working with amateur bands

DamagedTrax

just looking for advice on possible pitfalls of working with amateur bands.

currently looking to steer my portfolio away from electronic stuff and do more guitar based bands.

already have an add up in the musicians section offering to work pro bono for the moment.

any other areas i should look at advertising? any pitfalls i should be looking out for?

any advice at all would be appreciated.

thanks guys.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

dont let the drummer bring his own kit !

DamagedTrax

well thats a given. :pac:

Trev M

Ive been involved with amateur bands for a while through a thing call GigSmart. I do very little these days though. My experience has been varying with degrees of success at a local and international level, the bands that actually achieve anything tend to have a plan together early on and dont wait for it all to magically happen around them. You'll find a good band will have themselves dealing with a number of contacts not just relying on you to give them a dig out.

If I had some advice to offer from my own experience it would be as follows
Its rare aspirations are matched with committment. Your intentions may be right also but it can be draining trying to deal with ego's unprepared to graft hard and earn their stripes.

Very few bands/musicians take responsibility for anything and usually have huge expectations that are unrealistic.

If you plan on working with young aspiring bands , set out everyones expectations(including your own), roles and responsibilies very clearly .....and as much as it sucks to say it.....document everything. Nothing as bad a putting your heart into something and seeing it fall flat on its arse and sounding bitter about it(see paragraph 1-3).

Best of luck.
T

PaulBrewer

It really depends on the individuals in the bands in my experience.

My goal is to bring out what the band naturally has, otherwise me and joe would play the bleedin' tracks ourselves.

Referring to the latest band we were working with Evora. They'd done some home recording but never visited the studio before. They're all early to mid 20s so old enough to be a bit sensible!

We first started the session by talking how we'd approach it, what sort of vibe and explaining the process to the boys so they knew what to expect.

I'd always try to use the bands gear first but in this instance we agreed that most of their gear didn't cut the mustard. That was their decision too as we just presented them with alternatives. So straight away the boys were buzzing on better noises than they were used too.

That's a big boost for the session straight away.

The drummer had his own quirky style and used really light 5a sticks but whatever way he approached it the tracks had great power.

Similarly the guitar players had different but complimentary styles. First thing we did was drag the drums up to the studio and drag all the guitar gear downstairs to the lounge, 4 or 5 amps , about 15 guitars, a TC g-system and 30 odd pedals.

So whilst we set up the drums the guitar lads explored different guitar pedal and amp combination downstairs. They didn't get bored whilst the drummist bashed his way through an hour or 2 setting up.

When we'd the drums setup we got the rest of the band up and using Pods and DIs played through the track with nearly all the parts intact and made a few arrangement changes.

When the drums were done we recorded the bass against the reasonably full guide track.

By the time the guitar lads came in they'd found nice combinations of guitars pedals and used their own guitars for some parts and mine for some others.

We ended up using our amps. Even though we thought we had loads of time (3 days tracking, 1 mixing) we did have to work quickly. A bit of experimentation uses up hours fast.

At the end of the tracking we had a banging couple of tracks, we spent the last day doing vocals and adding a few textural keyboard and perc parts.

So really the thing to do is measure the bands co-operation - explain your vision and make sure they understand what's going on. Keep everything light hearted , taking the pizz is great for working through problems.

Keep the band out of the control room for the most vulnerable band member the Singer.

That keeps things cool too.

Of course if they're a bunch of pricks you're shagged!

PaulBrewer

Trev just bet me to it ...

DamagedTrax

cheers lads. ive already had a few responses to various adds and one guy so far looks very promising.

Seziertisch

Trevs remarks seem to be spot on. Definitely engage people in a conversation about what it is they are looking for exactly. Nothing worse than finding yourself encountering resistance when push is coming to shove from someone who isn't willing or able to offer a suggestion themselves.

Me: We need to get it done. I suggest X.
Other: No, I am completely against X.
Me: Ok, what would you suggest?
Other: I don't know ...
Me: What about Y?
Other: Oh no, I don't want to do Y.
Me: Well what do you exactly want?
Other: It needs to be a bit more (hand gesture to describe it)...

etc. etc.

