Bad recording experience

It was probably a wooden shack with a biker pretend to be a musician type dude who charged 20 bucks an hour from the sounds of it
 
It was probably a wooden shack with a biker pretend to be a musician type dude who charged 20 bucks an hour from the sounds of it

HA! Yeah exactly right.......

I've been to several "recording studios" where some guy has set up a recording studio in his house. Where he has each musician in a different room of the house. You know the guitar player is in the kitchen etc. A real shoestring operation. Low cost studio time. But usually these guys are the nicest people to work with.

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HA! Yeah exactly right.......

I've been to several "recording studios" where some guy has set up a recording studio in his house. Where he has each musician in a different room of the house. You know the guitar player is in the kitchen etc. A real shoestring operation. Low cost studio time. But usually these guys are the nicest people to work with.

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True. So true. Sometimes the converted houses that get turned into studios for bands to record specific albums can produce amazing results, too. A 'proper' studio is a great thing to have but you can do a Hell of a lot with a home setup. My studio at work is fantastically well-equipped and I love working in there but I also have the option to do recording and editing at home and they both have their separate appeals.

EDIT: Really, what it's all about for me is creating a comfortable space for performers. The last project I recorded was a few weeks ago (still editing!) with a flautist and one of the reasons I chose to do it at home rather than at work was because we had a coffee machine and could keep our own hours for playing around. It was just more comfortable, even if it was technically inferior.
 
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This is my fault. When I originally asked the OP who was the "producer", I meant "Producer" to mean someone who works with/for the band.
As in George Martin with the Beatles.

That's the type everyone thinks of-- it's a grandiose title, but really the producer is just the decision maker-- the person whose opinions get enacted, or who OKs other people's opinions/suggestions. In a case like the OP's where the engineer is supposedly hired to be the producer, he's still answerable to the client, even though he's making most of the creative decisions. Still not clear that that was the actual arrangement.

Both of you are misunderstanding what I was saying. When I wrote I was thinking of a a couple situations. The serve the music comment I was thinking of where I play drums on the weekend is a good example. It's a large church with full time engineer. We have dialogue...I want the way I have tech'ed my drums to complement the sound that is common and fitting for the way the church does music. I would never just roll in and say this is how my drums have to sound...especially if it wasn't complementing the entire band...and yes If the engineer said your drums are too ringy, or tuned to high or whatever I'd change them. I think this applies to session work too...often the producer has a certain sound in mind he wants to achieve, and working with the engineer can help to achieve this.

I also think of a typical studio session with a popular band. Like when I read an article the other day about Ronnie Vannucci in the studio...and he talks about how he worked with his producer and engineer to capture the vision the band and he had for drums for their most recent record.

I know if I was going in the studio with my band I'd want to work as closely with the experts to help achieve the best possible sound for the record and for my band. It's important to realize that the sound you may be after as a band may require so adjustments to the way you normally do things as a drummer when it comes to the studio

I'm not suggesting letting the engineer/producer make all the calls but in a professional setup, typically it's not just "hey I am going to just roll in and do whatever I want as the drummer....because hey I am the drummer...and nobody touches my drums!" Lol. Not only that but why wouldn't you dialogue with your engineer/producer as he has the experience to record great sonics usually and he is on the other side listening to everything...Teamwork makes great recordings

I've never had to say "nobody touches my drums" because I've never worked with an engineer or staff unprofessional enough to touch (much less make changes to) my equipment without asking.

And I don't understand you're driving at. The problem here was not lack of cooperation by the drummer, it was an engineer who was an extremely poor communicator and no sense of boundaries.

I know it's not apples to apples because the OP was talking about his band but in the session world in Nashville where there is ten guys in line to session drum, being hard to work with and a pain in the ass will get you straight to the bottom of the list.

In this case, the engineer was the contractor who was hard to work with, and it's his name that is going to the bottom of this client's (the OP's) list.

I don't know Im coming more from the angle of hired drummer I think because that is more my experience....if I was bringing in my own personal band I may have stronger opinions on how the drums should sound, but most likely I would find an engineer that I really loved his stuff and just let him do his thing.

Well, yeah, that's the whole point. The OP said it was his band. He wasn't the engineer's employee.
 
I've only recorded seven records, and most of those were done in semi-professional studios. I'm really lucky to have not run into some of the problems you guys have. However, rather than it being an indication of my playing and sound, that probably has more to do with working with second-rate, friend-of-the-band engineers who don't have strong opinions on how an instrument sounds, only whether or not the input's clipping. On top of that I've never worked with a producer, which leaves most everything up to the discretion of the player.

If you can believe it, I think I'd prefer an inferior product to working with an engineer or studio who would treat me like a burden or a moron.

The few times I've been in a professional studio the most I've been asked to do was tape down a tom or separate my cymbals from my toms, and even then those things were introduced by the engineer as a solution to a problem and not a command.

That might be an indication of my tuning and sound, but it's probably just that those guys knew what they were doing and how to work around my shortcomings...
 
