Longest session you've ever done?

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kingtoad
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Longest session you've ever done?

Post by kingtoad » Sun Jun 13, 2010 11:36 pm

So, I sit here at 7:30 am local time having just finished a 19 1/2 hour session (the last of 10 days and we had to finish the album), a personal record. What's the longest continuous session you've ever been involved in? I thought this could throw up some interesting stories.

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Post by vvv » Mon Jun 14, 2010 5:43 am

See my "24 Hour EP" links, below.
bandcamp;
blog.
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Nick Sevilla
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Re: Longest session you've ever done?

Post by Nick Sevilla » Mon Jun 14, 2010 6:55 am

kingtoad wrote:So, I sit here at 7:30 am local time having just finished a 19 1/2 hour session (the last of 10 days and we had to finish the album), a personal record. What's the longest continuous session you've ever been involved in? I thought this could throw up some interesting stories.
Lightweight.

Once I had to finish mixing a Christmas record before Thanksgiving day, 2004.

Tuesday went into studio at 11am, left Thursday 6 am to "nap" before going to family dinner...

That would be 43 hours straight. This beat my previous record in Mexico City of 39 hours straight doing TV and radio commercials... for the 1998 World Cup.

"Looney Tunes" anyone?
Howling at the neighbors. Hoping they have more mic cables.

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Post by Jay Reynolds » Mon Jun 14, 2010 7:04 am

I did 12 hours with a relatively famous instrumentalist once. He's getting up there in years and has a fairly serious case of arthritis. We'd get everything ready for each take and then he'd come in and nail it in one pass. There were two problems. One was that it was someone else's room and they had cracked copy of Cubase VST 5 and a Tascam 428 running on a machine with Windows ME. Lots o' reboots. The other problem was that he was self-medicating with Heiniken. By hour 8, he was trashed and surly. I made a mistake long about hour 10 and promptly apologized (I forget what it was, but it was something like not hitting record at the top of a take, catching it right away and stopping). I was then treated to a 5 minute harangue after which I went right back to rolling takes. By the end of the night, we was three sheets to the wind and I was his best buddy again. I spent an extra hour trying to leave politely as he delivered a drunken stream of mini-lectures whose subject I could not discern. He kept including the phrase "It's men and women! You understand?" I think maybe he was hitting on me.

So in short, it was 12 hours that felt like a week.
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Post by LazarusLong » Mon Jun 14, 2010 7:22 am

werd clock wrote:I did 12 hours with a relatively famous instrumentalist once. He's getting up there in years and has a fairly serious case of arthritis. We'd get everything ready for each take and then he'd come in and nail it in one pass. There were two problems. One was that it was someone else's room and they had cracked copy of Cubase VST 5 and a Tascam 428 running on a machine with Windows ME. Lots o' reboots. The other problem was that he was self-medicating with Heiniken. By hour 8, he was trashed and surly. I made a mistake long about hour 10 and promptly apologized (I forget what it was, but it was something like not hitting record at the top of a take, catching it right away and stopping). I was then treated to a 5 minute harangue after which I went right back to rolling takes. By the end of the night, we was three sheets to the wind and I was his best buddy again. I spent an extra hour trying to leave politely as he delivered a drunken stream of mini-lectures whose subject I could not discern. He kept including the phrase "It's men and women! You understand?" I think maybe he was hitting on me.

So in short, it was 12 hours that felt like a week.

That's an awesome story. Ha!
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Post by rocky » Mon Jun 14, 2010 10:10 am

43 Hours. Started the day after a 17 hour session for the same band.
6 hours between sessions.

During our descent I dropped an Re-20, end grill fell off.
The singer knocked a bottle of Newcastle Brown into the Control24, pretty early on too.

Just before he was about to leave he knocked over a can of cola on the carpet. He assured me that with a bit of water he could spread it out and it'd be fine. An 8" spill turned into a 5 foot black stain in a cream carpet. The entire session brought in less than a new wooden floor.

In between the two spills he recorded some great music.

Pretty sure the liner notes made reference to the session nearly killing me, I should look that up.

Last days of album sessions always seem to go into the next day, at least.

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Post by Beardaby Jones » Mon Jun 14, 2010 2:25 pm

Did a 15 hour overnight session assisting in tracking drums for my old band's record, 3 days before X-Mas.

Tracked a 28 minute song for a sludgecore/noise band, that was close to 17 hours, and it was in one room before I moved into my new place.

I did spend 60 hours straight in a van from Las Vegas to New York leaving warped tour a bunch of years ago, in a van with a broken AC. That sucked.

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Post by @?,*???&? » Fri Jun 18, 2010 8:23 am

Mine would be a 27+ hour session as we mixed the film score for the movie 'Under Siege'. We were getting reals from Gary Chang, the composer as he finished them, and then mixing down to 8-tracks on a second 24-track machine and then sending those reels immediately over to the soundstage.

I remember the incentive as we worked was to get to reel 5 which was the one where Erika Eleniak pops topless out of the cake...simple pleasures in the trenches!

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Re: Longest session you've ever done?

