How do you handle musicians that wanna control every part of the process?

[Stevil]

Originally Posted by u b k

my apologies. i confess, i don't fully understand all the icons here, but i always thought the "" guy meant "you're in outer space".

i always thot it meant "exit, stage up"

this guy is equally confounding to me: .

i think he's got some wireless crossed.


what are the chances of getting this guy in the set?

[John Eppstein]

Bullwhip!

But seriously, are you hired as an engineer or a producer? If you're an engineer, listen and don't argue. If you're a producer, tell him gently that if he wants you to do your job he has to at least try things your way. If he won't do that, quit - as a producer. Tell him you'll be glad to engineer, but success of the production is up to him.

[John Eppstein]

Originally Posted by joeq

see now, "flat fee" says to me that you (ought to) have more leverage than you are assuming. I think flat rate makes this a whole other ball of wax.

In an open-ended hourly rate deal, you are rightfully subservient to the 'one with the gold'. But in a flat rate deal (unless it is a really sweet flat rate ) you are essentially putting up some percentage of the money. Your participation at a flat rate is a form of subsidy. Some of the 'gold' is yours, even if it does not take a pure monetary form. Don't ever forget this or let your client/friend forget it, either.

At a flat rate, the client could endlessly nitpick you, order retakes and essentially bleed you dry. And you already know this is a personality trait of this specific client! Your 'hourly rate' could shrink to nothing. You WILL be taken advantage of.


This is what I call "getting the Badge and not the Gun"- i.e. having the responsibility but not the authority that ought to go with it. Don't allow the sessions to begin until this is discussed frankly and fully with your client. You need to work out ahead of time how these inevitable conflicts will be resolved.

Maybe it's not even money you want, but more creative input, whatever. You need to be happy too. If you don't get a strong feeling that your friend understands your position and will be cooperative, let the project go by - or change the deal to an hourly rate.

If you are hard up for experience, and want to sweeten the deal. make your hourly rate LOW... but make sure that decisions that waste your time make you more money!

Excellent point - if it's a "flat fee deal" (NEVER get into a "flat fee deal" without some sort of cap on the hours!), then he does not have the right to waste endless amounts of your time with whining, bullying, nitpicking, and cockamamie ideas. If he persists, hand him his money and tell him to get lost.

[John Eppstein]

Originally Posted by Sk106

I have more often been the musician guy being recorded than the engineer guy. I recognized this incredibly early as well, as being a real problem, a real killer of interrelation things.

To me, it’s a matter of communicational skills, and understanding other people’s theory-of-mind. If emotions and wills run hot, then there ultimately must be a decision making hierarchy. That’s what I always call for, and I bring it up before the session and bring it out into the open so that it’s clear to all, and anybody who disagrees can have their say. But if no hierarchy is established, I usually turn the session down. It’s bound to be a bad experience and creating foes out of what from the beginning is friends and colleagues. Someone has to be the customer (the top dog) and someone has to be the provider (the underdog).

If I’m the one hiring the studio, then I got the initiative and the money and I’m the top dog. If I’m being hired to play, then he is the top dog. That changes from session to session, and good studio environment people should have no problem with both taking the lead and taking directions. The underdog may suggest things, and sometimes even question the direction of the top dog, but that’s all about if the social climate in the session allows for that, and that people can question and be questioned as well, and done in a give and take manner where the balance between people remains. It’s dynamic, but has to come out balanced in the end. People must level with each other, and maintain that balance over the course of the session. Step away from that, think you're above them or they are above you, and you get problems as surely as the sun rises every day.

If one guy starts running the other guy over, then it's downhill all the way from there. It never fails. I'm very fast in picking that up and bringing it out in the open: when someone is pushing it, then I just bring that out into the open, cool and non-offensively, and usually he'll recognize that he is being pushy ... and back down a little on his own, without having to sacrifice on what he wants. Since it's never what is being suggested, it's how it is suggested that causes the social problems. Someone might just hate how I got the drums tuned up. That’s alright. You can say that to me. But if he comes out saying, "Dude, seriously, you gotta do something about your tuning skills man" .. that's malicious, and malicious is not cool, it’s never justified, never necessary, never solving. Malicious and patronizing, in any form, always comes from an emotionally unbalanced man with sloppy impulse control. It’s degrading, to both parts.

