How do you broach the topic of...

[DwaneHollands]

I thought I'd attempt to start an interesting discussion. Well, I'm interested in what you guys have to say - so let's start with that. lol.

How do you broach the following topics:

* From a producers position - telling the artist that their arrangement or parts they're playing are cliched or boring.

* From a producers position - telling the artist that their playing/singing/performance is bad/terrible and we're not keeping that take.

* From a mixer (read - not tracking) engineer position - to tell the band that their song won't sound like their favourite band, because the recorded sounds are not compatible and/or the performances are poor. Or any number of other reasons.

Just interested in how you guys approach it. Fake Italian like Steve Albini? brutally honest? Diplomatically? Jokingly?

[The Tasmanian]

Encouragement

[Martini]

Encouragement

+1

[jkhuri44]

its best to provide context to the recording beforehand:

ie. "ok , what we're doing here is recording a 5 tracker in 2 days, its gonna soung good, but not like Korn"
That looks after shit like "engineering and mixing"...
not saying you cant do a great job...but...reference albums are 100% always great recordings, lots of time, good budgets, usually a polar opposite of most of our projects

with riffs and performances...its usually best to have some rough sketches done before proper recording again to avoid garbage like that...

imo, if a band is working with you, they should have chosen you because they respected your opinion.
i've never worked with anyone that doesnt respect my opinion...

its best to approach things the way they need to be...if you're recording witha abunch of clowns, u can pretty much scream at em and tell em they're a bunch of sh*t c*%ts....if you're recording with diva guitarist men...no amount of diplomacy works...brutal honesty is necessary..

its funny, on this topic, i've always found female vocalists and instrumentalists to be easier to critique than men...

[Ben M]

I’d agree with Chris.
Also
If an artist that your producing is in your studio then it is largely your responsibility to be drawing those performances from them as well as fixing arrangements etc…
Most artists are fairly nervous when starting a studio project and the best way to help that along is to encourage them and make them feel at home. Be light hearted and don’t be demanding or grumpy.
As far as the mix engineer question goes… you have a choice to mix it or not, so I’d say if the performances and sounds aren’t up to scratch and you can’t work your magic on it then being frank and honest about the recorded program before starting any work would be best. Rather than telling them after you’ve spent hours trying to polish their turd.

An eng/prod/mix engineer should gain their negotiating skills from the FBI, their diplomacy from the UN and their sense of humour from…well….from somewhere funny

[DwaneHollands]

Great input guys!

Being honest and up front at the beginning of the project seems to be a theme. Get expectations right from the beginning. And encouraging in order to pull a good peformance out of a peformer.

And perhaps the analogy "phantom is rough on rough necks" for the Diva's. lol. Ok maybe not in every situation. I mean If you've got Celine Dion in the studio and she's being demanding - it's probably a gig you don't want to risk losing...haha.

[mylesgm]

I'd happily loose Celine Dion on any production I was working on...

[Ben M]

I'd happily loose Celine Dion on any production I was working on...

+1 to that

[Alistair]

I think (for me at least) the bottom line is you can never have that level of conversation unless there's two-way respect going on. If someone gives you feedback, and you don't trust that they know what they are saying, it's hard to take it on board, and on the flipside- as a producer/mixer/whatever, if you're giving some feedback and you're not really into the project, it's difficult to be truly positive about it.
I know personally, that with the people I really respect and like working with, they don't have to sugarcoat anything- I know we both have the same goal (to get something sounding as great as possible) so I'm not concerned with the delivery. But that may just be me.
Because we are not lucky enough to all be working with other artists or engineers that we 'click with' 100% of the time, I'd just say not to sweat the little stuff. Be happy and focus on the stuff that's great, even if you have to look really hard to find the good stuff!

[mylesgm]

I find that most of the artists I work with are far harder on themselves than I so encouragement and some direction is all thats needed. Frank honesty is also important because if you dont appear to notice that intonation issue or just keep saying "yeah its great, but you should do it again" I think you come off looking unprofessional and confusing. Also if they want to work with you then they need to let you work 'with' them. Not just sit around and tell them they're great.

