How do you deal with ignorance (including your own)?

[dubold]

well, first off, I haven't been in this exact situation, but I grew up in a pretty small town in Virginia, so I've had a little experience with the sort of people you're talking about.

My take on the situation is this: who's the client here? Are they paying you anything at all? Are you in any way obligated to them, or are they your guinea pigs for recording?

If you and your dad are the only ones who sank money into this endeavor, it seems like they don't have a whole lot of grounds for complaint. If it came out sounding great, they would have lucked out. As it is, all they've lost is a little spare time, and it never hurts to have additional practice sessions.

So what does your dad think about all this? Is he happy with the sound? Is he defending your side of the matter to his bandmates? If not, why not?

However, if these guys are paying you anything at all, you're obligated to give them A: something they like, or a damn good reason why you can't. B: their money back.

just another opinion. I will say though, that if I did some recording at a studio, complained to the engineer that I wasn't happy with the recording, and he kicked me in the nuts, I'd be hunting something other than deer. Careful. Good ole boys can be vengeful

[saultime]

Like I said, there isn?t really a "client," this is a collaboration. Me and the old man are footing the bill, and yes, he's been happy with the results, but, as they say, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. This is much more akin, perhaps, to recording in a band where one of the members is making everything difficult just for the sake of being difficult. Trust me, it happens. I?ve seen these guys seek out tapes of performances where another band member was having an ?off nights,? then purposefully circulate the tape around just to make the other member look bad, even if it costs the band a gig or two. Us good ?ole boys can be sadistic.

Surely I?ve not been the only one who?s asked someone what they want sonically, and then get nothing.

Like some of the other posts have indicated, this has been worth the hassle. It will end up sounding good, and I?m getting to hit record quite a bit, and I?m getting to spend QT with my pops, and what?s better than that?

[joel hamilton]

This is not behaviour exclusive to rednecks.
You have to be the most patient person in the room.Fuck a collaboration, because the minute your finger hits the record button it is your responsiblity to make everyone happy, of course including yourself, but EVERYONE. Even the guy that is bitching about his banjo would be happy if it just sounded great.

I used to wish people would get off my back and let me get my mixes to where I thought they shopuld be before making "helpful suggestions" from the couch.

Now I track, and everything sounds better because of experience and that confidence in the guy hitting "record" is all it takes to grease the squeaky wheel you referenced.

Move mics, change the gain on the pre, try a different spot in the room, WHATEVER you need to do. Record little test patches of banjo, let the guy hear them...

The only way to "win" is through patience and work. People respond to both of those things, because most people have patience for improvement.

The more you try to convince someone that what they are hearing is great, the more they will see through you and realize that you are at the end of your ideas on how to make it sound better. That is a shitty position for both the musician, and the engineer.

Make it sound great, even if it takes you a little longer than it would in a "real" studio. You can rely on the "collaborative" nature of your project to buy you more time to get it right. Be thankful for that, and make a great record!

[aurelialuz]

no feedback, yeah, i'm working with a band right now who i love, they're all extremely nice people and personal friends of mine and the music is really good. but a lot of the time, we track something and i ask how it sounds and i get a nod or a casual "great" or just nothing. it's frustrating, but know that sometimes the clients are inexperienced in giving you the feedback that really helps. they might say something that to your ears sounds negative, when in reality they're just trying to figure out something to say or it's fine and they just don't really care that much. some people don't know that just referencing the records that they like is the easiest way to help you.

alex

[cgarges]

Have you actually tried to work with bluegrass musicians before? They?re?we?re notoriously hard to work with?even Bill Monroe REFUSED to let the sound man mic the bass.

Funny, I've only done about ten bluegrass projects over the last five years and I've never had an experience like yours.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[saultime]

Now that's good advice, joel. Thanks.

By the way, there's a fair amount of redneck in me as well, and I frequently don't know how to deal with myself, either. Ah, rural America...

[joel hamilton]

AND FURTHERMORE>>>>

It is up to us to be the translators.
There are plenty of times (90 percent) where at some point in a session someone will say, "shit, I just wish that the drums and vocal are louder..."

To me, after translation that means "turn the guitar down a hair so the other elements pop through" rather than opening a can of inexperienced worms up and dumping it all over a mix that is 99 percent there!

Prove your ears are right with patience, and learn to be intuitive. Make a move before they ask for the move, and you will seem like a wizard that is taking care of all the bands concerns magically, before they realize it.

