What are your studio's rules for clients?

[Crocoduck5000]

When I worked at a studio, the main engineer had those basic deposit rules. However, interestingly enough, he did not want rappers (not that there are any rappers in Davis, CA javascript:emoticon(':shock:')) since they would swear in front of his children. Heavy drinking however was almost encouraged! Yeah, he was that kind of guy

I don't run a "studio", mainly because I hate working in a paid studio environment. Everything I do for friends or my band is free, because for me it almost ruins the music (plus I need all the experience I can get). Having said that, especially if I'm offering to record a band for free, I have some more rules in regards to being prepared, though that's usually not an issue with picky bluegrass players.

[Winstontaneous]

When I worked at a studio, the main engineer had those basic deposit rules. However, interestingly enough, he did not want rappers (not that there are any rappers in Davis, CA javascript:emoticon(':shock:'))

Just curious, was that ElectroLair? I lived in Davis from '96-'06 and at the time that was the only decent studio I knew of.

Blackalicious and Michael Franti are from Davis (as is DJ Shadow)...at least in the '90s there was a progressive rap/hip-hop scene going on.

[jgimbel]

Funny I'd see this thread come back up again today, I just recorded my first people other than friends today. I thought just one guy was coming to do some guitar stuff, but he ended up bringing their drummer, and rather than tracking to a metronome and getting parts to work on in the future, they just seemed to want to play some things they had put together. So we recorded three little songs, plus some just playing around in between. First time I've ever recorded guitar and drums at the same time. This really wasn't anything too serious, but even with basic mic stuff set up it came out sounding MUCH better than I would have expected (other than the fact that their timing was awful, playing was sloppy, and right before the first take I heard 'let's play ____' 'wow we haven't played that one in a while'."). It was fun anyway. Also first time using a 5150, actually sounded great for what he was playing.

I did start last week with a friend who I recorded years ago. Those old tracks are pretty awful recording-wise, but the songs weren't bad, so we're re-recording them to put out as an EP while we work on the full length. We just put down two tracks of guitars, bass, and drums (all by him, like I do with myself), and it's easily the best sounding thing I've ever recorded. It's GREAT practice to put new techniques I've learned to the test before working on my own EP that I'll be doing in a month or so.

Anyway, between recording a song that's sounding awesome with the friend, and getting decent sounds for people who played pretty poorly, I'm feeling good. Glad to know my first "outsider" recording wasn't a complete disaster!