Biggest pet peeves as a sound engineer/ producer

[JohnIce]

Yeah it's funny how picky people will become when you're not charging by the hour . I personally am in the middle of the tricky transition of moving from charging by song/ day to by the hour. It honestly is way too much work and time to sit around editing, sending mixes back and forth and playing psychiatrist to the members in the band that are being waaaay to picky!!!

Amen to that Producing and mixing can be a very creative and musical process, and that's why it appeals to me as a musician, but editing stuff is just not why I got into it. Maybe next time I'll go with "I'll produce and mix your album for free! But editing is $10 per bar."

 

[Rap Hat]

I have mucho respect for you guys who are sticking with it, especially charging per-song! I reminisce a lot about running a studio and all the great and terrible shit that happened, but it was just never steady enough for me, and after nine years I decided to focus on my own music. At least now I can make a shitty 5-min mix and not have someone bitching why it doesn't sound pro...

And there's another peeve. The band decides right after tracking that they want a rough mix, and if you trust them enough (or get a deposit) you spend 15-20 minutes with them sitting right next to you, mixing the track. You get a call the next day from the guitarist, "Dude, I compared the song to a Korn track and *list of things to be changed*". You try to explain you're not actually doing the mixing, you're the engineer, but they still, for some inexplicable reason, want their pre-mix mix to sound spotless.

 

[JohnIce]

I have mucho respect for you guys who are sticking with it, especially charging per-song! I reminisce a lot about running a studio and all the great and terrible shit that happened, but it was just never steady enough for me, and after nine years I decided to focus on my own music. At least now I can make a shitty 5-min mix and not have someone bitching why it doesn't sound pro...

And there's another peeve. The band decides right after tracking that they want a rough mix, and if you trust them enough (or get a deposit) you spend 15-20 minutes with them sitting right next to you, mixing the track. You get a call the next day from the guitarist, "Dude, I compared the song to a Korn track and *list of things to be changed*". You try to explain you're not actually doing the mixing, you're the engineer, but they still, for some inexplicable reason, want their pre-mix mix to sound spotless.

Ouch Rough mixes are an under appreciated thing though, they're actually pretty important if you're leaving the tracks to be mixed by someone else, as it gives the mix engineer an idea of what the song is before opening up the project file. Opening up a multitrack without knowing what's in it can be daunting, and you'll spend an unnecessary amount of time just figuring out what the hell is going on.

Regardless, you're right in that it's not supposed to sound pro of course. The rough-mix is meant for the next mix engineer, not for the band

 

[Aftermath1]

Not my story, but a friend of mine was once recording drums for a local band and he gave the drummer some headphones to use. Drummer then replies that he doesn't need them as his £30 in-ear headphones are probably better. After about 10mins of trying to persuade the guy to use the proper headphones my friend gave up.

 

[sevenstringj]

Vocalists live who cup the mic...

Somebody doesn't appreciate that remark...

 

[KingAenarion]

Somebody doesn't appreciate that remark...

Yea, if I was Suffocation's live sound guy and Frank Mullen kept cupping the mic I'd tell him to get fucked or I'll just keep muting him... or more precisely, muting his monitors so that it won't feed back.

Same as I'll tell any guitarist that refuses to turn their amp down, that if they don't I'll be forced to turn pretty much everything else down just to that the venue is still within the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) guidelines for noise limits. Or if the PA isn't huge I'll just tell him that I physically can't make the band any louder... or If I do the system will blow up and the venue will bill him for it.



That's another one! Bands who interfere with Live Sound equipment because they think they know better. I had a horror story of a band who just didn't get it through their thick skulls that I physically couldn't turn up the PA any louder without it blowing the speakers. I was doing sound in this pub, and they were a hard rock band. The guitarist had his full double cab marshall stack and just refused to turn it down. It was like a largish medium wattage PA system, so it would've been fine but he had the master on like 8... so you basically couldn't hear anything else. When I told them to turn down they kept yelling at me to turn the PA up. Eventually the vocalist walked over to the PA Amplifiers and turned them all the way up. Then the drummer counted in and they started to play a riff before I realised what had happen.

The speakers were not rated to handle the amplifier at that level. They were rated at like 500 Watt Speakers and the amp was 1000 Watts a side. There was even a little note on the amps for the sound guy that said "Don't turn above this point, speakers are not rated for this" or something like that.

Anyways... BOTH the tweeters blew out... and one of the cones actually tore itself off its housing so was flapping violently.

The band ended up having to pay a significant amount to replace the speakers, the dumb fucks... the owner also called the pubs and clubs association and had them blacklisted or something.

