Pushing the artist

[ButchVig]

Originally Posted by jbjoubaud

Hey Butch,

I was recording some vocals a couple of days ago for a deathmetal/hardcore band and was thinking at almost every couple of takes "ok, this I'll edit because this guy is obviously not going to last long" or "yeah, he's not gonna be able to do any better"

So my questions to you are

How do you motivate the musicians to get better tracks ?

When do you feel you've pushed them to their limits and got the best out of them ?

It's a great pleaser to read your posts everyday, thanks for doing this !


JB

Every artist is different, and as a producer you will respond to each situation by using your best psychological instincts. Some artists can be very easy to talk to, they want to make the recording as good as possible, so if you openly discuss what needs to be done, and give them really focused feedback, they will rise to the occasion.
Some artists are not as easy to deal with, it could be because of any number of reasons: they may be lacking technical skills; they might be lacking in social skills and have a hard time communicating; they are too self absorbed and their ego is so huge that they are not aware of their own limitations.
Sometimes you can push an artist if they have a super ego, they may look at the challenge and embrace it.
Other times you will need to use all your cognitive psych 101 powers to figure out what to tell an artist, how to encourage them, how to give constructive criticism, etc

The bottom line is, there is no easy way to put this down on paper, you have to figure it out, sometimes in real time!