Maybe I read it on the Tape Op Message Board, or maybe someone told me this tale, but it was many years ago: The band books studio time, shows up, sets up, runs through a take of their first song, and then asks the engineer, “How did that sound to you?” His reply, “It’s on tape.”
I was mixing an album for a punk band. I always ask who did the recording (and where it was done) when on mix sessions, as I like to do a little research on what went on in order to do the best job. The band was happy enough with the recordings, but they had a bit to say about the engineer. He’d frequently be looking at his phone, taking a phone call, or otherwise distracted by texts and emails. They’d finish a take, look through the glass, and he’d be staring down at his phone. Even though he’d done an okay enough job, they had lingering feelings of being ignored. Additionally, they assumed they were not the engineer’s number one priority while in the studio.
I was tracking a new album for a duo that had several previous records out and had just moved to Portland. As always, I was guiding the pace of the session, staying very attentive, and keeping it all on track and productive. After a few days, one of the members said, “It’s nice to come into the control room and you don’t have Facebook open on the tracking computer.” Startled, I asked, “Did your previous producer/engineer look at Facebook while you were performing?” “Oh yeah, all the time,” they replied.
I met up with a local studio owner one evening for a beer. Sometimes conversations between busy engineer/producers can be quite blunt when discussing the sessions we’ve had. We’re trying to commiserate and problem-solve for the future. He was talking about the difference between being asked to simply record someone and producing them. It seems a number of his clients had not even been aware there could be a difference. They booked a date, and the person there would be recording them. Heck, it’s understandable when the question, “What is a record producer?” is just about impossible to answer anyway. But he would get into these sessions, and if he hadn’t been hired “as the producer,” when asked what he thought of a take or such, he would get irritable and reply, “You only hired me to record you, not produce you.”
Do you want to be known as one of these people? Are you so bored by the artists you’re recording that you don’t want to be there? Are you upset that no one deemed you the producer of the session? Is this music different than what you hoped to be recording? Do you have so much going on outside of this that you should take the day off instead?
None of this even has to be symptomatic of a professional recording studio situation, though it ironically mostly does seem to occur in that environment. Home-based, informal recordings can be just as confusing and unsatisfying if assumptions are not met and productivity is low. In every scenario, we all need to communicate expectations long before anyone sets up a time and place to record. What will be the goal? What do we need do to meet it? What times will we start and end? Who will be there? What do we do first? Who is producing it? Once it’s all in motion, the recordist needs to stay engaged with the people they are working with and focus on the music being recorded. Before running a recording studio, I never had any jobs where I could look at my phone or laptop while I was supposed to be working. In all those jobs, I had to be paying attention and be ahead of the customer’s needs. I strive to bring that expectation of professionalism, and much more, to my studio work now.
Who do you want to be? Figure it out and be your best.