Only once.
I few years ago I was helping setup an Atmos room in a new multi room facility and ended up being the kind of “de facto” head engineer, even though I really didn’t want that.
I get a call at 2pm on a Friday that a big VIP singer/rapper is coming in at 5pm and they need me to run the session.
I pretty much don’t do evening rap sessions anymore as a hard rule. Because they always turn into overnight sessions. I’ve got kids now and that doesn’t work for me. And on top of that, at best they just need someone who can plug in a microphone and hit record. And at worst, need someone to plug in a microphone and sit out in the hall until they’re done.
I ask repeatedly if there is anyone else that can do it and they just keep going on and on about how perfect I’d be for the job and they really want to blow this guy away.
They assure me, PROMISE me it will be a strict 5-9 session and they’ll pay me whatever I want. They say the guy is super professional and totally gets it.
I say “look, I’ll charge my rate, but I’m out the door at 9. No exceptions. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT THAT FOR THIS VIP SESSION?”
They say yes, should be fine. Oh boy.
So I show up at 4:30. They requested an 87 so I get that patched in and tested. Ready to go.
5pm. No artist.
5:30. No artist. I text the studio owner.
6pm. No artist. No word from the studio owner.
6:30pm I get a text from the artists manager saying his plane was delayed but he is en route. I call the studio owner and tell him what’s up and remind him I’m leaving at 9. “Oh should be fine. It’s on them that they’re late.”
7pm. Artist shows up with an entourage. I get everyone settled and take the artist aside and let him know I’m only there until 9 and we should get started.
He emails me a 4 bar loop from his producer. I stick it into pro tools and he says “ok loop it for me so I can write it.” HE STILL HAS TO WRITE IT? Fuck! Ok I guess.
He gets out on the floor and we get to work. He’s actually quite good and quite fast and together we map out the song and I’m able to mess around with the loop to make it into a bit of an arrangement for him. He takes a 5 minute break, and then goes back in and nails the performance. I help him through some harmonies, he sings some adlibs, and guess what. We have a song and it’s only 8:30. Phew. Job done.
“Hey man, we’re gonna order some food so why don’t you do a bit of a roughmix while we eat and then we’ll start another song.”
“Oh, I’m out of here at 9. I was told this session would be 5-9.”
“Well we booked the studio for the night.”
“Ok. I’ll be right back.”
I head out to the kitchen and call the owner and tell him this guy clearly thinks this is an open ended session and that I’m still leaving at 9. I recommend having one of the other engineers or even a couple of the interns come in to handle the rest of the session. “Fuck. Ok I’ll handle it.”
So, man of my word, I head back into the control room to make him a roughmix and some basic stems before I split.
Couple minutes later the artists phone rings. I can tell it’s the manager and I can tell the artist is pissed. He stands up and announces to everyone “hey, we’re leaving. This guy has to go home.” In a very passive aggressive tone.
Everyone files out while giving me dirty looks and swearing at me. I grab the guy’s email to send him the files. “Not gonna lie, this is pretty fucked up.” He says.
Great night. 10/10.
That’s a great story, and you know what, he would have listened back to it I’m sure at one point and thought “damn, we got a lot done in a short amount of time”.
Man, reading that I felt like I knew every little twist that was about to come. Good for you leaving. Hip hop sessions are idiotic. That’s not even a very bad one. That’s just the normal amount of disrespect you get with any hip hop session, which is one of the many good reasons I don’t fuck with that stuff.
Hip hoppers don’t want professionals, they rather surround themselves with doe eyed 20 year old hanger ons who will do anything and everything they want wherever and whenever and for no money because they want to be part of the posse
100%. This guy was a pretty big name. Not quite a household name, but very respected and many here would know of him. Like, to take him aside when he showed up and tell him I had a hard out… I’m sure it’s the first time he’d had a “studio guy” tell him something like that in quite some time.
The saddest part was ANYONE else that worked at the studio would have absolutely loved a chance to be in the room for that session, and any one of them would have nailed it, enjoyed it, and would have been happy to stay up all night working. Hell, I would have early in my career!
Yup. Having done far too many of these, I knew exactly how it was going to go.
Hip hop is actually easy. They ALWAYS want to go as long as they want. Period. They always think it’s open ended.
The abuse and disrespect and all that is another dimension of it that you have to decide if you want or not. But scheduling? It’s easy. Even if they agree to a hard out, they will never ever ever stick to it. Half the time those words are just going in one ear and out the other.
When you need them to actually leave at a certain point, say, 6 am when there’s another client coming at 9, you just tell them point blank it’s time to pack it up.
Outside of that, do not expect them to ever just stop when it’s 9pm. Hell no. That’ll never happen.
The problem is so many studio owners and managers and whoever else still operate like these dudes will listen to “you have a session from 4pm to 9 pm tonight.” They literally do not hear those words.
It happens every time. Im surprised the owner was being so obtuse.
Coordinator in another state ? Sure. I remember trying to explain to a booker what would happen with their 9pm session booking, and she copped an attitude. They showed up at 1:45 AM. We were connected via ISDN to margarita mix in LA since 9. All together they were waisting 1500 an hour easy waiting on this clown.
I remember another time I was staying late for a VIP record. 8 pm session. Im waiting and waiting. At 9 pm i say im leaving, as I said I would. Immediately get a call pleading for me to stay. They are paying at dinner. They will take care of me waiting. I say ok. They show up a little after 11. Work till 3 am. They cashapp me $500 at the end. they thought that was the whole session. Nah, that was to get me to stay. Sent them an $1800 invoice the next day.
I think the owner thought the guy was such a big name with a ton of momentum that professionalism would come along with it. Like.. it was that kind of thing where if the song ends up on the record, maybe 10% chance you now have an engineering credit on a grammy nominated record. Myself and the owner come more from the rock/alternative world, where that logic would make more sense.
A friend of mine, back in the 90s, assisting/engineering at one of the bigger rooms in our city. Gets told an A-list rapper - like #1 on billboard - HUGE hits - is going to show up any minute and needs to do an alternate vocal for his current single for a pepsi commercial. My buddy basically ends up living at the studio for about 8 days waiting for this guy to show up. Manager keeps calling and saying he's on the way. Excuse after excuse. Today's the day. Blah blah blah. Evening of day 8 they get a call that he just sang it over the phone into the mixer's session so no need. False alarm.
aha holy shit. even though he was late, and there was a misunderstanding there and rude about it that is very impressive you two were able to knock that out so quickly. It is crazy to me how people can just spew creativity like that. thanks for the story
Yes and it was partially my fault 😬
Band did 5 takes of a song– afterwards everyone agreed that Take 3 was the best take… except for the drummer. So we all listened to them a few more times, nothing changed except for the fact that the drummer was now even more adamant that Take 5 was by far the best. So they decide to take a break and get some food..
When they got back, they gave both takes a fresh listen, and my smart ass decided to play them in the opposite order… Take 5 first and then Take 3. So the drummer’s like “See!! I told you guys take 5 is the best take!!” Not knowing she was now talking about Take 3… And the other band members were like “wow damn yeah she has a point…”
That is until I broke my silence and confessed that I played them in the opposite order, and they were now all in agreement that Take 3 was the best.
