Dumbest studio mistake(s) you've ever made?

[brianhood]

I've done some pretty dumb stuff in the last 2 years, be it out of ignorance, or just not paying proper attention. With hopes of making myself feel better, i figured i'd post a thread to see what stupid stuff you guys have done in the studio.

I'll start things off with a few examples. All of my dumb mistakes seem to come with overheads...

On the 2nd band i ever recorded, i had the OH mics plugged into analog 6-7 on my 003(this was back when i had them as two mono tracks instead of a stereo track). Well for some reason, i had the "Aux in-7/8" button engaged on the 003, which basically turns off the analog 7-8 preamp, thus cutting out one of my overhead mics. I tracked about 3 songs before i realized what happened. I'm ashamed to say i left it as is, and just panned the 1 OH track to the center

More recently, i had all my drum tracks spread out on pro tools in a way i wasn't use to, and forgot to arm the overhead mics for recording. I recorded 2 damn songs before i realized it(the cymbals were coming through the snare/tom mics, and i was focused on getting good drum takes). Fortunately for this mess up, we ended up re-tracking the songs on my own time after my 8 hour shift.

Most recently, i managed to track drums for 6 songs while having the Overhead mics routed wrong(they were routed to the china and hi hat mics instead). Instant facepalm when i realized it

Definitely not very professional


if you guys can top this, i'd be surprised(especially some of you pro guys)

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

I've done a few things just like that (recording from the wrong mic, etc etc...) over the years.

it's really weird how when you're in the studio you can get so focused on something that you don't notice things that would be so obvious to you in any other case.

 

[ahjteam]

I've done some pretty dumb stuff in the last 2 years, be it out of ignorance, or just not paying proper attention. With hopes of making myself feel better, i figured i'd post a thread to see what stupid stuff you guys have done in the studio.

I'll start things off with a few examples. All of my dumb mistakes seem to come with overheads...

On the 2nd band i ever recorded, i had the OH mics plugged into analog 6-7 on my 003(this was back when i had them as two mono tracks instead of a stereo track). Well for some reason, i had the "Aux in-7/8" button engaged on the 003, which basically turns off the analog 7-8 preamp, thus cutting out one of my overhead mics. I tracked about 3 songs before i realized what happened. I'm ashamed to say i left it as is, and just panned the 1 OH track to the center

More recently, i had all my drum tracks spread out on pro tools in a way i wasn't use to, and forgot to arm the overhead mics for recording. I recorded 2 damn songs before i realized it(the cymbals were coming through the snare/tom mics, and i was focused on getting good drum takes). Fortunately for this mess up, we ended up re-tracking the songs on my own time after my 8 hour shift.

Most recently, i managed to track drums for 6 songs while having the Overhead mics routed wrong(they were routed to the china and hi hat mics instead). Instant facepalm when i realized it

Definitely not very professional


if you guys can top this, i'd be surprised(especially some of you pro guys)

thats why I always tap all the microphones if we are not in a hurry.

 

[Ermz]

Mine are mostly over-compression related during tracking. One recently was related to poor metering and poor monitoring in the studio I was tracking in, and the 2nd was just sheer idiocy on my end.

First one was overcompressing overheads with an API2500 on the way down. It's bearable but they have to be kept lower in the mix.

Second one was overcompressing bass guitar with the Millennia on the way down. I was an idiot and left the ratio at 6:1... the Millennia falls to shit at anything beyond 4:1. So there's some serious pumping going on. After all the limiting im going to hit the bass with in the mix it likely won't matter one bit to the end product though.

The rest is mostly bug-related, or just an oversight. For instance the left overhead on the verses to one of the Untruth songs had cut out completely. So in the mix I had to use the left room mic as the overhead... so the snare wires are really pronounced in the left speaker. Though I've never mentioned the issue to anyone, nor has anyone picked up on it thus far so.... ftw

 

[Williamn]

Haha, love reading threads like that.
I do mild stupid shit all the time (only been doing this for about a year).. spanning from forgetting repeately to activite the punch in button to not tighten the mic stand enough so after the first song the mic had moved a few inches from the starting point (oh and dident have a DI box at that time).

 

[gabriel g.]

all in one session:
overcompressed toms on the way in.
wrong channel for the di while guitar tracking.
so the di was tracked through one of the pre-eq and overcomped tom channels.
and mic pre broke down

but the band was happy with the mix

 

[Star Ark]

Spilling a huge amount of coffee on my work desk ( imagine the 2nd biggest Starbucks cup ). It got under everything on there, ruined documents I needed to invoice for work (not audio related work however), went onto mics, mouse, keyboard, screen, Kaos pad and Kaossilator, I've got three brownish acoustic foams pieces, and sticky stuff everywhere.

Keep the drinks away from the equipment.

 

[wibi08]

Spilling a huge amount of coffee on my work desk ( imagine the 2nd biggest Starbucks cup ). It got under everything on there, ruined documents I needed to invoice for work (not audio related work however), went onto mics, mouse, keyboard, screen, Kaos pad and Kaossilator, I've got three brownish acoustic foams pieces, and sticky stuff everywhere.

