Studio Etiquette

[Rich]

11 hours ago, cheddatom said:

It wasn't the drummer! 

Well who was it then, and why on earth did he need all the room above the drum kit? Was it a Morrissey tribute, and he needed the space clear for swinging the gladioli around?

[Downunderwonder]

1 minute ago, cheddatom said:

My guitar was on a guitar stand next to me in the control room. I use it to work out notes when I'm tuning vocals. I was doing that with this guy's vocals. I'd put it down for a minute while I carried on synchronising the double-tracked vocals, and that's when I heard him playing it behind me. No big deal it just seemed a bit rude.

 

If it was on a stand in the live room next to the other studio instruments I wouldn't expect anyone to ask before playing it

Fair enough explanation.

[cheddatom]

I was working with a metal band once, and the drummer insisted on tempo changes for every different riff. Basically he wanted the tempo for each beat to be as fast as he could possibly play it. I tried my best to get them (the whole band) to agree to a more consistent tempo but they wouldn't be told. This same drummer then went out of time with the metronome. When I stopped the take he asked why I'd stopped it, and I explained that he'd crossed the bar and was nowhere near the click. He said "the click must have gone out of time"

[cheddatom]

1 minute ago, Rich said:

Well who was it then, and why on earth did he need all the room above the drum kit? Was it a Morrissey tribute, and he needed the space clear for swinging the gladioli around?

 

A keys player, it was a "live" session to be fair, and he needed a fair bit of room. I didn't mind making more room for him! I just figured musicians would know not to move mics in a recording studio

[Downunderwonder]

1 minute ago, cheddatom said:

I was working with a metal band once, and the drummer insisted on tempo changes for every different riff. Basically he wanted the tempo for each beat to be as fast as he could possibly play it. I tried my best to get them (the whole band) to agree to a more consistent tempo but they wouldn't be told. This same drummer then went out of time with the metronome. When I stopped the take he asked why I'd stopped it, and I explained that he'd crossed the bar and was nowhere near the click. He said "the click must have gone out of time"

Them's the breaks working with enthusiastic amateurs. I presume you immediately said stuff it we'll record it all to the drunk drum track like it's 1974 then.

[Downunderwonder]

4 minutes ago, cheddatom said:

I just figured musicians would know not to move mics in a recording studio

Yeah, nah, not actually. Live and learn.

 

If it was obviously a fragile condenser I would probably move it very carefully. It's not made of glass. But I guess that is a bad idea so if it comes up I will leave it alone.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Downunderwonder

[cheddatom]

13 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

Do you get a lot turn up not knowing how to play their own songs? Or have instrument faults? Or no spare guitar strings?

 

Loads, I really don't mind the instrument faults, I have decent guitars and basses for people to use, and spare strings. It is tough when they can't play what they've written though. It can be so frustrating for the player, and obviously I want to offer to play it myself, but don't want to offend or patronise. It can be quite a tense situation. Quite often the parts will get simplified. 

[BigRedX]

Because I have a long history of doing my own home recording I have fairly clear ideas about what I want and what I don't want when I'm paying money to go and record in a studio.

 

I've discovered the hard (and expensive) way that I'm not a very good engineer, so what I want is to feel comfortable playing in the studio in order to get the best musical performance and let the studio owner/engineer/producer deal with the technical aspects so I don't need to worry about them at at all.

 

So I expect all the equipment in the studio to work properly and when it doesn't for the engineer to come up with a quick fix. I once wasted a whole morning in a studio that I booked because their ProTools rig kept crashing when synchronised to my Mac running Logic. Only after it had occurred numerous times in succession, with long waits while everything rebooted and re-sync'd did the engineer think to look on line to see if it was a known problem and when they did it was fixed in seconds - it turned out that Pro-Tools didn't like the SMPTE start time of 0:0:0:00 and once that had been changed in Logic to 1:0:0:00 everything ran fine for the rest of the day. TBH the whole session was less than brilliant - we were fobbed off with a trainee engineer and despite the fact that we had laid down drums, bass and guitar for 4 songs I ended up only using the recorded high hats and some bass guitar and the rest was redone at home with programmed kick, snare and toms and new recorded guitar and bass. We didn't even consider going back into the studio to record the vocals.

 

I also expect the engineer to accommodate slight compromises in the technical aspects of the sound in order to get a better performance from the musicians. In the 80s I did a session for a local radio station with my synth band where we were forbidden to use our taped backing because it was deemed to be of insufficient quality for broadcast (without it even being listened to) and therefore the contents had to be re-created in their studio. As a result instead of recording 5 songs which all the other bands did, we only had time to do 3 and even then there were problems with the vocals that we didn't have time to fix. I doubt, when it was broadcast, anyone would have noticed the extra crispness and clarity of the drum and sequencer sounds, but they most definitely would have spotted that a couple of high notes on one of the vocals were out of tune.

