SO .....
2 Months ago I recorded a band we started on January 19th and originally booked 7 songs for an EP for $100 a song. Well on drum day they asked if they could do an additional 2 songs, since shit was set up I said yes and just gave it to them as a bonus, for no additional fee. So
Drum tracking went flawlessly, everything worked great, drums sound god like and everyone was VERY VERY happy. At the end of they day they hand me $500 cash and tell me they arent sure when they could come up with the other $200, since everything went very easily with drum tracking I said, ya know what Ill throw you guys a bone. Help me get my name out there to all if your friends and Ill do this for $500 and be done. So they agree.
We get into tracking bass and the bass player cant play ANY of the songs in time. So guitarist comes to me after the bass player leaves for the day (after 6 hours of work mind you trying to get shit tight) and asks me if I can re-cut and play all the bass. Just re-write all the parts and re-do everything. So of course because I dont want the entire project to go to shit I agree. I spend 2 days re-writing editing and changing bass parts and they never told the bass player
...... oh just wait it gets better......
So we get into doing guitars, and the guitar player has this old beat up piece of this Steinberger with shit intonation, and buzzing frets. When I tell him he cant use it he argues with me for like an hour. So finally I tell him fuck it OK use your guitar. Well then we get into the amps discussion, hes got an old Laney AOR100 which sounded fine, and when dialed in for a nice rock sound was awesome, but he had it in his head he wasnt in a heavy band so almost ever tone I dialed in he wanted less distortion ..... now please realize these guys TOLD me specifically they wanted the early 90s grunge STP meets Soundgarden types of sound......So instead of spending 4 hours arguing again I just agreed. I was taking DI's anyway so I could just re-amp later if its that bad. So we get through 2 days of tracking guitars and we are good to go.... One of the songs was recorded on my 5150 and he LOVED they way it came out, but refused to use it on any of the other songs.
Next 2 days we concentrate on Lead Vocals 4 hours in the singer is wasted and has all these fucking "brilliant" ideas for parts and vocal fly-ins and harmonies, and wont shut the fuck up till we try them. So we waste 3 hours "trying" shit and finally he gets frustrated and goes home.
He comes back the 2nd day and hates everything he did, so we have to re-track ALL of the vocals..... WHAT??? Yes RE-TRACK EVERYTHING! So me of course being the nice guya nd not wanting to get a fucked mix and build my portfolio properly I agree......
..... at this point I already know I am a fucking idiot .....
So 2nd day to we rush and re-cut all the vocals and get them done .... They sound GREAT. Of course causes hes not 2 sheets to the wind ...
Get into guitar solos later that day ... Slop on top of slop on top of slop, finally we get some decent takes and he goes home....
YAY everything tracked I can mix!
I take a week to mix / master and have them come in for a listen ... Band thinks everything is perfect, they LOVE it, raving about it all over FB, Myspace, their website ... Its EPIC!
I pat myself on the back, job well done .....
--------- So I thought -----------
So I gt a phone call Monday saying they want to fix 2 vocal harmonies, and change one guitar part and change the Not so heavy guitar tones for heavy tones, cause of course they realize what I was right in telling them the tones needed more gain. So I agree, no problem I have 2 days off this week so we can just do that and be done, Toss me another $100 and we are good.
They show up, no cash in hand, I already have everything set up and say fuck it .... Ill do it and just get it done. So they spend 6 hours here yesterday arguing about what to change cause of course the singer is shit faced again, and hasnt a fucking clue what the rest of the band wanted changed .... Oh and by the way .. the bass player got told what happened and he had a shit fit, and they kicked him out....
So they go home after 6 hours of bullshit and at 3AM I get an email ....
Hey man, I've got some bad news and good news – I sent you a text message...But either you or I need to redo all of the bass parts that are the same as what Eddie wrote. He legitimately owns the rights to what he wrote, and he's not too happy right now and doesn't want us to use the tracks he wrote. I know you redid most of the tracks anyways, but you redid them to sound similar to what he wrote. We need to do something new on everything. The good news is, 30 Seconds is good as is, and the intro part of Yes Child was written by someone else. I promised Eddie that we would change the parts he wrote, so – hate me if you will – we'll need to change all the other parts.
The good news is, if you want to make these songs the best they can be, you now have complete and total creative freedom to play any bass parts you'd like on any of the tracks. Eddie is going to call you tomorrow, and I don't think he knows that ALL of the parts were re-played. So I would just tell him that you changed some of the parts, and that we'll go ahead and change all of them. I know time is money and you're probably frustrated with us, because I'm sure you thought this was done and out of the way; but we can give you a little more money. We're pretty broke right now, but we appreciate your work, and we'll give you what we can for your time.
Anyways, we'll see you tomorrow.
Ummm WHAT????? Really ???? WTF???? NOW you tell me you are broke! After I do an additional 6 hours of work on your shit!!! Not only that I have to re-cut remix and re-set up ALL the shit for the bass and play it myself, and anything that eddie ever played that was cool that I kept I have to re-do????
So here is my response ....
Seriously man at this point I don't even know what to say .....
