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Post by svart on Sept 20, 2013 15:16:48 GMT -6
So one of my very first clients came in on a discounted rate to do a 3 song demo. From the start, I kept getting "help" on things like "My friend uses a compressor on his drums and I think it sounds better, can you do that too?" and "I think it would help if you added a little 5khz to the cymbals" and stuff like that.. But it was almost relentless. I even found myself asking the client if they would let me record and then do a rough mix before we discussed changes and adjustments. The client agreed but the second-guessing my work continued, almost stepped up a notch.
Things got done regardless but after the mixes were done, I found out that the client had taken a lot of what he learned from me, bought some gear and started recording his band on his own and also started taking clients of his own.. To this day, I've had a few bands who were in talks with myself for recording end up at his home studio, which is little more than an Mbox and some Behringer gear.. I mean, the gear aside (because I've actually heard stuff that sounded good from skilled folks using behringer/Mbox type setups) I've not been impressed at all with the sounds I've heard and I feel that I could have done a lot better than that for those bands who chose him over me..
And yes, I'm a little bitter. I feel like I have worked hard to bring good recordings to folks while this guy seems to do more business even with sub-par results.
How about you, have you had something like this happen?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2013 17:08:09 GMT -6
I usually have to scrap for whatever work if any I get. I usually don't let this kind of thing bother me cause nobody in a million years is going to hear the way I do. Gear aside. I do have some hilarious stories regarding SHITTY clients. People who have zero concept of how much work and skill it takes to make a good recording.
The big question is, how bad is his work? Is it something you can post up? Is it different planets or different cities? Sometimes we exaggerate the differences when the average musicians (IQ: 65) can't hear it.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2013 11:49:40 GMT -6
I guess it's a sign of time.
In the old days, as a band we saw how a studio was built, the countless hours of work, gear was expensive, the 24-track tape, the DAW too, tons of handmade cabling, there was a lot of magic and secret knowledge. You couldn't go home, and buy this stuff over the internet and just start your own business. You learned first things by FoH mixing, live, worked with experienced producers, admiring them and sucked up valuable information, tips and tricks, like a sponge for the own knowledge and later productions. It has been a long way from a musician to pro audio engineering...
But things have changed. At that time, a soundblaster card was a great thing: "Wow - CD quality!"
Nowadays i can buy a really good DAC for 200 bucks, obviously, or even buy an 8-ch. Behringer ADA with preamps for the same and start recording in the bedroom...somehow...
Well, if it comes to business, as everywhere, you can get it reasonably priced and fair, or cheap and inferior. From experienced people with near golden ears or deaf ones. The choice is always at the clients side. Quality gets word of mouth, no matter if it is good or bad...
Best regards,
Martin
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Post by svart on Sept 23, 2013 6:59:41 GMT -6
I usually have to scrap for whatever work if any I get. I usually don't let this kind of thing bother me cause nobody in a million years is going to hear the way I do. Gear aside. I do have some hilarious stories regarding SHITTY clients. People who have zero concept of how much work and skill it takes to make a good recording. The big question is, how bad is his work? Is it something you can post up? Is it different planets or different cities? Sometimes we exaggerate the differences when the average musicians (IQ: 65) can't hear it. Let me see if there is a way I can do it without making it obvious who I might be talking about.. I have to scrap pretty hard for work as well so I can't professionally burn bridges by just posting stuff that might get back to me. This guy is friends and is starting to work with a lot of the same people I am so while I feel like I can vent a little on here, I just don't want to end up seeming unprofessional. |
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Post by svart on Sept 30, 2013 8:03:44 GMT -6
So yet another moan, I guess I'll add it here instead of making another whiny thread.. I gave a dude I had worked with before some free time in the studio. Partially because he's a cool dude and after a long hiatus he was getting back into writing music, and partially because he's pretty popular with a lot of folks and I could use a bit of the advertisement of him recording at my place. He started tracking and then decided he didn't care for the drummer's style and found another drummer. During the time they were taking to get the new drummer up to speed to record, the guy won a Battle Of The Bands type of thing and part of the winning package was that he got free studio time at a larger studio in town.
I asked him about coming back to finish what he started and he told me that he's moving the production to the larger studio and essentially not going to finish what he started at my place.
Part of me is like WTF, that he should at least make my time worth it by finishing SOMETHING at my place so that I have something to show for the time I put in for free. Part of me says that I'd probably do the same thing if I were in his shoes.
How would you feel about this?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 30, 2013 23:58:27 GMT -6
Hrmpf.
That's what i would feel.