PaulBrewer

Seziertisch wrote: »

Trevs remarks seem to be spot on. Definitely engage people in a conversation about what it is they are looking for exactly. Nothing worse than finding yourself encountering resistance when push is coming to shove from someone who isn't willing or able to offer a suggestion themselves.

Me: We need to get it done. I suggest X.
Other: No, I am completely against X.
Me: Ok, what would you suggest?
Other: I don't know ...
Me: What about Y?
Other: Oh no, I don't want to do Y.
Me: Well what do you exactly want?
Other: It needs to be a bit more (hand gesture to describe it)...

etc. etc.

What you're saying is you need an Alphabet with more letters ?

af_thefragile

I say If they sound ****, don't do it!!

Well, if they sound **** and there's no way you can make them sound any decent upto some good and unique standards...
Its no point putting adding another crap record into the pile of crap that makes up the Irish charts.
We here need to work together to improve the Irish music standards to put an Irish Pink Floyd or The Doors our there!

But then what do i know? I've just got my opinions and the mind of a struggling part-time musician!!

DamagedTrax

^^i understand what you're saying and ive had a listen to a couple of bands already who i just wont be recording.

trackmixstudio

I am recording a track for "Mike Got Spiked" next Wednesday if you want to sit in.
One song in one day. Gonna be hectic!
They are a great band and sound a bit like the deftones meets Mr Bungle.

DamagedTrax

pm'd

Trev M

Given Micks post there about "Mike Got Spiked" its only fair to point out that it can also be very rewarding .
I was involved with those guys early on, recorded a great set of tracks with them(In me gaff hehehe) and went on a bit of a mad one on the Warped tour with them in Canada.. .. great band , great attitude in fairness being involved with them was great fun.

Part of the success for them has been the level of committment and energy...as talented as they are , they've just kept touring and plugging away.

Look forward to hearing the new track Mick.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

seriously dedicated band - i mean SERIOUS

PaulBrewer

I just got a mail from the singer in Evora to correct me that the name of their band is THE EVORA. I humbly stand corrected .....










pricks ....

Mr Alan

i love you too Paul x

PaulBrewer

We've that second one nearly polished too !

dav nagle

PaulBrewer wrote: »

I just got a mail from the singer in Evora to correct me that the name of their band is THE EVORA. I humbly stand corrected .....










pricks ....

Bad language shall not be tolerated. One more outburst like that and you are sentenced to 5 years in jail with Frobwizzle: 'The Aurora' as in THE lights in the sky not just any old lights got it Macwizzleski?

frobisher

Working with amateur bands broke my heart. The only thing worse than no music is shyte music.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

i hate amateurs - full stop

Trev M

If you're genuinely interested in trying to develop acts / musicians here in the hope of developing a good sustainable scene its extremely difficult in my experience.....well at least from a kinda "rock" orientated perspective..

One of the things I would strongly advise - dont get into the habit of doing people "favours" .... they pile up, people take the piss, and ya end up losing the plot all together wondering why ya ever started in the first place.

On the up side amateur cash is as good as anyones elses, I guess it all depends on what your motives are, ya need to be able to switch off and just do a job at certain times.

PaulBrewer

Trev M wrote: »

One of the things I would strongly advise - dont get into the habit of doing people "favours" .... they pile up, people take the piss, and ya end up losing the plot all together wondering why ya ever started in the first place.

I agree. If you're Free you're Crap, if you're Expensive you're Good- or at least those are perceptions. Same as any other field.

As a rule every band was once an amateur band. It's a case of managing expectations. We're finding that our MySpace tracks are attracting some interest from amateurs - as I mentioned before The Evora are an amateur band, but got a great result for a first studio visit, by us telling them what to expect and allowing us to do our job in the context of their requirements.

Lay it on the line in the beginning, if they walk you probably don't want to work with them anyway ...