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[Arthurelletson]

Originally Posted by frans

Hey, a similar thing happened to me.... while live mixing. Not that degree, but.. this "keyboard/boombox-without-an-output-whatsoever" thing : instant dejavu! The nerve of some (very blessed) people.

I've done similar,

DI ing and iPhone playing some sh!t off YouTube.

[benherron.rrr]

In this day and age I kinda thought that people were a bit more. . . . intelligent? But, to be honest I've known slices of bread with more common sense. Its not very nice that engineers are often seen as the artist/producers 'bitch'. I always have a massive amount of respect for the engineer, I use other peoples gear the way I would handle my own (and I'm very OCD when it comes to these things).
I don't really see engineers as guys I'm paying to record/produce me, I see them as colleagues whom I collaborate with to make the best product we can.

[Thomas W. Bethe]

I got a call from a client to do some mastering. He lives about 75 miles from my studio. He tells me that the recording is on a 4 track cassette machine. I tell him to bring the machine with him since I do not have a 4 track cassette machine. He shows up with his cassette and no machine. "I sold the cassette machine so I could pay for the mastering session" he says. OK so I put the cassette on the only cassette deck I own which is a Tascam 122. I tell him that this will mean that the cassette deck will only be playing two of the tracks and that is the best I can do. We listen to what he has recorded and it is him playing a toy piano and banging on some pots and pans in his kitchen and him singing off key and dragging seriously behind the music.

I do my best to master his material and then he pays me and leaves. A week later he calls me up and says that what I have done for him is not good enough and wants to come back and "revisit the tracks" So he drives over and we try some different ways of mastering his material. He seems happy and asks if I can make him some CDs with his artwork on them so he can send them into the record company that he has a contract with. He gives me his "artwork" on a piece of paper and it looks like a 5 year old did it in Kindergarten class. I scan it in make the CDs for him put his "artwork" on the CDs and he is off. A week later he says that the record company told him that the material was not good enough and wants to "revisit the material" yet again. So the third time he comes over I try my best to tell him that what he has given me is not very good but that I did the best I could with what I was given to work with. We again do the mastering I get ready to burn the CDs and put his artwork on them and he tells me he has redone the artwork so I rescan his artwork and print the CDs. He goes off and I never hear from him again until about a week ago when he calls me up and tells me that the record company is going to release his material and he is soooooooo happy!

Not sure what record company he is dealing with but...I tell him BEST OF LUCK and leave it at that.

The OP description of what transpired at the recording session was priceless and my "experience" pales in comparison.

[Beat Poet]

The stuff about the "record company" is good though! As long as you make a few bucks out of it.

The OP's story is class, I like it when they're written with heavy sarcasm and you can just feel the protagonist's pain.

[Dz7]

Originally Posted by Thomas W. Bethe

I got a call from a client to do some mastering. He lives about 75 miles from my studio. He tells me that the recording is on a 4 track cassette machine. I tell him to bring the machine with him since I do not have a 4 track cassette machine. He shows up with his cassette and no machine. "I sold the cassette machine so I could pay for the mastering session" he says. OK so I put the cassette on the only cassette deck I own which is a Tascam 122. I tell him that this will mean that the cassette deck will only be playing two of the tracks and that is the best I can do. We listen to what he has recorded and it is him playing a toy piano and banging on some pots and pans in his kitchen and him singing off key and dragging seriously behind the music.

I do my best to master his material and then he pays me and leaves. A week later he calls me up and says that what I have done for him is not good enough and wants to come back and "revisit the tracks" So he drives over and we try some different ways of mastering his material. He seems happy and asks if I can make him some CDs with his artwork on them so he can send them into the record company that he has a contract with. He gives me his "artwork" on a piece of paper and it looks like a 5 year old did it in Kindergarten class. I scan it in make the CDs for him put his "artwork" on the CDs and he is off. A week later he says that the record company told him that the material was not good enough and wants to "revisit the material" yet again. So the third time he comes over I try my best to tell him that what he has given me is not very good but that I did the best I could with what I was given to work with. We again do the mastering I get ready to burn the CDs and put his artwork on them and he tells me he has redone the artwork so I rescan his artwork and print the CDs. He goes off and I never hear from him again until about a week ago when he calls me up and tells me that the record company is going to release his material and he is soooooooo happy!

