Message Board

I've been a full-time engineer and studio owner for the last 12+ years. I didn't start out interning, I kept building up my gear, clients, and studio(s) over the years. I'll still put in a straight 30+ hour "day" if the session is still productive at that point. I started accepting interns since 199...

you're spot on with the word-of-mouth thing. i ran an ad in yellow pages one year... huge waste of money for me. I got probably 25 calls the whole year. and almost all of them were either: 1. "producers" wanting to "sell beats" 2. people wanting vinyl records burned to cdr. OMG - yes! My old studio...

When I was a musician, years before becoming an engineer, being in the studio when I had nothing to do after my bass tracks, I got really bored. It was the same bored/tired feeling akin to sitting thru a boring lecture/class in school or coming down from a massive caffeine high. I felt like a zombie...

From my experience most bands are clueless about the responsibility of payments due. It is surprising that a band can't come up with $200 over a reasonable amount of time. Well, I guess it isn't that surprising... now that I think of it. About 15 years ago it was difficult for my band to pay a studi...

Like the others have been saying, 30 minutes isn't a huge deal... unless you only have an hour to work, heh. You knew from the get-go that it would be a touchy session and maybe you put that in your head, just waiting (almost hoping) for some sort of trouble? Don't let it bother you too much. If it ...

I bought and used a few Aphex 107's several years ago when I was in a pinch for a remote recording and even though it has a tube in it (I believe it's only on the output section) sounded pretty thin. These days I've been thrilled by the Sytek MPX-4aii on vocals. I'll a/b against the normal and BB ch...

A good manager allows the band to focus on the day to day activities of touring, recording, drinking and whatnot. The manager deals with agents, press, labels and generally keeps the band afloat. The band that I work that is having the most success is doing so well in good part due to their manager...

A lot of my purchases and sales have been thru eBay over the last several years, without incident. I make sure to check feedback on a seller and I ask a lot of questions, especially if it's gonna cost me a good amount of money if I win the auction. Also, if a deal is too good to be true, I usually k...

I want to try and find one of the cheaper ribbons and use it to smooth out my piercing honkytonk vocals a little bit. Have any of you guys found any of these Nady/Apex/Shiny box dealios good for this sort of thing? If so, which one? I'm also thinking about older Oktava, maybe a cheaper Beyer. Hmmm....

I really love the sound of an EV RE20 on a kick drum (universally). I've been using my D112 for the floor tom these days, sounds more suited. A Shure SM7 works on some kick drums. I also have used a Shure SM90 (or SM91) with good results tho it can get a little too boooooomy at times. Most other thi...

Find me a studio that ISN'T haunted. Yeah... even when I was working the AmRep building the guys were trying to freak me out (didn't work). The building had offices on the top floor and the studio was in the basement. It was an old medical clinic and they were trying to convince me that the basemen...

For years there's been the rumor that Pachyderm Studio is haunted: http://www.pachydermstudio.com/gs_content.htm I've freelanced there a handful of times and nothing ever freaked me out. I think it's mostly the feeling of isolation out there. Kinda like "The Shining" or "Friday The 13th". At night, ...

Roland SRE-555 Analog Tape Delay/Chorus/Reverb unit It works just fine, tape heads are in great shape. I'll also include 6 NOS replacement loop tapes (6 RT-1L's) It's the 'big-beast' version of the Roland Space Echo and more solid than Echoplex. Cosmetically, there's rack rash and one missing top s...

Well, how about a human malfunction? I swear I hit rec+play on my analog deck but once they finished "the perfect take" and I went to hit "stop", I noticed that it didn't record... now THAT's hard to explain considering we were having a lot of problems recording that specific song. I was an bastard ...

My experience with the same thing your asking is... get a lawyer. I have a lawyer thru the same firm that Prince goes thru (these days - post Sony/Slave era) and over the last 9 years that I've been with them I've used less than my $500 retainer regarding contracts and advice. If they use what you d...