Dumbest studio mistake(s) you've ever made?
- Thread starter brianhood
- Start date
Plec
Master of Ceremonies
Wow, the mistakes over the years... too many to mention.
The one that takes the cake though is when I accidentally deleted an entire album after tracking everything and we were going into mixing the very next day. This with a band coming in from another country, so it wasn't like with a buddy you could just laugh the whole thing off with. Luckily though I only thought I had deleted it... got everything back just fine but those 20min where it seemed everything was just gone... wow, will never forget that light-headed feeling. :Spin:
Something that still happens about once a year and is totally embarrassing is when a client sends in 48k material when 99% of ALL mixes coming in are 44k and that one time you just assume it's 44k without checking and master everything in the wrong sample rate, which thus reduces tempo and pitch by a fair bit, which is if you're not familiar with the material close to impossible detecting. :Smokin:
It's always uplifting when that email arrives, like "uhm... why is the whole album pitched down and dragging??".
Once I had that situation where I thought the wrong version actually sounded better musically, even after correcting it. LOL
The one that takes the cake though is when I accidentally deleted an entire album after tracking everything and we were going into mixing the very next day. This with a band coming in from another country, so it wasn't like with a buddy you could just laugh the whole thing off with. Luckily though I only thought I had deleted it... got everything back just fine but those 20min where it seemed everything was just gone... wow, will never forget that light-headed feeling. :Spin:
Something that still happens about once a year and is totally embarrassing is when a client sends in 48k material when 99% of ALL mixes coming in are 44k and that one time you just assume it's 44k without checking and master everything in the wrong sample rate, which thus reduces tempo and pitch by a fair bit, which is if you're not familiar with the material close to impossible detecting. :Smokin:
It's always uplifting when that email arrives, like "uhm... why is the whole album pitched down and dragging??".
Once I had that situation where I thought the wrong version actually sounded better musically, even after correcting it. LOL
C_F_H_13
Protools Guru
lolzgreg
Cereal Shipping Sneapster
I was actually doing a master for a band and this exact same thing happened.
"Dude I love how upbeat this song is. It really grooves well for pop-punk"
"Why does our singer sound like a chipmunk?"
"I thought that's what he sounded like
"Regardless, the songs really DID sound better at 48khz
ahjteam
Anssi Tenhunen
Bummer if that was something you were being paid to record hahaha
Well, I got paid for doing the FOH. The recording was just their "salary" for the gig, that they never got. The band disbanded like 3 months after that, so there was really no real loss except maybe some sad faces from their camp after the guy who owned the ADAT recorder realized that there was only 3 minutes worth of sound check.
Loren Littlejohn
Lover of all boobage.
When I upgraded to pt8 I lost some guitar track, just fucking gone. This was prior to me backing up shit. <facepalm>
Usually though it's something stupid like "oh shit I thought I had that track routed to input 1, and instead now I have 2 input 2 tracks."
What sucks about the above though is that it's 2 kick mics, so visually you don't really have a clue.
Usually though it's something stupid like "oh shit I thought I had that track routed to input 1, and instead now I have 2 input 2 tracks."
What sucks about the above though is that it's 2 kick mics, so visually you don't really have a clue.
jipchen
ForesterStudio
1) "cleaning up" a session while still in the process of tracking and/or mixing.
I manage to delete some takes like.. every time I try it.
2) Using cheap micstands: The guitar sound slowly changed through the session, you couldn't hear it while tracking but it got obvious while mixing.
3) DI-Recording with the preamp gain set too high. Happens all the time. Retracking the whole song is fun. I'm usually like "yeah, you can do better, let's do it again" lol
And +1 on backups of your roughmix and before major changes. I mixed a blackmetal band and they loved the roughmix. Mixed like 20 hours for the real mix and they didn't like the polished Sound. I deleted the roughmix Session and all .WAVs of course.
Oh and I always fail to set the right Input when recording the first take of a new instrument or song
I immediately recognise it, but it's annoying as hell.
I manage to delete some takes like.. every time I try it.
2) Using cheap micstands: The guitar sound slowly changed through the session, you couldn't hear it while tracking but it got obvious while mixing.
3) DI-Recording with the preamp gain set too high. Happens all the time. Retracking the whole song is fun. I'm usually like "yeah, you can do better, let's do it again" lol
And +1 on backups of your roughmix and before major changes. I mixed a blackmetal band and they loved the roughmix. Mixed like 20 hours for the real mix and they didn't like the polished Sound. I deleted the roughmix Session and all .WAVs of course.
Oh and I always fail to set the right Input when recording the first take of a new instrument or song
I immediately recognise it, but it's annoying as hell.
Seth Munson
How do Amber Lamps?
amarshism
Member
DeclanWhite
Senior Member
I'm still pretty much "winning" this one
dude, to be honest, i read through your post like 5 times, and listened to that clip twice and i still have no idea wtf you were talking about or what that clip was, but my ears now hurt
edit: I do know that drugs had to be involved
Loren Littlejohn
Lover of all boobage.
I recently had a bass player that refused to get new strings every time we tracked (3 times in the course of 2 weeks) and his tone from song to song is amazingly different.
Horhe
Jori Haukio
After a day of recording I let the band to record by themselves at night.