Well, you pretty much had just bad luck, giving away studio time for free without any conditions agreed upon has the risk that something like this happens and you don't get anything for your investment of time. Not even a product for show-off, no word of mouth, nothing.
Yup, screwed, unfortunately.
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Post by svart on Oct 8, 2013 11:10:48 GMT -6
well, it looks like it's turning out for the best. I've gotten at least two artists forwarded to me from the other artist. The artist who previously left to work at the big studio has come back to do some other songs in a quicker and less hectic environment at my place. So we'll see how it goes, but so far I can't complain anymore.
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Post by Johnkenn on Oct 8, 2013 16:23:02 GMT -6
So one of my very first clients came in on a discounted rate to do a 3 song demo. From the start, I kept getting "help" on things like "My friend uses a compressor on his drums and I think it sounds better, can you do that too?" and "I think it would help if you added a little 5khz to the cymbals" and stuff like that.. But it was almost relentless. I even found myself asking the client if they would let me record and then do a rough mix before we discussed changes and adjustments. The client agreed but the second-guessing my work continued, almost stepped up a notch. Things got done regardless but after the mixes were done, I found out that the client had taken a lot of what he learned from me, bought some gear and started recording his band on his own and also started taking clients of his own.. To this day, I've had a few bands who were in talks with myself for recording end up at his home studio, which is little more than an Mbox and some Behringer gear.. I mean, the gear aside (because I've actually heard stuff that sounded good from skilled folks using behringer/Mbox type setups) I've not been impressed at all with the sounds I've heard and I feel that I could have done a lot better than that for those bands who chose him over me.. And yes, I'm a little bitter. I feel like I have worked hard to bring good recordings to folks while this guy seems to do more business even with sub-par results. How about you, have you had something like this happen? I would make it my personal mission to destroy him. I've got a list of my own I'm working through. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2013 20:29:50 GMT -6
I've dealt with enough doucheclowns to write a book.
Everything from hotshot punkrockstars who can't go 10 seconds without namedropping some nobody, to total juicebags who can't make it through a week without drugs or alchohol, to cheapskate bands who somehow have enough money to spend on tattoos from head to toe but can't scrap together a few hundred dollars for a good recording, to bands who, in an effort to appear professional have simply decided what my time was worth after completing their project, to lame crowd funding attempts and socials.
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Post by tonycamphd on Oct 16, 2013 23:27:18 GMT -6
When i had my commercial place mid 90's, i just told bands that sucked, "you suck, i cant fix that in the mix dude", my studio went out of business lol, but a least i have my dignity intact  Seriously though, i don't know how you guys do it, the bands today are worse than back then, you guys must have zen like discipline, much respect to you!! At this point in my life, I'm in it for me, and that makes me  , because if i had to do the track/mix thing for others again, i'd be a huge fail,...again, with cherries on top!! |
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Post by svart on Oct 18, 2013 8:00:37 GMT -6
I worked in an internet call center when I was in college. I got paid 10$ an hour to try to help people connect to the internet.. Over 28.8K modems..
I learned patience. I learned maturity.
I also learned that maturity really only means being jaded to the point of being dulled!
Anyway, working with bands is a lot like people over the phone. You can't take anything personal. People are fickle and they have no regard for anything beyond themselves. The thing I realized about this is that they don't even know they are doing it. Drawing attention to their actions will NEVER get them to adjust, it only succeeds in making them angry and defensive and then impossible to deal with.
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Post by tonycamphd on Oct 18, 2013 11:09:53 GMT -6
I also learned that maturity really only means being jaded to the point of being dulled! lmao! which is rare for my dulled and jaded soul 8) thanx svart |
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Post by henge on Oct 18, 2013 12:07:59 GMT -6
I also learned that maturity really only means being jaded to the point of being dulled! Anyway, working with bands is a lot like people over the phone. You can't take anything personal. People are fickle and they have no regard for anything beyond themselves. The thing I realized about this is that they don't even know they are doing it. Drawing attention to their actions will NEVER get them to adjust, it only succeeds in making them angry and defensive and then impossible to deal with. Amen!! |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2013 3:11:59 GMT -6
I worked in an internet call center when I was in college. I got paid 10$ an hour to try to help people connect to the internet.. Over 28.8K modems.. I learned patience. I learned maturity. I also learned that maturity really only means being jaded to the point of being dulled! Anyway, working with bands is a lot like people over the phone. You can't take anything personal. People are fickle and they have no regard for anything beyond themselves. The thing I realized about this is that they don't even know they are doing it. Drawing attention to their actions will NEVER get them to adjust, it only succeeds in making them angry and defensive and then impossible to deal with. Great post. Worked over a decade in IT related jobs with lots of hotline-like communication... Beeing calm, mature, friendly, polite and committed are the keys for successful professional communication. Once communication goes really wrong, it is hard to get back a productive connection to your customer, often enough there really is a point of no return... It is sometimes possible, that the customer accepts your authority as a subject matter expert and really listens to your advices and let you do your thing. This rare condition (sarcasm...) is sometimes given, if there is an age difference, the customer is aware of your expertise from the beginning and concentrates on his role as a musician, or if he has to admit he is totally lost in the situation, gives up the idea that he can stay in control over everything and therefore calms down and is open to productive solutions again... But well - you can't count on this. It can take literally years to learn how to professionally stay in control anytime and force productive communication, even in stressful situations with customers in or near a nervous bréakdown...(even if they are complete assholes...at least up to a certain point...) You might partly be in the role of a psychologist or sometimes even psychotherapist in a group session... dealing with huge amounts of narcissm, exploding or collapsing egos, reality loss and all that kind of stuff...  "It's a dirty job but somebody has to do it..."  Best regards, Martin |
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Post by svart on Oct 21, 2013 8:32:22 GMT -6
I had this one guy call up. He was probably the hardest call I ever took. It went something like this..
