Author: admin

Categories
Recording

And they charge $150 an hour?

The biggest studio in town had some audio problems. It seems all their mixes sucked. This is a world class facility with world class gear. No one could figure out the problem so they hired a specialist from JBL to analyze their system.

This specialist was not cheap. First they had to pay the cost of flying him in, putting him up in a hotel, paying for his meals and transportation. On top of that was his $1500/day fee.

The JBL specialist arrived at the studio, listened to about 5 seconds of audio and then reversed the connectors on one of their studio monitors. Seems when they set the studio up, they wired their studio speakers out of phase.

It cost this studio about $2500 to pay a guy to flip over a banana connector. Total repair time: 10 seconds.

Categories
Boneheads Gear Gigs Musicians

Graphic EQ Catalog Setting

There’s a strip club in town that used to be one of the best spots for local music. When local music died, they turned to strippers. You have to pay the bills somehow.

One time my band was playing a gig with one other band at this club. We were having a terrible time with the sound man and the PA sounded awful. I finally decided to invade the soundman’s territory and see if I could make the PA sound any better.

The mains just sounded strange. I looked at the console and it looked OK. I found my way to the graphic EQ that controlled the mains and I found the problem. The EQ didn’t look anything like it should have. Many of the 31 frequencies were boosted that I’d never dream of boosting. Many were cut that obviously from the sound of it needed to be boosted. The EQ did look very “pretty” though. The knobs were neatly arranged in kind of an ocean wave line. When I went to set all the sliders to a better sounding setting, the soundman threw a fit and wouldn’t let me touch it.

It was at that point that I looked down at the magazine this bonehead sound man was reading. The mag was a typical audio or guitar player magazine type. It was opened to an advertisement for the exact EQ this sound man had installed! I then figured it all out. The advertisement had a really neat picture of this EQ and they had arranged all the 31 sliders in a very attractive line that looked like….an ocean wave.

So rather than knowing anything about sound and how to adjust it. This moron of a sound man put the sliders on his new EQ just like the ad in the magazine.

Categories
Gigs

The Ladies Toilet

There used to be this terrible club my band played at. It was an old porno movie theater. The stage was where the screen used to be and the audience was slanted. There was a pool hall upstairs.

One crappy night we were playing and I started to feel something dripping on my head, down my shirt, in my ear….

On the break I asked the barteder what was above the stage and he informed me that it was the ladies bathroom. Nice. The rock and roll dream is alive.

Categories
Boneheads Musicians

Korn member finds God, leaves band

Now I’ve heard it all:

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) – A founding member of Korn is leaving the band to focus on his religious beliefs. “Korn has parted ways with guitarist Brian ‘Head’ Welch, who has chosen Jesus Christ as his savior, and will be dedicating his musical pursuits to that end,” said a statement posted Tuesday on Korn’s Web site.

Welch told The Bakersfield Californian that his decision might be surprising to some. “A lot of people think I’m crazy. I don’t care.”

Welch said he’d become increasingly disenchanted with producing heavy metal music that invokes dark and morbid images.

“Those guys in the band, they’re not bad guys. They’re just a bunch of kids getting marketed how these guys in the big corporate firms want to do,” Welch said. “It makes us look like bad people, but we’re really just a bunch of kids who never had a chance to grow up.”

Korn is working on its eighth album, set for release later this year. The band’s self-titled 1994 debut album sold more than 2 million copies.

Categories
Gear Recording

SSL


I stood next to this Solid State Logic console yesterday. Unfortunately the console was in a crate and may be in a crate for the next 2 years.

I met an interesting guy who is just like me. He is the owner of this beautiful SSL console. He owns a studio and does CD/DVD duplication just like me. The only difference between me and him is his studio and duplication setup is about 100x bigger than mine. Right now his duplication business is going so crazy that he doesn’t have time to set up his SSL…What a rough problem to have.