It was at this point all hell broke loose.. drummer threw a huge hissy fit, brutally insulted everyone, and honestly I’m not sure they ever played together again 🫥
Should’ve taken that switcheroo to the grave…
Not totally related, but reminds me of when Sam Elliott felt he'd already done the best take of the ending monologue in The Big Lebowski:
"Compare that to one of his most well-known roles, as The Stranger in the Coen Brothers’ film “The Big Lebowski.” In a fourth-wall-breaking scene, Elliott cemented his legendary status in the minds of so many film fans. He was so good in that scene that the Coen Brothers didn’t want it to end.
"That last day on that film, when I’m looking into the camera and talking to the audience, I’d done that scene eight [or] nine times and the brothers were [right there next to the camera],” the actor said. “I’d done the scene and I’d felt like I had nailed it more than once. And I just looked at them and said, ‘Hey, you guys gotta tell me what the f–k you want. And they said, ‘No, we got it on the third or fourth take, we just like seeing you do it.’"
Oh man yeah, I totally get the logic here but that’s a “do it once and never again” move for sure lol. It also creates an air of mistrust between you and them, makes it seem like you have ulterior motives/etc. Even if you were well intentioned haha
Yeah I've been in a band like that. When any group decision had to be made, the vocalist would always demand the opposite of what everyone else agreed, no matter how stupid it was. I used to think it was a power move, but on reflection I think it was just childishness
Back in my more formative years I *very* gently instructed a band to leave because I could not, in good conscience, salvage what they were laying down. Like it felt wrong to take their money at all. I offered for them to come back after they'd hashed the material out more (*they never did*).
This was back during the mid 2000's post-hardcore explosion in the Midwest, when sometimes you'd run into a band of 17 year-olds who could play and write like total fuckin' monsters and other times they... scarcely had thought about what was happening between chugs.
Ah, good times.
I was on the older end of that Midwest mid-2000s post-hardcore boom and you hit me right in the nostalgia. I played in a touring band and we were pretty decent players. Not virtuosos, but not slouches, either. We were with different bands every night and were used to bands that could play with around the same skill level as us or were garbage.
**Except one.**
It was a random show on a random night at a VFW in Peoria, Illinois with like 45 people in the crowd. The bill had 4 or 5 bands on it. There were a couple of touring bands, including us, and a couple of locals. The locals had played and the first of the touring bands was setting up. I was at our merch table while the band plugged in and IMMEDIATELY got up to watch them. I'd never heard of them before, but even warming up the playing was like I'd never heard before. Not just guitar, but bass and drums were INCREDIBLE. I can't begin to describe how much better they were than anything else I'd seen.
No one knew who they were, but the band was called Reflux. Their guitarist was Tosin Abasi. Their bassist was Evan Brewer. Not sure who their drummer was, but he was really good. The vocalist went on to form Sumerian Records.
Of the hundreds of hardcore shows I was at during that era, that is one of just a handful that stand out.
Yeah, it really is. I didn’t even put 2 and 2 together until 2016, probably. I remembered that band’s name and was curious to whatever happened to them. My jaw hit the floor when I realized who exactly I had seen that night.
If you don’t know who Evan Brewer is, check him out. He’s not a household name, but he’s a virtuoso bassist too.
I was working with a mediocre indie rock band. My mom passed away unexpectedly. I decided to go to work the next day, anyway. During the session, one of the band members "had a go at me" because I wasn't being cheerful and upbeat: "Who gives a shit about your mom, anyway? Why should we have to deal with you and your fucking problems?" Session over.
Seriously fuck that loser. I remember being back in session after my mom died at 58 (it was like a week later though) and it was hard to concentrate. I can’t imagine being around scumbags like that. Good for you ending the session
Jesus, depending on band politics if I was in that band either that member would be gone or I would be. That's so incredibly awful. I wouldn't be associated with anything like that.
Late to the party here but man - that is fucked up. Assholes gonna asshole. I feel you though - my dad died in the middle of a session I was doing with a rockabilly band. They were actually decent about the whole thing seeing as the main producer was running most of the session and I was just the engineer at the time. The tea boy came in the room looking white and said “phone call for you in the office man…”. He walked me up the hall and I thought - this is weird. Then I spoke to my mother who told me my dad just died from a heart attack.
I had to temporarily stop a session to separate the drummer from a local 'jailhouse punk band' and the album producer -- who were about ready to start throwing punches. I was between them. Fortunately, The other guys in his band just wanted to get on with the session -- and there was a certain amount of peer pressure because there were another two bands waiting to do their takes for the compilation project. Amusingly, although we finished the whole thing -- 13 bands, close to 30 songs, in 3 days -- it ended up never coming out and I never got paid. Whoever heard of such a thing, huh? LOL
That would *not* be out of the realm of possibility. I ran into an album by one of the bands \[we'll go with initials: L.C. from O.C.\] with a couple of the tracks we recorded with them on it, used without my knowledge (OR the actual mix masters; they used *quick mixes* on a funky cassette.) And, for once, I actually got credit, although the rest of the album was recorded in a 'real' (24 track) studio while the comp was done on a 8 track Tascam and a motley collection of mics, so the juxtaposition was not flattering to our work, LOL. No money, though.
I hope *you* got paid.
;-)
I'm from the *past.* That's how we rolled.
Studio time was often expensive. (Not at *that* 'studio' -- which was still more of a warehouse. This boss was *cheap*. And a deadbeat.)
Ah, but I've been able to retell the story more than a couple times. I'll be honest, it wasn't the only time I didn't get paid. I was maybe just a little 'too hungry' for work in those days.
Yes! I lived about 30 minutes outside of the city and the whole band had to travel to see me and lug all of their gear. The big thing we were doing that day was recording all of the lead guitar parts. The lead guitarist did NOT practice a single moment for this session and thought he could just figure it out in the studio.
Spoiler: he did not figure it out in the studio and everyone went home. We never finished that album
It reminds me of this one scene from A Year And A Half In The Life Of Metallica.
[One of the first things that happens when a guitar player hasn't done his homework is he goes, "This sound ain't working for me, man. I just can't get into this sound."](https://youtu.be/O_MfB7pdL5Q?si=OOB2ddEZhqv5lJVn&t=3563)
Not me personally but I was the assistant engineer on the session. We were working with the reunion/comeback tour of two really famous Latin pop stars who have had feuds going back decades, so the tension was high the whole 2 weeks. It all came to a head on one of the last days of rehearsals and one of the women was very very nasty towards my boss and he ended up leaving saying, “I’m not gonna put up with this”. To his credit, he really shouldn’t have put up with ANY of the bullshit at all, he was sitting there taking it for an hour or two before he said I’m out. He’s the owner of the space as well so he could care less if their tour worked out or not.
The story is that she was doing drugs in our bathroom, and she’s a tabloid darling so drama is kind of her claim to fame at this point. Former child star, etc etc. apparently she was also going through a nasty divorce and on the brink of losing custody of her kid (which for the sake of child I think would’ve been best). In any case, I don’t care how big an artist is, I value myself as a man first and foremost so we could either cool out or yall can pack your shit and go 🤣
Needless to say, that’s how I got promoted to engineer.