Me: hello, thanks for calling _____________, can I get your email address so I can pull up your records?
Him: Your servers are down.
Me: Ok sir, I'll check that out, but first, I need to get your email address.. (while I look at the server conditions.. ALL GREEN)
Him: No. I just wanted you to know your servers were down.
Me: Ok, let me check.. No sir, our system shows 100% operation. Can I get your email address so I can help you get connected?
Him: LOOK GODDAMN IT, I'M A NETWORK ADMIN. I HAVE MY MCSE AND A+ AND MY WIFE IS A NETWORK ENGINEER AND MY COUSIN IS HEAD OF R&D AT MICROSOFT AND I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!
Me: Ok sir, I understand, but I have to do this by the book on my end. Help me help you, ok?
Him: Fine, whatever. You'll see that I'm right and I'll make sure you lose your job for wasting my fucking time. Everytime I call you people put me on hold or lie to me about my service. I'm sick of it. Everytime I call to report your shitty service, you lie to me about it being on MY end. Well, I tell you, I'm, through with playing your games. I'm going to make YOU and your company SORRY! My lawyer is going to have his way with you and your company!
Me: Uh, ok. Sir, I'm just doing what I have to do. I have to get your email address, then find out your problem, then double check it on my end, then walk you through your settings. That's what I have to do.
Him: FINE. UGGH. it's blah@blahblah.blah
Me: Thank you sir. I'm going to go dial into the number you currently use to dial in. I use a computer connected to a landline to do this check so it's just like if you were doing it.
Him: FINE, You'll see that it's not working and you'll apologize to me for wasting my time. I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!
Me: (I dial into the number and it connects just fine, as expected)
Me: Ok sir.....
Him (cutting me off midsentence) HA! I TOLD YOU THAT IT WAS DOWN!!, NOW APOLOGIZE!
Me: Sir, I was able to dial into the number you dial into, and using your username and password, I was able to connect without issue.
Him: WHAAAAAT? YOU FUCKING LIAR!!! YOU ARE A FUCKING LIAR!!! YOU PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS LYING TO ME. I GODDAMN KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!! I'M A MOTHERFUCKING MCSE CERTIFIED NETWORK ADMIN GODDAMN IT (and this goes on for a good 2 minutes)
Me: (after letting him rant) Sir, can we go through your dialup settings?
Him: FUCK YOU. NO, I'M NOT LETTING SOME STUPID LITTLE PUNK GO THROUGH MY SETTINGS. I'M SMARTER THAN YOU, THAT'S WHY I'M AN MCSE AND YOU ARE JUST A HELPDESK WORKER. YOU WOULDN'T KNOW THE FIRST THING ABOUT HELPING ME DO ANYTHING.
Me: (at this time, the manager on duty is listening in because I've gone over the normal call time. I can hear him giggling his ass off over the cubical wall.) Sir, look, I have to go by the list. If you are refusing my help, I'm going to have to end the call.
Him: NO. I'm going to keep you on the phone as long as it takes for your company to figure out the problem ON YOUR END. (he knows that I can't hang up on him.. So he's going to hold me phone hostage..)
Me: Sir, either I help you go through your settings, or I'm going to have to escalate this issue.
Him: NO WAY am I going to let you off this phone. you're going to transfer me and conveniently disconnect me and I bet you'll even lose any trace of evidence that I called!
