Another Horror Story

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cgarges
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Another Horror Story

Post by cgarges » Wed Dec 26, 2012 3:46 pm

I was thinking about a particular studio horror story I told on here a while back and another one entered my mind. It amazes me how people can do things and manage to stay in business sometimes.

So, I set up a one-day tracking session at a studio for a band that needed to do a single song with the intention of maybe getting basics for another song or two if things went well. I called the studio and talked to the assistant and told him the plan for the day and what I needed to get done. The band would arrive at noon and I would get there at 11 to start setting up. The band was going to be using one of my drumkits and I had some outboard gear and whatnot that I wanted to integrate, along with a general desire to listen to some tunes in the control room and acclimate myself for a one-day tracking session. All that seemed fine and I was quoted a rate for a ten-hour day and for an eight-hour day. An eight-hour day fit the band's budget perfectly and would be totally fine for what we wanted to get done.

I get to the studio at 11. No one's there. I start bringing stuff from the car to the front door. This takes about ten minutes. Still no one. It's also cold outside and I don't have a jacket. I feel like getting in the car and driving around the block a few times with the heat on, but now I've got like ten grand worth of stuff sitting right next to the front door of the studio, which I'm not gonna just leave there. At 11:20, I call the studio assistant, who lives about 20 minutes from the studio. It sounds like he's still at his house, although he tells me he's on his way and then wants to know how far away I am. "I've been here for twenty minutes. I got here at 11, like I said I was going to."

At five 'til noon, he shows up. The band is ten minutes late, which is only good in that they didn't show up before the assistant.

We get set up, which takes a while, and things get rolling. The band gets their take and start working on getting basics for two more tunes before we move into overdubs on the "key song" for the session. Things go relatively well there, too.

At around 7 or so, the band gets hungry and we decide to order a pizza. We figure that since the assistant wasn't there on time, surely he'll let us hang around to finish up these last two or three overdubs if we run a little past eight. A few of the guys go get the pizza, we eat, everything's cool. While they're finishing up, I start looking for a pair of direct boxes to do a keyboard overdub. I can't find the direct boxes. Nowhere. So, I go looking for the assistant. I can't find him anywhere, either. (He'd been sort of "elsewhere" all day, once the session got rolling, which was fine with me. But it was a kind of large studio complex, so I just figured he was somewhere else in the building.)

I spent about 20 minutes looking for a DI before I decided to haul the keyboard into the control room and figure out a way to patch it into something in there. That was complicated and time-consuming, but we made it work. Just as we were about to start going for a take, the assistant returns. He had indeed left the premises without letting me know he was gonna be gone. I keep my cool, but explain that we just spent a LOT of time trying to find a DI. He then asks if I want him to find one so that we could move the entire keyboard rig back out into the studio to do this overdub that we were JUST about to start working on. "No, it's fine. We're already set up this way."

We did the overdub, packed everything up, and the band paid me and left, very happy with what they got done and full of pretty good pizza.

As I was packing my own stuff up, the assistant took a very keen interest in some mutli-tracks of note that I had and spent some time investigating them. When he was done and all my stuff was in the car, I sat down to write him and the studio their checks and he quoted me the full ten-hour rate, even though it was only approaching 10PM. Again, this was after I'd packed up all my stuff and he'd dicked around with my mullti-tracks. And again, after he'd shown up 55 minutes late and then went missing for like an hour in the middle of the session.

I won't be working there again.

By the way, I'd just like to make it ULTRA-clear that this did NOT happen at my totally fantastic recent session at Fidelitorium Recordings. I really couldn't have been happier with my experience there.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

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Nick Sevilla
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Post by Nick Sevilla » Wed Dec 26, 2012 4:43 pm

Hi Chris,

Sorry to read your bad studio experience.

Was there no studio manager / owner?

If you did not start setting up until noon, then the clock started at noon.

Noon start until 10 pm, last time I checked, is 10 hours.

I would have complained about the unprofessional assistant, and late start.

And there is no mention of whether the studio charges no matter what, or if it includes a one hour break, unpaid, in the middle of an 8 or 10 hour day.

Every studio I've ever been in for full days, it was 12 hour day, and one 1 hour break included withing that 12 hours, for everyone of the staff to have a break. So effectively it was 11 hours of work plus 1 hour break, in a 12 hour day rate.

But, the untimely start is definitely a not-going-there-again dealbreaker for me. And it has happened to me as well, several times. I just tack on the extra hour at the en of the day, and make the assistant work with me for that last hour.

Because I can be an evil dude... no not really. If I have to pay for 12 hours, I get 12 hours per day.

Cheers
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Post by roscoenyc » Thu Dec 27, 2012 5:58 am

the kind of stuff that has driven so many of us to put our life savings into having our own studios.

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Post by cgarges » Thu Dec 27, 2012 9:56 am

My "assistant" for the day was the studio's sole staff engineer. The owner was a nice guy, but never answered his phone or returned phone calls.