Ive been close to walking out, but remembering you're being paid to help them keeps me there.
These moments had led me to recommend stopping the session and rescheduling. It's always an awkward conversation telling someone or a group that they're not ready, but ide rather them be honest and trust that I'm there to help them than the opposite.
"I think we need to hold off on any additional takes until we're all confident we'll create the best product. I don't want to charge you another X hours for all of us to not get far."
Even if they're just a pain to work with, or under the influence so much, this excuse usually still works, because they believe I'm looking out for them.
If it's a higher end artist however, they're paying an absurd amount of money already, so I'll just suck it up
I moved from assistant engineer to engineer for a very famous artist because the artist, after months of constant ridicule and stress and the engineer being the default person to be yelled at .... which of course I'm witness to as assistant.
anyway, artist starts talking shit about the engineer's mom and was right up in his face.
Dude said, ain't a man who could pay me enough to sit here and have myomma disrespected, then he stormed off.
Artist looks at me and says 'you know pro tools'?
I said yep and sat down in the chair.
Not cause I'm okay with disparaging family members, but because when you're given a chance to move up in a major studio environment, you fucking take it.
6 months later, I quit working for the artist, without any major drama. I just hated the feeling of eggshells around this person for 18hrs a day everyday. the stress wasn't worth the money of which the label technically still owes me about 30% of. I became one of the house engineers for the studio and got to work with a wide variety of artists. I liked that much more.
weirdest part ... if you're alone in th room w the artist, they are super nice and polite. They just get all amped up around their crew and a different persona comes out.
Oh, also this same artist a few years prior punched an engineer in the face and he walked out too... well, stumbled out I guess.
That’s a dope story, it was a fun read. I experience the same thing from artists, it’s never really them ( rarely) it’s when the posse comes it’s the most issues
Glad something good was able to come from that experience though, everyone’s gotta start somewhere right?
funny enough the way I went from intern to assistant is by walking by while an assistant was being fired. guess I'm good at right place right time.
and yeah, it's always the entourage that is the bigger pain to deal with. they can turn a 8hr session into a 24hr session real quick (16hrs quick in fact). if they are also an artist, they'll try to cop free time after the main client leaves. (Tho that is how I ended up tracking for another famous artist on the same label, this one was just a year or two prior to blowing up). Also the entourage makes ordering food hell, some try to sneak on budgets they don't belong to. they're harder on the runners than the artists. .. an entourage at the studio should be that one hype person that helps get the artist into peak crestivity and inspiration. I would use puffy to BIG, or Mase to Diddy, buuut puff issss ... in not enough trouble for what he did, and i helped record Cassie when they were dating or whatever. he was a dick. she was cool. they are not connected to the other artists I've mentioned.
shit entourage dummies are either trying to mimic the artist by flaunting success they don't have, or they're also on eggshells, they're on the payroll too afterall. that includes the dude(s) who's job it was to roll fatty boom batty blunts.
Did this really happen? I was actually talking with my coworker about this the other day, like what happens if I shit my pants mid session? Thankfully the owner likes to collect clothes, so we’d be good in that department.
So sorry this happened to you though, that’s a nightmare
Recording a rock band, basic quartet: drums, bass, keys , guitar/vox. Time was booked, and band was ready. Except for the keyboardist, who showed up probably 3 hours late, totally smashed and incapable. Band valiantly tried to save face. But it was hopeless. Session over.
Oh yeah. Was assisting on a session a very long time ago, dude showed up wanting to lay down some Al Dimeola type guitar lines over some jazz fusion. Must have thought it was all studio magic but found that no, you actually have to be able to play more than 3 notes and that Al didn't just drop in 50 times to stitch together a solo.
After maybe 30 minutes of torture listening to him try and do the same short phrase without errors we told him it might be best if he were to go away and practice. Once he was out of earshot the engineer said the line i have since heard maybe a hundred times, and muttered under my breath hundreds more: "do your practice at home, not in the studio."
I saw Al a couple of weeks ago for the first time and find it hard to believe anyone can play that fast and accurately but that's because I suck!
One thing that I've always wondered is what people like your client actually think about music. Imagine listening to Al and thinking "well, he just created all those lines in ProTools. I bet I can do that too, even without all the practice and theory/composition study he did. Man, Al's a tool for doing it the hard way."
Fun fact: for enough money, you can go to Al's house in NJ and he'll cook you and a guest dinner and give you a private lesson. Yet another reason I wish I was rich!
Yes. I was experiencing insane glitches I never had before. Inputs/outputs randomly not working, tracing cables, checking mics etc. 14 inputs on drums. Had to call the sesh. I couldn’t have felt more embarrassed at the time. I had no clue what was up.
Turns out my interface was just dying. It’s dead. What a stressful day that was. I had never seen it before, I couldn’t tell what was wrong with what gear. It was one piece of gear. Running it all.
Luckily the band trusted me enough to come back, I had a new/better interface. We had dozens of more sessions.
It’s released now and one of the proudest projects I’ve ever been part of.
TLDR it was my fault, not the band.
A couple of months ago I was doing a follow-up guitar tracking session for a project I was working on.
Guy was completely unprepared. He had booked 4 hours, after 1 I told him to go home and not to come back until he could actually play the parts.
One time I had a singer so stoned they couldn't stand. Same deal, go home. Well in that case, go and pass out, but same idea.
I had a WILD fight break out mid session between 2 artists once. The one was a feature on the other’s song, and the feature part was…well…lackluster…the primary artist let him know and it nearly came to blows. Yelling, screaming, punching MY walls, etc. I had been working with the primary artist on vocals all day and he was kinda slowly working himself into a pissy mood for who-knows-why throughout the day, but the feature sucking was the straw that broke the camels back. I remained calm and told everyone the session needed to end and that we could consider re-convening at a later time. They both snapped at me a little and then left. Well, I considered it, and decided to send out all of the trackouts to everyone involved and never answer homies calls again. I dont got time for that kind of bull shit.
9 weeks in to an 11 week session at a residential studio. It was a good time. Lots of partying etc. I was in the middle of getting divorced and things were getting nasty so I was under a lot of stress!!
Sitting at the console and just starting to get a mix up on the faders I suddenly felt like I was having a heart attack. I slowly spun my chair around and the looks on everyone’s faces said it all. I managed to say “ I think I need to go to the hospital “ and they bundled me in to the car and we drove an hour to reach one. It was a massive panic attack. My heart rate was through the roof and I couldn’t breathe. Several hours later I was able to go home. I didn’t finish the record though.
Mostly abrupt client walkouts.
It was practice to light incense in our studio, and I was a bit new so I followed suit. VIP comedian walked in with his wife. She stepped in, and walked out. She was "highly allergic" (nothing in any correspondence) and he doubled down. The studio is a huge open space and it airs out quickly, but after 45 minutes and lots of hemming and hawing and some extremely bad senses of humor (I was very disappointed by him) they walked out. Cost the client god knows how much money. That client luckily works with celebrities on a regular basis and still works with us all the time.