Me: Well sir, the alternative is that I go through your settings with you. I'm asking you one last time to allow me to go through them with you. Look, I want to help you, but you have to let me.
Him: OK FINE. We'll go through the settings just so you'll shut up.
Me: Ok, good. Lets start by looking at your TCP/IP settings... Yada yada.
(At this time, most of the normal settings look fine. We go into some of the advance settings which also look fine.)
Me: Ok sir, the last thing we need to look at is the dial up settings.
Him: I don't see why this would matter. I have them saved and they are the same settings I've always used, unless you are calling me a LIAR!!
Me: No sir, I'm not calling you anything. I just have to go through the list (there really wasn't a list, but it was an easy way to get people to think that there was a more educated person that directed our work who made these instructions for us. It kinda made people more compliant most of the time.)
Him: Fine lets get this over with. i can't wait to show you that you are wrong and your company is a bunch of fraudulent liars.
Me: Ok sir, I need you to open up the dial up properties for the connection that you usually use. ( I then hear him try to connect, and all the modem beeps and hissing going on in the background..)
Him: See, it says "invalid username or password". I told you that it's not working.
Me: Sir, can you READ to me what the username in the box says?
Him: It says... Hey wait... It says Valued Sony Customer.. WHAT THE FUCK? HOW DID YOU DO THAT?
Me: How did I do what, sir?
Him: How did you change my username on my computer?
Me: Sir, I can't do that. Can you retype your username and password and try to connect. (I'm now watching the logon process through the server admin backend.. and as he attempts dialup I can see he's logged in..)
Me: Sir, I can see you've connected..
Him: Fuck YOU. I can see now that you've fixed the problem on your end. I told you it was your server! You've just kept me on the phone long enough to fix it so you can blame this on me!! I don't know how you did it but you reset my username and tried to FOOL me! Well FUCK YOU and FUCK YOUR COMPANY. I'M GOING TO SUE ALL OF YOU!!
And he hangs up.
At this point, just about everybody in the room is listening in on the manager's speaker phone. We've got this recorded as well, so when he does call the corporate office, we have proof.
Anyway, Sony computers back in the day had a real nasty habit of resetting their defaults anytime Windows was updated. We all assumed that this guy's computer was updated that it defaulted back to the default username.
We reported this guy to the corporate folks for being threatening and as far as I know, they cancelled his account.
But the folks who claimed to know the most were often the worst people to deal with. They always thought they were *too good* to be helped and often called in to the helpdesk just to complain.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2013 9:58:22 GMT -6
Oh yes. Been there, done that.
MCSE, LOL. I have seen lots of MCSA, MCSE and other brainwashed certified "specialists" that didn't know shit about operating systems, esp. their MS ones in practice. ~2000 i was involved into a MS project translating training documents for them...OMG....sigh...
Well, that's life. You have to deal with people like this - however.
:-D
BR,
Martin
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Post by popmann on Oct 23, 2013 21:24:04 GMT -6
I've certainly had clients who felt like there must be something SOMEONE can do to make their very amateur recordings sound like a radio hit....my "mixing" better than me. Hookay. I did have one once who decided to build his own studio after liking what I did recording him...his first question "what DAW do you use"? I answered, "none--wrong question." I told him I could use software (and do now)...buy, that had little to do with why he liked my recordings and didn't like a....um, bigger name in town's work with his band. I listened to them and made a good recording of them and their sound. The other guy immediately told them to plug into his preset amp models and replaced all their drums and autotuned the singer--made them sound like "a record"...not like "a good recording of them". But, when I was doing arrangements and engineering in the commercial room in the 90s, I Did some full arrangements for a songwriting team...which got them their development deal. They took the advance and bought Band In a Box and a Kurzweil K2000 so they didn't need to hire me anymore. They never went beyond development. Wonder why?  |
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Post by svart on Oct 24, 2013 7:49:29 GMT -6
I've gotten a few inquiries from bands for partial work, like recording some tracks or mixing stuff that I didn't record.. They usually go like this:
Them: Hey, do you have "The Protools" with all the plug ins?
Me: No, I use Reaper and I use the rack gear that the plug-ins emulate, which is much better.
Them: so you don't have "The Protools"? Our guy says that outboard gear is noisy and the plugins are so much better!
Me: No, but I use software that is equivalent and I can import your tracks and export tracks for you to use in pro tools later.
Them: But we use this amp modeling plug to get our sound. Do you have that plug in?
Me: No, I have real amplifiers and good mics. We can get you the sound you want for real and it'll sound much better.
Them: No, I don't think so, we really want the plug-ins and the amp modeling. We'll keep looking.
UGGH.
