So I ask the guitarist to bring a 'nice' guitar...

[jangoux]

...and he comes to track with a Ibanez GIO. Ibanez FUCKING GIO AND a LTD M-103FM. The later, owned by a self-called luthier, had a Floyd Rose so bad that if I touched it to tune, it made the notes flat.

Sincerely, I am almost giving up recording metal bands. The alternative and rock bands I record always bring a usable guitar, Fenders, Epiphones, sometimes Gibsons...well, guitars that work The other day, I had a terrible band bringing a Wolfgang and a Schecter C1 Hellraiser. But every fucking metal client I have (and believe me, this is the 2nd biggest metal band in town) brings me shitloads of problems. I have 2 guitars (the third being painted atm) and I can't afford having one setup for every damn tuning these guys use...E, Eb, Drop D, Drop Db, C, B...

 

[Lon]

how are all bands this gear-terrible (and play terrible) my mind still does not grasp the amounts of apparent terrible out there.

 

[Sloan]

invest in your own good guitar. tell them their guitar is not going to cut it and you'll let them use yours for an hourly fee.

 

[jangoux]

I have 3 good guitars, man. But I can't afford a guitar for every band that tunes to a different tuning, or even to setup that. I am the only studio in town (including the 'big' ones) that has guitars and amps available for use because nobody can afford guitars for everybody..

 

[Plendakor]

Bleh, use a pitch-shifter lol jk

 

[Trevoire520]

Learn to setup your own guitars and have one set up in their tuning for them coming in?

 

[JakeAC5253]

Bleh, use a pitch-shifter lol jk

I know this is meant as a joke, but on a serious note, I've used pitch shifted DI tracks on a few productions. If you take a straight HQDI and pitch shift it completely raw and bounce it, you likely won't notice a difference in the end product. I've found this to work with 1 or 2 half-step intervals up or down, but 3 starts to have a noticeable tone difference. It's actually not a bad idea. If you want to convert your guitars to be solely studio instruments rather than for play, then maybe tune then each a step or two away from each other. One in E standard, one in Db standard, one in Bb standard. That way you are always a single half step from the pitch the band plays in. You can even drop the low string so long as the guitar doesn't have a floating bridge.

 

[Plendakor]

Hey honostly, I actually am tuned BbEbAbDbGbBbE and use a pitch shifter to jam with my band (BEADGBE). Used to pitch shift a few MacAlpine and Malmsteen tunes back to eadgbe a few years back and I couldn't notice "bad" audio when listening on CD. But yeah, anything beyond a whole step is overkill.

 

[AD Chaos]

I'd say ask them if they're actually using the trem for the day. If not, then tell them you will do them 'a favor', lend them a fixed bridge gtr and simply change strings (and ask them to bring their own sets 'in return').


If they still insist with the tremolo thing, you could tell them they can record their divebombs/etc on their gtr, but everything else on yours

 

[Chaos_Moon]

Have them pay for the setup of one of your guitars if theirs isn't good enough.

 

[CubanDude]

Since when are Epiphones considered as good guitars?

 

[schwinginbatman]

Because most metal musicians are dumbasses.

 

[ArthurD]

I gave up with musicians. I bought my own guitars (Gibson, Jackson, Charvel, Fender), and Basses (Aria Pro II, Rickenbacker, Fender). I learned to setup all.
All I say is: What instrument do you have? If they still want to record with crappy instruments, I just say "lets just do a test with this one". Most of the times I win.
When I lose, I say that it won't sound perfect. (Sometimes I re-record the tracks myself, charging more on the editing part)

 

[Ngoc]

Don't say something bad about the Ibanez GIO-Models!
I use one and I still think that it sounds pretty decent with swapped Pickups.

Example (to me it does not sound THAT bad) :
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/25157157/Ngoc-Survivors.MP3

 

[Red Phoenix]

With multi tunings i do it this way: tune the guitar to the lowest tuning which will be used and for higher tunings just use a capo..i love this thing...it was the cheapest and most useful tool i bought!

 

[Axonic Rot]

Yeah right off the shelf those are really laughable to try to make a recording with. The pickups in those are just some parts they put together to make sound come out of the instrument. I think charging more for recording usually gets rid of these types of issues with bands. It's a filter.

I wouldn't care if a band brought any cheap guitar in to record with as long as the pickups (and perhaps tuners and trems in some cases) were swapped properly and the instrument was set up. I've played just about everything there is and own some expensive instruments, but I could put some good pickups in a some of the dirt cheap starter instruments, set them up and then use them with no problem. It doesn't look as luxurious, and the fretboard will have slightly less by-hand finishing work done to it, but it works better than most people think because it's rare for a cheapie guitar to be set up right and modded. I do precise setups here at my house and people bring stuff in and I get a chance to see what everything is like when it's at its best and I'm always surprised by the cheap stuff. It's kind of messed up that I get more excited about working on something cheap to see how it does than something really expensive and rare.

 

[Plendakor]

^ been thinking of doing this for a really long time now but I just don't have any idea how much to charge. I also hate cigarette/weed-driven guitars, it's hard to clean and sticky.

 

[ArthurD]

With multi tunings i do it this way: tune the guitar to the lowest tuning which will be used and for higher tunings just use a capo..i love this thing...it was the cheapest and most useful tool i bought!

Don't work with floating tremolo, though.

 

[Red Phoenix]

i have one guitar with floyd rose and one with prs tremolo and it works the same on both even with using the tremolo..maybe divebombs work not so great...

 

[plague_rider]

Gotta say that the Ibanez grg170dx was a pretty good guitar once I'd thrown some EMG-HZs in there...