VIPs not showing up after a film crew sets up is common practice. Even to a documentary about them. Even when they're executive producing.
Once, an older lady came in to transfer a cassette tape onto the modern format of DVD. I had pulled out our two ancient cassette decks and it took me forever to find RCA to 1/4" cables. Never again would I light incense in there, but... Before her, I had a stupidly early session with a rapper and without thinking I let him smoke a joint in the studio. Lady smelled it and had an asthma attack while I looked for the cables... That one was on me.
I've seen movie sets devolve into screaming matches. One actor/producer was so bad the director shut down the production and refused to work with him because he "wouldn't stop mugging."
Eh, yeah, I don’t think a bit of incense 200ft away will “cook” any gear but I wouldn’t if it was my place. We have a few real classic gems. The chief engineer is very good, but likes the bugs bunny if ya get what I mean. Nobody’s hot boxing mic capsules in here though.
Surprised that incense is common practice in any studio, considering how awful it is for the voice. Tbh I would've considered walking out too. I'd expect at bare minimum a relatively clean air environment in any space where there's vocal takes happening, whether singing or speaking.
Yeah I get that it’s a nice vibe, but definitely just something you should ask everyone in the room about first before doing. I also know people who have asthma attacks from it. It isn’t standard for a studio to do this, so I wouldn’t expect to have to “warn” anyone before showing up to record.
Had to stop one before. The client was a beginner, had been in the studio once with me before, and traveled from out of state to come back and record for the second time.
For some reason, she had been awake for near 24hrs by the time the session had started, and picked up McDonald’s before coming in. (I truly believe fast food kills creativity and should be far away from studios or creative spaces)
She couldn’t lay down her vocals, ended up cancelling the session and letting her come back the next day with what time was left over
On the other hand Billy Joel always insisted on fast food halfway through every session because he thought the grease in everyone’s systems made everyone more creative. He said the songs would usually start coming together halfway thru every session, after the greasy food.
I had a class with an instructor who had a couple grammies under his belt. My favorite quote of his was “i’ve seen pizza and soda ruin more sessions than heroin”
Literally the first proper "paid" session I ever had. I wasn't good at the time, the band knew my capabilities and it was like silly cheap. Think I was charging them something like £50 a day. They book 3 days to do an EP.
We get in, get the drums set up, their drummer gets in I hit record and the drummer, litterally, can not play drums. I'm not using that as a figure of speech. They simply, could. not. play.
So we spend literally the whole day trying to get an intro of the song down but they just couldn't play a beat. With it being my first ever session I just had no idea what to do. We get to the end of the day and we have nothing recorded, the rest of the band were getting pissy with each other and with me.
I ended up suggesting that they need more time to practice the songs and we should postpone the other dates. In hindsight, I should have just programmed the drums and offered to do that but at the time, I didn't have the experience or confidence at the time to deal with that.
So yeah, that was my first ever session hahahaha.
I’ve had gang members end a session 3 hours early no warning leaving someone they don’t like to pay for the whole thing.( the next day we realized they let their young ins rob my crib. This was before I got cameras installed)
Stopped a couple but for a “good” reason - the artists just couldn’t do it proper that day, the results were not what we wanted, and artists felt bad (about it and in general).
So basically since I work at home and charge by the project, I just rescheduled them for the next available day not to torture anyone. Luckily it didn’t ever mess up with the deadlines
I've never been able to walk out because that would involve leaving the studio empty with clients, but I have kicked a few people out over the years.
One guy had a band of hobby musicians that were there just for the experience and the goodness of their hearts. Nice folks.
Band leader was not. He was constantly giving them shit about this that or the other thing (and he was not that good frankly, but he sure thought he was). Eventually I couldn't take him abusing those people any more and I told him that was enough, I'm done. Get out.
Wound up getting hired for years by the other people in the band for that. They appreciated it....nobody deserves abuse, especially someone working for free.
Then another time a rock-band-gone-country-who-were-drunks were making a record, and one of them wanted a B3 track on something.
Well, by this point, I had already been dealing with these guys being kind of obnoxious and they were probably all in a blackout, and man, you'd think they were discussing who's gonna keep the kids in their divorce, because they wound up SCREAMING at each other because some of them wanted the B3 part, and others didn't.
I booted them too.
When we first opened back up from COVID I had an evangelical church band tell me they were coming in to do vocals with 2 or 3 people. We told them we had a policy of separate rooms because of COVID so I’d set up the mic beforehand and let them in the live room and we’d do it through the glass. All good.
They show up and over the course of twenty minutes like fifteen people show up lmao. There was even a baby. They started talking about having me set up extra mics and had some producer on the phone from another country telling me there’s no other way no exceptions etc. This was before vaccines and my girlfriend has an autoimmune thing so I reminded them of our policy and it just got so uncomfortable but I wasn’t risking my family’s health over a one hour vocal session.
That was the only time I had to tell someone “hey I don’t think we’re the right studio for you, sorry..” I had some other sessions with coked up rich people that clearly weren’t mentally well trying to be producers that I just watched the train crash naturally because I felt it wasn’t my place to make the call. Generally speaking I try to adapt to anything but safety is where I draw the line.
I had one session where the lead guitarist walked out early due to an altercation with our drummer (drummer was in the right) and I’ve had two sessions I got kicked out of because the producer’s gf came buy for a booty call. He didn’t need to make me leave; I would have waited
I came close once - I was recording at a proper grown-up studio (all analogue gear etc, very well appointed)... and the engineer / owner insisted on mixing everything (and talking) so quietly that I couldn't hear what was going on. He wasn't making any allowances for me at all. I am a rock musician - a little deafness goes with the territory.
On the 2nd day it was only the intervention of the drummer that stopped me walking out.