If someone invents a mic that filters out ego, and inexperience let me know...

[wowandflutter]

I often seek opinions from my girlfriend on recordings I make of my music , and it hurts sometimes! Its just hard for me to accept that I spent so much time on seting up mics, pres, compression, etc. to record a song and it just doesnt sound good. Because she doesnt know anything about recording I'll spend alot of effort trying to explain/convince her that it sounds good, but after a while I usually come around I just have to give my ego some time to vent.

[coniferouspine]

You say that a lot of these guys don't even have CD players? Could you maybe make them tapes for their cars or something? Maybe they would like their sound more if they heard it the way they were familiar to hearing everything. Use cheap cassettes, maybe even a dub of a dub. They might like it 'cause it sounds more like an AM radio or their crappy 8-tracks in their truck or whatever. Just a thought out of the blue.

[aurelialuz]

yeah, it begs the question, if no CD players, what's their format of choice?

alex

[awolski]

I've only worked on my own projects, not for paying clients, but I feel qualified to offer these opinions:

Authority. Somebody has to take the reins. Maybe you've already got the fact that you are one of the band member's kids going against you. I don't know any of these people but going on what you described, they might be predisposed against liking what you are doing and would just love to catch you being snotty, uninformed or incompetent because that's what they want - to make you look stupid so they feel superior.

Even if you don't know everything you can come across as someone who is informed and knows their own gear. I think I read this in tape op - never let the client hear you say "oops". You might think this is misleading or dishonest, but it's really not. It's just showing confidence in what you are doing, and confidence is contagious. But if you are unconfident, this just fuels the band into thinking you are an idiot, and you will never win them over to your side.

Maybe they don't WANT to record. Maybe this recording is your dad's baby and they resent the fact they even have to do it in the first place. Maybe they hate the idea of digital recording as opposed to tape or lathe recording. If this is the case, maybe your dad needs to be the "producer" here. All the comments and complaints filter through him, and you just do what he says he wants you to do.

Or maybe they just need some direction and authority from you. If that is the case, like I said just come across as someone who is confident in what they are doing. Musicians put a lot of their identity into their music and if they feel it is being treated incompetently it is as if THEY are personally being injured.

But for Bill Monroe's sake, don't play them a finished product if you think it's only "75% there"! This will further make you seem like you don't know what you are doing. I played a rough mix of a song for a member of my band once and he went off, saying it sounded like "a digital cut and paste job" instead of a band playing. I too wanted to do some nut-kicking. Nothing was cut and/or pasted!!! And if he was unhappy with the overall levels of the instruments, that has nothing to do with digital vs. analog, it's just a bad mix. But my mistake was to play him something with no compression, no reverb, very little EQ, and to ask what I should do next. Wrong choice with that particular person. The next time I played a mix, I waited until I thought it was done before playing it for my band mates. Guess what? I got positive reviews.

Finally, try to be open to the fact that you too are not perfect. If the vocalist was "clipping the preamp" this is not his problem, it's yours. Maybe you needed a compressor or limiter going. Maybe you needed to ride the fader. If everyone could be civil to one another, maybe you could all learn together.

Oh, and try not to ask people's opinions on rough mixes if they've been drinking if at all possible.

Off my high horse now...

[smojo]

I had a similar experience this month with a hardcore/math rock band. I did the project for them in exchange for having them paint a couple rooms at the studio, and I was very very ridiculously generous with the time they received for their efforts.
It's just a rough demo, but we put a lot of time into the tracking, and the mixes were totally going to be a breeze. I figured it would be the kind of project that I'd just mix how I saw fit, and even though there may be things they'd want to change it would be understood that it was pretty damn good for a demo that they got in exchange for a couple afternoons of painting.
I invited them to come and listen to the mixes before running down the master to see if they had any major problems, and sure enough they did. But the problems weren't necessarily major, but more like small automation changes and things they were throwing out just because they felt they could. ("how about more reverb over here and less over there..." etc.)
That night I was pissed cuz I'd hoped to have the project done with, and was now faced with remixing.

But I did the remixes, cranked it up super duper loud for them when they came in the next time, and they loved it.

My ideal work environment would be as the producer/engineer of all the projects that come through the door. To have the final say about all the sounds. But from this experience with these dudes I learned that this is not the way my position in this industry works. I'm here to make music sound good and make people happy. These guys leave happy, and tell their friends that it was a good experience... and it's not like the changes they requested made it sound worse (though there were a few suggestions I talked them out of for that reason), it sounds pretty kick ass in fact. I'm still proud of it, they're happy, everyones happy, and I'm a bit more zen about this whole pleasing clients thing.

