I did a recording - as a FAVOR - to a friend who wanted a studio version of a song from a musical. I don't want to say more than that as I don't want to identify this person. I don't normally record vocals, but I have a couple decent mics, so I said yes. A guitarist from the show came over and I recorded him playing a couple different acoustic parts that I could mix together, then I added some instrumentation behind it, for a backing track. Then I had the singers come over. Two men and a woman, who all assumed they would sing together and I would just record the result. I told them it would be better if I did them separately, but they insisted, because that's how they did it in the show, and they wouldn't be able to sing their parts separately...so I set up a mic and let them have at it. It was awful. The two men were OK, but the woman was just all over the place. Timing was off, pitch was off, at times I thought she was in a different key. They thought it was amazing. I played it back and it made me cringe. I told them that there was a problem with them singing together, that it was clipping, and I was going to have to record some overdubs - one at a time, while each singer listened to the first combined vocal. I had them each do several takes, then told them I'd have it for them in a few days. I spent HOURS and HOURS in Variaudio fixing that mess. The combined vocal of course went straight in the bin, and I was able to comp something together from the men's takes, aligning and pitch correcting it so it sounded passable. The woman's vocals...were just not salvageable. By the time I had manipulated them into something resembling what the men were singing, it sounded horrible and robotic. I finally had my wife come down and sing the woman's part instead. I buried it in copious reverb and crossed my fingers. They were overjoyed with the results, and were bragging about how good they sounded singing together, and that it must be from their experience singing it together on stage. I never said a word.
Haha, it's amusing to read this, especially your last sentence of not saying a word. I recorded two albums for a band and the second time I also didn't say much. They said it was a 'better experience' than the first time. They simply don't realize I didn't give any feedback because they're a pain to work with and can't deal with criticism.
This is one of the stories that I often tell my students to demonstrate that you can never really tell what's going to happen in a session. When I worked in a pro studio in Sydney, we had a band book in to record a demo. I was house engineer so worked with whatever came thru the door. The band told me that they were hard rock and that the drummer would be arriving two hours before the rest of the band because he had a big kit - and boy - was it a monster! He arrived nice and early and we got to work setting everything up. The kit was huge! Double kicks, 3 rack toms and 8 or 9 cymbals on one of those foldable racks. Two floor toms etc, you get the picture. I had everything miked up and after about two and a half hours, we had line checked and sound checked the kit and it sounded huge. Then the rest of the band turned up and that's when I found out that we were recording just one song as a demo. Anyway, once I'd set up the rest of the band we started to track the song. Yes, it was typical of the genre, and not particularly memorable - but I did notice that the drummer played just kick, snare and hihat for pretty much the entire song. I was shocked! Afterwards, I said to the drummer, "How come we did that massive setup and took over two hours to get everything sounding good when in the song you only played kick, snare and hihat?", and reminded him of how much money it had cost them. His response? "Yeah, but how good does the drum kit look?"!!!!!!! Sometimes you just take the money and smile sweetly!!
Dom, I feel you on that last story mate. I had a band once who’d recorded at my studio and had signed off and received their mix and were very happy. Several weeks later they contacted me and asked me if I could provide them with their stems. I said I could but it would have to be later that week as I was currently tracking another artist in the studio. They agreed. Several hours later they turned up at my studio with bats threatening to beat me to a pulp if I didn’t immediately provide their stems. I had to stand my ground and wave around the boom arm of a Mike stand to get them to back down. My assistant contacted the police while this was taking place and they arrived and arrested two of them. Absolute madness. I never gave them their stems…
My fav. Anekdote is that we had a piggy bank in the first Studio I was employed and every-one, client, intern, and I mean really every-one, even high ranking celebs had to feed the piggy bank with 5 DM, later 5 Euro, at the end 10 Euro for the following three requests/Questions: 1. "Can't you "filter" the Vocals out? (Pre-Stem Isolation Era. 2000th.) 2. "I am allowed to sample (what ever) for 3 seconds, right?" (And I still don't know where this ever came from) 3. Sending the intern more than once a day to get something from the Gas Station around the corner. Actually that was such a great move from my first boss. And he did not changed his mind on this for any-one. He even said once to a godlike figure in the german Landscape of TV Legends (still alive so I cant say a Name) ""If you need an assistent for the week, I'll give the kid free...but you have to pay double: Him for working shit and me for working sjhit again.."
Your story about the girl with the vocals all over the place reminded me of a session I assisted on back in the 70's. so all analog no digital tools like today. The client was at the time very famous TV movie critic and socialite. This woman decided since I'm famous I can do anything and decided to record an album of songs from classic movies. So the producer/engineer got some nice arrangement written, recorded a big band suppliented with strings and we had some really nice tracks. Time for the vocals and the TV celebrity comes in to do her vocals and her voice is nice, good enunciation, but she had no range. Every time a song started to go up for she was terrible, but of course she didn't think it was bad. So producer is trying to figure out what to do, if he let it go she sings how she sings it will embarrass her when critics slam her and she will probably blame it on the producer. So producer knows a studio singer who is great at matching voices. He cuts a deal with her to come in match the voice, sing all the high parts of the songs and get paid enough to never say what she did. We record the studio singer who was great. When mixing watching this old school engineer work the faders ducking out the celebrity, fading in the studio singer was an work of art. When done mixing we have the celebrity singer come in to hear the finished album she loves it and had no idea another person sang all the high parts. The album comes out and it's getting good reviews and the celebrity now thinks she can add singer to her resume and she wants to record more. Somehow, someone clued in the celebrity to what was done on the album and she decided singing wasn't her thing and stuck to interview famous actors and actresses. These days everyone uses autotune and singers know their weaknesses are all being electronically fixed and don't care.
Made me smile. I was once a semi pro musician, sometimes supporting well known artists, the stories I could share; the public wouldn't believe, and unfortunately can't share here. Once we did a support act for a well known, famous R&B Soul band, we had our own dressing room, it was terrible, damp, smelling of mould, the lights around the mirrors didn't work, etc. We bumped into the main stars in the corridor, and they invited us onto their room. Well they had champagne on ice, everything you would expect in a top class hotel, the room was like a palace. I will always remember this as we spent the next 30 minutes chatting to the guys, such great down to earth people. We got on stage, warmed the crowd for them, and the entire night was a huge success, never did get an autograph. So many stories to be shared in the music industry.