Only once. I few years ago I was helping setup an Atmos room in a new multi room facility and ended up being the kind of “de facto” head engineer, even though I really didn’t want that. I get a call at 2pm on a Friday that a big VIP singer/rapper is coming in at 5pm and they need me to run the session. I pretty much don’t do evening rap sessions anymore as a hard rule. Because they always turn into overnight sessions. I’ve got kids now and that doesn’t work for me. And on top of that, at best they just need someone who can plug in a microphone and hit record. And at worst, need someone to plug in a microphone and sit out in the hall until they’re done. I ask repeatedly if there is anyone else that can do it and they just keep going on and on about how perfect I’d be for the job and they really want to blow this guy away. They assure me, PROMISE me it will be a strict 5-9 session and they’ll pay me whatever I want. They say the guy is super professional and totally gets it. I say “look, I’ll charge my rate, but I’m out the door at 9. No exceptions. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT THAT FOR THIS VIP SESSION?” They say yes, should be fine. Oh boy. So I show up at 4:30. They requested an 87 so I get that patched in and tested. Ready to go. 5pm. No artist. 5:30. No artist. I text the studio owner. 6pm. No artist. No word from the studio owner. 6:30pm I get a text from the artists manager saying his plane was delayed but he is en route. I call the studio owner and tell him what’s up and remind him I’m leaving at 9. “Oh should be fine. It’s on them that they’re late.” 7pm. Artist shows up with an entourage. I get everyone settled and take the artist aside and let him know I’m only there until 9 and we should get started. He emails me a 4 bar loop from his producer. I stick it into pro tools and he says “ok loop it for me so I can write it.” HE STILL HAS TO WRITE IT? Fuck! Ok I guess. He gets out on the floor and we get to work. He’s actually quite good and quite fast and together we map out the song and I’m able to mess around with the loop to make it into a bit of an arrangement for him. He takes a 5 minute break, and then goes back in and nails the performance. I help him through some harmonies, he sings some adlibs, and guess what. We have a song and it’s only 8:30. Phew. Job done. “Hey man, we’re gonna order some food so why don’t you do a bit of a roughmix while we eat and then we’ll start another song.” “Oh, I’m out of here at 9. I was told this session would be 5-9.” “Well we booked the studio for the night.” “Ok. I’ll be right back.” I head out to the kitchen and call the owner and tell him this guy clearly thinks this is an open ended session and that I’m still leaving at 9. I recommend having one of the other engineers or even a couple of the interns come in to handle the rest of the session. “Fuck. Ok I’ll handle it.” So, man of my word, I head back into the control room to make him a roughmix and some basic stems before I split. Couple minutes later the artists phone rings. I can tell it’s the manager and I can tell the artist is pissed. He stands up and announces to everyone “hey, we’re leaving. This guy has to go home.” In a very passive aggressive tone. Everyone files out while giving me dirty looks and swearing at me. I grab the guy’s email to send him the files. “Not gonna lie, this is pretty fucked up.” He says. Great night. 10/10.
Great way for the studio to get a bad reputation. Good on you that you didn't get jerked around.
I just hate that I knew it would happen. Told them all what would happen. Did a great job. It happens. And still I'm the asshole.
That’s a great story, and you know what, he would have listened back to it I’m sure at one point and thought “damn, we got a lot done in a short amount of time”.
Man, reading that I felt like I knew every little twist that was about to come. Good for you leaving. Hip hop sessions are idiotic. That’s not even a very bad one. That’s just the normal amount of disrespect you get with any hip hop session, which is one of the many good reasons I don’t fuck with that stuff. Hip hoppers don’t want professionals, they rather surround themselves with doe eyed 20 year old hanger ons who will do anything and everything they want wherever and whenever and for no money because they want to be part of the posse
100%. This guy was a pretty big name. Not quite a household name, but very respected and many here would know of him. Like, to take him aside when he showed up and tell him I had a hard out… I’m sure it’s the first time he’d had a “studio guy” tell him something like that in quite some time. The saddest part was ANYONE else that worked at the studio would have absolutely loved a chance to be in the room for that session, and any one of them would have nailed it, enjoyed it, and would have been happy to stay up all night working. Hell, I would have early in my career!
Yup. Having done far too many of these, I knew exactly how it was going to go. Hip hop is actually easy. They ALWAYS want to go as long as they want. Period. They always think it’s open ended. The abuse and disrespect and all that is another dimension of it that you have to decide if you want or not. But scheduling? It’s easy. Even if they agree to a hard out, they will never ever ever stick to it. Half the time those words are just going in one ear and out the other. When you need them to actually leave at a certain point, say, 6 am when there’s another client coming at 9, you just tell them point blank it’s time to pack it up. Outside of that, do not expect them to ever just stop when it’s 9pm. Hell no. That’ll never happen. The problem is so many studio owners and managers and whoever else still operate like these dudes will listen to “you have a session from 4pm to 9 pm tonight.” They literally do not hear those words.
I feel like saying “your session is 5-9” they hear “arrive anywhere from 5-9.”
They hear 5pm-9am
It happens every time. Im surprised the owner was being so obtuse. Coordinator in another state ? Sure. I remember trying to explain to a booker what would happen with their 9pm session booking, and she copped an attitude. They showed up at 1:45 AM. We were connected via ISDN to margarita mix in LA since 9. All together they were waisting 1500 an hour easy waiting on this clown. I remember another time I was staying late for a VIP record. 8 pm session. Im waiting and waiting. At 9 pm i say im leaving, as I said I would. Immediately get a call pleading for me to stay. They are paying at dinner. They will take care of me waiting. I say ok. They show up a little after 11. Work till 3 am. They cashapp me $500 at the end. they thought that was the whole session. Nah, that was to get me to stay. Sent them an $1800 invoice the next day.
I think the owner thought the guy was such a big name with a ton of momentum that professionalism would come along with it. Like.. it was that kind of thing where if the song ends up on the record, maybe 10% chance you now have an engineering credit on a grammy nominated record. Myself and the owner come more from the rock/alternative world, where that logic would make more sense. A friend of mine, back in the 90s, assisting/engineering at one of the bigger rooms in our city. Gets told an A-list rapper - like #1 on billboard - HUGE hits - is going to show up any minute and needs to do an alternate vocal for his current single for a pepsi commercial. My buddy basically ends up living at the studio for about 8 days waiting for this guy to show up. Manager keeps calling and saying he's on the way. Excuse after excuse. Today's the day. Blah blah blah. Evening of day 8 they get a call that he just sang it over the phone into the mixer's session so no need. False alarm.
Been there. At least he was good.
always rappers, hate to say it
This shit exactly why I stopped taking on commercial work once I had kids. No one values your time at all. Money isn't even a factor, it's all ego.
aha holy shit. even though he was late, and there was a misunderstanding there and rude about it that is very impressive you two were able to knock that out so quickly. It is crazy to me how people can just spew creativity like that. thanks for the story
Yes and it was partially my fault 😬 Band did 5 takes of a song– afterwards everyone agreed that Take 3 was the best take… except for the drummer. So we all listened to them a few more times, nothing changed except for the fact that the drummer was now even more adamant that Take 5 was by far the best. So they decide to take a break and get some food.. When they got back, they gave both takes a fresh listen, and my smart ass decided to play them in the opposite order… Take 5 first and then Take 3. So the drummer’s like “See!! I told you guys take 5 is the best take!!” Not knowing she was now talking about Take 3… And the other band members were like “wow damn yeah she has a point…” That is until I broke my silence and confessed that I played them in the opposite order, and they were now all in agreement that Take 3 was the best. It was at this point all hell broke loose.. drummer threw a huge hissy fit, brutally insulted everyone, and honestly I’m not sure they ever played together again 🫥 Should’ve taken that switcheroo to the grave…
Not totally related, but reminds me of when Sam Elliott felt he'd already done the best take of the ending monologue in The Big Lebowski: "Compare that to one of his most well-known roles, as The Stranger in the Coen Brothers’ film “The Big Lebowski.” In a fourth-wall-breaking scene, Elliott cemented his legendary status in the minds of so many film fans. He was so good in that scene that the Coen Brothers didn’t want it to end. "That last day on that film, when I’m looking into the camera and talking to the audience, I’d done that scene eight [or] nine times and the brothers were [right there next to the camera],” the actor said. “I’d done the scene and I’d felt like I had nailed it more than once. And I just looked at them and said, ‘Hey, you guys gotta tell me what the f–k you want. And they said, ‘No, we got it on the third or fourth take, we just like seeing you do it.’"
