Tracking engineers, and client tone?

[Redoubt9000]

I'm curious about your workflow and day to day experience with clients, specifically guitarists. How does your process work, do you have much control over the tone that's to be used in the project? As in do you dictate what is and will be used by the mixing engineer, no if ands or buts about it from the artists?

I spose there's a measure of freedom for the artist/client that walks in needing to get stuff tracked, and they'll dial in what they believe to be a moderately good tone (benefit of the doubt I guess) but I am curious as to how much control an engineer has over what's gonna be sent to the mix engineer. Any horror stories from clients that just wouldn't let up?

No doubt, just budging the mic is eq from the get go. Have you ever been bothered to explain exactly why it is you're doing what you're doing simply cause they're upset that you may be screwing up their "hyperdrive" tone?

Talking to a friend who has even less experience in tracking/mixing than I I'm no guru, but I found it difficult explaining even the small stuff, and just trying to explain that I can only work with so much with my limited experience. I'm willing to work with what he has, but simply getting across the fact that I wouldn't mind a DI just to open up my degree of freedom seemed to upset him some

 

[AudioPhile777]

If your client doesn't understand why you do something, explain it to them in simple terms.

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

 

[aramism]

what audiophile said +1 and also a more complicated version:


it depends on who you are and the relationship with the artist. some artists come to you because they want someone to help them achieve something they don't know even can be possible. some artists come to you with a very defined vision, and if you can deliver it and you are all on the same wavelength then they will be repeat clients.


there's no golden rule here. every situation is a balance of the client/label/bands requests, your own tastes personally, and if you are a producer working in a certain capacity, the relativity of the art you are creating to the current state of the art industry.

the most important thing aside from keeping it simple is keeping it organized. by organized here i mean by getting on the same page from the start, and then staying on that page throughout the process. you sit down with them, they tell you, ok we want this to be very ambient and washy etc. etc. whatever it is. you can either agree, or disagree, you guys discuss all the variables and whatnot, and then once everyone is in agreement and on the same page, you can begin executing according to that "blueprint"

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Every situation is different.

Most of the time I have no issues explaining it and they get it. Or if they don't we do it real quick and I show them why I'm doing it that way.

Every once and a while I get an idiot (shows up drunk, wants to use an amp that hasn't seen a tube change in 20 years, wants to use his amazing 12 year old drum set with factory heads, etc...). I have my own methods for dealing with those situations amicably though.

Some guys handle it with a hammer, I'm to much of a passive person in most situations (well, except some I mean everyone has their point where they have to be blunt). Honestly I think the people that are the most successful in this business are the most personable of people.

 

[Redoubt9000]

If your client doesn't understand why you do something, explain it to them in simple terms.

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

Don't get me wrong, I don't run a business - but you're def right I've only done this for several years and the only experience I have is from working with whatever it is I write, and the off chance someone presents a mix to me (apart from stems on the forum). I guess I didn't have much a problem explaining the little things, it was getting them to understand that became an issue. Which I guess means I do have a problem explaining the simple things >_> I'm not sure if it was because they had trouble understanding, or because they resisted against the idea of me possibly not liking their tone - or at the suggestion that their tone may or may not fit the bill.

Would the best explanation have been, "that I am trying to capture/work a tone that will fit in context with the rest of the mix" ? I'm not sure how much more simple I could've explained it for them.
Since we were not miking anything and were only handling a modeler for example, I inquired avoiding any additional fx such as reverb or delay from the unit and to let them be handled in the mix. It seemed as though even THAT was a problem

I've no experience with the quality of their modeler, and the samples they provided weren't necessarily adequate to tell me what was going on. Their reference was a stereo track of just guitars, a clipping/pumping render from a project a ways back.

