He offered to do it for the cost of equipment rental and beer so we said "Yeah." The offer came last week, a couple of days before I went out of town to a folk festival for five days.

The guy we rented equipment from told us on Tuesday night, when we were supposed to start, that his mixing board was broken, which we learned at about 9:30 PM. The dude recording us chastised us for not having our shit together. Additionally, he lectured three of us earlier, while we were jamming and waiting for our second guitarist/recording equipment to show up, on how he didn't want us wasting his time not knowing what we're doing. This was prefaced with "I have a suggestion," which was a pretty passive-aggressive way of doing it.

Last night at 5:30, on my way to pick up dinner for my brother and myself, I get a phone call explaining that we didn't have the stands for the drum mics. Now keep in mind that I'd sent my bassist yesterday afternoon to go get a mixing board and if I'd been told this last night they needed those stands then this wouldn't have been a problem. I run halfway across town to get these microphone stands from the guy who is renting us his microphones and return to them, except he didn't have a stand for the kick drum mic. I'm told that if we don't have that we're fucked, etc. etc. My drummer is freaking out a bit and the guy recording us is pissed off.

I suggest pulling some "Abbey Road shit" and improvising a solution. It is explained to me by the dude recording us that my drummer is putting in time and energy, and he is putting in time and energy, and neither one of them wants it to sound like shit. I suggest that we put together what we have and solve the kick mic problem after that. Eventually, I have the idea of suspending it using a guitar stand. This actually works.

I am then told that we don't have enough headphone cable to reach into whatever he's running the playback out of. I have to run to Wal-Mart and get not one but two extension cables. At about 8:30 - two hours after I first set off to get the drum mics - we finally start trying to record a track, except the drums keep clipping and he keeps freaking out, partially because he's not familiar with that particular make of the mixing board he requested. I have to resist the urge to tell him to just slap a fucking compressor on it and go. We manage to get drums for one track recorded by 10:00.

It has been two days of clusterfuckery and all we have to show for it are two guitar scratch tracks, a vocal scratch track, a drum scratch track and three or four separate lectures from Bob Rock. I am probably supposed to be there right now but frankly I barely have the energy to go over and record a scratch track and then wait for him to know what he's doing for a couple of hours when I could be slapping together a better demo in Garageband.

I guess everyone has recording nightmares and mine could be much worse but Lord above please spare me from cocknuggets like this in the future.

i vote for slap the guy.

I like the hitting.

johnny c wrote:Abbey Roadshit

Would pay to see.

Tell the guy to shut the fuck up, and record. Leave the lectures for his kids. It's not right.

This could make for some really interesting stories. Keep us posted.

tell the guy to shut his fucking mouth and just push record.

It's a fucking demo - what the fuck does this guy care what it sounds like? As long as it's not illegible or fucked in some way, just blast it.

Hell, some of the best albums ever made are actually demos, and their strange sound quality gives it character. Fuck this miserable little twerp.

He's not a particularly awful dude but would not work with again.

I held off on leaving the house until a half-hour after I posted this, which was also about forty-five minutes after I was supposed to be there. After gassing up my car, I got a phone call from my drummer. The dude had to step out for a minute, they hadn't started yet or anything so I had some time before I had to show up. I killed twenty minutes in Blockbuster and rented Pauly Shore Is Dead. This will be good to watch later.

When I arrived there was a girl there. She wasn't related to him or the drummer and she wasn't the girlfriend was either. We were not introduced. She left pretty quickly and we recorded. I tried to suggest doing a scratch guitar and the drums at the same time to save us effort and fucking around with a click track and, while the dude recording said it was possible, the drummer refused, so I guess score one for dude recording. The track turned out alright though.

We took down the drums this evening so I guess we're done with them. Apparently we're not recording again until Sunday, after which we have to return everything except the mixing board, which means we have basically one day to put down all the instrument tracks and make them sound nice. I will probably be a dick and insist on recording into the night. The mixing board has to go back on Tuesday so we're also going to wrap up vocals on Monday night. When I told him this timeline he initially asked if we were in a rush, at which point I reminded him that the mixing board had to be returned on Tuesday.

He farted about a dozen times over the course of the evening. Garish, disgusting things, and he farted in the room I had to do scratch vocals in. Apparently they'd eaten at a Mexican restaurant.

I probably come across as a bit of a standoffish dick in this thread! Tonight went smoother, admittedly. I got lectured on my organization/general conduct approximately zero times, and I didn't have to leave the house to get anything! I would have liked to have recorded for more than two hours though.

I think on Saturday I'll bring a notebook and write down dumb shit as it happens.

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