First off ... Not a single bass part on the songs was played by Eddie at all. I replaced them all and replayed everything myself.
Second, this things is really beginning to turn into a nightmare. I have another band slated to start tomorrow and I don't have the time to do this. If you guy want it fixed you are going to have to book time to do it. Unfortunately at the moment I am booked solid until the 18th of March.
You guys told me you had a few changes, not an entire laundry list of re-takes and shit you wanted to completely replay / re-sing. I figured we would just re-amp your original performances and call it a day, but yesterday we did an additional 4 hours of work, and NONE of you had a clue on who wanted to change what. You had a list, and Trav had some ideas he wanted to "try". in addition he was shit faced. I know when hes shit faced cause he always wants more more more and never thinks rationally.
In addition to all of that with the amount of changes you are making its going to take me additonal time to re-mix every song with all of your new changes, find new effects that work and so on. These were not little tweaks like only volume changes and what not. They are complete changes to the structure and foundation of each mix. This is the type of things that happen when bands think they know what they want but have no idea what they want to sound like. But because they need to feel all professional they make bad choices.
If you would have listened to me from day one, and not put up a fight about what amps / guitars / microphones / tones you wanted to use on this we wouldn't be in this boat. The only person who didn't complain about any of his parts or how things sounded is Brad, and he didn't say a word when I was doing it. He let me do my job and his drums sounds great. (Sans the little fixes I need to so)
At this point I am looking at it this way. I will fix the things on your list as I said I would. Its gonna run you $100 for that. If you want the bass parts redone and changed which means an entirely new mix for each song as the bass tone will change and it needs to fit the new parts you are going to have to book time to do it.
I am sorry man but we discussed all this in the beginning and that you guys needed to be prepared. Its obvious that you guys were not prepared and now you see WHY I told you guys you needed to be. I cut all these songs and took $200 off the price I wanted originally cause I was being a nice guy. So .... you guys figure out what you want to do.
If you want to recut bass I can get you guys in for a single day of work in March for $100 - that would bring this up to our original negotiated price. Then I am going to need another 4 days to a week to re-mix everything. I HIGHLY suggest you guys ALL discuss before you come to the studio today, or cancel for today and come back in March when you are fully prepared and know what you want to do.
This is the LAST time I am going to re-visit these songs with you guys unless there is cash in hand. I do this for a living dude, and I need to be paid for my work. Basically I did 4 hours of work yesterday and I am not going to get paid for it till you guys have some money, not when the job is actually finished.
Let me know what you want to do. I think I have been more then fair, and more then accommodating on ALL of this.
Jason
WHAT THEY FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
God I really hope they cancel today.
2 Months ago I recorded a band we started on January 19th and originally booked 7 songs for an EP for $100 a song. Well on drum day they asked if they could do an additional 2 songs, since shit was set up I said yes and just gave it to them as a bonus, for no additional fee. So
Drum tracking went flawlessly, everything worked great, drums sound god like and everyone was VERY VERY happy. At the end of they day they hand me $500 cash and tell me they arent sure when they could come up with the other $200, since everything went very easily with drum tracking I said, ya know what Ill throw you guys a bone. Help me get my name out there to all if your friends and Ill do this for $500 and be done. So they agree.
We get into tracking bass and the bass player cant play ANY of the songs in time. So guitarist comes to me after the bass player leaves for the day (after 6 hours of work mind you trying to get shit tight) and asks me if I can re-cut and play all the bass. Just re-write all the parts and re-do everything. So of course because I dont want the entire project to go to shit I agree. I spend 2 days re-writing editing and changing bass parts and they never told the bass player
...... oh just wait it gets better......
So we get into doing guitars, and the guitar player has this old beat up piece of this Steinberger with shit intonation, and buzzing frets. When I tell him he cant use it he argues with me for like an hour. So finally I tell him fuck it OK use your guitar. Well then we get into the amps discussion, hes got an old Laney AOR100 which sounded fine, and when dialed in for a nice rock sound was awesome, but he had it in his head he wasnt in a heavy band so almost ever tone I dialed in he wanted less distortion ..... now please realize these guys TOLD me specifically they wanted the early 90s grunge STP meets Soundgarden types of sound......So instead of spending 4 hours arguing again I just agreed. I was taking DI's anyway so I could just re-amp later if its that bad. So we get through 2 days of tracking guitars and we are good to go.... One of the songs was recorded on my 5150 and he LOVED they way it came out, but refused to use it on any of the other songs.
Next 2 days we concentrate on Lead Vocals 4 hours in the singer is wasted and has all these fucking "brilliant" ideas for parts and vocal fly-ins and harmonies, and wont shut the fuck up till we try them. So we waste 3 hours "trying" shit and finally he gets frustrated and goes home.
He comes back the 2nd day and hates everything he did, so we have to re-track ALL of the vocals..... WHAT??? Yes RE-TRACK EVERYTHING! So me of course being the nice guya nd not wanting to get a fucked mix and build my portfolio properly I agree......
..... at this point I already know I am a fucking idiot .....
So 2nd day to we rush and re-cut all the vocals and get them done .... They sound GREAT. Of course causes hes not 2 sheets to the wind ...