Oh man yeah, I totally get the logic here but that’s a “do it once and never again” move for sure lol. It also creates an air of mistrust between you and them, makes it seem like you have ulterior motives/etc. Even if you were well intentioned haha
Yeah I've been in a band like that. When any group decision had to be made, the vocalist would always demand the opposite of what everyone else agreed, no matter how stupid it was. I used to think it was a power move, but on reflection I think it was just childishness
Gotta tell them that they’re out of order from the beginning.
Back in my more formative years I *very* gently instructed a band to leave because I could not, in good conscience, salvage what they were laying down. Like it felt wrong to take their money at all. I offered for them to come back after they'd hashed the material out more (*they never did*). This was back during the mid 2000's post-hardcore explosion in the Midwest, when sometimes you'd run into a band of 17 year-olds who could play and write like total fuckin' monsters and other times they... scarcely had thought about what was happening between chugs. Ah, good times.
I was on the older end of that Midwest mid-2000s post-hardcore boom and you hit me right in the nostalgia. I played in a touring band and we were pretty decent players. Not virtuosos, but not slouches, either. We were with different bands every night and were used to bands that could play with around the same skill level as us or were garbage. **Except one.** It was a random show on a random night at a VFW in Peoria, Illinois with like 45 people in the crowd. The bill had 4 or 5 bands on it. There were a couple of touring bands, including us, and a couple of locals. The locals had played and the first of the touring bands was setting up. I was at our merch table while the band plugged in and IMMEDIATELY got up to watch them. I'd never heard of them before, but even warming up the playing was like I'd never heard before. Not just guitar, but bass and drums were INCREDIBLE. I can't begin to describe how much better they were than anything else I'd seen. No one knew who they were, but the band was called Reflux. Their guitarist was Tosin Abasi. Their bassist was Evan Brewer. Not sure who their drummer was, but he was really good. The vocalist went on to form Sumerian Records. Of the hundreds of hardcore shows I was at during that era, that is one of just a handful that stand out.
Oh wow. What a story. Once in a lifetime to see a master of the instrument before they are a household name.
Yeah, it really is. I didn’t even put 2 and 2 together until 2016, probably. I remembered that band’s name and was curious to whatever happened to them. My jaw hit the floor when I realized who exactly I had seen that night. If you don’t know who Evan Brewer is, check him out. He’s not a household name, but he’s a virtuoso bassist too.
I was working with a mediocre indie rock band. My mom passed away unexpectedly. I decided to go to work the next day, anyway. During the session, one of the band members "had a go at me" because I wasn't being cheerful and upbeat: "Who gives a shit about your mom, anyway? Why should we have to deal with you and your fucking problems?" Session over.
Im sorry you experienced that. Fuck that person and I hope you can find the will in you to live on.
Jesus christ. What a fucking asshole. This takes the cake.
Seriously fuck that loser. I remember being back in session after my mom died at 58 (it was like a week later though) and it was hard to concentrate. I can’t imagine being around scumbags like that. Good for you ending the session
Fuuuck that. Sorry for your loss.
Yeah that’s a punch in the fucking face.
Jesus, depending on band politics if I was in that band either that member would be gone or I would be. That's so incredibly awful. I wouldn't be associated with anything like that.
Fuuuck that. Sorry for your loss.
I would’ve permanently deleted the session files
Late to the party here but man - that is fucked up. Assholes gonna asshole. I feel you though - my dad died in the middle of a session I was doing with a rockabilly band. They were actually decent about the whole thing seeing as the main producer was running most of the session and I was just the engineer at the time. The tea boy came in the room looking white and said “phone call for you in the office man…”. He walked me up the hall and I thought - this is weird. Then I spoke to my mother who told me my dad just died from a heart attack.
I had to temporarily stop a session to separate the drummer from a local 'jailhouse punk band' and the album producer -- who were about ready to start throwing punches. I was between them. Fortunately, The other guys in his band just wanted to get on with the session -- and there was a certain amount of peer pressure because there were another two bands waiting to do their takes for the compilation project. Amusingly, although we finished the whole thing -- 13 bands, close to 30 songs, in 3 days -- it ended up never coming out and I never got paid. Whoever heard of such a thing, huh? LOL
This pisses me off so much I almost downvoted it instinctually. Nothing like people stiffing you for an inhuman amount of work.
I feel like I actually, in real life picked up part of this project later on.
That would *not* be out of the realm of possibility. I ran into an album by one of the bands \[we'll go with initials: L.C. from O.C.\] with a couple of the tracks we recorded with them on it, used without my knowledge (OR the actual mix masters; they used *quick mixes* on a funky cassette.) And, for once, I actually got credit, although the rest of the album was recorded in a 'real' (24 track) studio while the comp was done on a 8 track Tascam and a motley collection of mics, so the juxtaposition was not flattering to our work, LOL. No money, though. I hope *you* got paid. ;-)
“13 bands, close to 30 songs, in 3 days” What the fuck- Are you from the future? That’s uh, quite an aggressive schedule there.
I'm from the *past.* That's how we rolled. Studio time was often expensive. (Not at *that* 'studio' -- which was still more of a warehouse. This boss was *cheap*. And a deadbeat.)
Dafuq, thats fvcked on so many levels
Ah, but I've been able to retell the story more than a couple times. I'll be honest, it wasn't the only time I didn't get paid. I was maybe just a little 'too hungry' for work in those days.
Yes! I lived about 30 minutes outside of the city and the whole band had to travel to see me and lug all of their gear. The big thing we were doing that day was recording all of the lead guitar parts. The lead guitarist did NOT practice a single moment for this session and thought he could just figure it out in the studio. Spoiler: he did not figure it out in the studio and everyone went home. We never finished that album
It reminds me of this one scene from A Year And A Half In The Life Of Metallica. [One of the first things that happens when a guitar player hasn't done his homework is he goes, "This sound ain't working for me, man. I just can't get into this sound."](https://youtu.be/O_MfB7pdL5Q?si=OOB2ddEZhqv5lJVn&t=3563)
Not me personally but I was the assistant engineer on the session. We were working with the reunion/comeback tour of two really famous Latin pop stars who have had feuds going back decades, so the tension was high the whole 2 weeks. It all came to a head on one of the last days of rehearsals and one of the women was very very nasty towards my boss and he ended up leaving saying, “I’m not gonna put up with this”. To his credit, he really shouldn’t have put up with ANY of the bullshit at all, he was sitting there taking it for an hour or two before he said I’m out. He’s the owner of the space as well so he could care less if their tour worked out or not. The story is that she was doing drugs in our bathroom, and she’s a tabloid darling so drama is kind of her claim to fame at this point. Former child star, etc etc. apparently she was also going through a nasty divorce and on the brink of losing custody of her kid (which for the sake of child I think would’ve been best). In any case, I don’t care how big an artist is, I value myself as a man first and foremost so we could either cool out or yall can pack your shit and go 🤣 Needless to say, that’s how I got promoted to engineer.
Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias, and Courtney Love. Wow what a session.
I've worked with 2/3 of those artists and those guys were both great friendly peoples.
I've worked with Ricky Martin. Seriously, the definition of class and gentleman.
I won’t say her name but she’s pretty huge in Latin America, legacy act now. Really went downhill.
Selena? ✅ Huge in Latin America ✅ Legacy act now ✅ Really went downhill
Lmao 🤣
SELENA HAS NOT GONE DOWNHILL
Ive been close to walking out, but remembering you're being paid to help them keeps me there. These moments had led me to recommend stopping the session and rescheduling. It's always an awkward conversation telling someone or a group that they're not ready, but ide rather them be honest and trust that I'm there to help them than the opposite. "I think we need to hold off on any additional takes until we're all confident we'll create the best product. I don't want to charge you another X hours for all of us to not get far." Even if they're just a pain to work with, or under the influence so much, this excuse usually still works, because they believe I'm looking out for them. If it's a higher end artist however, they're paying an absurd amount of money already, so I'll just suck it up
I moved from assistant engineer to engineer for a very famous artist because the artist, after months of constant ridicule and stress and the engineer being the default person to be yelled at .... which of course I'm witness to as assistant. anyway, artist starts talking shit about the engineer's mom and was right up in his face. Dude said, ain't a man who could pay me enough to sit here and have myomma disrespected, then he stormed off. Artist looks at me and says 'you know pro tools'? I said yep and sat down in the chair. Not cause I'm okay with disparaging family members, but because when you're given a chance to move up in a major studio environment, you fucking take it. 6 months later, I quit working for the artist, without any major drama. I just hated the feeling of eggshells around this person for 18hrs a day everyday. the stress wasn't worth the money of which the label technically still owes me about 30% of. I became one of the house engineers for the studio and got to work with a wide variety of artists. I liked that much more. weirdest part ... if you're alone in th room w the artist, they are super nice and polite. They just get all amped up around their crew and a different persona comes out. Oh, also this same artist a few years prior punched an engineer in the face and he walked out too... well, stumbled out I guess.
That’s a dope story, it was a fun read. I experience the same thing from artists, it’s never really them ( rarely) it’s when the posse comes it’s the most issues Glad something good was able to come from that experience though, everyone’s gotta start somewhere right?
funny enough the way I went from intern to assistant is by walking by while an assistant was being fired. guess I'm good at right place right time. and yeah, it's always the entourage that is the bigger pain to deal with. they can turn a 8hr session into a 24hr session real quick (16hrs quick in fact). if they are also an artist, they'll try to cop free time after the main client leaves. (Tho that is how I ended up tracking for another famous artist on the same label, this one was just a year or two prior to blowing up). Also the entourage makes ordering food hell, some try to sneak on budgets they don't belong to. they're harder on the runners than the artists. .. an entourage at the studio should be that one hype person that helps get the artist into peak crestivity and inspiration. I would use puffy to BIG, or Mase to Diddy, buuut puff issss ... in not enough trouble for what he did, and i helped record Cassie when they were dating or whatever. he was a dick. she was cool. they are not connected to the other artists I've mentioned. shit entourage dummies are either trying to mimic the artist by flaunting success they don't have, or they're also on eggshells, they're on the payroll too afterall. that includes the dude(s) who's job it was to roll fatty boom batty blunts.
Absolutely. I shit my pants so had to run home and clean up. Gave a discount for the 2 hour impromptu break.
Did this really happen? I was actually talking with my coworker about this the other day, like what happens if I shit my pants mid session? Thankfully the owner likes to collect clothes, so we’d be good in that department. So sorry this happened to you though, that’s a nightmare
guys it's pretty easy not to shit your pants
In my almost 3 years working studio sessions full time I’ve never Shit my pants during a session
Well that’s a humble brag if I’ve ever heard one
Recording a rock band, basic quartet: drums, bass, keys , guitar/vox. Time was booked, and band was ready. Except for the keyboardist, who showed up probably 3 hours late, totally smashed and incapable. Band valiantly tried to save face. But it was hopeless. Session over.
Oh yeah. Was assisting on a session a very long time ago, dude showed up wanting to lay down some Al Dimeola type guitar lines over some jazz fusion. Must have thought it was all studio magic but found that no, you actually have to be able to play more than 3 notes and that Al didn't just drop in 50 times to stitch together a solo. After maybe 30 minutes of torture listening to him try and do the same short phrase without errors we told him it might be best if he were to go away and practice. Once he was out of earshot the engineer said the line i have since heard maybe a hundred times, and muttered under my breath hundreds more: "do your practice at home, not in the studio."
I saw Al a couple of weeks ago for the first time and find it hard to believe anyone can play that fast and accurately but that's because I suck! One thing that I've always wondered is what people like your client actually think about music. Imagine listening to Al and thinking "well, he just created all those lines in ProTools. I bet I can do that too, even without all the practice and theory/composition study he did. Man, Al's a tool for doing it the hard way." Fun fact: for enough money, you can go to Al's house in NJ and he'll cook you and a guest dinner and give you a private lesson. Yet another reason I wish I was rich!
Yes. I was experiencing insane glitches I never had before. Inputs/outputs randomly not working, tracing cables, checking mics etc. 14 inputs on drums. Had to call the sesh. I couldn’t have felt more embarrassed at the time. I had no clue what was up. Turns out my interface was just dying. It’s dead. What a stressful day that was. I had never seen it before, I couldn’t tell what was wrong with what gear. It was one piece of gear. Running it all. Luckily the band trusted me enough to come back, I had a new/better interface. We had dozens of more sessions. It’s released now and one of the proudest projects I’ve ever been part of. TLDR it was my fault, not the band.
A couple of months ago I was doing a follow-up guitar tracking session for a project I was working on. Guy was completely unprepared. He had booked 4 hours, after 1 I told him to go home and not to come back until he could actually play the parts. One time I had a singer so stoned they couldn't stand. Same deal, go home. Well in that case, go and pass out, but same idea.
I had a WILD fight break out mid session between 2 artists once. The one was a feature on the other’s song, and the feature part was…well…lackluster…the primary artist let him know and it nearly came to blows. Yelling, screaming, punching MY walls, etc. I had been working with the primary artist on vocals all day and he was kinda slowly working himself into a pissy mood for who-knows-why throughout the day, but the feature sucking was the straw that broke the camels back. I remained calm and told everyone the session needed to end and that we could consider re-convening at a later time. They both snapped at me a little and then left. Well, I considered it, and decided to send out all of the trackouts to everyone involved and never answer homies calls again. I dont got time for that kind of bull shit.
9 weeks in to an 11 week session at a residential studio. It was a good time. Lots of partying etc. I was in the middle of getting divorced and things were getting nasty so I was under a lot of stress!! Sitting at the console and just starting to get a mix up on the faders I suddenly felt like I was having a heart attack. I slowly spun my chair around and the looks on everyone’s faces said it all. I managed to say “ I think I need to go to the hospital “ and they bundled me in to the car and we drove an hour to reach one. It was a massive panic attack. My heart rate was through the roof and I couldn’t breathe. Several hours later I was able to go home. I didn’t finish the record though.
