How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

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Snarl 12/8
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Re: How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

Post by Snarl 12/8 » Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:09 pm

Doesn't every client in every field think that the professionals have a "make it awesome" button? Don't spoil the magic by telling them how long it took and then billing them for it!
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Re: How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

Post by vvv » Thu Sep 16, 2021 7:24 pm

drumsound wrote:
Tue Sep 14, 2021 8:47 pm

I do a lot of that stuff IN PRODUCTION with the band.
Me, too, but I do a lot of file-share recording.
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Re: How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

Post by crow » Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:12 pm

I once had a client ask if I had tuned his vocals, because his bandmates were giving him shit for needing auto-tune. I happily revealed that I had not, but that I had actually tuned his bandmates' backing vocals which were making the lead vocal seem out of tune.

I fix little things here and there for folks, but rarely in a way that makes the band seem like a better band, just the occasional flub. If I ever do major work on, say, a drum track, I talk to the client first, to see how "pro" they want it to end up.

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Re: How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

Post by drumsound » Fri Sep 17, 2021 8:27 am

vvv wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 7:24 pm
drumsound wrote:
Tue Sep 14, 2021 8:47 pm

I do a lot of that stuff IN PRODUCTION with the band.
Me, too, but I do a lot of file-share recording.
What I meant was that I'll make suggestions while the band is tracking, or during those rare times where there's time for pre-production. We'll sometimes shorten intros, or interludes that maybe feel too lengthy. Sometimes we'll change tempo, or the feel of a song, or alter the arrangement. Then we record it those ways.

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Re: How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

Post by vvv » Fri Sep 17, 2021 8:49 am

8)

In file-sharing, I kinda get sent what they did and are happy with, not a lot of do-overs.

And even if there are to be do-overs, I do the heavy edits for them to reference the new arrangement or whatever.

95% of the time, we just go with the edits.

(Altho' I got one guy in England, always, I mean always, wants to change the way the bass plays the endings, and sometimes the bridge; I keep extra specific notes of amp and other settings, mic placement, etc., when I'm working with/playing bass for him.)
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Re: How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

Post by joninc » Fri Sep 17, 2021 1:24 pm

funny story an artist told me the other day...

Years ago he was in a band with another singer and they shared vocal duties but always struggled as the other singer didn't have great pitch etc. Seemed like there was an awareness that this was a weakness and a problem.

Fast forward and his buddy has made a solo album and shows up beaming about how much better he is a singer now and would you like to hear my new project etc....

My artist friend was close friends with the producer who later privately admitted to heavily tuning and editing the crap out of the vocal tracks - that they were "unuseable" as they were...

The artist had NO IDEA and assumed that he was just awesome at singing now :)
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Re: How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

Post by digitaldrummer » Fri Sep 17, 2021 2:17 pm

I'll share a story from the other direction... I recorded with a band about 25 years ago, to 24 track tape. While tracking there was a song where near the end I just missed a snare hit (it sounded wonky), but we finished the song. I said "we need to do that one again" but the producer said "no, that was a great take" to which I again mentioned the missed snare hit but they didn't want to listen. finally, the producer said he could fix it later. So he apparently sampled the snare and then punched it in - and of course he screwed it up - it was late (either he had no sense of rhythm, or it was due to latency...). so now it sounds even worse because it sounds like I f**'ed it up... but that was the final product. I still hate it to this day. But luckily it was pre-internet, and the band is gone, so most likely nobody will ever hear it again.
The lesson is don't "fix it" if you can't actually fix it. And it would have taken 4 minutes to just run the song again... (and record over that one).
Last edited by digitaldrummer on Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:16 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Fri Sep 17, 2021 5:27 pm

joninc wrote:
Fri Sep 17, 2021 1:24 pm
funny story an artist told me the other day...

Years ago he was in a band with another singer and they shared vocal duties but always struggled as the other singer didn't have great pitch etc. Seemed like there was an awareness that this was a weakness and a problem.

Fast forward and his buddy has made a solo album and shows up beaming about how much better he is a singer now and would you like to hear my new project etc....

My artist friend was close friends with the producer who later privately admitted to heavily tuning and editing the crap out of the vocal tracks - that they were "unuseable" as they were...

The artist had NO IDEA and assumed that he was just awesome at singing now :)
I feel like you have just perfectly described the current and future state of what remains of the music industry.

