Okay, the other annoyances thread was about minor annoyances. Now let's deal with major ones. These have to do with sessions wherein I am asked to go to a studio with which I'm unfamiliar, either because it's in another city or because I've never had to go there before.
Broken equipment left temptingly in place. If it's broken, fix it. If you can't fix it, at least take it out of the rack. Time is precious in a session, and if that snappy-looking compressor in the rack isn't working, don't make me find out the hard way, after pulling my hair out about a mysterious failure at midnight.
Whenever I go to a new studio, as part of my get-acquainted tour, I always ask what equipment in the racks isn't working. I am usually told that everything is working. I then find the item least likely to have been plugged-in in the last month, and ask what it sounds like. I am usually told that it isn't working right now. This is a window into a conversation about what other equipment isn't working, and I usually get my answers. I am totally fine with having a modest (puny, even) assortment of equipment available to me, as long as it works when I try to use it. I have joked that given nothing more than a working tape machine, I could make a record in a coal mine. Unfortunately, some studios are not even as suitable for making records as a coal mine
There is a corrollary annoyance, that of equipment listed on the equipment manifest that is no longer owned by the studio or is permanently-busted. Don't send me a misleading equipment list. Likewise, don't direct me to a web page that has a misleading equipment list.
Patch bays left unlabeled. If the patch bay is unlabeled, then I will need to have someone beside me at every moment who can explain the oral tradition of the studio and find the patch points I need for me. This wastes time -- at least as much time as it would take to label the patch bay.
"Decorative" tape machines. Many studios now have tape machines they don't use, but which are still occupying a place in the studio. When I make a record in another studio, I am guaranteed to want to use the tape machine. If your studio offers analog recording, make sure the machine is in condition to make a record when the session starts. This means more dilligence than turning the power on. It is truly depressing to arrive on the morning of the first day of a session and see the tape machine in pieces and the owner paging an off-site tech, trying to get an emergency service call.
Having an analog machine is like having a horse. Horses need more than hay, and tape machines need more than tape. You must test and maintain the system and have the requisite supplies for it. These include empty reels, splicing and leader tape, razor blades, alignment tapes, sufficient blank tape stock, technical manuals and diagnostic and alignment tools. These are not optional niceties, they are essential parts of a functional system. Missing any one of these can be a session-stopping failure that can costs thousands of dollars. It will certainly cost you all my future business.
Filthy studios and equipment. A console surface with dust bunnies and caked-on grime is inexcusable. Some years ago, I made a record using Guy Charbonneau's excellent mobile recording truck, Le Mobile. Despite being bounced around on dirty city streets for years, the interior of the truck's control room was immaculate. The assistant on the session told me his first chore once the wheels stopped rolling was to clean every surface in the truck with a wet rag. Guy re-iterated that the most important piece of equipment in the truck was the wet rag. I wholeheartedly agreed. A clean, well-maintained work environment makes everything else about a session seem easier.
In contrast to the excellent upkeep of Le Mobile, I have been in stationary studios dirtier than a dorm room, with stcky or otherwise unpleasant surfaces. This does not inspire confidence.
The worst filthy studio experience was a studio in a dis-used slaughterhouse in the woods of Western Massachusetts. The "control room" was the filthiest place I have ever been. Not just the filthiest studio, but the filthiest place. There were flying and crawling insects everywhere. The two rear corners of the control room had chest-high mounds of old take-out food bags, beneath which were buried trash cans. There was a toilet, the door of which was slightly ajar. On this door was a note, written on an old paper napkin, that said "can's busted, go outside."
Yes, the studio's clients were expected to shit in the woods outside.
Almost nothing in the studio worked, but the most poetic moment came on the second day, when I re-wound the multitrack from the night before, and in the middle of the reel, it snapped in two, flapping and littering the studio with little pieces of tape. We found all the pieces and I started re-assembling the tape (we didn't know at that point if we had ruined a master or not). When I re-assembled the tape, we discovered the cause of the break: The night before, one of the bazillion flying insects in the studio had gotten trapped and crushed between layers of the tape pack. It's juices had dried and glued the layers together, and the tape broke at that spot when we re-wound the reel.
As an ironic additional insult, I have found that the filthier the studio, the more likely it is that smoking will not be allowed, in the interest of "keeping the equipment clean."
Is there anything else that annoys me? Oh, there's more.
