miketv
Member
- Messages
- 431
Huh, not sure where to post this but just had to fish for thoughts.
Last weekend our band had a gig out of town. Nothing huge, venue capable of holding 200+ blah blah, just us and the local/ hometown band. Anyways, some of my band are friendly with the guys in the local band and were communicating heavily, organising the finer details, in the weeks leading up to the gig.
Their drummer, who also has ties to the venue, relays the fact that, if we chose to, we could have our show recorded through the mixing desk by the house engineer for a nominal fee of £50 (uk currency). We declined the offer, mainly because I work in a studio and can record our band anytime for next to nothing and, another engineer who works alongside me also does live sound at our local haunts and has recorded us previously at no cost. We stated to their drummer, in no uncertain terms, that the offer was appreciated, but we would pass on it, thank you. He mentioned later that he had spoken with the venue's engineer, and informed him of our decision. All is cool.
The night of the show, we play our set, then hang around waiting to watch the other band. Inbetween, the sound engineer breezes up to the bar and duly informs us that, despite our wishes not to be recorded, he has indeed just recorded our performance! He then goes on to try and cajole us into buying a copy for the aforementioned fee. Unreal, huh? Don't get me wrong, the guy was fairly amiable at soundcheck, done everything he could to make us happy, etc, I just thought he had a bit of a nerve to go against our wishes and do that. He then informs us that he, too, works at a studio and would mix the multitracks on his time. We then inform him if he wishes to make any money, we would prefer copies of the multitrack .wav files, rather than his stereo mix, with the aim of mixing it ourselves. Our level-headed female singer, who deals with the business side of things, calms the rest of us down, saying 'Oh, it's only ten bucks from each of us', no harm, no foul kinda attitude, plus we'd have a live show to listen to and, maybe post clips online. The rest of us slowly realise there's no point whining about it now, it's been done.
Roll on to a week later.
The 'local' drummer, with the venue ties, informs our singer that he has heard the stereo mix the engineer has done. He says it sounds great, he'll get samples forwarded to our band. I then get sent 'links' to the samples (slapped on Mediafire in mp3 format!) and decide that it sounds pretty crap. Besides the mix being, well, not very good, the recording runs slow, roughly about a tone lower than standard pitch!!
We then communicate this to the drummer, who puts this to the engineer. The engineer tells us his offer is final, it's his stereo mix on cd we would be getting, no multitrack files, take it or leave it!
Wtf? I absolutely hate the idea of an artist having no control over his music in the first place, but it grinds me to think that this soundguy can sit on a recording of us, that he was asked not to make, if we don't pay HIM for a below-par mix of OUR songs! We have tried our best to work it out amicably, so it would be beneficial for all of us, but he's having none of it!
I've nothing against sound engineers, being one too, but where do you draw the line on this guy?
Talk about being p****d off!!!
What do you guys think?
Last weekend our band had a gig out of town. Nothing huge, venue capable of holding 200+ blah blah, just us and the local/ hometown band. Anyways, some of my band are friendly with the guys in the local band and were communicating heavily, organising the finer details, in the weeks leading up to the gig.
Their drummer, who also has ties to the venue, relays the fact that, if we chose to, we could have our show recorded through the mixing desk by the house engineer for a nominal fee of £50 (uk currency). We declined the offer, mainly because I work in a studio and can record our band anytime for next to nothing and, another engineer who works alongside me also does live sound at our local haunts and has recorded us previously at no cost. We stated to their drummer, in no uncertain terms, that the offer was appreciated, but we would pass on it, thank you. He mentioned later that he had spoken with the venue's engineer, and informed him of our decision. All is cool.
The night of the show, we play our set, then hang around waiting to watch the other band. Inbetween, the sound engineer breezes up to the bar and duly informs us that, despite our wishes not to be recorded, he has indeed just recorded our performance! He then goes on to try and cajole us into buying a copy for the aforementioned fee. Unreal, huh? Don't get me wrong, the guy was fairly amiable at soundcheck, done everything he could to make us happy, etc, I just thought he had a bit of a nerve to go against our wishes and do that. He then informs us that he, too, works at a studio and would mix the multitracks on his time. We then inform him if he wishes to make any money, we would prefer copies of the multitrack .wav files, rather than his stereo mix, with the aim of mixing it ourselves. Our level-headed female singer, who deals with the business side of things, calms the rest of us down, saying 'Oh, it's only ten bucks from each of us', no harm, no foul kinda attitude, plus we'd have a live show to listen to and, maybe post clips online. The rest of us slowly realise there's no point whining about it now, it's been done.
Roll on to a week later.
The 'local' drummer, with the venue ties, informs our singer that he has heard the stereo mix the engineer has done. He says it sounds great, he'll get samples forwarded to our band. I then get sent 'links' to the samples (slapped on Mediafire in mp3 format!) and decide that it sounds pretty crap. Besides the mix being, well, not very good, the recording runs slow, roughly about a tone lower than standard pitch!!
We then communicate this to the drummer, who puts this to the engineer. The engineer tells us his offer is final, it's his stereo mix on cd we would be getting, no multitrack files, take it or leave it!
Wtf? I absolutely hate the idea of an artist having no control over his music in the first place, but it grinds me to think that this soundguy can sit on a recording of us, that he was asked not to make, if we don't pay HIM for a below-par mix of OUR songs! We have tried our best to work it out amicably, so it would be beneficial for all of us, but he's having none of it!
I've nothing against sound engineers, being one too, but where do you draw the line on this guy?
Talk about being p****d off!!!
What do you guys think?
