Buddster

Well this is embarrassing 😵‍💫 My excuse is I was learning it for the band Honest!

I only worked on 3 or 4 orchestral sessions, but when i did it was full on concentration (this was for pop music eather than tv). Everything was set up the night before and line tested. Back then (maybe still?) a MU session was 3 hours and if you went a minute over, you'd be charged another 3 hours for the whole orchestra. Those playes knew thier dots! In fact on 1 session, Mo Foster was the bass player. As an assistant, I was ment to open the studio at 9 to let everyone in for a 10 start. I was late leaving the house and London traffic made me even worse. All I could think about was 30 musicians waiting outside the front door and me getting the blame and the money it would cost. Thankfully, one of the other assistants happened to get an earlier than normal train into work and had opened up. My relief was immense, but it tought me a lesson about being on time.

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Nice looking studio 👍

Yeah we're local, Nailsea based (sw Bristol). Interesting they use a promotion company. I guess it guarantees a quality band

Quite so. A good tape op would write out the song structure with timings and if they were clever work the rough tempo (or find the time for 5 bars, to allow for take up) and add that to the preroll so when doing over dubs the tape would always start from the same place so the musicians always knew where it would start from. Taking pride in doing that right was a pleasure

Just make a note on who takes the longest to get thier sound/lay down thier parts. Just saying...

So we're having a band outting into Bristol center next Saturday as a scouting mission looking good pub gigs to play in Bristol. We're a covers band playing a mixture but mainly danceable pop/pop rock from 90s to current. We've done quite a few gigs outside town, but it's time to break the big time! Anyone got any recommendations where to have a pint and see a band?

Classic band mixing, everything louder than everything else. More than once I've had the situation (as engineer and assistant) where the mix sounded great and about to be mastered, the vocals got turned up, so the the guitar goes up, then the keyboards and then 6 hours later you're walking out into the morning sunshine thinking what the hell just happened!

That's an old one. When using SMPTE to sync 2 24 track machines you soon leant to run from 1:00:00:00 because if you went past 00 the slave machine would spin off backwards trying to make up - 24hrs! I used to work in a studio that ran 3 Alesis ADats in sync. Great in theory but I recon Alesiscused studios as thier R&D dept. Quite difficult to explain to a band at 2am that one of the machines has chewed up the tape and lost the days work! I think for a new band to studios it's quite difficult to understand that playing live and recording in a studio are very different animals. What's recorded is there forever, mistakes and all and it take time to get it right. Otherwise you'll be listening to those mistakes ever after.

Ah, apologies, that wasn't quite clear. Yes, the guy was wrong. Studios are a very odd environment if you're not used to it. I've worked with many new to studio bands as well as seasoned pros. Both will try your patience! It's a very intimidating place to walk into first time and for the engineer /producer social skills are sometimes more important than technical skills.

Or mains leads. I've had "well you're a studio, you should have mains leads", or "i couldn't be bothered to unplug it all"

I'm afraid in this case (and I hate to say it) the drummers right. His need to play how he plays overrides your need to place your mics. Always ask if the mics are in the way. Having said that, he should have asked you if you coud move them rather than do it himself.

I don't need/I swear by a compressor Delete where appropriate

GLWTS

My 3 natural blondes Original '76 Squier CV 70s MiM Delux Active

👆. This 💯%

And the Forum is an amazing building inside

Saw them at the Bristol Hippodrome 5 years ago. Fantastic show. Sat in 4th row. You're in for a treat. They just look like they're enjoying themselves. Tried to get tickets myself but they sold out very quickly. Enjoy

I'm new to the thread but love my funk bass, so will be going back over the pages. Don't think this has been posted.

Just don't turn up with the attitude that the engineer fits one of the above. The same list can be applied to musicians

Yes, kind of. I use 1st finger on E and little finger on D (or A and G). A slight rockung motion between the two to mute/play each string. As Huw says, index low, middle hi. Car Wash is a very obvious example but there's load of disco stuff. It takes practice, thats all.