Keep the drinks away from the equipment.

it's a nightmare

 

[Lasse Lammert]

I did a similar fuck up on the overheads once...long ago though.

usually channel1+2 are my overheads with input 1+2 assigned to OHL/R in PT, but that one time I assigned input 1 to both left and right...noticed after like 3-4 songs, re-tracked...embarassing.
it was a favor I did for a friend of mine, not paid, we had a drink and didn't really care much, usually stuff like that shouldn't happen in a recording.....never happeed again of course

 

[GarethSE]

Man, the Foetus In A Jar recording sessions are a treasure trove of "dumb studio mistakes."

We'd go in to the college studio to have a jam and capture the improvised session live, or at least that was the intention.
The first 6 times were spent wrestling with the change in the system.
After that we told ourselves to stop getting high BEFORE setting up... >_>
Then the next one I set up the mics and the drums bass and one guitar mic didn't record due to the lack of being able to figure out the damn routing (needlessly fucking complex and stupid) and that one mic was clipped to fuck.
Here is a clip of how it ended up sounding: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/631208/Foetus In A Jar/Snippet.mp3
Real shame that entire jam didn't get recorded properly, because I have a feeling it may have been an amazing one (judging by the first minute of bass playing getting captured in the guitar mic)
Then we actually managed to get a nice clean recording with all tracks working as planned (HUZZAH) Shit music though. >:{
Eventually we got THE recording, then we jammed again the next night and one of the guitar mics was set to a figure of 8 shape, capturing from both sides, so the recording had the drums way too loud and it was irrepairable, shit jam anyway and we realised we'd captured what had needed to be captured.

But yeah, it was probably like 75% worth of failed recordings out of all of those jams, and there were at least like 15

 

[AudioPhile777]

My main fuck up has been not getting a DI signal to work with at a later time... that and being used to using the punch in feature of PT and not engaging the record function for a great take because the punch in feature is turned off... that one is really stupid and has only happened a couple times, typically toward the end of a long session.

 

[ratsapprentice]

Not really the same, due to it being practice a practice mix on an se course.

But our practice mix was done and recall sheets made.

We were then supposed to get someone else to recall the mix after the desk and outboard had been zeroed, and they had to complete the recall properly in order to get marks.
We start doing it, bearing in mind every single track on the desk (full drum kit + 4/5 other instruments) had to be sent to some sort of outboard unit.
Face palms ensue after we figure out we forgot to write down the patch bay routing :Spin:
we had to figure that shit out, not fun. And the tutor was pissed.

 

[Potshot]

I updated Cubase 5 shortly before tracking an EP, didn't notice it reset the default project location to my C:\ drive, went and recorded said EP, started experiencing issues with my PC, reformatted the C:\ drive and reinstalled windows, jumped in the shower and remembered about 5 minutes later all of that EP was on the C:\ drive.

Queue frantic downloading of data recovery software, got 95% of the tracks back, was sweating for a while though hahaha.

 

[Charles J]

editing vocals/gtrs/bass/whatever on the fly while tracking real quick between takes and i ALWAYS ALWAYS end up deleting whole entire fucking parts of songs somehow.

like, i'll be working on say, a long passage of gtr. stop, record next riff, edit it a bit, but now BOTH are selected so when im cutting noise and hit delete, well..... let's just say a lot more gets deleted than id like.

usually im pretty zoomed in so i dont even notice that shit until the song is done and i zoom out and go "where the fuck are the gtrs for the first half of the song????'

haha, bands are usually cool with it. especially vocalists. they just KNOW im going to end up deleting at least half of their performance throughtout a tracing session. LOL.

 

[Skinny Viking]

I own an original 5150 and a triaxis / simul 2:90 plus have instant access to a dual rec anytime I wish ... marshall and mesa cab .... and on my last cd I recorded all my guitars with ...


A fucking POD
FML

Never again

 

[Jaymz]

Recording a few vocals facing the wrong side of the mic...done that twice now

 

[Skinny Viking]

anyone else know there own song so fucking well and are so prepared with it that as soon as the count off is done and you go to hit the very 1st chord of the song you actually hit the wrong one? How about multiple times?

guilty

 

[JeffTD]

I still think the data transfer fuckup on Underoath's Lost in the Sound of Separation is hilariously awesome - no OH tracks ever made their way over to Bendeth; the cymbal sound is entirely from the room mics.

 

[narcossintese]

I tracked a whole demo (3 tracks) without realizing that the cheap bass that was being used had a very annoying and loud "click" that wouldn´t go away even if the wildest EQ notch. My solution while mixing was to use a shitload of drive and distortion, think Motorhead bass. It solved, but if the band eventually had asked for a cleaner sound I would be in major trouble.

 

[GarethSE]

I still think the data transfer fuckup on Underoath's Lost in the Sound of Separation is hilariously awesome - no OH tracks ever made their way over to Bendeth; the cymbal sound is entirely from the room mics.

Hah, awesome