When I asked them what they had in mind in terms of tone - they couldn't answer, I'd help by listing off a few artists they had mentioned in the past - eventually they agreed that they would just like to get a good workable tone (running a signal through a pod unit placing its amp/cab and a plethora of fx is not my idea of workable tone, not when faced with the more ideal prospect of just capturing a DI signal and running it through what gear I already have.)
Suggesting a capture of both a DI and his units modeling seemed too much of a troubling scenario for them (again why I wish I could work with them in person, instead of through a cloud lol)

Thanks everyone for your input - I was just curious on how you go about it It's even worse that I'm not doing this in person for them, as it probably would've been much easier to explain by simply showing them. Which was even more reason to just go with bare essentials and build it from the ground up.


This wasn't a paid thing, but merely a discussion with a friend I like to inquire artists if they'd allow me to take a shot at doing a mix for them, and when he approached me about a track he'd done long ago I had assumed he'd like for me to mix it. This conversation sorta brought up a few questions for me, especially since I don't necessarily have "work experience" but I'm more or less an obsessive dabbler
Thanks for sharing your experiences and advice all!

 

[tempe]

If this happens to me, I have the "this is why I sit on the spiny chair and you sit on the couch" discussion. Failing that I have the "don't tell me how to my job" discussion, and if that doesn't work that's why god invented DI's and reamp boxes.

 

[jbotsd]

I run into this issue way too much ...

i recall one time whilst high and low passing guitar i had the guitarist of the band accuse me of "sapping" his tone. This then proceeded into a full on yell fest between me and the band with them accusing me of not knowing how to do my job or not knowing enough of guitar tone.

I sent them home on the spot and the issue never came up again.

Since then i have shaved my head and have yet to run into this issue.

 

[tempe]

Jesus christ Jay. The human thumb exists.

 

[Sloan]

This why you track DI's with free ampsims&impusles and say 'DON'T WORRY IF IT SOUNDS SHIT RIGHT NOW - I WILL RUN IT THROUGH A BADASS AMP LATER."

Using DI's also helps you cut out and trim all the fuck ups. Yeah, there shouldn't be fuckups, but your ears kinda shut off after the first shitty take, and you just want the dude gone ASAP so you can go wank and get a sandwich.

 

[Melb_shredder]

Generally I'll do 2 things...
1. Do it my way first.
2. Show them their 'great' tone and watch it ruin the mix while their eyes glaze over!

Having said that, sometimes you get those people who give you a mix, no DI in sight, and the guitars sound like razorblades because they managed to wire iPod headphones into a makeshift mic and record the amp coupled directly into their own asshole...

And then you play the role of the janitor

 

[jbotsd]

nothing beats getting your mic placement sorted.

guitarist "im just going to the toilet"

proceeds to run into tracking room and move mic

me " -_- "

guitarist "oh man thats how i like it to sound at home" or " trust me i know my own tone "

 

[jbotsd]

actually i also want to bring up that its not just guitarists ... DRUMMERS have to be the worst for it .. especially students studying music ..

this story isnt a one off which is the most upsetting part of it...

I had a band in who needed to track drums and were tracking the rest of their record at home then sending it off to a "big name" overseas for mixing and mastering. They came in and thought they were the shit.
anywho
I was running through my usual routine after tuning and setting this kids kit up and im not using this term loosely he was 16 or 17 .. Im throwing mics around left right centre and im about to start auditioning drum tones when i look over my shoulder and this kid is moving mics around at his own will. I ask him what he is doing and he assures me its ok as he is in cert III music production he knows what he is doing ... I tell him politely to fuck off as professionally as i could and let me carry on with my work. Then after i finish auditioning mic placements and im quite happy with the set up and sound he continues to tell me that im "doing everything wrong" or " thats not how he was taught" i then give him the "I sit in the big chair you do what i tell you" speech .. he then reluctantly agrees and we play him back his drum takes and not another word was spoken..

then come mix time everything was 100% replaced in the mix because the "big name" took too long so they sent it to an mbox kid somewhere else.

