Biggest Pet Peeve clients do in the studio...

[Seventh Wave Studio]

Mine...

"yea, we are ready. we practiced for like 4 months on these songs"

Truth is, they come saying to each other, "how does this one end again?"

Singer has lyrices written on notebook paper and is still working on them 10 minutes before vocals.

Bass player saying to guitar player, "what are you playing during that part?"

This happens one out of 5 bands. I swear.

Oh, Oh, another one...

"I don't want to use your $4,000 drum kit with new heads already miked. I want to use my beat up Pearl export with 5 year old heads, never tuned, held together with duct tape.


www.seventhwavestudio.com <---- the love of my life

[pandafresh]

having some one asked me what i think of my mix..
ie. i mixed their song. and they ask "i dunno, what do you think?"
or coarse i like it! i wouldnt have mixed that way if i didn't..
or "do you think that is to low/high?" of coarse not! i mixed it.
not saying that im a perfect mixer.. but.. its weird, cause do they think that i would do it in some way i dont like without them asking me too?

thats pretty much my only one. other wise people can goof off all they want. not my problem. i can just get up and get something to drink..

-trevor

[tiger vomitt]

sitting right on top of the engineer (a.k.a. me) is pretty annoying

so is bad breath

ive learned to enjoy lateness from clients since i started charging from the time the session is scheduled to begin

but my biggest pet peeve about the studio is not having enough work. i had a very slow december.

oh, sibilance gets on my nerves pretty fast. no one seems to realize that they are even doing it, let alone that they can control it (i.e., dont put your tongue right up against the teeth when saying an esss sound)

[swingdoc]

People who dont want to re-do parts that suck,
and people who do want to re-do parts over n over again that sound fine.

[whatchamachicken]

I had this happen to me yesterday (and many other times too, but this is fresh on my mind from yesterday.) We just got done doing some overdubs and the band wanted to do some rough mixing before they left, so I had two of them, one on either side of me, yelling out things I needed to fix. ie. "the guitar is too loud." So I go to work on the guitar sound and whatnot and before I'm even close to getting that somewhat close to a usable sound the guy on the other side of me says something else is wrong. So I go to adjust that then the dude on the other side notices something else that's not quite right. Anyway you get the picture. They are all yelling out things for me to change and I haven't even had a chance to do a rough mix at all for them. So I nicely told them that it wasn't working well that way and told them I would do a rough mix for them on my own before they came in for the next session.

Basically my bitch is this. I hate when clients tell me how to do my job before I have even begun to do my job.

And yes I totallly agree with the statement about bands wanting to bring in their own shitty kits instead of using our nice studio kit that is all miced up and tweaked already. I realize some people don't feel comfortable using a different kit and thats cool but a lot of the time they are just doing some shitty demo and want me to tear down my kit and set theirs up and then they get upset when they find out they actually have to pay for the studio time to set up a different drum kit.

[mcfl0nuz]

not having any clients...

[whatchamachicken]

Oh yeah, I didn't see that mention of bad breath up above. One of the members from that same band had the worst breath yesterday. I was trying to set up his mic while he was playing his flute in front of it and I thought I was going to puke. It literally smelled like he had been snacking on shit before the session. I have never smelled breath like that before. I think we have all smelled shit before and that is the exact smell coming from his mouth.

[kylethompson]

Talking on cell phones in the control room. I usually just start raising the control room volume until they leave.

Playing studio instruments without asking and then leaving them on or putting a guitar on the ground.

Telling me how to mix when they've never even heard my speakers before.

Complaining about the bass being too loud when they have the bass and treble up to 10 in the car.

Roaming around the rest of the studio unatended when I am busy with the rest of their band.

Not bringing enough money for teh session which means I have to wait while they go to the bank.

Rapping.



Damn I'm bitter. Thats a long list.

[wayne kerr]

Rapping

CC
PP

[Kilroy]

there is this one group that used to come in a lot, and the producer is always grabing at the master buss and turns it up pretty loud and we keep having to turn it down. I find it really annoying.

[wing]

shooting rival rap stars.

[soundguy]

That sucks.

What dont you like about it?

It sucks.

Besides it sucking, whats wrong with it?

I dont know, it just sucks.

How do I make it suck less?

Im not sure.

So you dont like anything about it?

Im not saying that.

What about it then dont you like?

Im not sure.

This continues for some time until the client explains that he doesnt know what he wants and is unable to guide you a single step in the direction of any satisfaction, but he'll tell you if you magically happen on it and is expecting you to try one million combinations in order to please him, but yet still be sharp enough to mix when that moment comes.

you go through all that and they just want the snare drum lower...

dave

[Rodgre]

I need to think about this one, because I'm sure I have a long list too, but one pet peeve is unnecessary exaggeration.

It drives me nuts when a track might be a little louder than it should be. Maybe there is too much hihat in the drum kit. The mix is good but I just need to tame the hat.

Someone says "all I can hear is the hihat"

I know what they mean, but they don't mean what they say. I'm about to say "oh really? then MAYBE I SHOULD SPEAK UP!"

Saying "all I can hear is the hihat" is an aggressive and negative way of saying "I think there is too much hat in the mix"

Recording and music in general is such a personal and passionate thing that you have to deal with all sorts of personality issues. Egos: yours and theirs, get bruised all the time. Saying "all I can hear is...." is insulting to me as an engineer. Saying "could you settle that hat back?" is respectful and straightforward.

By the same token, there are right ways and wrong ways to get the client to do their best performance. We've probably all been guilty of the wrong way...

Roger

[black mariah]

Rodger: The correct reply is "Well, you're a deaf bastard." It works surprisingly well.

[Cellotron]

The ultimate when mixing:
having just spent a few hours getting to that exact right place where the vocal lays right where you want in the track - hearing "I dunno - I think we got to beef up the beat"
so I start tweaking away pumping up bottom end and snare -
and when finally done -
"I dunno - don't you think the vocals kinda getting buried now?"
SO I spend more time putting everything back to where it was - and then just turn up the monitors. And get "yeah - that's exactly what I want!"


Best regards,
Steve Berson