 

[Edika]

As a non professional musician that has a rudimentary knowledge of sound engineering I find your peeves very very logical and not at all unreasonable. I have witnessed this kind of behavior in other bands especially in live situations. The worst people in my experience were the super hyper brutal underground bands that don't really play music. How is it justified in a live situation to have a Marshall valvestate (80 watts) with the gain all the way up and a distortion pedal in front with the gain all the way up and expect to hear anything else than squealing noises rather is beyond any sane persons comprehension.
It is very important to choose a sound engineer that knows the genre you are playing or otherwise there will be no communication and the result will be unsatisfying for both parties. This goes for the mixing engineer also and live sound engineers.
As an example to this, we were prepared to play live as a support group and we were making the sound check. One of the sound engineers then approaches and says that the kick drum is tuned to F so the bass and guitars should also tune to F and proceeds to help the bassist starting tuning his bass to F. At that point we realize what is going and kindly but firmly asked the sound guy to stop and deal with the actual sound or if possible help tune the kick in E (which would not make the slightest difference in a thrash death black metal concert, even though it didn't sound like an F to me).
Even so if you discuss with the guy behind the console and explain what you are trying to do and have a relative idea of how frequencies work then you should be able to have a good result. But who in our day discusses and even better listens and tries to understand what the other person is saying?

 

[JohnIce]

Not my story, but a friend of mine was once recording drums for a local band and he gave the drummer some headphones to use. Drummer then replies that he doesn't need them as his £30 in-ear headphones are probably better. After about 10mins of trying to persuade the guy to use the proper headphones my friend gave up.

I encourage the drummers I record to use their own phones if they want to. Some drummers turn their monitoring up to all hell to be able to play along with it, if they decide not to do it in my headphones I'm a happier guy

 

[KingAenarion]

As a non professional musician that has a rudimentary knowledge of sound engineering I find your peeves very very logical and not at all unreasonable. I have witnessed this kind of behavior in other bands especially in live situations. The worst people in my experience were the super hyper brutal underground bands that don't really play music. How is it justified in a live situation to have a Marshall valvestate (80 watts) with the gain all the way up and a distortion pedal in front with the gain all the way up and expect to hear anything else than squealing noises rather is beyond any sane persons comprehension.
It is very important to choose a sound engineer that knows the genre you are playing or otherwise there will be no communication and the result will be unsatisfying for both parties. This goes for the mixing engineer also and live sound engineers.
As an example to this, we were prepared to play live as a support group and we were making the sound check. One of the sound engineers then approaches and says that the kick drum is tuned to F so the bass and guitars should also tune to F and proceeds to help the bassist starting tuning his bass to F. At that point we realize what is going and kindly but firmly asked the sound guy to stop and deal with the actual sound or if possible help tune the kick in E (which would not make the slightest difference in a thrash death black metal concert, even though it didn't sound like an F to me).
Even so if you discuss with the guy behind the console and explain what you are trying to do and have a relative idea of how frequencies work then you should be able to have a good result. But who in our day discusses and even better listens and tries to understand what the other person is saying?

I think I remember you telling this story before...

"It's tuned to F"... Dafuq?

 

[sevenstringj]

Yea, if I was Suffocation's live sound guy and Frank Mullen kept cupping the mic I'd tell him to get fucked or I'll just keep muting him... or more precisely, muting his monitors so that it won't feed back.

Sounds pretty good to me...

 

[signalgrey]

1.) People who go to the studio and just treat it like moms basement. If you are in the booth or in the control room, you should be participating positively in some way. Suggestions, support, honest feedback etc... if not.. get the FUCK out. If the studio is a place for you to fuck around and take pics so you can put them on facebook and pretend to be relevant somehow...dont be alive anymore.

2.) I was in a signed band here in Korea and I dealt with a front-woman who was super condescending to the engineers at the studio, then say they did it wrong when her takes sounded like shit even though she was the one that re-EQed everything or did other stupid shit like that. If you are hiring an engineer or a producer, you should also trust their insight and experience. This doesnt mean you cant question it or throw in the odd veto and get your way, but for the most part....fucking listen.

3.) All the gear idiots, and people who thing they know everything about everything and are unwilling to do anything they dont think is right. Or people who choose to be contrary because they thinks it makes them sounds like perfectionists.

4.) If you cant play the music that you wrote and you expect everything to be punch-ins and done via editing...fuck you. You dont deserve to be a musician. Its a craft and a skill and it should be a method of catharsis and emotional expression. if you are OK with photocopying a chorus because you cant be fucking bothered to play it again, fuck you.

 

[KingAenarion]

Sounds pretty good to me...