I would have less of an issue with paying for a ten-hour day if the assistant had been there when I said I was going to be there, regardless of the band's scheduled arrival time. That seems like a bit of a grey area for me, but every studio in which I've worked as a freelancer has allowed me an unbilled hour or two to set up my own stuff and acclimate myself. But whatever. The assistant was nearly an hour late to MY scheduled arrival time and then went missing for over an hour in the middle of a session, right when I was looking for something. Then played with a bunch of my shit instead of helping me load my stuff out-- WHILE HE WAS GETTING PAID FOR THAT.

It makes the studios that really have it together all the more appreciated.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

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Gregg Juke
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Post by Gregg Juke » Thu Dec 27, 2012 11:55 am

Chris, are you letting the owner know about that nonsense? Maybe he doesn't have any idea?

GJ

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Nick Sevilla
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Post by Nick Sevilla » Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:16 pm

And that is why I have my own small home studio.

It's fun to be professional.
It's fun to be on time.
It's fun to watch musicians just play, without having to wait around for setup time.

And to not have to depend on someone else to fix things, change things around, etc, is really nice too.

I've found I don't really enjoy being waited on, nor having to wait for someone else to go move a wire or a mic.

But, I also miss using large recording rooms for the proper sound of good acoustics for some sessions. That is pretty much the only thing I miss of large studios... the recording space. Not the gear, not the bills, not anything else.

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

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Post by vvv » Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:23 pm

And at the least, if you use that studio again, specifically request not that guy.
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Post by cgarges » Thu Dec 27, 2012 3:47 pm

I had my own place at the time and that kind of thing doesn't happen there.

Sometimes I'm required to work elsewhere, for whatever reason. Most of the time, I really enjoy those kinds of sessions and I generally like working other places, especially if they're studios that are used to having freelancers there and know how to set things up properly. Electrical Audio, Inner Ear, Fidelitorium, and Air Time immediately come to mind as places where it was really easy to get a lot done because things were well-organized and they either left me completely alone or had an extremely attentive assistant available. In either case, someone was always just a phone call away if I needed something and all of those places had really simple rate structures that were freelancer-friendly. I would never consider working somewhere new without an assistant who knew the room, but I do have certain expectations if I'm paying someone to assist me.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

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Beat Poet
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Post by Beat Poet » Thu Jan 03, 2013 4:23 pm

What a joker, certainly one to add to the "blacklist".
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Post by beautyfish » Sat Jan 05, 2013 10:32 pm

Chris -

I hate that this happened on your particular session. You got hosed, no doubt. And I know of a pile of present and former students of mine who would have done a great job for you, as I'm sure would have most of the readers of this thread. You know, showed up early, paid total attention, done a great job, stayed late.

However, you can rest assured that your little friend has NO FUTURE as an engineer unless he does a complete 180, and right soon. And that studio will go under unless this is a hobby for some rich guy who is completely clueless and doesn't need the money.

The present environment for recording studios and recording engineers is just too competitive and tenuous for people and places like this to hang around for any length of time. I'm amazed that there even ARE any people or places like this anymore.

So again, I'm sorry that your session happened at exactly the wrong time at the wrong place. But I'm pretty sure that if we check around in a year or so, we might find that the situation has taken care of itself.
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Post by Brian » Sun Jan 06, 2013 5:24 am

WOW.
I?ve never, not even once, worked in a pro spot where that kind of BS happened. I haven?t freelanced in a spot where that happened either.
Late will get you cancelled, I would call the owner, irate as all hell, if that happened.
But I haven?t freelanced in a few years.

That kinda stuff is NOT why I have my own place. It?s just convenient for me to have my own project space.

I have to do some freelance soon in another state, I like the owner and he is the assistant, so, I think it?s gonna go really well.
Harumph!

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roscoenyc
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Post by roscoenyc » Sun Jan 06, 2013 8:04 am

Gregg Juke wrote:Chris, are you letting the owner know about that nonsense? Maybe he doesn't have any idea?

GJ

Chris,
Did you ever contact the owner?
I know I'd want to know if anyone treated any of our clients that way.

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Post by cgarges » Sun Jan 06, 2013 8:43 pm

This happened a while back, but I guess maybe I should try to contact the owner again to let him know. He never was all that good about responding to phone calls. I'm not even sure that I have his number.

I don't usually post stories like this on here until a good bit of time has passed because I don't want anyone trying to figure out if I'm talking smack about a session I did somewhere recently. But I do think that stories like this have some value in terms of discussion.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

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Marc Alan Goodman
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Post by Marc Alan Goodman » Wed Jan 30, 2013 9:56 am

roscoenyc wrote:the kind of stuff that has driven so many of us to put our life savings into having our own studios.
ding ding ding

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Post by junomat » Fri Feb 01, 2013 9:58 am

Nick Sevilla wrote:And that is why I have my own small home studio.
It's fun to be professional.
It's fun to be on time.
It's fun to watch musicians just play, without having to wait around for setup time.
That's called "Running A Business"

;)

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