Very entertaining stories, definitely do more of them. There are crazy/clue-less/uninformed/delusional people everywhere, especially in the music business.
The third story is a big big lesson for all the producers out there. Deadline is everything and when you reach it , "just release the song". Min maxing everything without having a deadline can grow perfectionist behaviours which can potentially kill your career.
Hahaha, the first one is gold! :D I have suffered the third and fourth one too! The fifth one was scary...Some people are crazy. Thanks for the stories, Dom!! The most unsettling stories are the ones were clients threaten you or your business, like the last one. I had a couple of experiences like that, and I don´t want them to happen again: The two stories involve clients not feeling satisfied with the final results, though they were quite good and even got some good reviews regarding my production, but they didn´t spend too much money (I think around 200 € per song, recorded, edited, mixed and mastered) and maybe they wanted to sound like Metallica with that budget and time. One of them threatened to talk bad about me and my studio, so that no one would ever came to work with me and the other one said he would go to the studio and get the PC were the files were because he wasn´t satisfied and wanted the tracks (not sure if he wanted them to be remixed or what, but could have asked politely and paid for the export time...).
Thanks for this. I don't doubt a word, and I know so many of us have wild stories from studio work. I was thinking of a potential client who was 'going to have money to pay' me right after he sued the local hospital for his 'botched' surgery. I told him we could start work when he got the check... You know the rest.
I did a mix for someone, the person says something along the lines of “it’s not cohesive enough”. I left the mix untouched, rendered the mix to 128kbps MP3, then back to WAV, and sent it to the person. The mix got approved.
Very very interesting Dom. And also super inspiring the way you treated them nicely. I do have many stories, but sharing those might unnecessarily span your comment section. Share these type of content also on your channel. we would love to know about your personal journey as well. Thanks
The lesson on the L1 story really is, many clients have no clue how to communicate what they really want or what they really are hearing or not hearing that they would like changed. And the second lesson is that often times it will surprise you which clients (the ones you know and have some idea of their history and previous work) don't know something or how to communicate it and which ones do. As primarily a theatre sound designer, most of my stories revolve around microphone left up or brought up at the wrong time or someone not being the in right place when their microphone is on, the classic being catching someone on the toilet. But also we typically listen to the wireless microphones to check them and make sure they sound good and are working properly. Well, I can tell you when you do that you hear all sorts of conversations from backstage. My favorite being when the person wearing the microphone or someone around them is complaining about the sound department staff in some way.
Hey Dom !) Thank you for the video!) Please keep making your songs. It’s sounds so great, just like in 80s, but much better and more modern. I’m a big fan of your style, music and voice ❤️ your new song “Home “ is in my daily playlist 🎶🥰👍📀
Watching your vids always put a smile on my face Dom. I was recently reading about Zack Rizvi Guitarist/sound engineer for Kansas a Rock band here in the states (Carry on Wayward Son, Dust in the Wind, etc). He spent hours mixing 128 tracks for Kansas's latest album, that seems very excessive, so I thought man, what would be a mixer's worst nightmare? Not saying that Zak was wrong, but 128 tracks? I'm not a mixer though, just a Yamaha/Roland enthusiast.
This has brought back a lot of old trauma Dom. Every one of these has happened to me except the husband. I didn't realize how glad I was to not do production for hire anymore.
I did a mastering project when I first started out mastering for a client who was also a friend. He had asked me if I could master his album and I assured him I had plenty of tools and knowledge to get the job done. I had a new all-in-one plug-in that sounded really great and I was trying out so I slapped it on and made some tweaks and sent him a copy saying “ This isn’t fully mastered, but this is sort of the direction. I’m thinking“. He wholeheartedly agreed that it sounded amazing and I proceeded to master the entire album. I spent days refining the tracks, getting him to remix certain things and getting it all to fit together and sound polished and radio ready. When I sent him the final mix, he was very disappointed and said it sounded overprocessed compared to the original that I had sent him. I assured him that it lined up with current standards and if he A/B it with any release tracks, he would see my point. He disagreed and asked me if I could return to the originalfile that I sent him. I slapped on that single plug-in with those settings across his entire album and he was whole heartedly. Enthusiastically sold that it sounded the best it could possibly sound. Lesson learned. Don’t send a client a trial unless you are intending the final product to Sound close if not exactly to that.
Here's a fave of mine and I'm sure I'm not the only one. African guy has a big drum and dance ensemble in town and he gets my number somehow, says "I want to come in to do a MASTERING job." Definite language barrier but seems straightforward enough. We book a time. The night of, all these guys start coming through my door. Eventually I have 15 people in my waiting room and finally dude shows up like "ok we're ready to record." I'm dumbstruck. THIS IS A PRODUCTION STUDIO I DON'T EVEN RECORD BANDS. Well you know what, I started putting mics up and we made a helluva record. Came out good too. Made a bunch of friends from that job.
That was funny, man! “Hey, people, this is a grocery store, I don’t sell bicycles” “I don’t know, man, you will sell us a bicycle” “OK then, let’s build it right now”.
Yep. GTFOWI should be on an official Audio Engineer's cap..hell, on EVERBODY's cap. We all need some help sometimes. If you'd just sent them away empty-handed, all that would've come from that encounter would've been bad vibes...but you chose to put some good karma out there, & got some returns. Well earned.
Once I recorded a friend (as a favour) in my home studio. I had no saying over his music, but there was a passage which didn’t sound right to me. The more I listened (while trying to “mix” the recordings), the more I couldn’t stand that passage. After the session (when I was alone, obviously), I tried playing it on the piano and I immediately realized that he should have developed his idea differently (it was just wrong and unpleasant), just a little change of a few notes and it would have been decent… but I had no saying over the musical content (I was doing only some “technical work” - recording and mixing, even if at an amateur level - no co-writing or production), so I had to keep that for myself. It was not pleasant to keep working on that song, knowing what I knew. That passage was really detrimental. Another time I was asked “because I’m the one working with computers and having a bit of music equipment” (you know this kind of premise…) if I could make the audio of a “school recital” (of kids about 3-5 years old) a little better. That “school recital” was so bad to the point of being really cringe, I felt embarrassed for the kids and especially their educators (they were the worst!). And I had to listen to the audio multiple times while trying to improve it. I’d rather work full time on recordings of people’s love affair instead (how do I apply? 😂)
I refuse to record rappers. Years ago at another studio we had a police raid go down. One of the rappers just did a brutal robbery and came straight to the studio. He led the police swat team straight to the studio. They raided the place and found a gun on them. The following week I moved my gear out and now I have my own business.
