The Challenge Thread

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 4:02 am

A: You tell him he's the best and encourage him to do a full album because your studio needs the business due to lost revenue from all the Pro-Tools LE systems in the local community.

Q: You have a Major rap group in the control room with their posse. The lead rapper finds out that his bass player has been sleeping with his girlfriend, a fight breaks out, what do you do?

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 12:02 pm

A: give a pen and paper to the lead rapper
with some luck he'll spawn the best rap song ever about his girlfriend sleeping with his bass player

Q: You're practicing before your scheduled band arrives and they hear you, they want you to play a solo or two on the album, without writing your name as the solo player in the booklet, what do you do, knowing they'll never be able to play a solo correctly?

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 12:30 pm

MadMax wrote:

Q: The horn section and string section get times crossed up and show at the same time. Who do you record first?

Bonus; What mic's and patterns??... please show your work

MM -
This is a trick question.

If it's a jazz/rock/country session, the strings were on time (exactly) and the brass players were an hour late and stoned.

Toss them in a room with an extra bag of grass and tell them that Miles Davis didn't actually play jazz but a new genre of American Music and allow them to debate for 2 hours while you go and record the strings.

IF this is a classical session, your brass players arrived an hour early so they could warm up and your strings showed up just in time to sit down, tighten their bows and hit and out of tune A. In this case, reward your brass - record them first. Sit your string players in a room with 3 tuning forks tuned to 438, 440 and 442 and allow them to fight over which player has the correct A. Now, sample all the strings because they'll all have killed eachother.

Dave -
The answer to your question is D. However, you'll need to make sure your studio is equipped with Penicillin.

Slice -
The answer to your question is simple. Show them your rate card for studio-musician without royalties. That will shut them up very quickly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few questions:

1 - Your rapper client's girlfriend insists on showing up to support her "Boo" while in session. She sits in the control room with you. She won't peel the damn cell phone off of her bling-clad ear. What do you do?

2 - Your client books the studio from 2-4 and you have another session at 4:30. The first client shows up at 3:30 and still wants to lay down some tracks but insists on using their own drums and amps. When you tell them no, but ask them to pay for your time anyway, they leave. What do you do?

3 - A 13 year old punk-a$$ twerp calls you and wants to "lay down some tracks, yo!" He wants to know if you have Nooman mic's and the newest version of ProTools LE. What do you tell him?

4 - Your intern blurts out something about the drummer's girlfriend while the talkback is open. What do you do?

5 - (Final question - worth extra):
There's a fire in your studio and you only have the chance to grab 1 thing out of your studio -
1 - Your girlfriend (who's unconscious)
2 - Your prized microphones
3 - Your prized outboard gear
4 - The big bag of lebanese blonde
5 - Your dog
6 - You're the captain - go down with the ship.

Choose carefully.

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 1:04 pm

1-4.
Shoot. Dig. Lime. Fill.

5.

Stuff the hooch under the dogs collar, pooch will follow.
Grab your girl and run.
Call the insurance company whilst you and the missus blaze up to calm down.

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 1:28 pm

Though chances are the girlfriend is the one who started the fire by dropping a scoob after greening out.

This only means you aint going to share the bag afterwards...

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 1:46 pm

Cucco wrote:

3 - A 13 year old punk-a$$ twerp calls you and wants to "lay down some tracks, yo!" He wants to know if you have Nooman mic's and the newest version of ProTools LE. What do you tell him?

Give him a quote. You will never hear from him again. Works for me every time.

Nooman mic... I have one of thous right next to my Alias monitors and mini Mooog. Laughing

<edit forgot to put a question>

Q: You arrive at a live choir recording gig an hour early. The conductor has added an orchestra, moved the piano to exactly where you normally put your Blumlein pair, and has decided that he wants to sing the solo while conducting facing the away from the congregation. Oh, and do you have one of those head set microphone things? What do you do?

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 8:58 pm

Recording.org - keeping the laughter going!

2nd Best Thread Ever!

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:02 pm

Quote:

4 - Your intern blurts out something about the drummer's girlfriend while the talkback is open. What do you do?

Tell him not to talk so loud about what I just did to the drummer's girlfriend in the iso booth while he was "figuring out" the song for the past four hours!

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:03 pm

and then you run...

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:54 pm

This thread has it all...Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll. So the question is:

Q: Sex, Drugs or Rock and Roll?

...there can be only 1.

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:16 pm

[quote="Davedog"]

pr0gr4m wrote:

This thread has it all...Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll. So the question is:

Q: Sex, Drugs or Rock and Roll?

...there can be only 1.

One begats the other two on occasion.

J.

1. While the 'Rap' is on, pull up the non-grainy version of her sex-tape with the her last poo on the second monitor screen......Now where'd dat 'Ho go???

2. Charge em on the books anyway, seal any work they've already done, call the rest of the studios in your area and get the word out.

3. Show him the rate book for idiots and block all calls from that number.

4. Make sure that the indiscretion is basically true and see if you can talk her into that too........

5. Dog first. Babe tied to the collar.......Keep smokin whilst checking the fire policy addendums.....

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:37 pm

Davedog, You forgot to leave a question.

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:25 am

So I did.

Q. A band of noisy children has booked a whole day at your premium rate in order to really 'flesh out' their mostly inane and obnoxious version of 'Art'. They've brought every piece of gear they own because they want every track to sound a little 'different'. Fourteen takes and twenty false starts into the FIRST song you realize that they havent a clue about what they want to play on anything and have only an odd collection of small tidbits to work from.

Whats the course of action even though they have made it clear they are self-produced? Your role is engineer/studio owner ONLY.

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:33 am

Sit back, press buttons and say "Yessa Massa" while they slaughter any remaining dignity of the art form.

At the end of the day - they say "What do you think?" You just tell them - "hey guys, I'm your engineer. I'm here to press buttons and get your mics in the right place. It's you that have to decide what you think."

Then you mix the product as well as you can (spit polish the turd) and hand them an invoice.

Dude - that was an easy one. That was EVERY FRIGGING DAY of my life for 2 years! (This is why I didn't cry too much when the city shut me down).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Question -

A stereo pair of Schoeps 221B is sitting on a stand behind the strings and some dimwitted violist knocks the rig down (even though it's sandbagged with 30lbs) to the floor in intermission and you don't have time to fix it. The mix fall 10 feet and land capsule first into the hardwood stage floor.

What do you do?
(No, seriously, what do you do? I need to know so I don't just off and kill the violist!)

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 8:50 am

If there's no chance of going out in-between a movement or the next piece (You ARE wearing theatrical black professional clothes, right?) I think you have to wait it out, and hope you have a second take somewhere - rehearsal, perhaps, or another performance.

You can't kill the violist. Not in yet, anyway; not in front of witnesses, of course. Perhaps he or she could give you one of their better bows in lieu of cash? (Worth a good 10-30k depending on the bow and the musician. Wink

Next time, maybe put the sandbag on the violist's lap, so they don't get up during the performance?

Ok, my turn for a quesiton:

Very Rich client hires you every year to record his annual violin recital with full orchestra. Problem is, he doesn't sound good, he sounds AWFUL - like a raccoon in a blender. At the end of the performance, he comes back all beaming and excited, wanting to know what YOU thought of the performance. He's now thinking about editing in post as well. Behind him, the rest of the muiscians are rolling their eyes and snickering, and your ears are bleeding.

What do you say? (Think quickly and carefully, lots of $ is on the line here, it's an annual gig...)

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