deep down see it all as riding the gravy train, and tend to be kind of loose with commitments and fast-talking and underneath it all, sleazy as hell.

If this theory needed any more proof, your story does it.

[daved]

I dunno... those sorts of dichotomies are truisms at the very best. In reality the world is rarely so simple.

[joelpatterson]

Quite right-- you got layers of nuance in any situation-- but I kinda believe that at the very core of the issue, studio owners kind of take on the characteristics of one camp or the other... and I'm an optimistic guy!

[TapeOpLarry]

If my studio manager was doing shit like that she'd have been fired years ago. But obviously she is highly aware of the way this stuff works and has never done something so lame. There's no excuse for it. None. If the band came to the manager and said, "We love your studio but Chris is a lousy engineer. Can you hook us up with someone?" then that's something else. But it didn't happen.

[joelpatterson]

But-- you must admit that even worse would be lying in wait, and kidnapping Chris when he showed up for the session, and then sashaying in to the waiting band and saying, "He show up yet? No? Well, let's talk, I got this great, great guy...."

[cgarges]

That would DEFINITELY be the weirder scenario.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[TapeOpLarry]

Well, we DO that too. Gotta make a living. Hell, we had Chris Walla tied up for months.

[joelpatterson]

I've tried holding various members of the band for ransom-- usually it just backfires.

[drumsound]

Seems like the studio manager stepped over the line. There is a small chance of miscommunication between the manager and the band telling you what was said, but I don't think so.