I don't know English and I watch your videos with Persian subtitles. You speak very well and energetically, I like that. Thank you for making videos. You are one of my role models in music
Back in the 90s, I had a client who would come in for very short sessions (one or two hours) to try to make experimental electronic music. To be honest, all of the stuff that he was trying was very odd, but one day, when we were mixing down to DAT, the initial levels were way too high and the DAT machine was returning the most horrendous clipping (nastier than white noise clipping). I quickly lowered the level so that it stopped clipping, and to my surprise, he said: "no, that was the sound I was after, put it back!".
Hi Dom. I have to say it is a weird coincidence. In 2006, I got a client who sent me a 12h file with chatter, radio playing in the background, massive ambient etc. Looking to clear the conversation to confirm his wife was cheating on him..... if the file was in Polish,there is a chance it was the same file 😂
Ah, the joys of being a recording engineer and producer! In the past, many of the client demos I received were like a musical train wreck - you just can't look away, no matter how much your ears beg for mercy. Take for instance this little gem of a client folder I've got right here. 33 demos, all of them recorded on what I can only assume are tin cans and string. These "compositions" were clearly the result of someone trying to channel their inner musical genius while trapped in a blackout during a hurricane. Key changes that would make Bartok weep, "vocals" that could curdle milk, and lyrics that read like they were generated by a malfunctioning rhyming dictionary. It's a sonic assault on the senses, a musical dumpster fire of epic proportions. But, against all odds, I actually managed to salvage three tracks that are only mildly traumatizing to listen to. It was like trying to sculpt a masterpiece out of wet cement and old chewing gum, but hey, the client was happy, and that's all that matters, right? As for the remaining 30 demos, they're safely locked away in a lead-lined vault, lest they contaminate the rest of my musical endeavours.
I have a somewhat similar analog story but for guitars: A client ordered guitar reamping for a metal project and i am quiet familiar with metal material. He was a bit of an oldschool guy and had strong opinions on how music should sound like. We discussed what sound he wanted and he sent me a few references (which all were very different from different bands, tones, some real amps and some for sure modelers) and i slowly started to realize that the guy was a bit of a nut. He INSISTED that i would use real amps and real cabinets through multiple mics and so on, becouse he could HEAR the analog warmth and depth. and so i did the thing. After my 6th revision i started to get annoyed and used a very popular amp sim instead and sent the files off. Response: "OMG this sounds so warm and bright, THIS is the tone!". Well i did not tell him what i used, becouse i had no nerves for any discussion. I got paid, client was happy.😛
Thnx Dom, that was funny to listen these stories, I just forgot about everiting when I watch this video One day I also had an order where I listened to the heavy breathing of some people and roughly imagined what was happening 🤣 I also had a client who sent me very strange samples with strange sounds and expressions and asked me to make a music track out of it as a gift for his friend. And I suspect that he and his friend have a "special" relationship 😁But then I got a cool synthwave track and the client was very satisfied.
Hahahaha! Recently I saw a video of a very similar story that happened to a top mixing engineer. Nobody is immune to this. The problem was ethical in my case rather than what “needed” to be done to make the client happy ;)
@DomSigalas Thinking of studios. Suggestion for a video. Reducing noise and interference in a studio. I added new monitors as direct replacements for the previous set and suddenly found I had a lot of RF noise, which I traced to the SSD producing RF, which I didn't realise was a thing. The other thing I didn't realise, but is no doubt common knowledge in the pro studio world, was that with 1/4" cabling, interconnecting is best done with TRS (stereo) cables not TS cables, which cured the noise completely. Given the heaps of wired together kit you have I suspect there are a lot more easy wins on good practice for studio setup that would help us homemade home studio people. My other discovery was what a nice bit of kit the Steinberg UR44C is, it's a really useful practice tool for me as I can mix music from the PC with instruments with some basic plug-ins without needing to fire up the practice project in Cubase.
Yeah, that last story was scary. "I want my money back, NOW! I know where your studio is!" There was no telling what he was planning to do. I'm glad you reported him to the police and he finally stopped the threats.
When I first started out, I had one "client" (from the flat upstairs) who wanted me to record in a cassette tape and burn it to a CD. I thought it would be some music he'd made, but it turned out to be a 15 minute phone call with his care worker... I didn't know what to do, whether to tell him to go away, but he was scary so I carried on recording it in. He asked if I could remove his voice from the phone call and just leave the voice of his female care worker, so I chopped his vocals out of the track, burned it to CD, then locked my door behind him lol. It was quite bizarre! I had some ideas as to what he would use the CD for... Won't repeat that here, lest I get reported. 😂
OMG, these kinda situations happened to me too... So many similar situations OMG... In the end, we actually end up laughing, although sometimes some situations can be scary...
that was fun! brought me right back to all the similar experiences I've had throughout the years lol! Never been threatened though...that last one sounded scary bro!
Great stories! A while back I was on a website (no longer in business) where you could upload your own music and have it evaluated by the community. The website was really nicely done but most of the content was terrible. There were a lot of canned loops but rarely any real instruments. There were no arrangements either, just endless repetition. I kept thinking, how can anyone upload something so limited, and consider it a finished song?
I did a similar thing about 10 years ago, I had to listen to about 2 hours of someone up to no good with a secret microphone....I made it audable and they got a result.
11:00 I actually enjoy comping and arrangement. I'll usually communicate to the artist that the final mix may sound very different from the order of which they recorded the track. But it all depends, some artist have a strong preference to keep things the way they recorded it.
I once had a client send me an album of 64 tracks to master where all of them were about 1:30 min long and got cut by a piano loop of 5 seconds and just paulstretched to 1:30 min. They released it as an Ambient album and several tracks got picked up in a few popular Hollywood movies.
