telling someone thier engineer sucks

ataraxia · Post by **ataraxia** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 4:54 pm

dear abby...
i did a session of guitar playing for a local band and they have an aweful engineer. he's a "we'll fix it/disort it/everything" in the computer kind of guy. he had me record a clean guitar track for a punk rock song in his MD8 so he can transfer it over and distort it later. The low end mixing was horrendous on the already "final drums and bass tracks". Should i tell the band he sucks and find a new engineer or do i just do my job and smile pretty.
sincerely,
shitting in cheyenne

hauser gabone · Post by **hauser gabone** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 5:03 pm

tell them he sucks.

AnalogElectric · Post by **AnalogElectric** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 5:38 pm

So you were a session guitar player or someone actually a part of the band (proper)?

I'd probably suggest that you voice your concerns to the band. But yet again if they're happy with it so far, just let it go... while still voicing your concerns ...hehe.

-- Adam Lazlo

John Jeffers · Post by **John Jeffers** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 7:27 pm

I did this, but I was in the band at the time. After my first studio session with these guys, I suggested that I could do a better job, for less money (seeing as how $0.00 is always cheaper than any non-negative dollar amount).

I'm not going to say the engineer sucked, because I'm not going to pass a sweeping judgment on a guy based on one band, but he definitely wasn't making these guys sound the way they wanted to.

Since I was in the band, and offering to do the recording for free, it was a fairly easy sell to the rest of the band. They'd also heard some other recording I'd done, so knew what I was capable of. Their only real concern was not wanting to hurt the other engineer's feelings.

I'd start by asking questions, not making statements. Find out how the band feels about this guy. It could be that some or all of them already think bad things, but don't see a way out. And if you are going to flat out tell them he sucks, you might want to put some options on the table instead of just pissing on their parade and walking away.

joel hamilton · Post by **joel hamilton** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 7:45 pm

I would just tell them you look forward to a time when you can do the tracking and the mixing. Maybe ask if they would like to do one song with you...

I always feel like the quality of an engineers work speaks louder than the words said about another engineer.

The band is not stupid. If they hear an improvement after you touch it... you come out looking like you made it "better." which you did!

I would rather just start "clean" with a band than argue the "other engineer" type argument. that is gross. It is like calling everyone an asshole, eventually everyone will think YOU are the asshole....

spankenstein · Post by **spankenstein** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 8:00 pm

A band I had previously worked with was doing their second album and was shopping around. I knew they were checking out other places and and even keeping in contact with them and asking about their experiences.

They ended up doing a song at another place and coming and doing the same song with me. The other place did a a "one song freebie" deal so I obliged with the same. They were much happier with what I did and ended up doing the album with me.

I didn't have to say "this engineer is bad." I never did say that it was bad, it was different. They have to pick what is better for them, but they have to be shown options. Money, time, gear... all of that goes through their minds and the younger the band is the more money is going to be, they may not have even looked around being frightened by $40/hr over someone at $10/hr (literally just saw an ad on craigslist for $11/hr studio). It's easy to think you will get a beter product if you can spend 3.64 times the time... until you don't need all that to accomplish your goals.

Not too long ago I went back through recordings of my old bands. All were budget recordings ($120/day type of operations in the mid 90's) and all are not good. While I don't think it's all money I wish we would have not let price dictate us. But when you're broke.... you're broke.

christiannokes · Post by **christiannokes** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 3:57 pm

never burn bridges unless you have to

knobtwirler · Post by **knobtwirler** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:36 pm

It is still your opinion. You should ask the band what they think of the sound and his work. this will perk up their ears and lead them to ask, "why, you don't like it?" and maybe reevaluate their opinions or think you are crazy and don't get it. If the band loves it, it's great.

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telling someone thier engineer sucks

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