The other thing that has taught me that the client is always right is working in corporate post production. Those gigs make me want to hug and kiss even the most annoying line 6 guitarist.

I'm not throwing this out as advice for you with your bluegrass dudes - I do understand how you must feel - but more as a story of my own learning.... I've gotta learn from everyone, even the ones that I think are idiots. They can all teach you something.




This is getting all mushy.

[joelpatterson]

Okay, everybody -- KNOCK IT OFF!

Saultime, you're dealing with the fundamental problem that makes this a great business except for the customers.

Reality-- these fine fellows have no idea, NO idea, NO FUCKING IDEA how music that's bouncing around in the room gets turned into music coming out of a CD player. They probably have this innocent sense that it just happens automatically and perfectly every time.

What I would do is work on it until it sounds as lifelike and real as you can get it, as entertaining as you can get it, until where you're listening to it and you like it, it soothes your soul or whatever good music feels like.

Audition it for some neutral third party. If they like it, tell the rednecks that so and so likes it.

I don't know if you can ever satisfy the unsophisticated musician-person. In the olden days, I would set these folks down, show them what the faders and EQs do, and then ask them to direct me to what it is they want to hear. This usually resulted in frustration and gridlock, but at least they saw there were no easy answers and I wasn't being obstinate or just purposefully ruining their recording for no reason.

In recent times, even my ultra-amazing mixes will find some nay-sayer in the band complaining about this or that. The truth is that you are balancing about a million aspects of several tracks and it's all about the nuances and the subtleties and the cohesiveness of the whole final product. It would be a miracle for you to find the peculiar combination that hit everyone just right.

What these people need is... what do you call it... "recording maturity?"

Good luck, it sounds like you're doing your all for a bunch of ungrateful ninnies... a common problem, unfortunately.

[saultime]

Thanks for all of the great suggestions--this has ALL been very helpful. I'm sorry if my first post came accross as over-zelous, or if I sound like I think I have golden ears, which I don't. Sometimes a situation is a little more cut and dry, like when someone orders a steak well-done. How do you even explain to someone how wrong that is?

Of course, part of the problem is that things are usually are never that clear cut.

Along with learning where to put the mics, it seems like a large part of recording also involves 1) learning to explain things in an uncomplicated way, 2) taking the reins, but leaving the band with control, or a sense of control, 3) instilling confidence in the proformer. However, joel raised one of the best points:

Reality-- these fine fellows have no idea, NO idea, NO FUCKING IDEA how music that's bouncing around in the room gets turned into music coming out of a CD player. They probably have this innocent sense that it just happens automatically and perfectly every time.

The average musician I know, and this is just me, not only has no idea how multitrack recording works, but is suspicious of the process once they learn. It?s all cool, that?s no excuse for me to talk down to anyone, like ?nick burns, the computer guy? with microphones. Like I said, these guys totally rock, or I wouldn?t be doing this. No matter what, I think they are entitled to a great sounding album. There's more to this than knowing how to use gear.

[tiger vomitt]

i wanted to say this when i read your initial post (before reading everyone's contributions)

sometimes the person saying "it doesnt sound good" is just being a ball buster. you could magically pull the sound they want right from their brains and they still wouldnt like it. whatever.

with most people though, when they say they dont like it, they actually mean it.

that they have no clue how sound is captured in a recording is not really important. a lot of times i kinda prefer working with someone who is "ignorant" as you called it. i find their opinions to be a little more to the point, even if they dont always know the exact and proper words to use. they're just the raw reactions of someone who is not experienced with recording. they have different perspectives on listening and i can see the immense value in that.

there is a bit of mind reading in good engineering (like Joel Hamilton said).

if this guy said to me "the banjo sounds synthesized," big alarms would go off in my head. i wouldnt tell him he's a jackass - HE JUST HEARD SOMETHING THAT COMPLETELY SLIPPED RIGHT BY ME!

and it happens to be, in your situation i would guess you are recording and mixing digitally... that's how i do it, and a lot of times i have thought something along the lines of "gee. i recorded this shit really well but this mix sounds a little like it's playing out of a cheap drum machine!"

ahh digital mixing

look, if someone you are working with tells you something isnt right, just fix the problem. getting offended is counter productive.

my 2 cents good luck with everything!