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Hey guys,

How often do clients use your in-house instruments when they come in to lay down tracks.

I know its good business to have backups in case of the unforseeable. Do you have any stories good or bad about a time when you had to bust out the house instruments.

Thanks,
-Chris

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BobRogers Fri, 05/07/2010 - 18:11

I run a project studio and work only with people that I have a fairly extensive musical collaboration, so they end up using my equipment a lot. (Some of them are just too damn lazy to bring their own gear.) Anyway, my situation probably isn't what you are asking about.

But I will throw in that I think that Davedog and Moonbaby have mentioned two of the "core" pieces of gear that a studio should have available: well shielded strat and a well set up acoustic. I'd list another "basic" - a low wattage amp that doesn't hum and will overdrive nicely. Next for me would be good set of drums and cymbals - good heads, well tuned, hardware that doesn't squeak.

Big K Sat, 05/08/2010 - 05:24

During the last few years the number of cases were musicians played with my gear rather then their own has increased. The studio amps, besides being of known and good quality , are well maintained and the guitars/Basses/etc. are usually tuned and can be used, immediately.
Their gear is often beaten up, makes noises, squeaks and has tuning problems or doesn'tt sound very well.
It seems that musicians cared about their instruments a lot more in the past.
I would also be very happy if more Drumers were able to tune their drums and fix their bass drum pedals before entering the studio... I begin to know more about this then ever wanted to...

TheJackAttack Sat, 05/08/2010 - 08:03

You mean the words, "I don't need a tuner; I can do it by ear." don't fill your heart with joy?

About as much joy as when someone tells me they bought a "professional" piano tuning hammer off of ebay so they can "touch up the unisons" between my visits. Hey, tuning a git-tar well is harder than most of those garage rats think!

Big K Sat, 05/08/2010 - 09:32

Hehehe..
Besides the fact that nobody can tune a guitar correctly to be in tune for all chord and keys, there is certainly room for improvement on the musicians sides when it comes to the basic knowledge.
And not only knowledge of music theory ( what is that, anyway..lol), but also technical and manual skills are often below any grades.

I suggest this here, to make it easier.. ( actually, it is much more for us: finally a way to get recordings from a truly tuned guitar :-)

20811

Big K Sat, 05/08/2010 - 10:27

I even contacted the maker if there was a possibility to test such a worked-over guitar in Germany, but he has no dealer any close to Munich :-(
What you can do is to watch the video clips of Steve Vay and Janne Starks Gibson Demo of string-bending, all the way down in the míddle...
It is just nice... as a player you can hear or feel the not-being-out-of-tune of the cords and licks.
Anyway, I really need to try this bending thing on those frets myself...
If it works for me...Christmas 2010 is time for a serious little presi...lol
It has to be X-mas, to make it plausible to my family to spend another 1000 Euro ( for a neck ) for my guitar collection....

boxcar Sat, 05/08/2010 - 20:57

mine is not a commercial studio but a few people record here and
nobody touches my three fender guitars.
why not you might ask?
im a lefty.lol

they can't keep their hands off my deluxe reverb amp with the 50's n.o.s. rca tubes though.
and the drum kit, it's always set up with the mics and ready to go at the push of a button.

Davedog Mon, 05/10/2010 - 11:49

BobRogers, post: 347836 wrote: I run a project studio and work only with people that I have a fairly extensive musical collaboration, so they end up using my equipment a lot. (Some of them are just too damn lazy to bring their own gear.) Anyway, my situation probably isn't what you are asking about.

But I will throw in that I think that Davedog and Moonbaby have mentioned two of the "core" pieces of gear that a studio should have available: well shielded strat and a well set up acoustic. I'd list another "basic" - a low wattage amp that doesn't hum and will overdrive nicely. Next for me would be good set of drums and cymbals - good heads, well tuned, hardware that doesn't squeak.

"back in the day" I always prepped a kit for studio use....Including, repairing all the squeeks, buzzes, extraneous noises of all kinds, and tuning the kit. I would take all the toms and kick drums apart and wrap all the lugs with a small diameter poly air-wrapping plastic....lube all the pedals and even machine parts that wouldnt work well. Mostly, drummers want to use their cymbals, snares and thrones, and if you have a kit that is quiet, versatile in set-up and makes no noise for the mics to hear, then youre good to go.

Guitar amps that are low noise and versatile are hte best. A small variety can get you a lot of sounds.

Guitars that dont buzz and will stay in-tune will always find a place on the tracks. EMG active Strats will give the most bang for the buck as they will drive a distorted amp really well while being able to retain that Strat bell-ike clean sound....and NO NOISE at all.

leopoldolopes Mon, 05/17/2010 - 16:17

Bands use my gear more often than I usually expect! Bad maintenance is the primary issue for not using their own instruments when tracking... and i feel that more often they don't plan nothing before entering to studio... they just expect that we... engineers make it perfect with bad and detuned instruments... harder world... caused by harder and more irresponsible musicians as time goes by... this is what I feel!