Not sure what record company he is dealing with but...I tell him BEST OF LUCK and leave it at that.

The OP description of what transpired at the recording session was priceless and my "experience" pales in comparison.

You must make incredible masters...!!!

[Ward Pike]

Well thanks for the great reads, guys... makes me very thankful my nightmares haven't been any worse than they are...

Drunken raging lunatic, meth=heads coming down, bands backing out in the middle of sessions, film post and score morons deciding at the last minute to "do it with the brother in law" ... just the usual crap. Nothing involving violence though, thank the Lord.

[BlackBackDrop]

rvwainscott, you will now be called "Marshmallow Man"...

you should start secretly posting lots of stories then bring out a book called, "Zen of Marshmellows"... I'm a sucker and will buy it...

[rvwainscott]

Oh my.

I was shocked to see that people were still responding to a thread that was almost 5 years old. Re-reading that stuff cracks me up to no end.

Here is an update:

That CS80 is now owned by the owner of Barefoot (and their excellent speakers!)

Eric and I had to close that facility in Oct of 2008 and we moved out to California.

We're still doing projects but we are really focused on Black Box Analog Design.

P.S. I've got a million other stories just like this one.

[3rd Degree]

All these stories are too funny. The part about the girl on myspace really hit home though. I have only recorded two female singers were not professional singers and singers I didn't know. One went bad, one went horribly.

I am not trying to top anyone's story but it's pretty bad/entertaining. This girl calls me up and asks me I if I would produce and record a demo for her. We work everything out and meet shortly so she can hear my instrumentals. Everything seems in order and I am actually kind of excited to do something different. Later, we actually meet to record. She had a personality that was a bit "all over" so I didn't know she was extremely intoxicated when we started. At first, it was going well. Here songs were simple so she would hear something and write a verse in about 15 minutes, we would record it.

Slowly, the songs started to really have this focus of this guy leaving his girlfriend, or the guy that is unobtainable. At a few points, I was wondering "is she talking about me?" I was like, no, I am just tripping and thinking I should check my ego. At the same time, she continuously was loosing some clothes as we proceeded but my studio does get really hot in the summer as I have no AC in Cali, didn't really think much of it but it got pretty "provocative" towards the end.

Finally, she writes and sings a song called something like "make up your mind" or similar. It was about a guy in a relationship that she wanted to be with and she just wanted him to leave. Again, I am like "is this about me or I am just tripping?" The song ended with a question..."what are you going to do". Well, after she asked the question, she takes her headphones off, walks over to me, basically sits in my lap, and asks me for my answer.

It even gets worse, I politely ask her to leave (she is pretty much crying her eyes out and her intoxication is really becoming apparent). She some how lost her phone and refuses to leave until she finds it. I try to help her find it to get rid of her but she keeps asking me for my reasoning to basically stay with a girl I love, rather than run away to a dream place with a girl I have known for about 5 hours or so. Of course, she is wearing almost nothing still. I end up having to show her the door, lock it, and call it a night. I found her phone in the driveway the next day, had to hit her up on facebook to return it. Luckily, she just came, grabbed it, and didn't say anything.

Anyway, just figured I should add, I am not the greatest story teller but that was one of the more crazy/WTF?/lack of professionalism sessions I have ever had.

[rvwainscott]

Hey 3rd Degree, that was a good one.

Re-reading all of this has prompted me to drop two short ones as well.

So, I gain a reputation for doing audio forensics work - clean up 911 emergency calls and cleaning up audio recordings in general. Hell, I even got to testify as an "expert" witness once.

Anyway, not everything was that serious and I cleaned things up for the general public as well. After all, Arizona is a state where you are legally allowed to record people without their knowledge.

So this guy calls me up and asks if I can do a simple tape to CD transfer to include a bit of enhancement to make it all nice and audible and he also asked me to arrange for CD duplication. Strange but whatever.

Usually, I send people away while I work but this guy was paying top dollar and insisted that he be there while I did it. So, the recording was that of a middle aged man talking dirty to some middle aged woman over the phone. The man had quite the dirty mouth and was going on and on about what everyone involved in the conversation was going to be doing with their mouths later that day.

