Convincing bands to take their time in the studio

[Matt C.]

As the title suggests, i'm looking for some advice convincing bands to take their time with the recording process. Lately, i've been having trouble with bands rushing through the studio and not budgeting enough time to get (what I would consider) a great end product. Mainly i'm talking about budgeting plenty of time for setup, but people tend to rush through tracking too. I do realize that a lot of this is my fault for not saying straight up at the beginning that we should budget a lot of time, but the bands i've worked with have all worked at such different speeds that I have a hard time estimating that time with a new client. Between people's conflicting job schedules, limited money, etc, people always call me up expecting to do everything in one day, and i have a hard time figuring out whether this is a case in which i just need to do the best i can within the band's time/money budget, or whether i need to drop a truth bomb on them and tell them that recording just takes longer than they seem to think.

When i have to rush through a project like this, it's never really satisfying to me, even if the end result is pretty decent and the band is happy. And this constant rush makes it hard to have fun and experiment and try to learn new things. for my own sanity, what are some good approaches to take with bands to convince them to take their time?

Thanks.

[Snarl 12/8]

Don't you say something like "Good, quick and cheap. Pick any two." Something like that.
_________________
Carl Keil

[Nick Sevilla]

[Gregg Juke]

A good rule of thumb is that any recording will take _three times_ the amount of time that you plan it to.

This is one of those things where (and I hate to flog my own dead horse, but) it depends on whether you are "producing" or "engineering." If they, and you, see yourself (and agree together to see you) as the producer, then planning and pre-production time become very important. Pre-producion is when you would, for instance, go to rehearsals and find out how good/bad, fast/slow, prepared/unprepared they are, and make a recording plan and budget accordingly.

Pre-production is still great if you are engineering, but philosophically, you care less about it, because you are basically recording whatever they bring to you until they run out of money. I KNOW that that is a gross over-simplification, but that's basically it. You want a good product, they want a good product; you can make suggestions, but it's mostly out of your hands as to whether they are really prepared or not. This of course impacts recording time and lots of other issues in the studio.

So, try to educate, try to suggest and guide, but if they want to rush, or take five years, it's really on them (unless you're the producer...).

GJ

[roscoenyc]

[A.David.MacKinnon]

Sitting down with the band early on and working out a realistic budget can be big help here. By realistic I mean somewhere between what they can afford and what you think it will really cost. They'll always need to spend more and you'll never have all the funds you need to "do it right". Working that middle ground is what separates the men from the boys.
Once you've got a firm number you can start figuring out where to spend the money. Do you track somewhere cheap in order to have more time? Do you do shitloads of pre-prodcution so you can get a ton of tracking done on a very short time in a more expensive/better room?
The Ramones made most of their records in a couple of days because they had it all mapped out and rehearsed. Talk Talk took a year to make a record and wrote everything in the studio. Every band works differently. If you know the budget before you start recording you can play to the band's strengths and allocate funds where they are most needed.
_________________
Dave

http://adavidmackinnon.blogspot.com
http://adavidmackinnon.bandcamp.com

[Matt C.]

I will add (regarding cheap room vs. expensive room) that all this recording is done in my own home studio.

Also, while some bands have some slightly different ideas about "producing", my job generally falls much closer to the "just engineering" side of things (although i try not to be as disinterested as that seems to imply)

[Gregg Juke]

Right MC, I got it... I wasn't implying that you should be dis-interested or give anything less than your best, but unless they give you, and you accept, that producer's role, at some point, for your own sanity, you have to say "eh!"

Simply because you'll drive yourself to drink any other way...

GJ

[Waltz Mastering]

It's also a consideration to convince a band to have their shit toegther before they step foot in the studio. Rehearse the songs in their live set as well as rehearsal. Have them make rough tapes, rehearse to a click if they are going to use one... new drum heads, strings etc.

Unless you do a per song rate you're always at the mercy of the clock.
Some bands might be a little more relaxed than others but not many have the budget to experiment. You could also try charging for tracking hourly and mixing per song rate.
_________________
Tom Waltz

http://www.waltzmastering.com/

[Gregg Juke]

>>>>It's also a consideration to convince a band to have their shit toegther before they step foot in the studio. Rehearse the songs in their live set as well as rehearsal. Have them make rough tapes, rehearse to a click if they are going to use one... new drum heads, strings etc.<<<<

This is pre-production in a nutshell, but if you can't do it with them, I guess you could always strongly encourage that they do it themsleves. I have actually seen a lot of studio/engineer websites with similar lists of "What to do before your session."

