Band messes with final mix

cloy26

cloy26

d00d
Jul 17, 2009
1,165
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Port St. Lucie, FL
www.myspace.com
Make a long story short:

-I record band.
they suck.
-I make them sound good.
-I replay some of their "tapping leads" because the guitarists aren't good enough to lay consistently strong tapping.
-I messed around with the guitar tone for a few days because they suck as guitarists and were sloppy and didn't play strong.
-Mixed everything fine.
-Give them track.
-ONLY the one guitarist bitches and said his "leads" (that I retracked myself) need to be louder.
-I say no it's fine have a good day, fuck.
-They put my song into fruity loops and "master" a mastered track.

outcome:

-song is SO muddy and Extremely ear piercing. Im pretty sure just high and low shelves and the vocals now, which I spent hours autotuning, are now buried.
-I get pissed and say you better ot use my fucking name on that shit fucking mix you fuck. and I re recorded all your tapping parts because you suck.

:zzz:

Any other people have similar experiences? Like a band taking your mix and "fixing it" themselves? It didn't need fixing and I showed it to a number of people (into recording and others who aren't) and they all said the same thing. It isn't just me.
 
I had a somewhat similar situation about a month ago. This band had tracked on and off at our studio for the past year. I was brought in to only mix and master the 7 songs, and I wasn't getting paid much because they were flat broke, and we basically just wanted them out of the studio.

They're a black/death metal band, but they're pretty generic. They had recorded all of their guitars by playing the riff and copying and pasting it. My boss was the engineer on the album, and he said that they were demanding to work a certain way, spouting things about having "20 years experience recording in studios."

The drums were programmed, and the brass was played over the top of it. They didn't want the brass edited. They wanted it "natural," meaning it was off time with the programmed drums.

That's just the tip of the iceberg with these guys. So I was brought in to replace the DFH tracks with samples, stack the kit and mix the songs. I proceed to do this over the course of a few days while they aren't at the studio so I could get my work done without being interrupted every 5 minutes. They come in at the end of the week for a day of going through the songs and tweaking them. They had told me that the mixes were 90% there, they just needed some tweaks. After we get done, they're super happy. They had been worried about consistency from one song to the next, and they sounded great. They pay me for the mixing and pay me upfront for the mastering.

Over the next week, I try to master the tracks, but they call me 15-20 times a day with other tweaks. They would say things like "I listened to the songs at a 'flat response' through my computer, and they sound different then in my car or from how they did at the studio." I tell them that things are going to sound slightly different through different sources. They don't believe that, saying that it should never be that way. They say shit like "the guitars are too thin, they need a lot more treble." I shit you not. And the guitars were FAR from thin. They say the snare sounds too mechanical...I tell them the drums were programmed, reminding them that it was their choice to do that from the start. I could do nothing about it, since I was only brought in to mix and master, not re-program their drums. I tell them things will be done that following Tuesday. They show up to the studio Monday, unannounced and uninvited, just walking in on the middle of another client's session. They tell me to stop work, demand their money back for the mastering and want their sessions. I tell them go get an external hard drive, they aren't getting their money back because I put nearly 40 hours (yes, really) into what was supposed to just be a mastering session and that they already signed the invoice. I give them their sessions, then they ask me to LIE to their label, coming up with some bullshit about why it isn't done. Then they try to guilt trip me.

I told them to leave, and told them to take my name, the name of the studio and any reference to us off of the material if it ever gets release.

That's the basic version of the story, and I know it's long...You can just imagine what the other 75% of the bullshit was like.
 
I had a situation where the guy who duplicated a client's disc decided he was going to get credited for "mastering" my work. Something I had spent hours mastering for real.

Gotta love this business!
 
I'd never give a band their tracks (fucked up as it sounds), unless they pay me for that too, and state in paper they're not using my name for their experiments or something... post clips!
 
Some punk thinking he knows how to do a better job then you needs to face reality imo. You should never mess with a sound engineer, unless you are one. :cool:

Would be cool to hear your/their version of the song. :Spin:
 
I had a somewhat similar situation about a month ago. This band had tracked on and off at our studio for the past year. I was brought in to only mix and master the 7 songs, and I wasn't getting paid much because they were flat broke, and we basically just wanted them out of the studio.

They're a black/death metal band, but they're pretty generic. They had recorded all of their guitars by playing the riff and copying and pasting it. My boss was the engineer on the album, and he said that they were demanding to work a certain way, spouting things about having "20 years experience recording in studios."

The drums were programmed, and the brass was played over the top of it. They didn't want the brass edited. They wanted it "natural," meaning it was off time with the programmed drums.

That's just the tip of the iceberg with these guys. So I was brought in to replace the DFH tracks with samples, stack the kit and mix the songs. I proceed to do this over the course of a few days while they aren't at the studio so I could get my work done without being interrupted every 5 minutes. They come in at the end of the week for a day of going through the songs and tweaking them. They had told me that the mixes were 90% there, they just needed some tweaks. After we get done, they're super happy. They had been worried about consistency from one song to the next, and they sounded great. They pay me for the mixing and pay me upfront for the mastering.