My customer looked at me and explained that the woman was his wife and the man was her boss - the Minister at their church. I was shocked and tried to make small talk and I asked "What does she do at the church?" and my client responded that his wife was the "church organist".

I bit my tongue very hard to keep from laughing. By the way, the CD duplication was so he could hand out copies to everyone as they were leaving church that following Sunday.

No 2.

This guy drops off a cheap digital recorder that he had apparently hidden in the air conditioning duct of his bedroom. He tells me that I should try to get rid of the noise and bring out the voices.

I set to work and begin peeling away the layers of crap to reveal a woman having rough sex. Not only that but she was singing the theme song to The Dukes of Hazard in cadence with that of the groaning of the bed frame. It was a very disturbing recording to listen to.

The client reappears at the appointed time and I'm hoping that he'll just hand me the money and take his two CD's and leave but, instead, says, "lets hear what ya got".

Crap, now I have to sit there and listen to his wife have violent sex with another man while she sings/screams the theme song to The Dukes of Hazard. Frankly, I'm not sure I can hold it together.

As the recording starts, I explain what I've done and how it has enhanced the recording and I'm trying to be professional all the while the recording is getting raunchier and raunchier and it sounds like someone is disassembling a '56 Chevy and then the singing starts. "Now, you can clearly hear the theme song from The Dukes of Hazard. It was a lot of work, but I brought it out."

Thankfully, he got sick of my play by play and inquired as to whether the CD would play in his car stereo. I assured him that it would and he quickly paid me and left.

Now, that isn't as awkward as a woman writing a Lets Get Busy song right in front of and to 3rd Degree but it comes damn close.

[Rikharthu]

Originally Posted by rvwainscott

By the way, the CD duplication was so he could hand out copies to everyone as they were leaving church that following Sunday.

Hah, I hope you completed that job. I really do.

[rvwainscott]

Originally Posted by Rikharthu

Hah, I hope you completed that job. I really do.

He did. I made arrangements with a local duplication house that did short runs and that is where he went after he was finished with my appointment.

I'm pretty sure that everyone on gearslutz that works or has worked as an engineer has experienced similar things. We've all had requests that range from bothersome to absurd.

We work in an odd industry where the "artist" has to have a big ego and absolute confidence in what they are doing. Sometimes, though, the level of talent or budget do not match the "artists" perception of themselves and that is where the fun begins.

Artist: "Did you get that?"
Me: "Get what?"
Artist: "The song I just played?"
Me: (shocked because I thought he was still trying to tune a way out of tune guitar) "I'm sorry, I was still getting levels. I'm ready now so go ahead and play it again"

I can keep a straight face through pretty much anything. Maybe I should take up poker.

[3rd Degree]

Originally Posted by rvwainscott

Now, that isn't as awkward as a woman writing a Lets Get Busy song right in front of and to 3rd Degree but it comes damn close.

It wasn't that simple, she wanted me to leave my long term girlfriend and run away with here, not a one night thing. If it was one night, it would have made it much easier to get out of the situation (and no, I don't cheat)

[JoRillo]

I wish this thread had more stories. There are some serious gems here...

[Duardo]

When I was running a small home studio out of my college apartment a friend referred a guy to me who wanted me to help him capture his vision. He had written one song, and he told me that it was such a good song that he'd never need to record another song again. Okay. He would play the guitar do vocals and asked me to find a bass player, keyboard player and drummer. I told him I would play the drums and I found guys to do the rest.

We discuss how we are going to do the recording and decide that he will lay down a scratch guitar track to a click. I will record the drums and then we will build everything else on top of that. Okay.

So he shows up and the first thing he asks is if I can have my roommate turn the TV off. My roommate is in a different room on a different floor on the opposite side of the condo. I cannot hear the TV at all...he had just seen him watching the TV when he came in. I told him that since we couldn't hear the TV, a microphone three inches from the speaker of a loud guitar amp wouldn't hear it either. He seemed okay with that but later went to the restroom, and I found out later he'd gone upstairs and asked the guy to turn off the TV. Nice.

