How to deal with inconsistant guitarist clients?

[NashMuhandes]

Many times, I would get a band which consists of 2 guitarists who both want to play their guitar tracks, despite the fact that their playing capabilities are WAY different.

For example, left rhythm guy is very tight, while the other guy isn't.

Or perhaps both of them are pretty tight against each other, except that one of them just has a tone difference in his playing and eventhough they are both playing the same part (rhythm for example), one speaker's playing will sound different from the other.

(This is assuming we are doing a 100% left/right-style mixing for rhythm guitars)

How do you deal with this? I've had to deal with these a few times in the past, and most times it's always a very awkward situation.

I'd have to explain to them why I only want one person to play both guitar parts. Then of course the other person would frown (eventhough if he tries to seem open-minded, deep down inside, he will be disappointed. I know I would be, if I were in his shoes)

So how do you guys deal with this kind of situation?

 

[masque-]

let the better player play both parts. don't compromise a good recording because of someone's feelings

 

[ahjteam]

Make the tight guy play all the rhythms and let the loose guy play his solos and leads, if he has any.

 

[tempe]

I had a situation where one guitarist was fantastic and the other was just absolutely impossibly terrible, and egotistical. I suggested quad tracking all the rhythms, tracked the good guitarist first did two tracks of his playing. When the other guitarist came to track, I made up something like "Quad tracking is really pushing your budget, and it may cost extra if decide to continue on this route (I had no intention of actually quad-tracking)." The band immediately thought double tracking was better, so I recorded one part of the crap guitarist and in the mix used just the first guitarists tracks for the rhythms!

These days I just tell them, whoever is better at the guitars... track the rhythms.

 

[masque-]

I had a situation where one guitarist was fantastic and the other was just absolutely impossibly terrible, and egotistical. I suggested quad tracking all the rhythms, tracked the good guitarist first did two tracks of his playing. When the other guitarist came to track, I made up something like "Quad tracking is really pushing your budget, and it may cost extra if decide to continue on this route (I had no intention of actually quad-tracking)." The band immediately thought double tracking was better, so I recorded one part of the crap guitarist and in the mix used just the first guitarists tracks for the rhythms!

These days I just tell them, whoever is better at the guitars... track the rhythms.

You sir, are a genius. This is seriously a really clever idea.

 

[jimwilbourne]

tempe has the right idea.

I have had situations where I trick the musicians into thinking they are awesome or that I used takes that they insisted I use.

I do this with DIs sometimes as well. record a DI and the Amped track at the same time and just use the DI later. a lot of young musicians don't even know the difference.

 

[OneDaySky]

I had a situation where one guitarist was fantastic and the other was just absolutely impossibly terrible, and egotistical. I suggested quad tracking all the rhythms, tracked the good guitarist first did two tracks of his playing. When the other guitarist came to track, I made up something like "Quad tracking is really pushing your budget, and it may cost extra if decide to continue on this route (I had no intention of actually quad-tracking)." The band immediately thought double tracking was better, so I recorded one part of the crap guitarist and in the mix used just the first guitarists tracks for the rhythms!

These days I just tell them, whoever is better at the guitars... track the rhythms.

HAHA! NICE dude!

 

[NashMuhandes]

I would prefer not to hide the truth from my clients. I already feel bad enough with this one client of mine whose drums I totally replaced with EZ Drummer. I told him I'd just AudioSnap (Cakewalk Sonar's audio quantize feature) his performance (which was actually not THAT bad, but definitely not tight enough)... which I totally did at first, then the damn power in my building got cut off and I totally lost all of my progress. I decided, FUCK, I'll just resequence the drums from scratch.

They couldn't tell the difference because I went into great detail to humanize the playing data (I also followed the actual playing 100%), and the kick, snare and toms were replaced with Slate samples (so the only true output from EZ Drummer was the cymbals and overheads).

So yeah, I didn't tell them that I totally recreated the drum tracks, and they were happy enough with it... but it's such a dark secret and I feel guilty.

And breaking the news at the very last minute is always VERY difficult for me. Especially when the guy who I don't want to record has a share to pay in the recording fees... that'll totally make him feel like shit.

SOMETIMES I'd get lucky and the guitarist whose playing isn't good enough would totally understand, sometimes telling me in advance "if I can't nail this, can we just get my buddy to play my parts? I'm not confident". Or if I'm even luckier, the band would come in and tell me "hey Nash, only 1 guy's gonna play all of the guitars, we had a discussion and we all agreed on it".

Maybe I should make a disclaimer or something that the client has to sign before they secure the booking, and in the disclaimer it says that I reserve the right to handle the sessions any way I see fit... sounds kinda evil and egoistical, but at least they are warned in advance... also I'd have to sit down and explain to them WHY I'd do it before hand...

 

[tempe]

Seriously, stop feeling bad about bad musicians egos. Tell them it's not good enough, tell then what needs to be done and edit in front of them. I wish someone told me those things when I had just started bass. If you bring their lack of ability up in the right way they will respect you for doing so because they will love the way you made them sound.

Once I stopped giving a fuck, my work started sounding 10 times better. Tracking is a 0 compromise situation, the sooner the musicians know that the better. Don't worry about offending people, fracturing egos or losing clients or whatever. Because at the end of the day no one gives a fuck if the record you made sounds bad because the band sucks, bands blame the engineer. Never themselves and people will see your work that way. Do whatever it takes to make what you have to work with sound the best it can, because in the end it's your reputation on the line as well.