What are some of the most stupid things you've heard "engineers" say?

[kaomao]

This cracks me up:
A vocalist I worked with wasn't happy with my vocal tracking because I didn't give him "good" tips.
I was fine with him not satisfied, it can happens.
So he asked me the premixed track to take to another mixer (claiming later that was my mix).
The tracks were not mixed at all, they were just low instruments and loud vocals so the vocalist could hear his voice better and see what's the problem with his voice.
The mixer as soon as he listened to the track said "That guy it's not so used to work with 8 string, this mix sucks"
Douchebag!

that was:
1) it was just for "vocal listening purposes", no other instruments mixed at all
2) not mixed
3) listen to my stuff before telling bullshits
4) stop listening to singers who don't know shit about what's a mix, that clearly wasn't a mix at all!

well the mixer later received even the multitracks and proved anyway not being able to mix a real drumkit!!!
mistriggering all over the place

 

[rispsira]

"this is the way to do it"

 

[TesticleMilkshake]

Wanted to contribute more than just a picture of Pikachu with balls on his face to the thread.

Engineer - "Trust me, I'm an engineer."

Train engineer - "One of the fun perks of this job is you get hit stuff!" (he was obviously joking )

Flyer at my college advertising recording services (no joke) - "I use ProTools and shit."

Also, I had a friend who was recording and mixing for band with a pretty crappy singer (the vocalist kept going flat.) I remember sitting in with him on a particularly frustrating session and he sigh, "If you put enough reverb on the vocal track, it will eventually sound sort of good."

 

[Skinny Viking]

Me: "Dude, the vocals you track are ALL over the place dynamically, they're terrible. Why aren't you running them through a compressor on the way in and set it to just tame like 2-3 db off the peaks? You'll actually be able to use a little more gain on your pres and have more smoothed out, workable tracks"

Him: "You never want to compress on the way in ... a real singer just moves closer or away from the mic while tracking"

Me: "Have you worked with one of those yet?"

Him: "Actually .... no, not yet"

 

[Skinny Viking]

oh yeah, had the same conversation about how he tracked drums

 

[bryan_kilco]

Wanted to contribute more than just a picture of Pikachu with balls on his face to the thread.

That picture actually made me look twice.....creepy haha.

Girl I know went to school for audio/video. Years down the road, right when I first "started" recording, I was going to record her band. She was drummer and was just....not good. Tempos all over the place, etc. She says "Make me sound like a million bucks, Bry!!"

 

[egan.]

Me: "Have you worked with one of those yet?"

hahahah. So true.

 

[Trevoire520]

I know a guy who has done a 3 year sound course who used to record live rehearsals with one dynamic mic on a mic stand. It was all he had to use at that time. One jam we needed the mic stand so he moved the dynamic mic to the couch and stuck it in the corner of the arm rest and for some unknown reason put a pop filter on it. The recording ended up with much more bottom end because the mic was sitting in a corner and also the high end would have been masked by the positioning. He claimed it was the pop filter that changed the sound.

I heard him complaining a few months later about how the mic locker at his university didn't have enough pop filters to mic up a full drumkit

Holy fuck... I just... What...?

"When you're micing a kit, turn the gains up a tiny bit JUST until you hear the signals, then push all the faders up to max to boost the level, that way you won't get any bleed from the other drums" not long after this the guy dropped out of uni...

I've seen someone argue the same thing on here. Apparently drum bleed is caused by turning the preamps up too high! Clearly don't understand the cause and effect of that particular scenario.

1. Thank God I only spent $9k on college.

2. Thank God non of my teachers were fucking retarded.

Thank god education is free in Scotland and my lecturers were actually really good

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Thank god education is free in Scotland

There is no such thing as free anything. The only difference between your education and mine is how it was paid for.

 

[Trevoire520]

Well ok it's not technically free but I'm not coming out of college/uni with £50k of debt, or my parent's didn't have to save all their life and decide which of the kids would be able to go to college.

 

[AllanD]

I've seen someone argue the same thing on here. Apparently drum bleed is caused by turning the preamps up too high! Clearly don't understand the cause and effect of that particular scenario.

It's true. If you're compensating for a soft hitting drummer by turning up the pre's, there's going to be more bleed.

 

[Trevoire520]

As I said, confusing cause and effect.

It's not the higher preamp gain causing the bleed. It's the soft hitting drummer hitting the cymbals harder than the drums.

You could have a guy who hits the drums hard but ALSO smashes the fuck out of a set of massive Paiste Rude's set up super close to the drums. In this case you might have low preamp gain but will STILL have tons of cymbal bleed.

The drum/bleed ratio is determined once the sound hit's the mic, (a result of the drummers performance and your mic polar pattern & placement) and is uneffected by the amount of gain you add downstream. Unless you're talking about keeping the preamp gain so low that the bleed is away down within the self noise of your equipment (which is what lee referenced earlier) which I'm sure we all know is a absolutely RETARDED practice.

 

[006]

It's true. If you're compensating for a soft hitting drummer by turning up the pre's, there's going to be more bleed.

Wrong.

That amount of bleed will be there whether the preamp is turned up to 3 or 10. All the preamp is doing is raising the level of everything hitting the microphone, equally. It does not magically increase the bleed.

 

[metalhead3ecr]

Wrong.

That amount of bleed will be there whether the preamp is turned up to 3 or 10. All the preamp is doing is raising the level of everything hitting the microphone, equally. It does not magically increase the bleed.

006=Correct.

Since we fussed over the amp comparison stuff I figured I need to agree with you on something

 

[metalhead3ecr]

Engineer: What guitar tone are you looking for?

Me: Something similar to the Black Album.

Engineer: Oh! I know just what to do. Those guys used multiple amps.

His signal chain: Guitar->6505->speaker out (8ohm) ->Mesa Boogie Mark 5 (guitar input) --> Cab

...he hooked it all up...but I refused to let him turn anything on. Dat dumbass.

Needless to say I unplugged my guitar and left!

 

[bryan_kilco]

Engineer: What guitar tone are you looking for?

Me: Something similar to the Black Album.

Engineer: Oh! I know just what to do. Those guys used multiple amps.

His signal chain: Guitar->6505->speaker out (8ohm) ->Mesa Boogie Mark 5 (guitar input) --> Cab

...he hooked it all up...but I refused to let him turn anything on. Dat dumbass.

Needless to say I unplugged my guitar and left!

I once accidentally ran a speaker out of a Mark IV into an old reel-to-reel instead of the recording out..... seriously, can't believe how stupid I was when I was younger. Ran amps without speakers connected for sometimes hours. Still work fine. The other day at practice, other guitarist turns amp on, no sound, "Oh shit, thats right, I unplugged the cab". Me: "Oh shit dude, hopefully you didnt fry it". It was fine. *shrug*

 

[Niol]

"It doesn't matter if you record guitars with real amps or with a Line6 Pod,because eventually it is going to be in digital form anyway (CD,MP3 etc.)."

Tragic...

 

[DanLights]

"It doesn't matter if you record guitars with real amps or with a Line6 Pod,because eventually it is going to be in digital form anyway (CD,MP3 etc.)."

Tragic...

LOGIC! Hahahahaha

 

[egan.]

I honestly don't think most of these things qualify as things "engineers said." These are things inexperienced people trying to record said.

 

[Carnivorouschrysalis]

I honestly don't think most of these things qualify as things "engineers said." These are things inexperienced people trying to record said.

Hence the sarcastic quotations around the word "engineer"