Post by Rakoro » Fri Jun 18, 2010 9:20 am

noeqplease wrote:
kingtoad wrote:So, I sit here at 7:30 am local time having just finished a 19 1/2 hour session (the last of 10 days and we had to finish the album), a personal record. What's the longest continuous session you've ever been involved in? I thought this could throw up some interesting stories.
Lightweight.

Once I had to finish mixing a Christmas record before Thanksgiving day, 2004.

Tuesday went into studio at 11am, left Thursday 6 am to "nap" before going to family dinner...

That would be 43 hours straight. This beat my previous record in Mexico City of 39 hours straight doing TV and radio commercials... for the 1998 World Cup.

"Looney Tunes" anyone?
Jeez, I know you must have had to stop a more than a few times to give your ears a rest, but did you nap at all?

This is one of the reasons I have stopped drinking caffeine, so that when a scenario like this appears, it will be that much more potent and useful.

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Post by jmiller » Fri Jun 18, 2010 11:59 am

Yeah, nothing like those marathon sessions.

I remember one time, the studio had been closed for a few weeks over the summer while a major international artist was using the live room to rehearse for their tour. During this time, the owner decided to redo the wiring.

I went in at 10am Thursday to finish the wiring. We had an orchestral score for a major tv show (one of the hardest, PITA sessions in town) the next day. So, we were there all day wiring and waiting for the artist to load out so we could begin setup. They finally left around 11pm and we began setting up. Of course, problems were encountered during the setup regarding some of the new wiring (bad pins, etc).

The session rolls around and we get through it- barely. Now we have to tear down and set up for a sort of "grand re-opening" party/industry elbow-rub fest. Went home at 8pm Friday, put on a suit and went back at 9pm. Around 1am we began set-up for a 35 piece big band orchestra for Saturday's session. A couple of the other guys fell asleep in the back of the control room half way through. I woke them up around 7am Saturday, told them how everything was set up, and stayed for the first 2 hours of the session.

I decided it was time to go when I started hallucinating, so I called my wife who picked me up, 'round noon and went home. The floor was literally doing that "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" thing, and when people would talk to me, it sounded like a drive-through speaker but with a bucket on my head.

Unfortunately, I also had programming work due that day so my wife held me up by the shoulders for a couple hours while I did it... very slowly.

I think it was about 54 hours total. That included TWO union scoring sessions, which are *incredibly* high-stress/fast-paced.

I've had several 36 and 48 hour days, a few 50+ days, and a ton of 20+ days.

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Re: Longest session you've ever done?

Post by Nick Sevilla » Fri Jun 18, 2010 6:01 pm

Rakoro wrote:
noeqplease wrote:
kingtoad wrote:So, I sit here at 7:30 am local time having just finished a 19 1/2 hour session (the last of 10 days and we had to finish the album), a personal record. What's the longest continuous session you've ever been involved in? I thought this could throw up some interesting stories.
Lightweight.

Once I had to finish mixing a Christmas record before Thanksgiving day, 2004.

Tuesday went into studio at 11am, left Thursday 6 am to "nap" before going to family dinner...

That would be 43 hours straight. This beat my previous record in Mexico City of 39 hours straight doing TV and radio commercials... for the 1998 World Cup.

"Looney Tunes" anyone?
Jeez, I know you must have had to stop a more than a few times to give your ears a rest, but did you nap at all?

This is one of the reasons I have stopped drinking caffeine, so that when a scenario like this appears, it will be that much more potent and useful.
There were a couple of 15 minute breaks in there, but I never left the console position... and only two coffees... one each morning period.

Cheers
Howling at the neighbors. Hoping they have more mic cables.

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Post by Brian » Fri Jun 18, 2010 7:05 pm

48 hours in a big pro facility as assistant. I did 3 days straight three years before that on a project. No windows and no interruptions, never knew what time it was so I just kept on going till someone came in and said, "man, you been at it for 3 days, take a break". I think I recorded mixed 16 songs. It's a blur now.
Harumph!

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Post by dudemanbro » Sun Jun 27, 2010 3:58 am

That's nothing. 72 hours straight assisting a Mix session. That meaning I was "on the clock and at the studio, and more or less awake for that long" I did take a few necessary naps during that time. I gotta give it up for the engineer, though i caught him napping face down on the faders a few times.
Now-a-days, 16 hour sessions barely faze (phase?) me, and I can do 12 hour blocks back to back like it's nothin. GOD I need to get a life!

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Post by tubetapexfmr » Sun Jun 27, 2010 7:07 am

cracked copy of Cubase VST 5 and a Tascam 428 running on a machine with Windows ME
I think this might be the rig we all get to use in hell. Of course it needs to be on a circa 1999 Compaq and have antivirus software that keeps wanting to turn itself on.

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16hrs is mine

Post by JulioI1985 » Tue Aug 03, 2010 11:23 pm

I had a 16hr tracking day with Sissy Mena. I love shoegaze music so I really didn't care that day. It was during initial tracking for their first EP "Young Girl". We had tons of beer & time.
http://sissymena.com

Anything above 16hrs, you can't even function right. The yawning becomes overwhelming.

-JulioI1985-

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