Loved the stories! Had similar one with a suspecting husband, though it was only a few minutes long and the couple came to the studio together... the worst I had was a guy who came to the studio with his gf. One time she talked to me when he came back from the other room , after doing a take and soon after they left he sent me a furious email that I don't treat him with respect, that I don't do a good job with him as with others etc. I know he reacted this way because he was offended that my attention was divided, but it wasn't my gf in the room. You could have had another story, but you didn't reply to an email I sent you over 2 weeks ago regarding mastering a track ;) All the best! Love your videos.
Great channel, just found it today. My horror stories are taken from no demo or direction. Get sent lyrics then create from lyrics written so badly that I either ask them to change them or let me write them. I finally got burned out and stopped doing it. Another story is about a woman who sent me a demo (Guitar and vox) and wanted me to compose better music. I personally thing I nailed it, but she said, No, I want it to sound like Amy Winehouse. I wrote her back and said I could do it, but she's in a three month waiting list. She fired me. THANK GOD! Her vox were like a cat with its tail slammed in a door. She was no Amy.
we worked on a film score and fx for certain scenes. The film director was in the studio for every recording session. He'd be happy at the time. but kept coming back saying it wasn't good enough. This went on for over 6 months. I spoke to a friend who was a former BBC engineer. He asked did I have any spare channels on my desk? I said yes, why? He said tell him that the sliders on the spare channels basically control everything and he can alter anything he wants from this section of the mixer during the session. Reluctantly I did this, he proceeded to use them and played with the EQ FX sends Pans etc in 4 days the project was finished despite the channels he was using were not being connected to anything. The belief he was involved in the process and the final result was due to his input put his mind at ease. It wasn't about the quality of the result but more about control. People are strange
That tambourine story sounds like me, except I mix/master my own stuff. If you have the time to do it, going back and bumping things up and down by 1db can really fix all the things that are bugging you. Obviously these can be avoided with better practice.
The most important lesson from this video is its these crazy things that make you learn and get better. This is the difference between a pro and a ameture. Its the same for all jobs, the reason the pro makes it look easy is because they have worked through the crazy, dull and hard stuff
My weirdest experience was also my only experience with a well-known artist, who was a reggae musician and producer. It was the time when Ace Of Base was at the top of the charts, so perhaps he thought that he would also be able to cash in, being the real thing. He came in with his wife, and she told me that at the end of the session, I should drive him to the train station, buy him a ticket and put him on the train. Ok, client is king 🙂 But it kind of shows what 40 years of smoking ganja does to you... The guy was a walking piece of art... he had a cheap little Yamaha keyboard which was plastered in Holy Maria stickers, mirror stickers, seashells... even the power cord had some seashells on it! And he also looked the same, mirror stickers on his shoes etc. etc. I expected him to have at least an idea of a song. But no, when I asked him what he wanted to do, he said "Copy dis riddim" and started his Yamaha keyboard. Ok, I copied the rhythm and added also some triangle... which I soon was going to regret! Because when I asked what to do next, he said "Gimme a mic and record". I gave him an SM58 and started recording onto cassette (he didn't have a DAT). And then he started toasting (rapping). For 45 minutes... you can imagine how pleased I was to have this **** triangle in my ears for 45 minutes! Ummm... "Ok, so what's next?" I asked while flipping over the cassette. "Copy dat riddim", which I did, 45 minutes of toasting... And that was it! I handed him the cassette, got the money, drove with him to the train station, bought him a ticket and put him on the train. And that's the last time I ever heard from him.
You're right about the girl with the vocals, but nowadays too many people are too sensitive to honest comments, that's also a BIG problem. They can't accept that they did something wrong or are not "cut" for the job. Anyway, great video!
You are right. You can always try and be respectful and honest but at the end of the day if the artist/client doesn’t want to listen, there’s nothing you can do about it…
I did a recording - as a FAVOR - to a friend who wanted a studio version of a song from a musical. I don't want to say more than that as I don't want to identify this person. I don't normally record vocals, but I have a couple decent mics, so I said yes. A guitarist from the show came over and I recorded him playing a couple different acoustic parts that I could mix together, then I added some instrumentation behind it, for a backing track. Then I had the singers come over. Two men and a woman, who all assumed they would sing together and I would just record the result. I told them it would be better if I did them separately, but they insisted, because that's how they did it in the show, and they wouldn't be able to sing their parts separately...so I set up a mic and let them have at it.
It was awful. The two men were OK, but the woman was just all over the place. Timing was off, pitch was off, at times I thought she was in a different key. They thought it was amazing. I played it back and it made me cringe.
I told them that there was a problem with them singing together, that it was clipping, and I was going to have to record some overdubs - one at a time, while each singer listened to the first combined vocal.
I had them each do several takes, then told them I'd have it for them in a few days. I spent HOURS and HOURS in Variaudio fixing that mess. The combined vocal of course went straight in the bin, and I was able to comp something together from the men's takes, aligning and pitch correcting it so it sounded passable.
The woman's vocals...were just not salvageable. By the time I had manipulated them into something resembling what the men were singing, it sounded horrible and robotic. I finally had my wife come down and sing the woman's part instead. I buried it in copious reverb and crossed my fingers.
They were overjoyed with the results, and were bragging about how good they sounded singing together, and that it must be from their experience singing it together on stage. I never said a word.
I feel you, bro - you can't argue with idiots or deaf people
or even worse: deaf idiots. 🤣
I’m glad you made it pass, but I think they would benefit from honesty.
Crazy
That's wack. :)
Haha, it's amusing to read this, especially your last sentence of not saying a word. I recorded two albums for a band and the second time I also didn't say much. They said it was a 'better experience' than the first time. They simply don't realize I didn't give any feedback because they're a pain to work with and can't deal with criticism.
This is one of the stories that I often tell my students to demonstrate that you can never really tell what's going to happen in a session.