So we lay down his scratch tracks and this great masterpiece is essentially two riffs...a generic blues shuffle alternating with a straight-ahead descending chord progression. That's it. We spent a lot of time getting it "just right". He wanted to take the tracks home to listen to them before our next session before I did my drum parts, and when he came back he said the tempo wasn't quite right so he wanted to do it again. No problem. He said he assumed he wouldn't have to pay for the time we spent recording the initial tracks because we weren't going to be using them, but I told him that we still spent the time recording them so he still had to pay for the time, and he did reluctantly agree. Okay.

So the tempo was fine and I laid down the drums on my own later...no issues there. He decided that the scratch guitar part was fine and decided to do the vocals. As it turns out the "vocals" were just a few spoken phrases between sections. And they were slightly odd phrases...things like "I have invented the world's first perpetual motion machine", "hell is a planet and it is Jupiter", and "the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and OJ Simpson". He explained to me that OJ was one of them because he rode a white bronco.

Next came the bass. The bass player showed up and laid down a fairly basic part, but the guy decided he didn't want any bass on the recording after all because it would make his guitar part harder to hear. Okay...and did he have to pay the bass player, since he didn't use his part? Once again, yes.

Then came the keyboard player. All he wanted was a keyboard introduction...nothing during the song, because once again that would get in the way of his masterful guitar part. He helped the guy find a patch he liked...a really over-the-top horn patch...and sang the general melody he wanted. What we wound up with was something that sounded like a fanfare out of a Monty Python sketch.

And then he asked if he could add one more thing. I said sure...it was actually the end of the semester and I had to literally pack up my studio and the rest of my stuff from the condo and move out that night, and we were already a little past the time we'd scheduled, but he'd paid in advance and was pretty reasonable about everything despite his mild protests. So he whips out what can only be described as his manifesto...what wound up being about fifteen minutes' worth of ramblings about religion, government, and so on, including explanations of his aforementioned words (hell is apparently specifically the red spot on Jupiter, which, by the way, is a solid planet...who ever heard of gas having gravity?), an account of his visit to and detention at CIA headquarters in Langley, and something that sounded like a Gregorian chat in Latin (he had recently become a Mormon and had apparently bounced around from one religion to another previously, so it was probably something he picked up along the way). It wound up going pretty late because he had to stop and restart several times, and then we had to mix, but he paid, took his DAT tape, and all was well. I was a little relieved, though, that I was moving as I wouldn't need to worry about him showing up randomly or anything like that...the only way he had to contact me was via email (this was before the days when everyone had a cell phone, so that number was changing as well).

So that was a fun story as it was, but then maybe ten years later on a whim I just Googled his name to see what I could come up with, and I learned that he had recently been found in a church parking lot (Pentacostal, maybe? Don't recall exactly, but he'd apparently continued bouncing around between denominations) ranting about something and was taken into custody. As it turned out he was wanted in a different state for murder...he had sodomized his uncle with a samurai sword, then doused him in gasoline and torched him. Apparently his uncle had molested or abused him as a child. Hopefully he will be locked up forever, but in any case I don't think I have anything to worry about as he seemed to be satisfied with the way that things turned out.

[rvwainscott]

Did he murder his uncle before or after working with you? I wonder if he used one of those cheap samurai swords they sell at the fair?

[Duardo]

This was a couple years after he worked with me. I'm not sure where he got the sword, but the article did mention that it had a 12 1/2 in blade and was in up to the hilt. He'd also been on America's Most Wanted between the time he killed his uncle and was found at the church.

[brockorama]

Originally Posted by Duardo

He seemed okay with that but later went to the restroom, and I found out later he'd gone upstairs and asked the guy to turn off the TV. Nice.

Wow. Creepy. Lucky he didn't kill you too. Would have been eerie if the police report said he had "your track" on repeat as he cut up his victim. Yikes...!! Ok I need to go think good thoughts...thanks for the story.

[SimonCharlesHann]

This thread is pure gold

[Cadde]

Originally Posted by rvwainscott

P.S. I've got a million other stories just like this one.

would be ok , to read a few more ... LOL !

[sportyspice]

I got as far as hiphop.

[Thomas W. Bethe]

A couple more...