Yea... and the sound guy probably spent ages getting it to sound good

 

[DrewsifStalin]

6/8 of people who use compressors

4.) If you cant play the music that you wrote and you expect everything to be punch-ins and done via editing...fuck you. You dont deserve to be a musician. Its a craft and a skill and it should be a method of catharsis and emotional expression. if you are OK with photocopying a chorus because you cant be fucking bothered to play it again, fuck you.

sounds like someone isn't very good at editing takes quickly

 

[JohnIce]

6/8 of people who use compressors

sounds like someone isn't very good at editing takes quickly

I think there's a difference between doing that sort of thing yourself in your own home-studio, taking up your own time to do all that work because it's part of your vision with your music, than dumping the workload onto someone else. If you aspire to play metronome tight progressive metal, but rely entirely on someone else (the engineer) to even get close to that vision, then I'm with signalgrey entirely, you should set your priorities straight and get to practicing more. Or learn a DAW. Not saying you have to, as evident by every Top 20 chart since the 80's, but it's my personal opinion. I can't imagine it being very fulfilling not being able to play your own music.

Some editing should always be expected with no shame I think, with my band we practice incessantly on small timing details and work to get close to metronome tight takes in the studio but I still edit it. And I have no qualms about spending a day or so on someone else's album just editing stuff. That's reasonable.

But I've also had the misfortune of mixing bands that couldn't play, but want to sound like Dream Theater anyway. When the time it takes to edit things is more labour-intensive and time-consuming than getting a good mix, then I honestly don't see any enjoyment in working for that band.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I'd have to agree with you Johnny 100%.
Preparation is everything, and rehearsal is the most basic, and most important aspect of that. Humility is the other, if musicians cannot take constructive criticism that is ultimately for their own benefit, then the whole project is going to suffer for it.

 

[jsaudio]

Thought i would share this here cuz this is ridiculous, got this message the other day froma band trying to book.

• • Dude.
    
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  • yes sir?
    
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  • So, we probably have about 9 minutes total of material. Like some songs are like 20 seconds. It would be super silly for us to pay 100 dollars for a 20 second song, ya know? Like a band could go to you, record 2 songs for 200 and get the same length of stuff. Like realistically, how much would you charge us for an ep that's no more than 9 minutes. You probably won't even have to mix it, cause we'd want like a raw punk sound. So like, 11 minutes, like 250?
    
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  • How many songs total man? And you have to understand how recording works man. No matter how long the song I still have to mix and master which still takes and equal amount of work on my end lol. Tell me how many songs and about the length of them and I'll give u a quote
    
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  • We don't want em mixed. We want a raw sound. And it'd be like 7 tracks. Maybe 8. Longest one is 1:57
    
  
  
  
  

......I have a problem with this....

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

Thought i would share this here cuz this is ridiculous, got this message the other day froma band trying to book.

• • Dude.
    
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  • yes sir?
    
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  • So, we probably have about 9 minutes total of material. Like some songs are like 20 seconds. It would be super silly for us to pay 100 dollars for a 20 second song, ya know? Like a band could go to you, record 2 songs for 200 and get the same length of stuff. Like realistically, how much would you charge us for an ep that's no more than 9 minutes. You probably won't even have to mix it, cause we'd want like a raw punk sound. So like, 11 minutes, like 250?
    
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  • How many songs total man? And you have to understand how recording works man. No matter how long the song I still have to mix and master which still takes and equal amount of work on my end lol. Tell me how many songs and about the length of them and I'll give u a quote
    
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  • We don't want em mixed. We want a raw sound. And it'd be like 7 tracks. Maybe 8. Longest one is 1:57
    
  
  
  
  

......I have a problem with this....

I'd likely forward that to my junk folder, or tell them to go by a used Roland VS880 & do it themselves...

 

[Rap Hat]

Thought i would share this here cuz this is ridiculous, got this message the other day froma band trying to book.

......I have a problem with this....

Haha! I feel kinda bad laughing because I know what that's like, but I always crack up when a band thinks they've found a way to beat the (recording) system.

You should take them in, give them a single take per song, and run straight to mixdown . Well actually no, that's a terrible idea that will lead to headaches all around, but I've always wanted to do that.

 

[Rational Gaze]

4.) If you cant play the music that you wrote and you expect everything to be punch-ins and done via editing...fuck you. You dont deserve to be a musician. Its a craft and a skill and it should be a method of catharsis and emotional expression. if you are OK with photocopying a chorus because you cant be fucking bothered to play it again, fuck you.

I hate this shit. HATE it. I cannot stand when people expect you to fucking patch together a really, really shitty recording session, simply because they are absolutely awful at their craft, or just have to sound perfect and robotic, and flawless.

 

[fps]

......I have a problem with this....

What's not to like? Easiest recording session ever, give em what they want!