- Nov 6, 2005
- 320
- 29
- 28
I have started recording a death metal band and am having a very difficult time. Below is a long back story, but my questions are; At what time should I cut my losses, and have a sub-par product; and is there a recommendation or process that would help with this for the future?
The first issue I ran into was the band couldn't agree to the tempo map. The changes would be fine when I was setting it up, but when we were recording it, the changes were missed completely. I found myself constantly switching things back to how I originally set them when they weren't right.
The second issue was the drummer and guitar players immediately started ignoring the click and following themselves. At the end, we just unplugged the guitars, and let the drummer play the tracks using his memory, essentially capturing the performance and I would edit later. This is 7 hours, and two songs later, in which the last song recording only lasted the 3-4 minutes of the drum tracking.
After editing and replacing the drums exactly as recorded, quantizing and fixing the tempo map to match the drums. I brought the guitar players in, and let them listen to the drum tracks. They both agreed the drums were spot on. However, after trying to track the guitars, the changes aren't in the right spots (which I expected), but the drummer also was playing parts in the song that didn't exist (5/4 stuff over a 4/4 riff). This isn't that big of a deal, considering the drum snipping isnt that difficult in the end, but it just made me disheartened.
The 2nd six hour day was tracking the guitar players parts, capturing a few of the takes with metronome only (because of the messed up changes). In six hours, I was only able to get most of the songs tracked, and what I did get tracked was bordering on a cacophony. I feel like I will have to do major surgical editing with these tracks.
13 hours of recording, and 3-4 of drum editing into this, and I feel overwhelmed with the amount of editing I will still need to do, and I still dont think these tracks will be tight.
And I think the thing that is bothering me most is that this is a friend of mine, whom I used to work and live with, and was even in this band 5-6 years ago and recorded bass on their first EP. He texted me and said something to the effect of "lets just record the full album with you". I like the band, and I like the music, but two songs have eaten up over 15hours of time (they aren't paying by the hour). I have two other groups in line to record with, both of which would be paying more than this band.
I am fairly inexperienced with working/recording with other musician's songs, but the people I have worked with have all been successful songs, and the editing never felt like I was tearing down the tracks completely. This is the bands fourth time recording, so this shouldn't be a shell-shock idea to them of what is needed.
The first issue I ran into was the band couldn't agree to the tempo map. The changes would be fine when I was setting it up, but when we were recording it, the changes were missed completely. I found myself constantly switching things back to how I originally set them when they weren't right.
The second issue was the drummer and guitar players immediately started ignoring the click and following themselves. At the end, we just unplugged the guitars, and let the drummer play the tracks using his memory, essentially capturing the performance and I would edit later. This is 7 hours, and two songs later, in which the last song recording only lasted the 3-4 minutes of the drum tracking.
After editing and replacing the drums exactly as recorded, quantizing and fixing the tempo map to match the drums. I brought the guitar players in, and let them listen to the drum tracks. They both agreed the drums were spot on. However, after trying to track the guitars, the changes aren't in the right spots (which I expected), but the drummer also was playing parts in the song that didn't exist (5/4 stuff over a 4/4 riff). This isn't that big of a deal, considering the drum snipping isnt that difficult in the end, but it just made me disheartened.
The 2nd six hour day was tracking the guitar players parts, capturing a few of the takes with metronome only (because of the messed up changes). In six hours, I was only able to get most of the songs tracked, and what I did get tracked was bordering on a cacophony. I feel like I will have to do major surgical editing with these tracks.
13 hours of recording, and 3-4 of drum editing into this, and I feel overwhelmed with the amount of editing I will still need to do, and I still dont think these tracks will be tight.
And I think the thing that is bothering me most is that this is a friend of mine, whom I used to work and live with, and was even in this band 5-6 years ago and recorded bass on their first EP. He texted me and said something to the effect of "lets just record the full album with you". I like the band, and I like the music, but two songs have eaten up over 15hours of time (they aren't paying by the hour). I have two other groups in line to record with, both of which would be paying more than this band.
I am fairly inexperienced with working/recording with other musician's songs, but the people I have worked with have all been successful songs, and the editing never felt like I was tearing down the tracks completely. This is the bands fourth time recording, so this shouldn't be a shell-shock idea to them of what is needed.