A client books time in the studio to do some mastering, He cancels at the last minute saying he has not gotten the mixing done. He reschedules the time and again calls up to cancel saying he has not finished the mixing. One more time he schedules the session and then fails to show up or call. Two weeks later he calls up and says he is ready to master. We set a date and time and he calls up saying his car won't start so he needs to reschedule. He also tells me that he has wasted so much time doing remixing that he needs to get this done ASAP. He wants to know if we can do this late at night when he can use his wife's car. I say yes. He shows up with his material. It is awful. It is all distorted and has some very weird effects on every track and there is also some really weird EQ done to every track. I listen to the tracks and ask if he has brought something to listen to that he wants to emulate. He produces a CD from a local client that I had mastered but it is a beautifully recorded and mixed (and mastered I might add) acoustic album. I try my best but cannot really accomplish what the client wants and suggest he think about remixing some of it and leaving off all the weird effects and weird EQ. He says OK and leaves. Next day he calls back and wants to schedule some time. We agree on a time and he does not show up. I call him and he says that he has decided to release the album without mastering since it is his music and he wants it his way. I send him an invoice for the mastering time and about two weeks go by. I call him and ask if there is a problem with the invoice but he says he is refusing to pay it since I did not do what he wanted me to do. After about a month and a call from my attorney I get a check. I later saw his CD in Borders and my studio and name were on it as Mastered by. What a royal mess.

I get a call from a client. He wants to get somethings mastered. I tell him the fee and we agree on a time. He shows up with about 15 DATs. He says his stuff is on one of them but he forgot which one. So we fast forward and listen to 15 DAT tapes but what he wants is not on any of them. So he wants to reschedule a session after he finds what he wanted. I have about three hours time time and tell him that I would like to be paid for what I have already done. He says I did not DO anything except listen to his DAT tapes. I tell him it is still my time. He pays me and leaves. About a month later I get a call from him again. He wants to know if I can do Stem Mastering which I say I can. So he schedules a session and brings in 4 ADAT tapes. I don't have an ADAT recorder but I know someone who does so I arrange to rent the ADAT machine and we reschedule a session. He shows up and I ask him where on the tapes are the songs he wants to master. He says he is not sure but we can listen to the tapes and he can tell me. I put one of the ADAT tapes up and we listen. There are no finished songs only parts of songs on the ADATs. He says he must have the finished ADAT tape somewhere else and can we reschedule??? I tell him that I had to rent the ADAT machine so I need to know when he will next need it. I also tell him he owes me for the rental and my time. He again says that I did nothing except listen to his material and that if I am a mastering engineer I should have an ADAT machine and not have to charge him for the rental of one. He begrudgingly pays me and we set up a time for another session. I rent the machine but the client does not snow up. I call him and no answer on his cell phone. I start to do other things in the studio and about three hours later he shows up with about 7 ADATs and wants to listen to all of these as well. We sit and listen and fast forward to the seven ADAT tapes. They are all work tapes and none of them have any completed songs on them. I again bill him for my time and the rental and he balks saying he already paid for the rental. I tell him it is a per use charge and not a one time charge. He pays and says he knows where the master is and will have it a week from today and can we schedule a mastering session. I ask him if we will need the ADAT machine again and he says no. The time for the session is 1 pm and he does not show. About 4 pm he calls me and tells me he is going to be late. He asks if we can do this at 8 pm. I agree. At 8 pm he shows up with a four track analog tape which is what the mix master is recorded on. Luckily I have a four channel tape machine and we put it on. It turns out this is a four track cassette duplication master meaning that two tracks are recorded in one direction and two in the other direction. I put the material on my computer in real time. It takes about an hour. It is now about 9:30 pm. I have been up since 5 am. I ask if we can finish up the session the next day but he says he needs to get the master off to the pressing plant. We take about 4 hours to do the mastering and he finds that one of the songs is missing off the tape since it was too long for a 60 minute cassette. He says he knows where it is and can go get it. It is now about 2 am. I tell him that we will have to finish this up tomorrow. He agrees and next morning he shows up with another ADAT tape but of course I don't have the ADAT machine. I call my friend with the ADAT and he brings it over. We listen to the ADAT and it has ALL the songs on it and they are all in pristine digital format. He listens to the songs and says he wants to use the ADAT versions for the mastering. I have all the setting written down and we finish up the mastering. I bill him for the original mastering, for the remastering and for the rental of the ADAT. The client again gives me a lecture on why I should have an ADAT machine and pays the invoice. I don't hear from this client for about a year and now he calls me up to say he never got the CD done since he wanted to add some songs to the CD and he is ready to remaster the whole album. At this point I am not sure I want to get involved again.