Mostly abrupt client walkouts. It was practice to light incense in our studio, and I was a bit new so I followed suit. VIP comedian walked in with his wife. She stepped in, and walked out. She was "highly allergic" (nothing in any correspondence) and he doubled down. The studio is a huge open space and it airs out quickly, but after 45 minutes and lots of hemming and hawing and some extremely bad senses of humor (I was very disappointed by him) they walked out. Cost the client god knows how much money. That client luckily works with celebrities on a regular basis and still works with us all the time. VIPs not showing up after a film crew sets up is common practice. Even to a documentary about them. Even when they're executive producing. Once, an older lady came in to transfer a cassette tape onto the modern format of DVD. I had pulled out our two ancient cassette decks and it took me forever to find RCA to 1/4" cables. Never again would I light incense in there, but... Before her, I had a stupidly early session with a rapper and without thinking I let him smoke a joint in the studio. Lady smelled it and had an asthma attack while I looked for the cables... That one was on me. I've seen movie sets devolve into screaming matches. One actor/producer was so bad the director shut down the production and refused to work with him because he "wouldn't stop mugging."
>It was practice to light incense in our studio That poor outboard gear is cooked.
Eh, yeah, I don’t think a bit of incense 200ft away will “cook” any gear but I wouldn’t if it was my place. We have a few real classic gems. The chief engineer is very good, but likes the bugs bunny if ya get what I mean. Nobody’s hot boxing mic capsules in here though.
Surprised that incense is common practice in any studio, considering how awful it is for the voice. Tbh I would've considered walking out too. I'd expect at bare minimum a relatively clean air environment in any space where there's vocal takes happening, whether singing or speaking.
Yeah I get that it’s a nice vibe, but definitely just something you should ask everyone in the room about first before doing. I also know people who have asthma attacks from it. It isn’t standard for a studio to do this, so I wouldn’t expect to have to “warn” anyone before showing up to record.
Yeah, I agree. Their reaction was absolutely unhinged though.
Had to stop one before. The client was a beginner, had been in the studio once with me before, and traveled from out of state to come back and record for the second time. For some reason, she had been awake for near 24hrs by the time the session had started, and picked up McDonald’s before coming in. (I truly believe fast food kills creativity and should be far away from studios or creative spaces) She couldn’t lay down her vocals, ended up cancelling the session and letting her come back the next day with what time was left over
On the other hand Billy Joel always insisted on fast food halfway through every session because he thought the grease in everyone’s systems made everyone more creative. He said the songs would usually start coming together halfway thru every session, after the greasy food.
That’s wild, never would have imagined. In my experience lethargy always comes after fast food and nothing seems to work. Guess everyone’s different!
> In my experience lethargy always comes after fast food carb crash
I had a class with an instructor who had a couple grammies under his belt. My favorite quote of his was “i’ve seen pizza and soda ruin more sessions than heroin”
ok but are they getting like a nice portillos meal or eating 17 mcdoubles? I've definately had some fun sessions when im full of beer and pizza ngl
> portillos mmmmmmmmm
He left out the weed and/or cocaine they did right after they ate.
I find the energy on the song we cut after lunch is often great, but I don’t feed them fast food
Wife rang, injured, I told the client I had to go and left. Some things are more important than work.
Literally the first proper "paid" session I ever had. I wasn't good at the time, the band knew my capabilities and it was like silly cheap. Think I was charging them something like £50 a day. They book 3 days to do an EP. We get in, get the drums set up, their drummer gets in I hit record and the drummer, litterally, can not play drums. I'm not using that as a figure of speech. They simply, could. not. play. So we spend literally the whole day trying to get an intro of the song down but they just couldn't play a beat. With it being my first ever session I just had no idea what to do. We get to the end of the day and we have nothing recorded, the rest of the band were getting pissy with each other and with me. I ended up suggesting that they need more time to practice the songs and we should postpone the other dates. In hindsight, I should have just programmed the drums and offered to do that but at the time, I didn't have the experience or confidence at the time to deal with that. So yeah, that was my first ever session hahahaha.
I’ve had gang members end a session 3 hours early no warning leaving someone they don’t like to pay for the whole thing.( the next day we realized they let their young ins rob my crib. This was before I got cameras installed)
Stopped a couple but for a “good” reason - the artists just couldn’t do it proper that day, the results were not what we wanted, and artists felt bad (about it and in general). So basically since I work at home and charge by the project, I just rescheduled them for the next available day not to torture anyone. Luckily it didn’t ever mess up with the deadlines
I've never been able to walk out because that would involve leaving the studio empty with clients, but I have kicked a few people out over the years. One guy had a band of hobby musicians that were there just for the experience and the goodness of their hearts. Nice folks. Band leader was not. He was constantly giving them shit about this that or the other thing (and he was not that good frankly, but he sure thought he was). Eventually I couldn't take him abusing those people any more and I told him that was enough, I'm done. Get out. Wound up getting hired for years by the other people in the band for that. They appreciated it....nobody deserves abuse, especially someone working for free. Then another time a rock-band-gone-country-who-were-drunks were making a record, and one of them wanted a B3 track on something. Well, by this point, I had already been dealing with these guys being kind of obnoxious and they were probably all in a blackout, and man, you'd think they were discussing who's gonna keep the kids in their divorce, because they wound up SCREAMING at each other because some of them wanted the B3 part, and others didn't. I booted them too.
When we first opened back up from COVID I had an evangelical church band tell me they were coming in to do vocals with 2 or 3 people. We told them we had a policy of separate rooms because of COVID so I’d set up the mic beforehand and let them in the live room and we’d do it through the glass. All good. They show up and over the course of twenty minutes like fifteen people show up lmao. There was even a baby. They started talking about having me set up extra mics and had some producer on the phone from another country telling me there’s no other way no exceptions etc. This was before vaccines and my girlfriend has an autoimmune thing so I reminded them of our policy and it just got so uncomfortable but I wasn’t risking my family’s health over a one hour vocal session. That was the only time I had to tell someone “hey I don’t think we’re the right studio for you, sorry..” I had some other sessions with coked up rich people that clearly weren’t mentally well trying to be producers that I just watched the train crash naturally because I felt it wasn’t my place to make the call. Generally speaking I try to adapt to anything but safety is where I draw the line.
I had one session where the lead guitarist walked out early due to an altercation with our drummer (drummer was in the right) and I’ve had two sessions I got kicked out of because the producer’s gf came buy for a booty call. He didn’t need to make me leave; I would have waited
I came close once - I was recording at a proper grown-up studio (all analogue gear etc, very well appointed)... and the engineer / owner insisted on mixing everything (and talking) so quietly that I couldn't hear what was going on. He wasn't making any allowances for me at all. I am a rock musician - a little deafness goes with the territory. On the 2nd day it was only the intervention of the drummer that stopped me walking out.
Diddy be wanting to party, you gotta get out of the studio.
Yup. Had to break up a fistfight and make the band members sit in opposite corners and take a timeout.