Things A Producer Never Wants To Hear From A Band...

I was busy sifting through some old material today, to put up on The Tubes, and something caught my ear on a track that Martin Atkins remixed for me, and it got me giggling, and thinking of all the bullshit things I’ve had to put up with while producing other bands. Some of these comments would be not-out-of-place in a Society Of Creative Recording Anachronism meeting, as I’m a bit ol’ skool, but keeping that in mind, just off the top of my head:

1. “Hey, could we get that reverse reverb effect on the vocals in this one part?” Bands that were used to recording on ADAT, when suddenly presented with a 2” machine, magically recalled everything they ever read about Rodger Bain, and had to have at least one Stupid Tape Trick. This is usually the first that came to mind. No problem, except you have most of a mix up by the time this idea comes out, and you need spool the whole roll twice (because, naturally, it was on the first song of the three that would fit on a roll of 2” at 30 ips.) Then SMPTE comes blaring out the foot channel, and, well, whee….

2. “Hey, let’s do a reverse guitar solo on this.” Okay, forget Rodger Bain. Now we’re getting in to Chas Chandler country. (Or was that Eddie Kramer? I forget.) Anyways, Stupid Tape Trick #2, see above. Nowadays it’s easier, if you can get it through the dumb-ass guitarist’s head that they have to start big, end small.

3. “Hey, can I double this vocal track?” It’s far easier to get a thick vocal sound from a bad singer with an H3000 than it is to get an Eminem double from ’em that is anything approaching usable. This is the sort of thing that makes the studio manager’s eyes light up. (And the engineer, if he’s hourly.) I think John Lennon should be heartily thanked by every studio owner in the world, since his ability to double his own vocals is singlehandedly responsible for more wasted studio time than probably any other factor.

4. “Hey, I think this track needs some percussion.” Sigh. Nobody but percussionists can actually play percussion worth a shit. See #3. If you own a studio, and you want to increase your hourly billing, just leave some maracas and a tambo lying about the control room.

5. The various “I know everything about my instrument” comments, which we’ll lump in to one category, else I’ll go on all fuckin’ day. “I replaced the heads less than 10 shows ago!” “These strings are broken in now!” “Can someone hit an E?” “Does anyone have a pick/pair of sticks/tuner?” Etc. ad nauseum.

6. I’m not sure how to word this one in a simple catch-all phrase, but my personal biggest pet peeve is The Part That Can’t Change. This is invariably the foot, but it could be just about anything. I’m a fairly heavy-handed producer, and I could give a shit about any part at the expense of the song; very few musicians feel that way about individual parts, so this is usually the biggest struggle I’ll have. Back when I was producing shit industrial bands, after we spent three days turning their Master Tracks Pro Atari ST files driving their Zoom Samplemaster or whatever in to something that everyone else in the world could deal with, the arguments about the kick drum parts would start. “You know, you don’t really need to put a foot on every 16th note, dude….” And away we go.