When I worked in a pro studio in Sydney, we had a band book in to record a demo. I was house engineer so worked with whatever came thru the door. The band told me that they were hard rock and that the drummer would be arriving two hours before the rest of the band because he had a big kit - and boy - was it a monster! He arrived nice and early and we got to work setting everything up. The kit was huge! Double kicks, 3 rack toms and 8 or 9 cymbals on one of those foldable racks. Two floor toms etc, you get the picture. I had everything miked up and after about two and a half hours, we had line checked and sound checked the kit and it sounded huge. Then the rest of the band turned up and that's when I found out that we were recording just one song as a demo.
Anyway, once I'd set up the rest of the band we started to track the song. Yes, it was typical of the genre, and not particularly memorable - but I did notice that the drummer played just kick, snare and hihat for pretty much the entire song. I was shocked! Afterwards, I said to the drummer, "How come we did that massive setup and took over two hours to get everything sounding good when in the song you only played kick, snare and hihat?", and reminded him of how much money it had cost them. His response? "Yeah, but how good does the drum kit look?"!!!!!!!
Sometimes you just take the money and smile sweetly!!
Dom, I feel you on that last story mate. I had a band once who’d recorded at my studio and had signed off and received their mix and were very happy. Several weeks later they contacted me and asked me if I could provide them with their stems. I said I could but it would have to be later that week as I was currently tracking another artist in the studio. They agreed. Several hours later they turned up at my studio with bats threatening to beat me to a pulp if I didn’t immediately provide their stems. I had to stand my ground and wave around the boom arm of a Mike stand to get them to back down. My assistant contacted the police while this was taking place and they arrived and arrested two of them.
Absolute madness.
I never gave them their stems…
Some clients need a magician rather than a technician. 🤣
(and psychology :)
@@rantanhan In bucket loads! 🤣🤣🤣
Or an exorcist 😂
@@AlessandroBencini 🤣
I think this is true with most customers
My fav. Anekdote is that we had a piggy bank in the first Studio I was employed and every-one, client, intern, and I mean really every-one, even high ranking celebs had to feed the piggy bank with 5 DM, later 5 Euro, at the end 10 Euro for the following three requests/Questions:
1. "Can't you "filter" the Vocals out? (Pre-Stem Isolation Era. 2000th.)
2. "I am allowed to sample (what ever) for 3 seconds, right?" (And I still don't know where this ever came from)
3. Sending the intern more than once a day to get something from the Gas Station around the corner. Actually that was such a great move from my first boss. And he did not changed his mind on this for any-one. He even said once to a godlike figure in the german Landscape of TV Legends (still alive so I cant say a Name) ""If you need an assistent for the week, I'll give the kid free...but you have to pay double: Him for working shit and me for working sjhit again.."
Your story about the girl with the vocals all over the place reminded me of a session I assisted on back in the 70's. so all analog no digital tools like today. The client was at the time very famous TV movie critic and socialite. This woman decided since I'm famous I can do anything and decided to record an album of songs from classic movies. So the producer/engineer got some nice arrangement written, recorded a big band suppliented with strings and we had some really nice tracks. Time for the vocals and the TV celebrity comes in to do her vocals and her voice is nice, good enunciation, but she had no range. Every time a song started to go up for she was terrible, but of course she didn't think it was bad. So producer is trying to figure out what to do, if he let it go she sings how she sings it will embarrass her when critics slam her and she will probably blame it on the producer. So producer knows a studio singer who is great at matching voices. He cuts a deal with her to come in match the voice, sing all the high parts of the songs and get paid enough to never say what she did. We record the studio singer who was great. When mixing watching this old school engineer work the faders ducking out the celebrity, fading in the studio singer was an work of art. When done mixing we have the celebrity singer come in to hear the finished album she loves it and had no idea another person sang all the high parts. The album comes out and it's getting good reviews and the celebrity now thinks she can add singer to her resume and she wants to record more. Somehow, someone clued in the celebrity to what was done on the album and she decided singing wasn't her thing and stuck to interview famous actors and actresses. These days everyone uses autotune and singers know their weaknesses are all being electronically fixed and don't care.
Made me smile. I was once a semi pro musician, sometimes supporting well known artists, the stories I could share; the public wouldn't believe, and unfortunately can't share here. Once we did a support act for a well known, famous R&B Soul band, we had our own dressing room, it was terrible, damp, smelling of mould, the lights around the mirrors didn't work, etc. We bumped into the main stars in the corridor, and they invited us onto their room. Well they had champagne on ice, everything you would expect in a top class hotel, the room was like a palace. I will always remember this as we spent the next 30 minutes chatting to the guys, such great down to earth people. We got on stage, warmed the crowd for them, and the entire night was a huge success, never did get an autograph. So many stories to be shared in the music industry.
Very entertaining stories, definitely do more of them. There are crazy/clue-less/uninformed/delusional people everywhere, especially in the music business.
The third story is a big big lesson for all the producers out there. Deadline is everything and when you reach it , "just release the song". Min maxing everything without having a deadline can grow perfectionist behaviours which can potentially kill your career.
totally agree. best advice
Hahaha, the first one is gold! :D I have suffered the third and fourth one too! The fifth one was scary...Some people are crazy. Thanks for the stories, Dom!!
The most unsettling stories are the ones were clients threaten you or your business, like the last one. I had a couple of experiences like that, and I don´t want them to happen again:
The two stories involve clients not feeling satisfied with the final results, though they were quite good and even got some good reviews regarding my production, but they didn´t spend too much money (I think around 200 € per song, recorded, edited, mixed and mastered) and maybe they wanted to sound like Metallica with that budget and time.
One of them threatened to talk bad about me and my studio, so that no one would ever came to work with me and the other one said he would go to the studio and get the PC were the files were because he wasn´t satisfied and wanted the tracks (not sure if he wanted them to be remixed or what, but could have asked politely and paid for the export time...).
Thanks for this. I don't doubt a word, and I know so many of us have wild stories from studio work. I was thinking of a potential client who was 'going to have money to pay' me right after he sued the local hospital for his 'botched' surgery. I told him we could start work when he got the check... You know the rest.
I did a mix for someone, the person says something along the lines of “it’s not cohesive enough”. I left the mix untouched, rendered the mix to 128kbps MP3, then back to WAV, and sent it to the person. The mix got approved.