 

Most of the time I'm happy to use my own instruments, effects and amplification. I know how they work and have spent time before I set foot in the studio sorting out the right sounds for the songs that I am recording. I'll try something else provided that either there is an immediate improvement in the sound or my ability to play the part, or if I'm not actually paying for the time wasted experimenting with something new. Spending time on experimentation is fine if someone else is paying for me to spend a couple of weeks in the studio making an album, but normally I'm only there for a couple of days to record 2 or 3 songs. A guitarist for a band I used to be in was subtly pressured by the engineer into playing through the studio's vintage Marshall amp rather than the very good modern amp she had been using for the last 6 months for rehearsing and gigging. TBH I couldn't really hear any improvement in the sound and I could tell that she was struggling with it being too loud (we'd booked this particular studio so that we could record the whole band live without using headphones) once it had been set with the right level of drive. With it being my first time back in a studio that I was paying for in 15 years I kept quiet, but on reflection I should have politely suggested that she try her usual amp to see if it was better.

 

And finally I don't want to be lied to. If the engineer has made mistake with the routing which means that they have inadvertently recorded drums as well as bass on the bass guitar track, don't try and blame the fault on the pickups in my bass. Admit to the mistake, after all everyone makes them from time to time, and give the band all the free studio time required to fix it without quibble.

[cheddatom]

great points there BRX

 

On the first proper session I did as a bassist, the engineer wouldn't let me use my own distortion pedal. That was a big influence on my attitude to the whole process. I'll basically do whatever the client wants, within reason. I've done whole albums in a day, recorded totally live, and I've spent several days all on one single. I don't want to impose my views/sounds on other people's music

[SteveXFR]

1 hour ago, gjones said:

The worst is when a band, who have no idea what they're doing, want to record an album in one day.

 

I have been in that band, although I did warn them it couldn't be done, was totally ignored and of course was proved right.

 

Luckily I was just a hired hand and was paid a fee for the day so it was no skin off my nose.

 

The band then had to spend much more money, than they originally intended, trying to get those dodgy and rushed recordings sounding halfway decent at the mixing stage, which was impossible to do.

 

I'd prefer to to record one perfect tune in a day than 10 rubbish sounding ones.

 

We recorded a four track EP in a day, it was live recordings so all instruments playing together and we were absolutely solid with the songs after rehearsing plenty so took three takes for each song and then added vocals at the end of the day. Even then, it was a long day.

[BigRedX]

3 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

We recorded a four track EP in a day, it was live recordings so all instruments playing together and we were absolutely solid with the songs after rehearsing plenty so took three takes for each song and then added vocals at the end of the day. Even then, it was a long day.

 

How long did you spend mixing them?

[Supernaut]

I usually record bass with the drums, live in the room. Can't explain why but I've always preferred doing this over doing it separately. 

[BigRedX]

The only time I've ever recorded bass separately to (real) drums was when I was asked to replace a bass part that had been recorded by my predecessor in the band as the singer and guitarist preferred my less busy part. The reason it was less busy was because I had had time to learn all the intricacies of the original, but I never told them that!

[SteveXFR]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

 

How long did you spend mixing them?

 

The mix wasn't done on the day. The mix was done separately by a friend of the recording engineer who had more experience with heavy music. It was done over about a week with us going in for final tweaks

[Buddster]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

- it turned out that Pro-Tools didn't like the SMPTE start time of 0:0:0:00 and once that had been changed in Logic to 1:0:0:00 everything ran fine for the rest of the day

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. 

 

 

[BigRedX]

41 minutes ago, Buddster said:

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. 

 

It had never occurred before because I was using Logic as the time code source and had set 0:0:0:00 as the first beat of the first bar which meant it was impossible to go "earlier" than that. Even when I was striping tape at home the code started at 0:0:0:00 and before that there would be no code to sync to.

 

And the words "Digital" and "Tape" should never go together. All the disadvantages of tape with few of the benefits of digital. 

Edited November 29, 2023 by BigRedX

[Dad3353]

9 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

...And the words "Digital" and "Tape" should never go together. All the disadvantages of tape with few of the benefits of digital. 

 

At a certain period of History, there was not much alternative..! 

 

[Rich]

We recorded a whole load of songs in one day, the idea was to capture our live feel as much as possible. A couple of solos were re-done afterwards but by and large it was all first/second/third takes. Mixing and tweaking took a while, perhaps understandably. We recorded in the teeth of a huge storm, and at one point all the power went off... when it became apparent that it was staying off, we got a big generator from a mate of a mate and in true Apollo 13 style only switched on the stuff we really needed, and carried on regardless.

The hum of the generator is very faintly audible on one of the vocal tracks, but we kept it in as a memento of the day.

[Lozz196]

Re the instrument thing, I’ve been in loads of recording studios all over the place, all of them had guitars/basses/amps lying around, they’re pretty much tools of the job.