[DwaneHollands]

what did you guys mean when you said youd rather lose celine as a customer. haha. Is her style too passe for your tastes...lol.

im not offended or anything

[mylesgm]

it's not passe, it's rubbish. Another reason why I'm not particularly keen on the 'public'. They, of course, think she's awesome. I guess the old saying is true: there is no accounting for taste.

[AnthonyMF]

"it was good, but I don't think you've peaked yet, each take so far is better than the last"
"Nup, do it again, x was wicked, but instead of y, try z"
"You need to cut the ___ it's undermining the power of ____"
"I'm not convinced.. it's about x, y and z right?" (regarding a performers emotional expression)
"I think if you want to maximise the potential of this song, removing this section/bars/etc will keep the listener hooked, don't ever give them quite enough of a good thing!"
"If you really want to pull that last chorus up a semitone, I will make a eunuch of you." - I've not actually said that to anyone yet, but if it comes up you bet your ass I will.

One experience I had when I was the musician (Drums), around 14, and we were all doing a live take, the engineer, who was also the bassists dad, came in and said "Well that was a pile of utter F@#$ing wank"... So cut, but so true. We ended up scrapping the song.

I find people don't mind as long as you help them find an alternative. Dishing out a bunch of hopeless despair doesn't improve the session, in my experience.

I've never had the experience of telling a band their mix wont sound how they like, usually because I've tracked it myself, and the few things I've had sent to me just to mix have sounded pretty good.

EDIT: I guess that would be the worst scenario, because you're basically telling someone their money/effort/time has been a waste, whereas the others are in the pursuit of something.

[mylesgm]

Was working with a top set of classical artists an amazing artist who they really respected was brought in for the last rehearsal before the recording sessions. After what was a pretty fine performance of a very difficult work the artist was asked to give feedback. She said (and I quote) "yeah... it was good... just uh... just play it better". That became the standard statement whenever they came in to listen back.

[DwaneHollands]

Hey Anthony, theres some great lines in there!

Hey Myles, wow that artist must have been amazing. I wonder if that person cringes every time they are asked to comment on someone elses performance. lol.

not to push the issue too much and cause a war. what particularily do find is rubbish about CD. Vocal performance/vocal timbre, cheesey production, poor song writing. im not disagreeing or anything, just interested in a veterans perspective!

(on another note: I thought I had heard great female vocalists, until I heard this Australian opera singer who travels with Andre Reiu. A blonde lady. some televised andre event. it was like liquid silver, the literal definition of a 'sweet voice'. it was one of those redefining moments, when the scale gets readjusted. i could almost see the gap opening up between the level she is on ....and everybody else)

[mylesgm]

Its great to when you get those mind opening experiences but why was she touring with Andre Rieu?

[DwaneHollands]

Its great to when you get those mind opening experiences but why was she touring with Andre Rieu?

haha. I think he discovered her. It's probably her biggest gig to date.

Not a fan of Andre? lol.

[jkhuri44]

i think Andre is the butt of his own joke.

[wez]

"That was perfect, do it again".

[Kurt]

"That was shit. *tick*tock*tock*tock*"

[jkhuri44]

^ brilliant!

[lonearranger]

How about "That was perfect - do it again just like that and this time we'll record it"

[Pete]

Great topic, my band just recorded and mixed our EP in three days with Chris V at Linear. He has this kind of stuff down pat.

I think it's about understanding the artist/band's intentions and then helping them achieve the best performance of that. Would you tell sonic youth or pavement "sorry that guitar take was a bit out of tune/time, let's try it again?"

I agree with Myles that most artists are harder on themselves then you'll need to be. If this is the case there's not much you can say that will be worse than they are already thinking!

[Wiz]

I was once tracking an album track for a friend.

It was a 16 hour session, on the same damn drum track. Trying to lay the drums down so the rest of the song
could be built around it. A long song, nearly 7 minutes. He wanted it all in one pass, which is fair enough.