Over the next week, I try to master the tracks, but they call me 15-20 times a day with other tweaks. They would say things like "I listened to the songs at a 'flat response' through my computer, and they sound different then in my car or from how they did at the studio." I tell them that things are going to sound slightly different through different sources. They don't believe that, saying that it should never be that way. They say shit like "the guitars are too thin, they need a lot more treble." I shit you not. And the guitars were FAR from thin. They say the snare sounds too mechanical...I tell them the drums were programmed, reminding them that it was their choice to do that from the start. I could do nothing about it, since I was only brought in to mix and master, not re-program their drums. I tell them things will be done that following Tuesday. They show up to the studio Monday, unannounced and uninvited, just walking in on the middle of another client's session. They tell me to stop work, demand their money back for the mastering and want their sessions. I tell them go get an external hard drive, they aren't getting their money back because I put nearly 40 hours (yes, really) into what was supposed to just be a mastering session and that they already signed the invoice. I give them their sessions, then they ask me to LIE to their label, coming up with some bullshit about why it isn't done. Then they try to guilt trip me.

I told them to leave, and told them to take my name, the name of the studio and any reference to us off of the material if it ever gets release.

That's the basic version of the story, and I know it's long...You can just imagine what the other 75% of the bullshit was like.
Click to expand...

This is no joke fellas. I did the drum programming for this album and the entire process was like pulling teeth.

First they wanted all natural drums because "programmed drums sound wayy to robotronic". So we spent weeks tracking each song piece by piece by day, and me editing well into the night, and after about 2 months of that it still wasn't good enough.

Then when they heard what programmed drums sounded like (and me telling them about other commercial releases with programmed drums) they decided they wanted to go that route.

I programmed the drums, they were happy, but we decided to lay real cymbals over the top (like Jordon mentioned, un-edited). They were happy (though it sounded like garbage).

Then out of nowhere all the other shit w/ mixing/mastering starts happening.

Total Fuckin' Nightmare!!!
 
heshian46 said:
This is no joke fellas. I did the drum programming for this album and the entire process was like pulling teeth.

First they wanted all natural drums because "programmed drums sound wayy to robotronic". So we spent weeks tracking each song piece by piece by day, and me editing well into the night, and after about 2 months of that it still wasn't good enough.

Then when they heard what programmed drums sounded like (and me telling them about other commercial releases with programmed drums) they decided they wanted to go that route.

I programmed the drums, they were happy, but we decided to lay real cymbals over the top (like Jordon mentioned, un-edited). They were happy (though it sounded like garbage).

Then out of nowhere all the other shit w/ mixing/mastering starts happening.

Total Fuckin' Nightmare!!!
Click to expand...

Hey Janson! :danceboy:
 
cloy26 said:
Make a long story short:

-I record band.
they suck.
-I make them sound good.
-I replay some of their "tapping leads" because the guitarists aren't good enough to lay consistently strong tapping.
-I messed around with the guitar tone for a few days because they suck as guitarists and were sloppy and didn't play strong.
-Mixed everything fine.
-Give them track.
-ONLY the one guitarist bitches and said his "leads" (that I retracked myself) need to be louder.
-I say no it's fine have a good day, fuck.
-They put my song into fruity loops and "master" a mastered track.

outcome:

-song is SO muddy and Extremely ear piercing. Im pretty sure just high and low shelves and the vocals now, which I spent hours autotuning, are now buried.
-I get pissed and say you better ot use my fucking name on that shit fucking mix you fuck. and I re recorded all your tapping parts because you suck.

:zzz:

Any other people have similar experiences? Like a band taking your mix and "fixing it" themselves? It didn't need fixing and I showed it to a number of people (into recording and others who aren't) and they all said the same thing. It isn't just me.
Click to expand...

It too easy for musicians to tinka with stuff these days ,in the old days of Tape once you had made a mastered mix there was very little one could do about it plus it was generally delivered direct to the recording label as instructed.
I wouldnt get so worked up about it , your being hired by a band acting as Engineer and producer and then handing over the product to the band not a label ,thats where things went wrong IMO .
 
Not exactly the same.. but..

I nearly got sued for mixing a band - which was fucking awesome / best work I've ever done - and because they didn't like it, wanted the tracks to mix themselves.

So I said the masters would cost them .. so they tried to sue.

Short version of the story - their lawyer was mine, and he told them to pay me or fuck off.

Edit: Story #2.

I recorded the vocals for a death metal album - 11 songs in two days straight. I mixed it in under 3 days. I sent them mixes and heard nothing back.
Next thing I know they've used someone else and used the original vocals (the singer left, so they wanted to re-track..)
 
Simliar story but probably not as bad,
I recorded a band where the singer was a bit mad- things had to be done a certain way in his head and he had to have a part to play in everything. Made for a very interesting/painful recording session. Anways I gave them their finished CD and told them this was the CD to make copies off of, then a few weeks later I'm doing live sound for the gig at the end of their launch tour. They give my brother a CD with the tracks on it. We give it a listen and it's obvious they've ripped it in bad quality and imported tracks into a daw to edit the starts and ends again. ( they edited out a sample we used and cut out an intro they'd murdered in another track) There's some fairly audible distortion going on aswell so I reckoned they'd upped the fader to "make it louder" too.

It sucked and the difference between what I'd given them and what was on the actual CD they'd handed out was huge. They broke up after the tour though which is why it's not AS bad as your situation.
 
I've been told this exact line: "I'm too good to record with a click."

Oh man, did he have humiliation rained down upon him that day.
 
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