Very very interesting Dom. And also super inspiring the way you treated them nicely. I do have many stories, but sharing those might unnecessarily span your comment section. Share these type of content also on your channel. we would love to know about your personal journey as well. Thanks
The lesson on the L1 story really is, many clients have no clue how to communicate what they really want or what they really are hearing or not hearing that they would like changed. And the second lesson is that often times it will surprise you which clients (the ones you know and have some idea of their history and previous work) don't know something or how to communicate it and which ones do.
As primarily a theatre sound designer, most of my stories revolve around microphone left up or brought up at the wrong time or someone not being the in right place when their microphone is on, the classic being catching someone on the toilet. But also we typically listen to the wireless microphones to check them and make sure they sound good and are working properly. Well, I can tell you when you do that you hear all sorts of conversations from backstage. My favorite being when the person wearing the microphone or someone around them is complaining about the sound department staff in some way.
Hey Dom !)
Thank you for the video!)
Please keep making your songs. It’s sounds so great, just like in 80s, but much better and more modern. I’m a big fan of your style, music and voice ❤️ your new song “Home “ is in my daily playlist 🎶🥰👍📀
Watching your vids always put a smile on my face Dom. I was recently reading about Zack Rizvi Guitarist/sound engineer for Kansas a Rock band here in the states (Carry on Wayward Son, Dust in the Wind, etc). He spent hours mixing 128 tracks for Kansas's latest album, that seems very excessive, so I thought man, what would be a mixer's worst nightmare? Not saying that Zak was wrong, but 128 tracks? I'm not a mixer though, just a Yamaha/Roland enthusiast.
Listening to Dom telling his stories is almost as good as listening to him playing. And I always end up learning something 👍
This has brought back a lot of old trauma Dom. Every one of these has happened to me except the husband. I didn't realize how glad I was to not do production for hire anymore.
We all met that iPhone multiple key and tempo person at least once in our career...haven't we ? 😂
I did a mastering project when I first started out mastering for a client who was also a friend. He had asked me if I could master his album and I assured him I had plenty of tools and knowledge to get the job done. I had a new all-in-one plug-in that sounded really great and I was trying out so I slapped it on and made some tweaks and sent him a copy saying “ This isn’t fully mastered, but this is sort of the direction. I’m thinking“. He wholeheartedly agreed that it sounded amazing and I proceeded to master the entire album. I spent days refining the tracks, getting him to remix certain things and getting it all to fit together and sound polished and radio ready. When I sent him the final mix, he was very disappointed and said it sounded overprocessed compared to the original that I had sent him. I assured him that it lined up with current standards and if he A/B it with any release tracks, he would see my point. He disagreed and asked me if I could return to the originalfile that I sent him. I slapped on that single plug-in with those settings across his entire album and he was whole heartedly. Enthusiastically sold that it sounded the best it could possibly sound. Lesson learned. Don’t send a client a trial unless you are intending the final product to Sound close if not exactly to that.
You’re not alone… I’ve dealt with a few psychos in the studio.
🤣🤣🤣
Thanks for sharing Dom! Funny (now LOL) stories. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one to pass through weird situations with clients!
Here's a fave of mine and I'm sure I'm not the only one. African guy has a big drum and dance ensemble in town and he gets my number somehow, says "I want to come in to do a MASTERING job." Definite language barrier but seems straightforward enough. We book a time. The night of, all these guys start coming through my door. Eventually I have 15 people in my waiting room and finally dude shows up like "ok we're ready to record." I'm dumbstruck. THIS IS A PRODUCTION STUDIO I DON'T EVEN RECORD BANDS. Well you know what, I started putting mics up and we made a helluva record. Came out good too. Made a bunch of friends from that job.
That was funny, man!
“Hey, people, this is a grocery store, I don’t sell bicycles”
“I don’t know, man, you will sell us a bicycle”
“OK then, let’s build it right now”.
Yep. GTFOWI should be on an official Audio Engineer's cap..hell, on EVERBODY's cap. We all need some help sometimes. If you'd just sent them away empty-handed, all that would've come from that encounter would've been bad vibes...but you chose to put some good karma out there, & got some returns. Well earned.
Once I recorded a friend (as a favour) in my home studio. I had no saying over his music, but there was a passage which didn’t sound right to me. The more I listened (while trying to “mix” the recordings), the more I couldn’t stand that passage. After the session (when I was alone, obviously), I tried playing it on the piano and I immediately realized that he should have developed his idea differently (it was just wrong and unpleasant), just a little change of a few notes and it would have been decent… but I had no saying over the musical content (I was doing only some “technical work” - recording and mixing, even if at an amateur level - no co-writing or production), so I had to keep that for myself.
It was not pleasant to keep working on that song, knowing what I knew. That passage was really detrimental.
Another time I was asked “because I’m the one working with computers and having a bit of music equipment” (you know this kind of premise…) if I could make the audio of a “school recital” (of kids about 3-5 years old) a little better.
That “school recital” was so bad to the point of being really cringe, I felt embarrassed for the kids and especially their educators (they were the worst!). And I had to listen to the audio multiple times while trying to improve it.
I’d rather work full time on recordings of people’s love affair instead (how do I apply? 😂)
That escalated quickly... 😀 I've seen/produced some weird stuff myself, especially with singers. I'll leave it there...
I refuse to record rappers. Years ago at another studio we had a police raid go down. One of the rappers just did a brutal robbery and came straight to the studio. He led the police swat team straight to the studio. They raided the place and found a gun on them. The following week I moved my gear out and now I have my own business.
I don't know English and I watch your videos with Persian subtitles.
You speak very well and energetically, I like that.
Thank you for making videos.