Get into guitar solos later that day ... Slop on top of slop on top of slop, finally we get some decent takes and he goes home....
YAY everything tracked I can mix!
I take a week to mix / master and have them come in for a listen ... Band thinks everything is perfect, they LOVE it, raving about it all over FB, Myspace, their website ... Its EPIC!
I pat myself on the back, job well done .....
--------- So I thought -----------
So I gt a phone call Monday saying they want to fix 2 vocal harmonies, and change one guitar part and change the Not so heavy guitar tones for heavy tones, cause of course they realize what I was right in telling them the tones needed more gain. So I agree, no problem I have 2 days off this week so we can just do that and be done, Toss me another $100 and we are good.
They show up, no cash in hand, I already have everything set up and say fuck it .... Ill do it and just get it done. So they spend 6 hours here yesterday arguing about what to change cause of course the singer is shit faced again, and hasnt a fucking clue what the rest of the band wanted changed .... Oh and by the way .. the bass player got told what happened and he had a shit fit, and they kicked him out....
So they go home after 6 hours of bullshit and at 3AM I get an email ....
Hey man, I've got some bad news and good news – I sent you a text message...But either you or I need to redo all of the bass parts that are the same as what Eddie wrote. He legitimately owns the rights to what he wrote, and he's not too happy right now and doesn't want us to use the tracks he wrote. I know you redid most of the tracks anyways, but you redid them to sound similar to what he wrote. We need to do something new on everything. The good news is, 30 Seconds is good as is, and the intro part of Yes Child was written by someone else. I promised Eddie that we would change the parts he wrote, so – hate me if you will – we'll need to change all the other parts.
The good news is, if you want to make these songs the best they can be, you now have complete and total creative freedom to play any bass parts you'd like on any of the tracks. Eddie is going to call you tomorrow, and I don't think he knows that ALL of the parts were re-played. So I would just tell him that you changed some of the parts, and that we'll go ahead and change all of them. I know time is money and you're probably frustrated with us, because I'm sure you thought this was done and out of the way; but we can give you a little more money. We're pretty broke right now, but we appreciate your work, and we'll give you what we can for your time.
Anyways, we'll see you tomorrow.
Ummm WHAT????? Really ???? WTF???? NOW you tell me you are broke! After I do an additional 6 hours of work on your shit!!! Not only that I have to re-cut remix and re-set up ALL the shit for the bass and play it myself, and anything that eddie ever played that was cool that I kept I have to re-do????
So here is my response ....
Seriously man at this point I don't even know what to say .....
First off ... Not a single bass part on the songs was played by Eddie at all. I replaced them all and replayed everything myself.
Second, this things is really beginning to turn into a nightmare. I have another band slated to start tomorrow and I don't have the time to do this. If you guy want it fixed you are going to have to book time to do it. Unfortunately at the moment I am booked solid until the 18th of March.
You guys told me you had a few changes, not an entire laundry list of re-takes and shit you wanted to completely replay / re-sing. I figured we would just re-amp your original performances and call it a day, but yesterday we did an additional 4 hours of work, and NONE of you had a clue on who wanted to change what. You had a list, and Trav had some ideas he wanted to "try". in addition he was shit faced. I know when hes shit faced cause he always wants more more more and never thinks rationally.
In addition to all of that with the amount of changes you are making its going to take me additonal time to re-mix every song with all of your new changes, find new effects that work and so on. These were not little tweaks like only volume changes and what not. They are complete changes to the structure and foundation of each mix. This is the type of things that happen when bands think they know what they want but have no idea what they want to sound like. But because they need to feel all professional they make bad choices.
If you would have listened to me from day one, and not put up a fight about what amps / guitars / microphones / tones you wanted to use on this we wouldn't be in this boat. The only person who didn't complain about any of his parts or how things sounded is Brad, and he didn't say a word when I was doing it. He let me do my job and his drums sounds great. (Sans the little fixes I need to so)
At this point I am looking at it this way. I will fix the things on your list as I said I would. Its gonna run you $100 for that. If you want the bass parts redone and changed which means an entirely new mix for each song as the bass tone will change and it needs to fit the new parts you are going to have to book time to do it.
I am sorry man but we discussed all this in the beginning and that you guys needed to be prepared. Its obvious that you guys were not prepared and now you see WHY I told you guys you needed to be. I cut all these songs and took $200 off the price I wanted originally cause I was being a nice guy. So .... you guys figure out what you want to do.
If you want to recut bass I can get you guys in for a single day of work in March for $100 - that would bring this up to our original negotiated price. Then I am going to need another 4 days to a week to re-mix everything. I HIGHLY suggest you guys ALL discuss before you come to the studio today, or cancel for today and come back in March when you are fully prepared and know what you want to do.
This is the LAST time I am going to re-visit these songs with you guys unless there is cash in hand. I do this for a living dude, and I need to be paid for my work. Basically I did 4 hours of work yesterday and I am not going to get paid for it till you guys have some money, not when the job is actually finished.
Let me know what you want to do. I think I have been more then fair, and more then accommodating on ALL of this.
Jason
WHAT THEY FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
God I really hope they cancel today.
