biggest "pet peeve" in the studio

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by JDN

I haven't seen this one mentioned yet...when tracking, vocal producers, or members in the control room that don't understand you have to hit the talkback button to communicate with the person in the booth!!!

This kills me, at the beginning of every tracking session that i'm engineering, I show the producers or other members where the talkback button is, or give them the remote, and even suggest they sit next too it. Inevitably, EVERY session I end up having to push it because they just start talking thinking magically the person in the booth can here them....

after a while, I stop pushing it, and i can't help myself from somewhat snidely saying "you know, they can't hear you unless you press the talkback button" I really just can't helpmyself from saying this with kind of an A-hole tone...it's just like nails on a chalkboard

Come to think of it, that's the winner for me! High on the reasons never to want to engineer again to have some hapless tw*t behave like you're supposed to sit there pushing the button for his inane commentry to reach its destination..........push it yourself or hire someone else......

[Kyle S]

* = already mentioned
bad breath* - chew some ****ing gum i know you can taste it

drinks!!!* - ive throw a FEW beers FULL mind you out on the sidewalk

ciggs - ive slapped a cigg out of a mouth before

fingers on the screen* - its like ****ing compulsive for some people

trying to help - i saw a guy red in the face trying to unplug a mic before, he was pulling like 30lbs probably. the guy never knew XLRs had locks. he also had his own home studio, all radioshack 1/4" mics i assume.

wiggling jacks to pull them loose - WHAT THE **** MAN!???? GO BACk TO PHYSICS, 7th grade!!

ive had a guy squeeze my DT770s like a stressball and look at me and smile. man i almost stabbed him. i am still pissed to this day about that. any chance it could hurt a headphone?

same guys as above:

they COULD NOT stop moving mics. as soon as id leave and come back in the control room id hear the telltell sound of a micstand moving and sure enough the mic would be in a completly different position than where i put it. i ****ing gave up and let them ruin thier own debut album.

i got into a serious argument over the placement of a drum OH. this is from guys that could not answer 1 ingle question about electricty or anything scientific for that matter - total ****ing dumbasses. again i gave in and let them ruin thier sound, they were about to fight and guess what, they NEVER EVEN HEARD IT in my position. after they heard the phasey shit they set up it was all grins.

i told them not to put my ****ing name anywhere on the cd and guess what? im producer AND engineer!! good thing they never went anywhere and never will. total ****ing pre-madonnas.

same guys also cranked the mains to "hear the detail" and almost blew them.

guys i seriously almost became a murderer over that "session." them feeding me herb is probably all that saved thier rock n roll lives.

oh yeh and they powered down the rack full of hard drive recorders with other peoples work on them BY THE FURMAN. somebody hide the guns, please!!!

and now my shift key is working intermitantly on my new laptop.

oh yeah 1 more from the geniuses above - teetertottering thier boots on my god damn snake cable! i told them to avoid stepping on it and everytime i saw them they were like trying to balance on it.

why didnt i kick thier ****ing asses???/ why why why why why i would feel so much better today if i did.

i think shooting each of them in the knee would have made it worth my time. they promised to pay up alot (they are pretty wealthy) and i maybe got $40 bucks out of the entire deal. then they moved away. BAM! Bon voyage mother****ers! LESSONS LEARNED! i have very strict payment plans now because of these ******s.