You let them rehearse. They think you're rolling. You're not

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rwc
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You let them rehearse. They think you're rolling. You're not

Post by rwc » Tue Dec 25, 2007 1:11 pm

Do you stop the performance asap? half way through? or do you let them finish and tell them you weren't recording?
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Post by RefD » Tue Dec 25, 2007 1:24 pm

start recording ASAP and fess up afterward.

but at least they'll hopefully have a bit of something to listen to.
?What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.? -- Seneca

rwc
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Post by rwc » Tue Dec 25, 2007 1:26 pm

I saw someone over the weekend do something interesting.

Ask for another take as nicely as possible, and hope to god they like that one so much they'll forgive you when you say "I got rid of the other one this one was so much better." when they ask to hear the other take.

Sneaky bastard. I'd probably get my balls chopped off if I tried something like that.
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Post by RefD » Tue Dec 25, 2007 1:34 pm

better to be honest about it, methinks.

you want to engender trust.
?What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.? -- Seneca

rwc
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Post by rwc » Tue Dec 25, 2007 2:01 pm

I try to make sure in talkback before they're more than two lines in that they know that they're rehearsing and I'm not rolling. I like to keep a routine where I say "ok, we're rolling" before they start.

But if they go more than ten lines in, chances are they think I'm recording, in which case I let it finish and hope they don't berate me at the end.

I can't believe I'm browsing tape-op on Christmas. :oops:
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Post by RefD » Tue Dec 25, 2007 4:39 pm

there's nowt wrong with that.

i mean, you've done other things today, right?
?What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.? -- Seneca

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Post by Track Rat » Tue Dec 25, 2007 6:24 pm

I TRY to have the recorder rolling at all times, even when the band is fucking around. I try to catch the happy little accidents that way plus if the band thinks the machine isn't on sometimes they seem to play a little better when they don't have "tape nerves". But if it does happen that it's not rolling and they're playing their asses off, I'll stop them fast so I can get it down.
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Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Tue Dec 25, 2007 6:38 pm

one time an old band of mine was doing a record at Q division in cambridge..i was the bonus rocker in the group, so i was playing producer whilst the other 4 guys tracked basics. so we had this one song that had a really quiet first half and a total blitzkrieg second half. at some point the decision was made to track the halves separately and put 'em together later. fine. so as it turned out, they got the blitzkrieg part first, and then just had to go back and do the first half.

so at that point i left the control room to go have a smoke. had i stayed, i would have told the assistant to rewind the tape all the way to the top *just in case* they decided to go for a whole take of the song. but i didn't, and neither did he. you know the rest: band plays perfectly acceptable first half, guitar player looks at drummer with crazed look in his eye, they go for it and play an unbelievable second half, with the tape spooling neatly off the reel with about 2 minutes to go.

mother. fucker.

they finish the take and are super psyched and i had to get on the talkback and say 'sorry, the tape ran out and we didn't get all of the end. i didn't know whether to stop you or not." bass player: "you should've stopped us." i felt really bad. in the end no biggie as we didn't really 'lose' anything, but yunno...

anyway, uh...yeah...nowadays at my place if the band starts the song before i say go and i miss the beginning i scream at them over the talkback and get 'em to stop. if they said they just wanted to rehearse for awhile without recording, i'd still keep an ear on things and if it sounded like they were hitting it, i'd start recording.

also if someone's doing an overdub and they need to work the part out, they say 'lemme just run through it a few times without recording' half the time i record that stuff too, you never know. sometimes people hit on really great stuff when they don't actually know what the changes are...

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Post by rongineer » Tue Dec 25, 2007 7:01 pm

I always interrupt if I'm not Recording. I think it's worse mentally for the band to finish the song to then realize it hasn't been recorded than to just interrupt and tell them....However if your are a Hard Drive Based studio you should make an effort to just always be recording imo.

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Post by cgarges » Wed Dec 26, 2007 9:18 am

Yeah, I always try to get everything on tape, too, and then get rid of anything that I know won't be used. But if a band mentions rehearsing an intro or something and then keeps playing and I didn't start rolling, I'll pop on the talkback and just ask if they're aware that I'm not rolling. But on more than one occasion, a band has attempted to "rehearse" something and I've recorded it (even if they've told me not to) and gotten something really good as a result. It only tales that happening once to make it worthwhile.

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Post by BeepBeep » Wed Dec 26, 2007 12:29 pm

This might be where a "recording" sign would come in handy.
http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=50337

I think it's always best to let the band know what's going on. Just make it clear that you're not recording unless you say "rolling".

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Post by spankenstein » Wed Dec 26, 2007 9:38 pm

I just start rolling. As soon as someone says, "We're going to run through this so we know we have it." I hit record. I think that it's only been worthwhile once but disk space is cheap right? I have threatened to keep it going except when i change I/O settings. Think of the amazing things you may capture in that scenario.

Once I was cueing up a bridge for vocals and the singer did this odd breathing thing that was right on time with the song and added a neat human feel in the middle of some white noise guitars. The band ended up keeping the two little sounds. The singer thought we weren't recording. I am glad we were.

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Post by hughmanatee » Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:31 am

this has happened to me quite a bit, ill be placing mics or something and be inbetween live and control rooms when they start playing, assuming they know im not rolling, im still getting sounds. theyll finish and be like "ok that was great lets do this one" and im like wait, you know i didnt record that right?. then they get all frustrated because they dont know that you cant just tell someone to stand there put a mic in front of them and go. atleast not all the time. then other times they will specifically tell me not to record. thats when i know to press record, because they feel more laid back and comfortable if they aren't "Rolling Tape"

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Post by the finger genius » Sat Dec 29, 2007 5:16 am

I think this is much more of an issue in a tape based studio. If you're using a DAW, there's really no reason not to be rolling constantly.

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Post by percussion boy » Sat Dec 29, 2007 7:26 am

There's a scene in the documentary STRAIGHT NO CHASER where Thelonious Monk thinks it's a take and the producer thinks it's just a runthrough.

Monk was pissed.
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