Ye Cove

Yeah so a little while ago my band was going into the studio. Unfortunately, everything is taking far longer than expected. I kinda need to vent so here goes:

-These things take FAR. LONGER. then we thought. We thought we could be done with 4 songs in 8 hours. We have now been there 12 hours (4 more left and we will definitely be done at the end of them) and are only able to do two songs.

-Because of this longer time, we are all BROKE. I started school two weeks ago and I've had to borrow books/go to the library to do school work because I just don't have the money. Currently, only three out of four of my band mates are employed, and one of them just had their hours cut. My job doesn't have hours lately, except in the morning when I have college. Even though it is a good rate for the studio ($45 an hour with no charge for mastering) we are borrowing left and right just to make it through.

-********************MAJOR ADVICE FOR THOSE EVER WANTING TO GO TO A STUDIO****************
If the place you are going to has ProTools (which it most likely will), MAKE SURE you practice all of your songs with a metronome before you go in there. Also, you definitely want to have your drummer play along to a click track. Protools is being used by almost every studio now and while it is certainly the best software available, you have to be on time. Like, not just kinda on time. Really on time. This is another one of the problems we've been having-it's easy to play in time when you are playing together with the rest of your band. When you are by yourself though, it's really tough to stay on time, especially when you are in a metal band who changes tempo and starts and stops a lot.

-That being said, the studio is a completely different environment then playing live or practicing. It can be really punishing. Listening to the same track over and over gets really really grating. It's harder then non-musicians think.

-The guy we are recording with is excellent at his job. He is a whiz with ProTools and he is easy to work with. His mastery of ProTools is also his greatest fault-there are times where he tried to fix something using the software and took twenty minutes doing it when he could have just had us play that part again and been fine in about a minute. I understand he wants to do the best job he can but he has to let us do our job too. Plus, he is geared towards Rock music and doesn't understand metal. When my drummer brought in his set which has two bass drums, he said "I've been doin this 25 years and I haven't seen a double bass drum set in 20 years. No one does that anymore." But 99 out of 100 metal drummers play sets with two bass drums!!!! And then he says "No one writes songs longer than 5 minutes anymore." REALLY?!??!?! pull out your metal records my friends. I'll make a fair bet that most of your metal cds are composed of songs longer than 5 minutes. Hell, Paranoid only has two songs shorter than 5 minutes and that came out in 1970!!! It's frustrating.

-We had a show recently-a battle of the bands at the local high school. We played well and won the competition but here's the thing. Halford (yes the Metal God) is starting his own record label and he wants submissions by March 1st. In these he wants a demo and a video of a live show. The problem is, on the video, the organizer of the show comes on stage to try and tell us we are playing too long and I don't even know if we can use the video. Worst part is, the reason he was telling us to stop playing was because had a 20 minute set that went over 15 mins (we only played for 16 out of the 20) BECAUSE HE SCREWED UP THE PA SYSTEM AND CAUSED ALL THE BANDS TO START LATE AND BLAMED US. wow. I'm furious about that.

OUCH

THE POSITIVES
-The demo is sounding AMAZING-like better then we ever thought it would. The sound is awesome and our abilities really show on it.
-We are learning a lot and are coming out of the studio better musicians then before.

We only have 4 hours left (Vocals and then Mastering) and then it will be done so it will DEFINITELY be done by some time next week! Thanks for your support guys. Haha, I just really needed to rant.

STAY METAL

-Charles

Sorry about the frustration.

Looking forward to hearing it, as always.

I have a grassroots recording studio in my garage room, and I use protools. once you get used to the software, its prety easy, and no one I've recorded for has complained (probobly because Im the only guy in my county who has any audio equipment whatsoever)

It does take a lot longer then most people think, I once had a solo chick trying to record some hymns for her grandma, and had no idea she'd have to do the guitar and vox separate. started yelling at me when I told her, but calmed down when I said I could play it back for her. In all honesty, metal guys are the worst. none of them can keep time, and those that I have worked with are picky. rappers are prety easy to work with, provided they come with their own beat.

Yeah, studio work is a bitch. I'm glad the guy your working with is nice, but it's kinda funny how he hasn't had anyone use double bass or write >5 minute songs anymore. Maybe in pop, but DEFINANTLY not in metal.