Naturally they got wasted and spilled cider all over my DM4800
Naturally they got wasted and spilled cider all over my DM4800
Mattayus
Sir Groove-A-Lot
I don't track bands much, I usually just mix, but this band I've got on at the moment probably think I'm a fucking idiot and want their deposit back I was tracking drums for them last week, couldn't figure out for SHIT what was going on with my ins/outs as the overheads were only coming out one ear, and were going silent when I tried to pan them. I fucked about with all manor of mono/stereo configs, until I realised it was my multi-headphone splitter box playing up, so I unplugged it and threw it across the room, breaking it, thus not allowing multi-headphone playback anymore, so we had to share a set, throwing it back and forth like an amateur dick
Then, because of all that shit, my head was a bit spacey from embarrassment and anger, so he did a perfect take and I didn't have it armed to record
I was tracking drums for them last week, couldn't figure out for SHIT what was going on with my ins/outs as the overheads were only coming out one ear, and were going silent when I tried to pan them. I fucked about with all manor of mono/stereo configs, until I realised it was my multi-headphone splitter box playing up, so I unplugged it and threw it across the room, breaking it, thus not allowing multi-headphone playback anymore, so we had to share a set, throwing it back and forth like an amateur dick Then, because of all that shit, my head was a bit spacey from embarrassment and anger, so he did a perfect take and I didn't have it armed to record
GarethSE
New Metal Member
- Jul 5, 2008
- 7,595
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dude, to be honest, i read through your post like 5 times, and listened to that clip twice and i still have no idea wtf you were talking about or what that clip was, but my ears now hurt
edit: I do know that drugs had to be involved
tl;dr:
cannabis made me and my bud mess up 6+ recordings that could've been fuckin awesome.
ended up with http://dl.dropbox.com/u/631208/Foetus In A Jar/January/19 01 10.mp3 this though for all the mess ups. karmic retribution niggaaas
AudioGeekZine
arsehole know-it-all
Naturally I've tried to block out all the times I've fucked up, but you guys had to bring up these bad memories.
In school on my final project tracking a band. We had to use some outboard gear so I ran the kick mic through 1176. I couldn't remember (and couldn't hear) the way the attack and release worked on it [opposite of every other piece of gear], I asked the assistant and teacher and they didn't know/couldn't tell me. So that track was fucked once I got it home. Taught myself sample replacement HAHA
Last year my boss hired me to record his CD release show.
I grabbed a bunch of gear from home and the shop. Ran 12 channels from the FOH direct outs into 2xProfire 2626s + 2 room mics. Recording would start fine then after some time they would drift and all tracks would have jitter. I was flipping out, couldn't figure out what was going on and couldn't fix it. Each profire was set to ADAT sync so neither was the master clock. FUCK
After the first song I should have ditched the second interface and done room mics + vocals.
Taught myself how to use iZotope RX after that to salvage a few of the songs from the 1hr set.
Not fun. Bricks were shat. Didn't get paid.
Thanks for reminding me.
assholes
then there's been a bunch of times I've got the mics plugged in in the wrong order, phantom power isn't turned on, and worked for free (haha).
In school on my final project tracking a band. We had to use some outboard gear so I ran the kick mic through 1176. I couldn't remember (and couldn't hear) the way the attack and release worked on it [opposite of every other piece of gear], I asked the assistant and teacher and they didn't know/couldn't tell me. So that track was fucked once I got it home. Taught myself sample replacement HAHA
Last year my boss hired me to record his CD release show.
I grabbed a bunch of gear from home and the shop. Ran 12 channels from the FOH direct outs into 2xProfire 2626s + 2 room mics. Recording would start fine then after some time they would drift and all tracks would have jitter. I was flipping out, couldn't figure out what was going on and couldn't fix it. Each profire was set to ADAT sync so neither was the master clock. FUCK
After the first song I should have ditched the second interface and done room mics + vocals.
Taught myself how to use iZotope RX after that to salvage a few of the songs from the 1hr set.
Not fun. Bricks were shat. Didn't get paid.
Thanks for reminding me.
assholes
then there's been a bunch of times I've got the mics plugged in in the wrong order, phantom power isn't turned on, and worked for free (haha).
Melodeath
Moonbow
Mea_Culpa89
Member
- Feb 1, 2009
- 50
- 0
- 6
First demo ever recorded, imminent FAILS:
*) Spent 1,5 days to find the best mic placement, amp settings and position of the pillows round the cab (used them because room acoustics/treatment was really bad, and they really helped us to improve and manipulate the sound) After 2 days of guitar tracking the drummer (who else?!?) fell down, destroying the whole mic/pillow/cab placement, so we had to start over with a slightly changed sound, because no matter what we tried, we couldn't get the exact original guitar sound back.
**) The day i was recording the guitar solos, my amp decided to turn into a radio! I turned it on and could clearly hear pop songs coming from the speakers! Googled and fixed it but it took us a couple of hours to figure out what the f##k was going on.
*) Spent 1,5 days to find the best mic placement, amp settings and position of the pillows round the cab (used them because room acoustics/treatment was really bad, and they really helped us to improve and manipulate the sound) After 2 days of guitar tracking the drummer (who else?!?
) fell down, destroying the whole mic/pillow/cab placement, so we had to start over with a slightly changed sound, because no matter what we tried, we couldn't get the exact original guitar sound back.**) The day i was recording the guitar solos, my amp decided to turn into a radio! I turned it on and could clearly hear pop songs coming from the speakers! Googled and fixed it but it took us a couple of hours to figure out what the f##k was going on.
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