When Everything Goes Pear-Shaped

[Murton]

Dedicated to those times where gigs fall apart and there nothing you can do. When leads start dieing, mic's break, recordings get corrupted, you forget to press record, you get an hour to set up a job which takes two hours, when people whinge about problems you are trying to fix, thus making said problem worse, when you get ripped off at the end of the day, when people steal your gear, when you get a parking ticket in a loading zone when you are doing exactly that,

Share your troubleshooting tips, stories of dealing with talent etc

[Hic&Nunc]

The only thing i know that goes pear-shaped is a piece of music by Erik Satie ...

[chris319]

Question: If on a paying gig someone rips off some of your equipment, do you bill it to the client?

[jude]

Originally Posted by chris319

Question: If on a paying gig someone rips off some of your equipment, do you bill it to the client?

if you have your gear racked up well it makes it really hard to do.

that said someone once stole a behringer compressor of mine after a gig. it was sitting under my laptop.

that right, the stole a behringer and left the laptop running smaart live and cubase

[Murton]

Make sure you have insurance and make sure it cover's equipment whilst at a gig. I.e. not in a locked premises/vehicle and unattended.

I would make the client who hired me liable for any equipment damage caused due to punters and other parties hired by them. I.e. other companies doing audio/video, bands/artists, catering etc. Make sure you have their signature in writting on a document saying this. Showing this document to a lawyer will also make things very easy and cheap to recover equipment replacement costs in such circumstances.

Also remember your insurances, Public Liability, Professional Indemnity, Workers Comp etc as some promoters will try and pin anything on you if you aren't covered.

[ohmoka]

Originally Posted by Murton

Dedicated to those times where gigs fall apart and there nothing you can do. When leads start dieing, mic's break, recordings get corrupted, you forget to press record, you get an hour to set up a job which takes two hours, when people whinge about problems you are trying to fix, thus making said problem worse, when you get ripped off at the end of the day, when people steal your gear, when you get a parking ticket in a loading zone when you are doing exactly that,

Share your troubleshooting tips, stories of dealing with talent etc

How about the musician who "knows" more than the engineer and tells him what to do... that s u c k s!

[Don S]

Originally Posted by jude

that right, the stole a behringer and left the laptop running smaart live and cubase

Maybe they thought they were doing you a favor by stealing it!?

[Murton]

Originally Posted by ohmoka

How about the musician who "knows" more than the engineer and tells him what to do... that s u c k s!

I listen to a certain extent when talking about how things sound and what sound they are going for when in the studio, like what guitar or drum sound that they are after and what sounds good to them. But when they display a complete lack of knowledge when doing so I pretty much ignore them.

[mixedupsteve]

Originally Posted by ohmoka

How about the musician who "knows" more than the engineer and tells him what to do... that s u c k s!

Or the musician's Mom/Dad/Brother.........

[Murton]

Originally Posted by mixedupsteve

Or the musician's Mom/Dad/Brother.........

"Can you do something about the double bass? It sounds terrible." "That's because the bass and amp are shit." "Oh..."

Five seconds into the first song "Can you turn up the left vocals?" "Give me ten seconds".

[jude]

Originally Posted by Don S

Maybe they thought they were doing you a favor by stealing it!?

well, i did buy an M500 to replace it

[mixedupsteve]

Originally Posted by Murton

"Can you do something about the double bass? It sounds terrible." "That's because the bass and amp are shit." "Oh..."

Five seconds into the first song "Can you turn up the left vocals?" "Give me ten seconds".

Two months ago I had someone tell me that the drums sounded out of time.
"could you fix that please??"

[jude]

Originally Posted by mixedupsteve

Two months ago I had someone tell me that the drums sounded out of time.
"could you fix that please??"

and let me guess...
your response was something along the lines of


"no troubles sir, i would be happy to do that for you"