But about 14 hours in, he turned and asked me what I thought of take number 6578....

i was really burned out and not thinking, and said... "hey, its no worse than anything else we have tracked today!" there was a moment of tension then he fell about laughing and wrote the quote down and made me sign it...8)... that quote appears in the liner notes for the album....8).

became on of our sayings....8)

Lucky it was a friend, I was very tired and not thinking, shouldn't have said it.

I work mostly with the shallow end of the talent gene pool...8)....there isn't a fine line, there is a huge wide black line thats very easy to see, that I cant cross.

At this level of performer, you have to know when they have peaked, and help them to get there. Really easy to crush someones spirit.

Most of you guys, I think, get to work with much better players than I generally do. When I do work with someone great, and its quite rare....I find I dont really have to do much for them, other than make them comfortable. They seem to know what they are after and when they have gotten it.

The worst part about my world, is people dont have the song or their performance really ready. But , they cant seem to hear it. Poor melody, not actually hitting what they think they are, loose playing, bad instruments.

I feel sorry for you blokes, who great singers and musicians, and have great rooms and gear....8)...must be tough....8)

cheers

Wiz

[DwaneHollands]

How about "That was perfect - do it again just like that and this time we'll record it"

haha. classic. avtually this happened on saturday - well almost. i was tracking drums (well midi performance from an electric kit/bfd2 etc) with my mate playing them and he was having difficulty with the click. (actually i think it was latency throwing him off, since he was a few metres away from the monitors - we should have used headphones to reduce that).

we were going to punch in a few times - and we did, but decided it was better to just start at the beginning. so we started recording from the beginning, but I forgot we were still in autopunch mode. I was playing guitar as a guide so I wasnt looking at the screen. finish the take which wasnt too bad, to turn around and see the 2 bar recording in the middle of the timeline. Doh! but reaper (others may be the same) still recorded the full take, but just auto-cropped to the punched area. So I just expanded it left and right and there was the full performance.

phew!

[chribble]

hey dwayne, why didn't you just quantise the electronic drum take? i would think movements would be easy as you wouldnt have to worry about moving oh's/room/ etc so no phase issues

and yep i find most artists are hard on themselves so they know if it's not good. soften the blow and offer constructive feedback i say.

[DwaneHollands]

hey dwayne, why didn't you just quantise the electronic drum take? i would think movements would be easy as you wouldnt have to worry about moving oh's/room/ etc so no phase issues

and yep i find most artists are hard on themselves so they know if it's not good. soften the blow and offer constructive feedback i say.

Hey Chris!

Actually a good point. To be honest, quantatising scares me a bit. I've done minimal experimenting with it before and when I tried it, it made a real mess and I got scared and undid the result. Tried again - couldn't figure out what I was doing and then shelved it.

But I would love to be able to master quantising - since the track is still not perfect and I'm loathe to hand edit for hours. Actually I did a quick test again while we were having troubles tracking that song and some kicks it pulled back, but others it pushed forward and I was all "arghhhh--undo".

Do you have any tips with quantising?

[jkhuri44]

Quantising...

important to know what kind of timing you're dealing with, and what subdiviions you can hear.

dont expect to highlight a whole take and press Q...that will not work.

You'll need to quantise in parts, and also sometimes per drum part.

Make sure you're always changing from 8ths, 16ths, Triplets and Dotted time...otherwise the result will suck hard.

Other than that, you wont get good unless you practise like a mad man, also practise programming drums from scratch, you'll get ur eyes used to what your ears hear...etc

also, if you flip between crotchet, dotted, and triplet grids, you can see which grid lines up best for each part and Qnuantise accordingly...

[jkhuri44]

if you suffer from latency as well, make sure you nudge parts to a better start point before quantising, or your quantising will suck doubly hard.

[chribble]

maybe i make to many dance beats but select all hihats and quantise to 8ths or 16ths whatever
quantise kicks snares to 8ths/4th.

Grab the whole track and bring it a few smidges ahead of the beat and voila.

dwayne if its not to a click then use a tempo track you can program this. i still havent had to use elastic audio or warp audio etc but yeah, it could help.

re latency, use a mixer and cut the electronic drummings brain sampler for tracking. that will have 0ms latency.
Change over to your CPU drums later