But come out saying "You drums, man, um .. I really don't like that sound you got. Do you tune them to sound like that? because really, to me this sounds wierd". Now that's cool to me. I don't mind that one bit. That makes me say “Yeah, I really do them this way. But what kind of sound are you looking for? Let’s see if we can get that”. But malicious and degrading stuff is like a virus, it spreads bad shit fast as hell. If someone feels they just can’t work with me, then don’t tell me how worthless they think I am. Simply say it like “Man, I feel we can’t work together. A and B is some of why I feel like that. I don’t mean put you down but it’s how I see it.” That’s simply right. I may feel a slight sting from that, but hey, life isn’t always pink fluffy clouds. I can take that.

The young kid, who will later in life become an audio engineer, he’s usually the kind of kid who thinks the music coming from his home stereo can sound better than it does out of the box, and he’ll tweak the tonal controls until it sounds the way he thinks it should sound. But often, he doesn’t take note of that his tweaking to get it to sound better the way he sees it. In actuality, he is disagreeing with the engineer who mixed that material he is listening to, and he likes it in a different way. That way is “better” to him, while in reality it’s just a matter of opinion.

Now the engineer profession is a service-job, fundamentally. It’s a job to bring out what other people orders from him. It’s the same concept as telling a composer that he can compose whatever he likes on his own time, but to get paid he must compose what others can use for their purposes. Same goes for the engineer: he can tweak until it sounds to his liking on his own time, but when he’s employed by someone else, then their word is above his. Be able to both be a leader and also take the lead from someone else.

You know, this points up one of the ways in which our industry has suffered from the digital revolution and the coincident breakdown of the label system and proliferation of indie artists.

It used to be that the artist was rarely the customer - the customer was the PRODUCER, who was answerable to the label, either because they were footing the bill or because he was trying to broker a deal so they WOULD foot the bill. Artists were just talent, like actors on a movie set. Engineers were like cameramen - responsible to the producer (or director in movies) but not to the artist. Now that artists are footing the bill and probably trying to act as their own label that whole established structure is turned on its head. Really not a good thing, in a multiplicity of ways....... Not in the least because most of these artists have never been n a real studio and couldn't produce their way out of a wet paper bag.......

Now where the heck did I leave the keys for the time machine?

[river]

This topic reminds me of a passage from the auto biography of advertising great David Ogilvy. He went to a meeting with the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, where the CEO laid out this elaborate master plan for an ad campaign. Ogilvy stood up and put his coat on without saying a word. The CEO, incredulous, sputtered "Where are you going"? Ogilvy replied "You don't need me, all you need is a graphic artist". He got the gig after explaining that he should be hired based on his reputation, and wasn't willing to take the fall for someone else's idea, should it fail. Not to say don't listen to the client, but don't be a lacky either.

[LethaL]

I dont think this is about control, it sounds like the man knows what he wants and you should respect that.

[jpupo74]

Charge per hour.

Cheers,
Pupo

P.S.
Charge per hour.

[John Eppstein]

Originally Posted by joeq

your name is on the back

their name is on the front


Are you saying you can only 'do your best' when you are in charge?

IMO, a GOOD engineer doesn't need to kick people out of his studio to keep his 'reputation' intact.

Well, that depends on whether you are "just" an engineer or are an "engineer-producer" on the project, doesn't it?

Regardless - the client does NOT have the right to waste endless amounts of your time on a "flat rate" project. There has to be an ending point. It's one thing for Fleetwood Mac to spend endless hours at the Record Plant noodling around at $200/hour. It's an entirely different thing to have some local artist expect to spend the same amount of time at your studio for a few hundred dollars flat fee. You need to impose a time limit. 2 days per song seems about right, given the circumstances.