 

But as with anything that isn’t mine, I’d only use it if granted permission by the owner. Confirm with the producer it’s ok to use then great go ahead but never just pick them up and play, that’s just bad manners.

[scalpy]

21 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Re the instrument thing, I’ve been in loads of recording studios all over the place, all of them had guitars/basses/amps lying around, they’re pretty much tools of the job.

 

But as with anything that isn’t mine, I’d only use it if granted permission by the owner. Confirm with the producer it’s ok to use then great go ahead but never just pick them up and play, that’s just bad manners.

Plus one to this. Like Lozz, I’ve had a fair bit of studio experience and the etiquette is important, basically don’t touch anything unless you’ve had permission, regardless of its location. It still isn’t yours. Most of my studio experience has been working for a producer who was a head engineer at AIR. As a young buck starting sessions with him it was really obvious how much care he took over everything, washing his hands after meals before driving the desk, being super tidy with cables, pointing out trip hazards etc. He even has a little trick setting up vocal mics, he’ll start a conversation with the singer as he stands next them, gauge how tall they are and bingo, the vocal mic is exactly the right height, negating the need for them to faff with the stand with the neumann on top. 

[BigRedX]

57 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

 

At a certain period of History, there was not much alternative..! 

 

 

But I'm sure you know that's there's a massive difference between the kinds of low band-width data that 60s "computers" used which was written and retrieved by devices designed specifically for the purpose, and trying to cram 8 tracks of 16bit 48kHz digital audio onto a video cassette.

[Dad3353]

3 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

But I'm sure you know that's there's a massive difference between the kinds of low band-width data that 60s "computers" used which was written and retrieved by devices designed specifically for the purpose, and trying to cram 8 tracks of 16bit 48kHz digital audio onto a video cassette.

 

I was simply reacting to the words 'And the words "Digital" and "Tape" should never go together. All the disadvantages of tape with few of the benefits of digital.' 

[Leonard Smalls]

3 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

there's a massive difference between the kinds of low band-width data that 60s "computers" used

50s and 60s 2" then 1" computer tape was the basis for analogue video recording. Which has massively higher bandwidth than 8 audio tracks! Video bandwidth is around 5.5MHz. And back in the 90s, when I was involved in this sort of thing, computer processing power was not sufficiently fast for uncompressed full 625 lines digital TV, hence any recording had to be done via tape. Firstly using the component D1 system, which used 3 tapes to record (effectively) RG and B, then the composite D2 single cassette system (which we at the Beeb never used), then Panasonic's D3 (which we did - I used it a lot!). 

When I worked in our transfer suite my most exciting job was to record from a 2" 24 track tape (an Otari) and 35mm film bay onto 19 16mm magnetic tape machines, 6 Nagra T 1/4" machines, 4 D3s, a Sony Digibeta, 6 Fostex DATs and 20 VHSs. I could have recorded it in multiple passes, but this would have taken days (50 mins runtime) so I did it in one, using one of the record Nagras as timecode master (they had the best T/C). It took 3 hours to plug the various machines for audio, video and syncs but it was a joy to see when setting the master Nagra off all those other machines going in unison - each film/mag bay alone was 6 feet high and 18" wide!

[Kickass]

I worked in a pro studio in the 80s and 90s, going from 2", 16 track to 3 or 4 Adats and never saw a chewed Adat tape. New high quality TDK or HHB tapes for every job. The old MCI/Sony 2" machine would jump into fast rewind and loose the remote. You had to be quick getting to the monster of a machine and hit stop before it got to the end and produced a cloud of brown confetti. We ran the Adats at 16 bit ( 18 or 20 bit on the newer machines) and 44kHz.

 

... anyway, studio etiquette..

Musicians set up instruments and drums before mics put in place, DI the bass even if an amp is miced, guitar/bass amps in their own space. Tune frequently. Cases and unused instruments tidied away. No smoking, eating in the studio or control room. Tune again. Make sure the engineer is not on coffee making duty and send band members to do any food shopping. Tune again. Don't sit singing, chatting or messing with instruments in the back of the control room. Don't bring alcohol unless this has been confirmed before. Tune again. Ask before unplugging or switching instruments or amps off. Singers remember how close to the mic they were singing and try to keep that consistent. Bring lyric sheets. Try to have only essential members in for the mix, too many cooks... Acoustic stringed instruments should be muted when not being played or may resonate and be distracting or worse esp in the control room. Don't ask the engineer to do a final mix after spending 10 hours recording.

Modern times has brought other things into focus: phones off or in another room.

There will be more I've forgotten.

D

(edit to add a biggie: Don't P off the engineer!)

Edited November 29, 2023 by Kickass

[Chezz55]

14 hours ago, neepheid said:

I wouldn't dream of picking up a guitar that doesn't belong to me without asking for permission. If it was unclear who it belongs to, I wouldn't pick it up.

 

Poor show if you think otherwise, in my book.

 

I agree with this 100%.