Top Stuff

 

[mva801]

I'll share a little story relating to this. So we were recording a country record at our studio. I'm engineering, and this guy named Steve Churchyard producing (rad english guy. Worked with the Eagles, INXS, sex pistols, etc) So the legendary Albert Lee comes in to do a guest guitar solo. He brings in an old lexicon effects processor and plugs into one of our Fender Princeton reverbs. We mic it up and let him start playing along with the song. He wanted the sound to be very specific, and we weren't liking it much at all, but at first we just exchanged knowing glances and figured what the hell. It's Albert Lee. He's been on Dozens if not hundreds of records, he can do whatever. But Albert took a quick break after the first song, and I immediately got up to grab a DI box, just as Steve said "Hey do you think we should maybe..." "Grab a DI box?" I said. "already on my way."

So I snuck the DI in there before dude got back, didn't tell him, and we reamped it out of a fender bassman during mixing without all that wanky chorus he had going on.

Sometimes you just need to do what you know is best for the song, even if mr amazing guitar player doesn't quite agree. If they question you, just tell them the DI is purely a safety net. Just incase there's a little too much noise from the amp when it gets compressed. You can never be too safe ya know!

Then do whatever you need to in the mix.And if you're giving it to someone else to mix, I'm sure they'll appreciate having the di.

 

[AHChris]

First thing I do when a client doesn´t believe that my amps/guitars/drums sound better than his shitty equipment is a fair shootout. Let them play a newly restringed guitar through a nice amp and then their guitar with ancient strings and a break-your-fingers setup through their transistor combo... works every time

 

[Redoubt9000]

Thx all! Keep em coming

A lot of the things mentioned already were given a bit more clarity, thx! I think the biggest problem for me was that much of what's mentioned are things I take for granted, so Ive never really been faced with the opportunity to sit down and explain it to someone in layman's terms D:

 

[006]

I just do it like this... tell the guitarist that I will be recording DI tracks for the guitars and my main focus is to get good performances first, get the sound later with reamping. If they don't understand then I explain reamping and might even show them an example by reamping a DI of theirs real quick into the POD. I always use a PODxt Pro for monitoring with tracking DI's, once guitarists understand that it will be reamped later they have no aversion to using it for DI tracking purposes.

 

[PhilTheBeard]

Most of the time when we talk to band's we tell them all they need is their guitar's and drum's and that's it. They never ask any question's. Plus they see all the amp's we have and get excited because they know that their e.p. or album will have one of those beautiful tone's on their shit work's out very well

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

nothing beats getting your mic placement sorted.

guitarist "im just going to the toilet"

proceeds to run into tracking room and move mic

me " -_- "

guitarist "oh man thats how i like it to sound at home" or " trust me i know my own tone "

LOL WUT? Man I have never had anyone that ballsy. I've had drunk/high assholes move the mic accidentally but never on purpose.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

then come mix time everything was 100% replaced in the mix because the "big name" took too long so they sent it to an mbox kid somewhere else.

Top Stuff

I wonder if that was the band that wouldn't pay Lasse?

 

[Shaun Werle]

I'm in complete control of the tones being dialed up with my clients generally. I do also take into consideration and get an understanding for what they are interested in achieving and applying what I know to make it work. Look at it like this. If your putting out a product that has your name involved in it why wouldn't you be allowed control over the tones? That's the only way you get better, and make a name for yourself. There's so many factors that your guitar tones need to play, that you should understand. I've been doing a lot of different stuff as far as amps, tones, and tracking goes all with what i've learned.

Don't settle for anything less than your best and i promise you'll start to have something to show for it. That's just how the universe works or atleast how I see it.

good luck man!

Also note: The key to amazing tone is tuning, tuning, and tuning. Some people look past this and ask how to achieve "clean, and crisp" tones. Well at that point have fun tweaking because there's not a setting in the world that can salvage it. I'm a tuning Nazi and proud of it, it speaks for itself.