Have you ever told a band to EFF off?

[TofNazareth]

Please tell your stories of a band(s) rubbing you the wrong ways so hard that you just give them files as is and say good luck!

 

[Kevin Newland]

I would never do this now, as i take much more time evaluating bands before i except work from them, but when i first got my setup in 2009, i was recording a deathmetal band. quite literally the drummer came in and told me that he could not afford new drum heads for their full length record, then told me that the heads that were on the drums were the original ones that came on it when his parents bought it when he was 7...he's now 19.

obviously micing the drums was not an option, so i triggered them up & as we were tracking, i kid you not every 15-20 seconds the drummer would stop and say cool, tempo change here. i remember counting over 90 tempo changes in 7 songs.

I started the quantizing process on the drums, before i could finish they insisted on starting guitars so i didn't even quantize the last 2 songs at all. I found out that their guitarist only played with the first 4 frets & only on the top 3 strings of the guitar...you can imagine my frustration...then one of them tried to do sweeps.

bass tracking was terrible cause there drummer tracked it......as he's tracking he informs me that he write's all the songs for the band. & wanted to be in the room from that point on to give ME POINTERS, on how to EQ everything for the mix....he said he had garage band a couple years ago....FML.

We start tracking vocals. first day we get 5 of the 7 done, They had some random dude doing guest vox on 1 song.....the next day they come back and they have KICKED there singer out, and now the guy doing the guest vox is "IN THE BAND!" & they get pissy with me when i say i'll be charging more to redo the vocals for songs that were already done....they insisted they got a *flat rate per song*

***** here's where it get's good. I said ok cool. went back to the control room. bounced down 7 songs unmastered/unedited/unmixed & gave it to them. told them to get out of my house, go to best buy and buy a usb mic, get on garage band and finish the record themselves.

HEADACHE OVER!

haha

 

[IrvOnly]

Something like that happenned to me once. I had this punk rock band who wanted to record their 20 songs cd on one day in order to save money on studio time. They told me they wanted me to do everything from restringing and tuning up their guitars and basses up to tuning their drum kit. I didnt really understoo dwhat happenned until I realized (after borrowing them a tuner and asking them to do it by themselves) they did not know how to even string a guitar, they always had some dudes dad doing it for them ( im talking about grown up guys, 20-25 years average) . When I realized that I said "ok I ll do it" and spent about 50 realllllllly long minutes doing it hearing them ask "hey bro why is it taking so long?" to which I replied I was not supposed to do that for them but Im doing it because I want the recording to be a good one.

After that, we started recording and I had them rehearse their songs and I though of recording them just in case.

To make it short we spende thw whole day and eneded up with 4 triggered drum tracks and 2 good guitar takes. I ended up asking them to really rehearse the songs and then come back in order to use their studio time efficienty, They got mad at me and told me they had a really good computer and that they were going to record it using the microphone input on the mobo and that they dont needed any of the equipment in order to make it sound like their idols..the sex pistols... I just said "ok" and closed the door.

 

[IrvOnly]

I forgot to mention I gave them the rehearsal recording and they ended up using it and publishing it as their demo............CD-R Style........

 

[right_to_rage]

A guy came over with a bunch of songs recently, and asked if I wanted to collaborate with him on them. Before I knew it I was recording his demo for free, told him to eff off after one session.

 

[setyouranchor]

Planned to record 2 tracks for a band. We only ended up finishing one as i told them to fuck off.

Every time they came round, they would bring girlfriends, jump around, spilt my ash tray, spilt drinks, dirty shoes, never did any work and always tried to put each other off when one of them was recording.

Sent them the finished track we did together and told them to jog on.

 

[GabeFry]

I would never do this now, as i take much more time evaluating bands before i except work from them, but when i first got my setup in 2009, i was recording a deathmetal band. quite literally the drummer came in and told me that he could not afford new drum heads for their full length record, then told me that the heads that were on the drums were the original ones that came on it when his parents bought it when he was 7...he's now 19.

obviously micing the drums was not an option, so i triggered them up & as we were tracking, i kid you not every 15-20 seconds the drummer would stop and say cool, tempo change here. i remember counting over 90 tempo changes in 7 songs.

I started the quantizing process on the drums, before i could finish they insisted on starting guitars so i didn't even quantize the last 2 songs at all. I found out that their guitarist only played with the first 4 frets & only on the top 3 strings of the guitar...you can imagine my frustration...then one of them tried to do sweeps.

bass tracking was terrible cause there drummer tracked it......as he's tracking he informs me that he write's all the songs for the band. & wanted to be in the room from that point on to give ME POINTERS, on how to EQ everything for the mix....he said he had garage band a couple years ago....FML.

We start tracking vocals. first day we get 5 of the 7 done, They had some random dude doing guest vox on 1 song.....the next day they come back and they have KICKED there singer out, and now the guy doing the guest vox is "IN THE BAND!" & they get pissy with me when i say i'll be charging more to redo the vocals for songs that were already done....they insisted they got a *flat rate per song*

***** here's where it get's good. I said ok cool. went back to the control room. bounced down 7 songs unmastered/unedited/unmixed & gave it to them. told them to get out of my house, go to best buy and buy a usb mic, get on garage band and finish the record themselves.

HEADACHE OVER!

haha

I can so relate to this!

 

[Deadstar]

i guy asked me to go pick him up with my car. I said i only record people with driving license

 

[idontpullout]

Had a band with two screamers, I didn't know that they had two screamers at first because the second was never there and they never mentioned anything until later. It threw me because the first guy was tracking all the vocals, because the second guy didn't know the parts. I told them to re string everything and they show up with three week old strings "we just put them on". One guitar only had five strings on it. Drummer was using a crash with about a quarter of it missing. Had three days where the person who needed to record just didn't show up, then typical band arguing of people playing stuff wrong. Oh and they still owe me money heh.

 

[raisedfist]

Seems that new strings can be anything up to a year old, same with drum heads.....
Pet hate:- writing the lyrics up when you arrive to record instead of doing it any other time/place. Life is too short for this. Next guy who does this I will do something mean like have a really long phone conversation inbetween takes to waste a bit of their time as they waste mine.

Had to send a drummer away last month. I said all new heads, yes, he says yes. He arrives, these heads are old....Yeah they were the ones that came with the kit when I bought it a few years back...Oh good. Start the car.

 

[tempe]

i guy asked me to go pick him up with my car. I said i only record people with driving license

I've picked up really young bands before, but from the train station approximately 2 minutes from the studio, when its raining haha.