GJ

[Snarl 12/8]

I keep thinking, what if the studio owned one of those $99 tascam or zoom stereo recorders? And you'd loan it to the band for a day to "tape" a rehearsal? That first playback will tell them so much about where they're going wrong. They could share a song or two with you and you could say, "well, I can fix such and such, but if the drummer's going to bash the cymbals like that there's only so much I can do." etc.

Learning to play in a way that works for the way microphones "hear" is at least half the battle and you can see what's uneven very, very clearly. I always say recording yourself while you practice is like dressing with a mirror. You can "see" what's working and what's not. Only with a band that hasn't recorded much, or has only recorded themselves, they might not have the fashion sense to know what's a problem and what's not. That's where you come in.
_________________
Carl Keil

[Gregg Juke]

Hey Carl-- That post was almost... Poetry.

I will be borrowing that metaphor.

GJ

PS-- For a REAL kick, go back and listen to live recordings of yourself from 20 or 30 years ago. Especially the ones you thought were so tight and groovy. I listened to some old Broadway Joe's tapes I played on awhile back. I must have thought that "groove" was a trench by the side of the road...

[cgarges]

I find that when I have a band that really wants to crank something out in a ridiculous amount of time, they're gonna try to do it no matter what I say to them. I have found within the last year or so that I can sometimes draw the absurdities to their attention if I break things down for them.

"Okay, you want to mix your entire six song EP in a day? Alright, if we work a ten-hour day and take appropriate ear breaks so that we CAN work a ten-hour day and AT LEAST one meal break during the course of the day and if we listen back to the mixes AFTER we print them to make sure that they printed okay (always a good idea), and if we make hi-resolution and Redbook backups along the way, and if I have to burn a CD for each of the guys in the band at the end of the day, that leaves about an hour per song if you're lucky. Throw in the usual procedural stuff that makes the first song take much longer than the rest and now you're down to between a half hour and forty five minutes per song. Is that cool with you guys? 'Cause as cool as it would be, I can't do time travel."

Having that conversation before the session has been REALLY helpful in terms of bands biting off more than they can chew or having unrelaistic expectations. I'm happy to do whatever I can to facilitate whatever they need to get done, but sometimes, things have to be spelled-out in order to be brought to their attention effectively.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
_________________
www.chrisgarges.com
www.oldhousestudio.com
Bunky Moon, The Public Good
Playing drums with Mitch Easter

[cgarges]

I find that when I have a band that really wants to crank something out in a ridiculous amount of time, they're gonna try to do it no matter what I say to them. I have found within the last year or so that I can sometimes draw the absurdities to their attention if I break things down for them.

"Okay, you want to mix your entire six song EP in a day? Alright, if we work a ten-hour day and take appropriate ear breaks so that we CAN work a ten-hour day and AT LEAST one meal break during the course of the day and if we listen back to the mixes AFTER we print them to make sure that they printed okay (always a good idea), and if we make hi-resolution and Redbook backups along the way, and if I have to burn a CD for each of the guys in the band at the end of the day, that leaves about an hour per song if you're lucky. Throw in the usual procedural stuff that makes the first song take much longer than the rest and now you're down to between a half hour and forty five minutes per song. Is that cool with you guys? 'Cause as cool as it would be, I can't do time travel."

Having that conversation before the session has been REALLY helpful in terms of bands biting off more than they can chew or having unrelaistic expectations. I'm happy to do whatever I can to facilitate whatever they need to get done, but sometimes, things have to be spelled-out in order to be brought to their attention effectively.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
_________________
www.chrisgarges.com
www.oldhousestudio.com
Bunky Moon, The Public Good
Playing drums with Mitch Easter

[Gregg Juke]

Chris,

Another beautiful quotable. I'd love to hear the appropriate tone of voice to deliver it in. It sounds (in my head) as though you are taking them perfectly seriously and doing a simple breakdown, until you get to the "time travel" part, which is be-a-u-tiful.

As my daughter used to say (a few years ago when she was two) "I so love it."

GJ

[cgarges]

[cgarges]