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Re: How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

Post by drumsound » Sun Sep 19, 2021 7:42 am

chrisinthewest wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 3:51 pm
Good topic. Honestly, editing takes too long. Even with digital tools, it’s a massive time waster. How long for them to nail a new take? 4 minutes? 4 hours? 40 hours? That’s nothing compared to editing. We could easily spend 100 hours on our own time trying to fix crap that isn’t right, it can always be just a little tighter, flow a little better, etc. Then the artist gets involved and starts declaring edits aren’t right and you need more edits. It’s so much easier if the artist does the editing for us by playing it over 100 times instead of us. But yeah we do expect to have to clean it up when it’s obvious there’s no real control in the talent there.

another edit, ;).. Has me reflecting back to those times I’ve spent many unpaid hours flawlessly frankensteining a whole bunch of takes, thinking it will solve so many problems and that it’s worth it. The results are invisible, the band has no idea how much I went through or where the edits were, and not at all how far in the ditch they started. But what they do notice is where I didn’t edit and wonder why I’d didn’t bother fixing it after spending so much time. Haha. So they’ll get their inflated ego thinking how great they are and can run off elsewhere with it. Pretty funny honestly.
I often say in initial meetings with band's that I'm not a big fan or micro editing, and that I prefer to only do small, simple things that are in otherwise really strong takes. I talk about how the human element is still important to me and to others. And I 'sell' it by saying, "How would you rather spend your money, playing music, or watching me futz around on a computer."

joninc wrote:
Fri Sep 17, 2021 1:24 pm
funny story an artist told me the other day...

Years ago he was in a band with another singer and they shared vocal duties but always struggled as the other singer didn't have great pitch etc. Seemed like there was an awareness that this was a weakness and a problem.

Fast forward and his buddy has made a solo album and shows up beaming about how much better he is a singer now and would you like to hear my new project etc....

My artist friend was close friends with the producer who later privately admitted to heavily tuning and editing the crap out of the vocal tracks - that they were "unuseable" as they were...

The artist had NO IDEA and assumed that he was just awesome at singing now :)
I really think people who do that are doing a disservice to their clients, and to the rest of us. If I have an artist having some sort of issue, we discuss it and try to correct it from their side of the glass. Many bands/musicians take those lessons with them and the next time we record, they are better at what they do.

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Re: How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Sun Sep 19, 2021 3:50 pm

I haven't recorded anyone besides myself in ages, but this thread reminded me of a story from 15 years ago:

Recording a pop punk band at my old loft....totally 100% wonderful people, really great songwriters, excellent singers...not necessarily the greatest players. But for the most part they were able to play everything fine. However the drummer sometimes had some problems, and as we all know, if the drummer has problems then everyone has problems.

So they're doing this one song, uptempo rocker...and basically what the drummer was doing with their hands was fine, but their right foot was another story entirely. As a drummer myself I couldn't really understand how their foot could be so out from their hands and also how they couldn't hear how not-grooving it was, but....anyway they did a bunch of takes, I tried coaching the drummer as best/gently as I could, and things improved somewhat, but at a certain point I realized they weren't gonna get any better no matter how many takes they did, so I said "that's cool" and we moved on to other, easier songs.

They leave and I'm listening back to the first song, like fuuuuuuck this is never going to work. All the mics were still up, so without really even thinking about it I grabbed my kick drum, put the phones on, and played just the kick drum part. My roommate is hearing //:boom...boom boom...boom...ba boom boom:// and comes out laughing, like 'what the hell are you doing?'

Fortunately the drummer had a pretty light foot and their kick wasn't loud at all in the overheads/room mics. Even still, you'd think it'd be a mess with my kick in there but it actually worked fine, and it sounded a lot more like it was supposed to sound.

I never said anything to the band, they never said anything about it. Maybe I should've stopped the session right away, told the drummer they needed to go home and practice a bunch, but honestly the drummer wasn't the sort of musician who was gonna do that. And I don't mean that in a bad way, they were someone playing music for fun with their friends, they had no aspirations of being a professional or anything, which is fine. So I just figured fuck it, fix it and make the whole band happy. If it makes the hobbyist drummer think they're better than they really are, well, so what?

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Re: How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

Post by digitaldrummer » Mon Sep 20, 2021 6:41 am

sounds like we are back to "Rules? There are no rules!". Each client may require something different for them to be happy and it's our job to mind-read sometimes.
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Re: How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

Post by roscoenyc » Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:43 am

digitaldrummer wrote:
Mon Sep 20, 2021 6:41 am
sounds like we are back to "Rules? There are no rules!". Each client may require something different for them to be happy and it's our job to mind-read sometimes.
Indeed!


Or have that meeting before the project starts that so many people seem to skip.

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Re: How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

Post by vvv » Mon Sep 20, 2021 9:30 am

Every time I see the thread title I think of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbXciBKcfQ8

:twisted:
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Re: How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

Post by digitaldrummer » Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:43 pm

roscoenyc wrote:
Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:43 am
Or have that meeting before the project starts that so many people seem to skip.
I would say that it's probably best to even make that a recurring meeting/sync as I suspect many lose focus, or at least forget what that initial discussion was once they get into the middle of the project. but it's all easy to say in hindsight. :D
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Re: How much do you "fix" without telling your client?

Post by vernier » Mon Sep 20, 2021 4:30 pm

Only fixing I've done is with editing.

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