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So I have a few here from clients, engineer, groupies, and me. Most are just small misunderstandings of how things work, but are often funny (to me at least):
"I like to record to these analogue machines [ADATs] first before bouncing to my DAW to get that real tape compression and saturation sound!" - from another engineer who actually had a decent spot with a beautiful console.
"You don't have to worry about phase issues, that was only important when they recorded in mono" - same engineer from before I'm afraid
"I endorse and sell these mics out of my studio. I mean, I don't prefer to use them myself, but you can't find better mics!" - same guy as before (geeze I hate to pile on the poor guy)
"This is some real professional work here. What do you do for a living?" - from an artist after I finished recording and mixing their entire project. It's like come on man, aside from the fact that this is a commercial studio (NOT in a house as I could see how that can cause confusion) which I have been introduced to you as the manager of, I've worked with you morning, afternoons, and evenings on all different days of the week, which you saw me finish with clients before you, and start with others after your sessions. I don't know what YOU do for a living, but when would I have time for another job?
During the mixing of a live recording, a band member brought his girlfriend in to hear the mixes (on which one of the songs she drunkenly gave an intro to). When she heard herself she said, "These recordings sound just like they were from your concert last month!" Innocent enough, but was then followed later by "I need to stop drinking so much, I don't even remember coming to this studio, let alone recording my voice here!"
An intern once proudly played me his school project. He even brought in the Pro Tools session talking about how this was the pinnacle of what he as an engineer could do at that point. I listened and the drums sound very distant, but not in a cool or artistic way on their standard gospel R&B song. I soloed each track and asked them why they had two sets of room mics but no overheads when they recorded in a large live room. "Well my partner setup all the mics and we only realized later the the 414's he used as overheads were backwards [facing the ceiling instead of the drums]". Ok, putting the mics up backwards is simple beginner mistake (I've done it too), but then I asked him why the the lack of clear drum sounds wasn't noticed as soon as they checked levels and sounds, thus allowing them to go fix it before recording, he said "I dunno, it just didn't seem that important to have the drums sound that good"
Lastly, myself: I had the pleasure to work with a very well known blind musician/ singer. Upon playing back of the track for his fist go at a solo (the song wasn't his so he wasn't particularly familiar with it) the producer was having a hard time explaining to the artist exactly where he wanted his solo to come in. As I don't generally think it is a good idea to yell cues over the talk back mic during a take (this producer's preferred method), I suggested that we just give the artist a "3...2...1...go" hand signal through the control room glass. The producer thought it was a good idea, but luckily I realized the stupidity of giving a BLIND performer a VISUAL SIGNAL before suggesting the idea to the artist. Still don't know if the producer was as dumb as I was, or if he was messing with me trying to get me tell the musician "just look at us through the glass and we'll give you a signal"
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