More to come!!!

[Ward Pike]

Holy crap... and I thought my life was tough carrying $24,000 in receivables.

[JoRillo]

That is rediculous Thomas. As obnoxious as the second client was, at least he was a paying to be a pain.

[realtrance]

I just watched the movie "Sideways," highly recommended to all on this thread.

Some days I fear this is what most of America is like.

Other days, I fear this is what most of the _world_ is like.... o_O....

If an alien species ever shows up on the planet I suspect it will be all too easy for them to conclude there is no intelligent life here.

[Thomas W. Bethe]

99 and 44/100 percent of my clients are GREAT people and a real pleasure to work with. The leftover fringe are both hard to work with and not eager to pay for services rendered. I wish I had a crystal ball and could see who was going to be a pain in the butt and who was going to be easy to work with. Sometimes the original phone call can be very telling. If you try and find out where they recorded the material and what they are expecting from the mastering and they are evasive about both it can tell you a lot about the client. If you start to talk about fees early on and the client keeps wanting to know to exactly how much it is going to cost them or keeps trying to get the cost lower becasue of "special circumstance" it is usually going to be a bad experience. I try and give very very detailed estimates but only after I have heard the material. I had one client recently who wanted me to work on his material for free because he was sure he was going to be a star and when he became famous he would pay me. Another potential client kept trying to get me to master his stuff for $5 a song just like he saw on line. In both cases I basically turned them down as I could feel the bad vibe right from the beginning.

Clients are what drives a business and keeps the doors open but there seem to be some clients that are just plain a pain in the a$$.

[joelpatterson]

I had a guy who had tape recorded his encounter with a (turned out later) underage girl, so he had me put it on a CD and the idea was to play it in court to "prove" that his (ahem) was not specifically, how to put this, part of an "inside job" and so technically he was "innocent" in a strict reading of the law.

I was perplexed, in that this was audio and not video, how the grunting and groaning really established any detail that would enlighten the judge, jury and executioner, but overall I could see in my mind's eye his lawyer calmly assuming custody of the CD and probably melting it down immediately.

He ended up with five year's probation. Oh, right, Justice is blind anyway!

[rvwainscott]

Greetings,

Still shocked that people are posting to this thread. Anyway, I think it is time for something a bit more "lighthearted".

Honeywell contacts me as they wish to record cockpit voice warnings for their commercial aviation systems. These are the warning voices you sometimes hear in the background (in a news report) giving warnings as the plane stalls, catches fire or plummets to the Earth.

To make sure that the recordings would work for pilots around the world, Honeywell brought in pilots from around the world to be present at the recording session which was fine as I had a big control room. I think that there were 4 or 5 pilots and some staff from Honeywell.

I didn't think that lines like "fire" or "stall" or "abort takeoff" required serious vocal talent so I, instead, used my wife. She has a decent voice but I forgot to tell her what the session was all about and she did not learn about it until it was too late to do anything but read the lines.

My wife is a walking talking version of Mary Poppins and to think that the last thing (other than screaming) a bunch of people were going to hear as their burning plane raced towards the earth was her nagging voice disturbed her.

For months afterwards I would tease her with "Nobody wants to hear what you have to say" and she couldn't argue with me because, frankly, no one wants to hear that the commercial airliner has now become a lawn dart.

What other business would give us stories like the ones here?

[ionian]

Originally Posted by rvwainscott

no one wants to hear that the commercial airliner has now become a lawn dart.

As a music director, I fly over 100 times a year. Thanks for that thought! lol


Regards,
Frank

[rvwainscott]

Originally Posted by ionian

As a music director, I fly over 100 times a year. Thanks for that thought! lol


Regards,
Frank

Don't think that I wont catch the irony of it if I'm every riding that lawn dart down to Earth.