The first post made me mad just reading it and I sympathize with the original poster.

Here is my take on the situation. For orchestral, avant garde, jazz etc., where you may at any time play any component of the kit or it's hardware in an unconventional way, then close micing is wrong. The whole rig has to treated as one complex acoustic voice, and miced from further back or up, in an isolated chamber, as if it were a marimba or a percussionist's rig.

Now the controversial bit:

Considering what producers and engineers expect and want during most recording sessions in the rock genre, we should consider using a good electronic kit in the studio. Just give them the MIDI-out feed to do what they want with. They don't understand acoustic drums so this is a great compromise. The hard work was already done at the factory.
 
I've never had to say "nobody touches my drums" because I've never worked with an engineer or staff unprofessional enough to touch (much less make changes to) my equipment without asking.

And I don't understand you're driving at. The problem here was not lack of cooperation by the drummer, it was an engineer who was an extremely poor communicator and no sense of boundaries.

Well I agree with that...you clearly don't understand what I am driving at or saying...but no I don't think there's anything wrong with their producer (same guy as engineer) making some decisions on how the drums should have sounded to make the record sound better. Clearly the OP didn't have a ton of experience in the studio. You shouldn't just assume he knows best.

It seems our experiences and perceptions of roles in the studio are quite different. I don't know you or anything about your drumming experience. I'm guessing by your handle you play a lot of cruise ships? That's cool. We have a difference of opinion and let's leave it that.
 
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The first post made me mad just reading it and I sympathize with the original poster.

Here is my take on the situation. For orchestral, avant garde, jazz etc., where you may at any time play any component of the kit or it's hardware in an unconventional way, then close micing is wrong. The whole rig has to treated as one complex acoustic voice, and miced from further back or up, in an isolated chamber, as if it were a marimba or a percussionist's rig.

Now the controversial bit:

Considering what producers and engineers expect and want during most recording sessions in the rock genre, we should consider using a good electronic kit in the studio. Just give them the MIDI-out feed to do what they want with. They don't understand acoustic drums so this is a great compromise. The hard work was already done at the factory.

Not even gonna touch the e-kit thing 😂. As far as close vs spaced mic'ing I think you, and most others miss the obvious. It's not a one or the other philosophy. The best drum recordings use both in conjunction. Four stereo room mics, two closer and two farther, combined with two stereo over head, one close mic per drum (two on the snare), one on the hat and one on the ride. This is my technique for mic'ing. You mix all of these together to give the illusion of depth and height, and close mics to get a true stereo on the hat, ride and toms
 
The main sound is almost always overheads, BD and ambient mics.

IN most modern situations though, you want individual control, both to shape sound, attack, body and processing, so there comes he need for the extra mics.
 
All this is a good reason to save up for your own studio gear. ie. a computer, audio interface and mics (& software of course) and then you can learn all that stuff yourself.
You can buy all the equipment there is to buy with money, but you can't buy
the huge amount of experience great engineers have. To me that's a lot more
important and precious than the gear used.
 
Sounds rough man. For the EP that i've been recording the engineer/producer is also a drummer. 1st thing we did was buy new heads for his kit(Pearl Masters, Coated Ambassadors over clear Ambassadors) and then he had me tune to my satisfaction. Then we recorded it and we determined what we needed to change to get the recorded sound to match up what we heard in the room. This involved retuning the kick and selecting completely different cymbals. The sound in the room ended up not being quite what i would want to play these songs live with but the sound on the tracks is exactly what i wanted. We used 4 mics on the drums Kick, snare, and a pair of overheads. The engineer should be able to mic your kit the way you tuned it and make it sound good but conversely recorded sound is an entirely different beast than live sound in a room and you as the drummer will have to make adjustments in order to get the sound on the tape to be what you hear in your head.
Interesting story!
 
Well I agree with that...you clearly don't understand what I am driving at or saying...but no I don't think there's anything wrong with their producer (same guy as engineer) making some decisions on how the drums should have sounded to make the record sound better. Clearly the OP didn't have a ton of experience in the studio. You shouldn't just assume he knows best.

Clearly neither have you, to be excusing the engineer's behavior in this case.
 
Clearly neither have you, to be excusing the engineer's behavior in this case.

You have no idea how this guys drums sounded. It might have been terrible. The engineer might have actually made things much better. All he did was remove the reso head on the kick since the guy didn't want to cut a hole in it, and ask him to tune out some of the ring in his snare. He has a right as the producer for the entire band to have an opinion on the way the drums sound and if they are hitting the mark the band envisioned for their record. You just don't know in this situation what really was going on.

I've got more than enough experience in the studio and working as live and studio engineer to have an opinion. I'm done arguing with you. Moving on...
 
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Good. Maybe read a couple of more magazine articles on studio etiquette.

I prefer actually working in the studio with professionals. Thanks for the tip though. I'll make sure to read your blog though if I ever aspire to be a cruise ship drummer.
 
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