You are one of my role models in music
Back in the 90s, I had a client who would come in for very short sessions (one or two hours) to try to make experimental electronic music. To be honest, all of the stuff that he was trying was very odd, but one day, when we were mixing down to DAT, the initial levels were way too high and the DAT machine was returning the most horrendous clipping (nastier than white noise clipping). I quickly lowered the level so that it stopped clipping, and to my surprise, he said: "no, that was the sound I was after, put it back!".
thats a reasonable request though, thats his needs for the type of music he was making
Hi Dom. I have to say it is a weird coincidence. In 2006, I got a client who sent me a 12h file with chatter, radio playing in the background, massive ambient etc. Looking to clear the conversation to confirm his wife was cheating on him..... if the file was in Polish,there is a chance it was the same file 😂
Ah, the joys of being a recording engineer and producer! In the past, many of the client demos I received were like a musical train wreck - you just can't look away, no matter how much your ears beg for mercy. Take for instance this little gem of a client folder I've got right here. 33 demos, all of them recorded on what I can only assume are tin cans and string. These "compositions" were clearly the result of someone trying to channel their inner musical genius while trapped in a blackout during a hurricane. Key changes that would make Bartok weep, "vocals" that could curdle milk, and lyrics that read like they were generated by a malfunctioning rhyming dictionary. It's a sonic assault on the senses, a musical dumpster fire of epic proportions. But, against all odds, I actually managed to salvage three tracks that are only mildly traumatizing to listen to. It was like trying to sculpt a masterpiece out of wet cement and old chewing gum, but hey, the client was happy, and that's all that matters, right? As for the remaining 30 demos, they're safely locked away in a lead-lined vault, lest they contaminate the rest of my musical endeavours.
Brilliant use of language here to describe the horror! LOL.
ROFL. I imagine you're probably being gentle here.
This is the best video Ive seen. EVER, haha! Amazing patience there Dom!
The Story with waves L2 😂😂😂 I can't stop to laughing thx Dom ✌🏽😂❤️
Oh man, I couldn’t believe this when it happened! 😂
@@DomSigalas 😂😂😂👍🏼
Some things never change lol. I have only done 3 professional jobs in my entire life and 3/5 of these have happened to me 💀
9:37 🤣🤣 as a keys player I feel u on this btw hats off to your perfection in your art.
Hahahaha sometimes you can’t believe your ears 😂
I have a somewhat similar analog story but for guitars: A client ordered guitar reamping for a metal project and i am quiet familiar with metal material. He was a bit of an oldschool guy and had strong opinions on how music should sound like. We discussed what sound he wanted and he sent me a few references (which all were very different from different bands, tones, some real amps and some for sure modelers) and i slowly started to realize that the guy was a bit of a nut. He INSISTED that i would use real amps and real cabinets through multiple mics and so on, becouse he could HEAR the analog warmth and depth. and so i did the thing. After my 6th revision i started to get annoyed and used a very popular amp sim instead and sent the files off. Response: "OMG this sounds so warm and bright, THIS is the tone!". Well i did not tell him what i used, becouse i had no nerves for any discussion. I got paid, client was happy.😛
Thnx Dom, that was funny to listen these stories, I just forgot about everiting when I watch this video One day I also had an order where I listened to the heavy breathing of some people and roughly imagined what was happening 🤣 I also had a client who sent me very strange samples with strange sounds and expressions and asked me to make a music track out of it as a gift for his friend. And I suspect that he and his friend have a "special" relationship 😁But then I got a cool synthwave track and the client was very satisfied.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. It was very interesting to listen to you
Man these were great stories. Reminds me of a few. Great video. Thanks, Dom!
These stories are great Dom! Thanks for sharing! 🙂👍
Very entertaining! Definitely would love more like this
I’m just crying with this video and your funny experiences. I know even more but these were hilarious! 😂😂😂
Except from the last one of course that was indeed scary.🫣
Fascinating stories! Thank you for sharing these, Dom.
4:26 The voice of experience with that L2 trick (that's why he's the boss). Good thing you listened. It saved you a lot of heartache in the studio.
Hahahaha! Recently I saw a video of a very similar story that happened to a top mixing engineer. Nobody is immune to this. The problem was ethical in my case rather than what “needed” to be done to make the client happy ;)
Man, that's super fun)) Thnx. I guess we all go through this at some point.
Story time with Dom. Love it!
Fun and AMAZING stories! LOL! Thank you so much for sharing them.
That's some crazy stuff man. Thanks for sharing,
Great story’s Dom!
This was super insightful, and probably highlights the hell I used to put people through until I started learning the process on my own lol.
@DomSigalas Thinking of studios. Suggestion for a video. Reducing noise and interference in a studio. I added new monitors as direct replacements for the previous set and suddenly found I had a lot of RF noise, which I traced to the SSD producing RF, which I didn't realise was a thing. The other thing I didn't realise, but is no doubt common knowledge in the pro studio world, was that with 1/4" cabling, interconnecting is best done with TRS (stereo) cables not TS cables, which cured the noise completely. Given the heaps of wired together kit you have I suspect there are a lot more easy wins on good practice for studio setup that would help us homemade home studio people.
My other discovery was what a nice bit of kit the Steinberg UR44C is, it's a really useful practice tool for me as I can mix music from the PC with instruments with some basic plug-ins without needing to fire up the practice project in Cubase.
Great video Dom, great stories too, please keep them coming, they are so interesting, especially the first story 😂
Yeah, that last story was scary. "I want my money back, NOW! I know where your studio is!" There was no telling what he was planning to do. I'm glad you reported him to the police and he finally stopped the threats.
This is classic thanks for sharing this 😂
4:42 😂All Right! Sometimes we don't need any plugin. The music alone can be great.🎉
Yes !
Tanx for sharing your funny experience
The L2 story cracked me up 😂. More stories please
If everything fails- try L2 🤣
@@DomSigalas 😂🙌🏻
Really interesting anecdotes !
"...I knew how to polish a turd..." hahaha !! Really a great sentence !!
When I first started out, I had one "client" (from the flat upstairs) who wanted me to record in a cassette tape and burn it to a CD. I thought it would be some music he'd made, but it turned out to be a 15 minute phone call with his care worker... I didn't know what to do, whether to tell him to go away, but he was scary so I carried on recording it in. He asked if I could remove his voice from the phone call and just leave the voice of his female care worker, so I chopped his vocals out of the track, burned it to CD, then locked my door behind him lol. It was quite bizarre! I had some ideas as to what he would use the CD for... Won't repeat that here, lest I get reported. 😂
Love it! 😂 Thanks for sharing!
Haha ! Love stories who are not lovely to live sometimes !
Yes, I would like to hear more stories like this.
OMG, these kinda situations happened to me too... So many similar situations OMG... In the end, we actually end up laughing, although sometimes some situations can be scary...
Loved this video!
Great stories! As I was enjoying the stories, it dawned on me that "Hey, I know that background song, it's in the mastering course!"