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Post by tonycamphd on Oct 24, 2013 8:06:36 GMT -6
^ honestly, i'd rather flip burgers than put up with that stuff. I've been really building up the quality of my studio here for this past years, i hope to get a very few/ select artists or bands in here to record when i'm done(done..lol!), but it's mostly about my own personal use. I would shoot myself 6 times if i had to deal with the mouth breathers again...
Svart, if your trying to be a commercial studio, shouldn't you just get pro tools 11?
good luck to you all
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Post by svart on Oct 24, 2013 9:24:28 GMT -6
I looked into it a long time ago. Between all the DSP cards and software and stuff it was just too expensive. Besides, I trashed most all of the plug ins and went outboard. Now I just use the DAW like a tape deck for the most part. If I *had* to pay the bills with recording, I would think about it again. Then again, I also think about the stupid questions I get, like those above, and think that it's not worth the money and effort just to please those types. Another one I got recently was: Me: What type of guitar sound are you going for? What amp do you plan on using on the session? Them: I dunno, it's a clean-ish sound from one of my pedal presets. I'm not bringing an amp, I'm going direct. Me: Well, we'll setup one of my amps and get you a sound from that. It'll sound better. Them: But my direct sounds really good, can we try that first? So then the session comes and I go straight into the low gain amp input and start setting up the EQ but the guy doesn't know he's not going direct.. Them: OMG that sounds awesome! I knew my direct was good. Me: Uh, that's my amp you hear.. Them:  Me: This is your direct. (I switch over to the shrillest, tinny-est sound..) Them: Can we go back to the amp? And we've only done a few sessions but he keeps complimenting me on the guitar tone, which I didn't really think was anything special.. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2013 17:19:44 GMT -6
Right now I am sending a client their entire EP on one track. Their request, they aren't pressing CDs and Bandcamp doesn't do gapless albums so this was their course of action. They're a new band, nobody is going to listen to it, I tried to explain to them how bad of an idea it is. Oh well.
I hate bands.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2013 9:50:11 GMT -6
LOL.
They should link to a page with a cue sheet for download, though...
Accidentally :-) i like the idea of albums that are continuous, like it was meant for vinyl LPs in ancient decades....
But this means that the mastering guy has to make different decisions, so doing 2 types of mastering is the way to go, an LP resp. EP pre-mastering, and a radio play/download platform / single type of pre-mastering, where every song e.g. is normalized independently, just like a single release.
Unfortunately, it costs the client additional money. But it would be done the right way, without compromise.
If one goes further, even the MP3 releases of a song should be pre-mastered differently to compensate for the coloring due to compression artifacts...
But well, if we are at MP3 quality (at least some of those qualities that were actually sold online...), we step into the land of oxymora....
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Post by cenafria on Oct 28, 2013 7:58:46 GMT -6
So one of my very first clients came in on a discounted rate to do a 3 song demo. From the start, I kept getting "help" on things like "My friend uses a compressor on his drums and I think it sounds better, can you do that too?" and "I think it would help if you added a little 5khz to the cymbals" and stuff like that.. But it was almost relentless. I even found myself asking the client if they would let me record and then do a rough mix before we discussed changes and adjustments. The client agreed but the second-guessing my work continued, almost stepped up a notch. Things got done regardless but after the mixes were done, I found out that the client had taken a lot of what he learned from me, bought some gear and started recording his band on his own and also started taking clients of his own.. To this day, I've had a few bands who were in talks with myself for recording end up at his home studio, which is little more than an Mbox and some Behringer gear.. I mean, the gear aside (because I've actually heard stuff that sounded good from skilled folks using behringer/Mbox type setups) I've not been impressed at all with the sounds I've heard and I feel that I could have done a lot better than that for those bands who chose him over me.. And yes, I'm a little bitter. I feel like I have worked hard to bring good recordings to folks while this guy seems to do more business even with sub-par results. How about you, have you had something like this happen? Sometimes the reasons for a band choosing a studio over another are completely unfathomable. A lot of the time they have nothing to do with sound quality. Whenever a client chose a studio that i thought was inferior to mine I just tried to channel the feelings I had about it into something positive (sorry if this sounds too hippie/newage). Tried to think of ways to improve the studio, offer an even better service. All this while keeping a mindset that is not really about competing with other studios, but improving the way we do things. I imagine all studios struggle with this sort of thing. |
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Seriously though, i don't know how you guys do it, the bands today are worse than back then, you guys must have zen like discipline, much respect to you!! At this point in my life, I'm in it for me, and that makes me 
, because if i had to do the track/mix thing for others again, i'd be a huge fail,...again, with cherries on top!!