Thank you for sharing these stories!
that was fun! brought me right back to all the similar experiences I've had throughout the years lol! Never been threatened though...that last one sounded scary bro!
Great stories!
A while back I was on a website (no longer in business) where you could upload your own music and have it evaluated by the community. The website was really nicely done but most of the content was terrible. There were a lot of canned loops but rarely any real instruments. There were no arrangements either, just endless repetition. I kept thinking, how can anyone upload something so limited, and consider it a finished song?
I did a similar thing about 10 years ago, I had to listen to about 2 hours of someone up to no good with a secret microphone....I made it audable and they got a result.
11:00 I actually enjoy comping and arrangement. I'll usually communicate to the artist that the final mix may sound very different from the order of which they recorded the track. But it all depends, some artist have a strong preference to keep things the way they recorded it.
Thank you for sharing this interesting strories
Good stuff!
I once had a client send me an album of 64 tracks to master where all of them were about 1:30 min long and got cut by a piano loop of 5 seconds and just paulstretched to 1:30 min. They released it as an Ambient album and several tracks got picked up in a few popular Hollywood movies.
10:39
every F... five seconds.
Dom still seems to have some bad flashbacks from that session. :D
Good catch, hahaha!
Oh Dom... We'll need to hear more of this part of your life. ...if you don't mind😊
Loved the stories! Had similar one with a suspecting husband, though it was only a few minutes long and the couple came to the studio together... the worst I had was a guy who came to the studio with his gf. One time she talked to me when he came back from the other room , after doing a take and soon after they left he sent me a furious email that I don't treat him with respect, that I don't do a good job with him as with others etc. I know he reacted this way because he was offended that my attention was divided, but it wasn't my gf in the room. You could have had another story, but you didn't reply to an email I sent you over 2 weeks ago regarding mastering a track ;) All the best! Love your videos.
Same life here. This is bring me stress dreams... lol
Great channel, just found it today. My horror stories are taken from no demo or direction. Get sent lyrics then create from lyrics written so badly that I either ask them to change them or let me write them. I finally got burned out and stopped doing it.
Another story is about a woman who sent me a demo (Guitar and vox) and wanted me to compose better music. I personally thing I nailed it, but she said, No, I want it to sound like Amy Winehouse. I wrote her back and said I could do it, but she's in a three month waiting list. She fired me. THANK GOD! Her vox were like a cat with its tail slammed in a door. She was no Amy.
Thanks for sharing your stories very enjoyable cheers
we worked on a film score and fx for certain scenes. The film director was in the studio for every recording session. He'd be happy at the time. but kept coming back saying it wasn't good enough. This went on for over 6 months. I spoke to a friend who was a former BBC engineer. He asked did I have any spare channels on my desk? I said yes, why? He said tell him that the sliders on the spare channels basically control everything and he can alter anything he wants from this section of the mixer during the session. Reluctantly I did this, he proceeded to use them and played with the EQ FX sends Pans etc in 4 days the project was finished despite the channels he was using were not being connected to anything. The belief he was involved in the process and the final result was due to his input put his mind at ease. It wasn't about the quality of the result but more about control. People are strange
I totally relate to this story 🤣
this is priceless 😂
I can tell you in every job you have to deal with people you can't choose ...it's a mess and sometimes funny or scary, that's what it is 😂
That tambourine story sounds like me, except I mix/master my own stuff. If you have the time to do it, going back and bumping things up and down by 1db can really fix all the things that are bugging you. Obviously these can be avoided with better practice.
I love this type of video
Cool stories!👍🏾👍🏾😎
these are great stories.
Did anyone else get the mix worse after revisions but the client was happier with the worst version ?
@@vadimmartynyuk last week in fact
This was fun
Thanks, Dom! And you’re still sane. Lol
You are a gem 💎❤
The most important lesson from this video is its these crazy things that make you learn and get better. This is the difference between a pro and a ameture. Its the same for all jobs, the reason the pro makes it look easy is because they have worked through the crazy, dull and hard stuff
Had a cell phone out of tune vocal. I built up the tracks. Sounded ok in the end.
Oh Gawd yes.
Great stories 😂
And I thought it was only me facing all these... I guess this is how the world work...
I would've charged & overcharged with that 12 hour file 😂 😂 😂 both for the work & the trauma 😂 😂
My weirdest experience was also my only experience with a well-known artist, who was a reggae musician and producer. It was the time when Ace Of Base was at the top of the charts, so perhaps he thought that he would also be able to cash in, being the real thing.
He came in with his wife, and she told me that at the end of the session, I should drive him to the train station, buy him a ticket and put him on the train. Ok, client is king 🙂 But it kind of shows what 40 years of smoking ganja does to you...
The guy was a walking piece of art... he had a cheap little Yamaha keyboard which was plastered in Holy Maria stickers, mirror stickers, seashells... even the power cord had some seashells on it! And he also looked the same, mirror stickers on his shoes etc. etc.
I expected him to have at least an idea of a song. But no, when I asked him what he wanted to do, he said "Copy dis riddim" and started his Yamaha keyboard. Ok, I copied the rhythm and added also some triangle... which I soon was going to regret! Because when I asked what to do next, he said "Gimme a mic and record". I gave him an SM58 and started recording onto cassette (he didn't have a DAT). And then he started toasting (rapping). For 45 minutes... you can imagine how pleased I was to have this **** triangle in my ears for 45 minutes!
Ummm... "Ok, so what's next?" I asked while flipping over the cassette. "Copy dat riddim", which I did, 45 minutes of toasting... And that was it! I handed him the cassette, got the money, drove with him to the train station, bought him a ticket and put him on the train.
And that's the last time I ever heard from him.
I thought I was the only one having such clients. Btw, I quit the business because of that a few years ago.
Nice stories. Thanks for sharing.
We want more storys please ☺️👍🏼
baha...true story!
You're right about the girl with the vocals, but nowadays too many people are too sensitive to honest comments, that's also a BIG problem. They can't accept that they did something wrong or are not "cut" for the job. Anyway, great video!
You are right. You can always try and be respectful and honest but at the end of the day if the artist/client doesn’t want to listen, there’s nothing you can do about it…