AITA?!

[Tommygun_ted]

Ok, so I haven't posted in a while, but I need somewhere to vent before I'm calmed down enough to address the band. We're in the process of trying to record. Myself and the singer have loads of experience being recorded, and I've been playing bass around 15 years, did 4 years of concert band in high-school, so I understand theory and can read sheet music etc. Guitarist and drummer are getting upset because we sent tracks to be mastered by a friend who offered to do our first two songs on the house. (He does this for a living, so this is a HUGE favor) he's already said the bass tracks are perfect. I can play to a click no problem, and I've got excellent timing. Now the guy doing our mixing, the singer, myself, and the little beeping sound the click makes, all agree that my tracks are solid. We've been told the hold up is because he's waiting for the guitarist to send him a track that doesn't have timing issues. I looked in the band drive and noticed a bass track titled bass edit. When I clicked on it, I noticed the owner of the file was out guitarist. I listened to the track, and realized he downloaded my bass track, edited it to fit around his mistakes, and im guessing just hoped nobody would notice? Am I the bad guy for being extremely mad about this? Obviously I still have the unedited version on my computer to re upload, but the guy put a lot of working into making my track sound worse instead of working on his flaws. One of the issues that throws the entire song out of wack, is a tempo change at the start of a 4 bar rest. The pause is 16 quarter notes at 160bpm long when we play it live, but for some reason he messed up and put the change halfway through the pause, so it's 2 bars at 130, 2 bars at 160. It made the rest of the song out of synch. He suggested I re record, I suggested just moving the tempo change on his track. I guess he compromised and decided cutting and pasting my bass track was the way to go.

 

[Pilgrim]

You're not the bad guy, but don't treat this as anything but a business issue.

First, from what you wrote, it's not clear that the guitarist has asked anyone to use that track. There is no problem unless he does that. You haven't explained what that "band drive" is for, nor how it's supposed to be used. That track may be an experiment that is not intended to be used. But you're entitled to provide the correct track; you're the bass player.

It's always possible to state "It appears the bass track in the band drive has been modified from my original, and it is no longer in proper time. Therefore that bass track is not usable."

You certainly don't have to agree to use that track. Don't pick your fights early, just wait for this to develop. You can always contact the band members and suggest that since there's a bad track on the band drive, you're ready to replace it with the correct one.

 

[Tommygun_ted]

You're not the bad guy, but don't treat this as anything but a business issue.

First, from what you wrote, it's not clear that the guitarist has asked anyone to use that track. There is no problem unless he does that. You haven't explained what that "band drive" is for, nor how it's supposed to be used. That track may be an experiment that is not intended to be used. But you're entitled to provide the correct track; you're the bass player.

It's always possible to state "It appears the bass track in the band drive has been modified from my original, and it is no longer in proper time. Therefore that bass track is not usable."

You certainly don't have to agree to use that track. Don't pick your fights early, just wait for this to develop. You can always contact the band members and suggest that since there's a bad track on the band drive, you're ready to replace it with the correct one.

Sorry, the band drive is our shared Google drive account. We upload tracks to that so the guys finishing up the songs can access them anytime. It is specifically for finished products.

 

[Pilgrim]

Sorry, the band drive is our shared Google drive account. We upload tracks to that so the guys finishing up the songs can access them anytime. It is specifically for finished products.

Fine. My recommendation stands. You can reject the modified bass track without being confrontational. Everyone will know what happened.

 

[Tommygun_ted]

Oh I don't plan on being unprofessional about it, I'm just starting to think there are a few red flags with this guy.

 

[mrcbass]

IMO, nobody besides the player (you) or your recording technician should be altering anybody else's track. IF there suggested edits, then he should express that to you, not just go modifying the track.

Yes, definite red flags - he can't do his own part right and then had the audacity to alter everyone's track around his deficiencies.

 

[LBS-bass]

Oh I don't plan on being unprofessional about it, I'm just starting to think there are a few red flags with this guy.

I'd consider that a red flag, particularly if he thinks he can sneak that into the production without anyone noticing. Trust me, an experienced engineer will notice and should call this out on his own without any help from you. However, it's more than likely that the engineer is already working in his own system with the original track you provided and hasn't even thought about bringing in this "bass edit."

Were I you, I'd just do an end run around the potential problem by talking with the engineer and explaining that there is no actual edit to the bass track and to just ignore whatever that is that's in the folder. If he ever loads it in he's going to instantly know what happened. It's foolish and immature of your guitarist to think he can sneak that in but it also indicates he knows he's not capable of cleaning up his timing, and that's a different problem.

 

[Tommygun_ted]

Oh yeah, the engineer figured it out right away. We have a group chat with him and the band, so I messaged him on there to apologize for the confusion, and which tracks were the correct ones. It lead to a pretty long conversation between the engineer and guitarist about the issues and how to fix them. I think he finally gets what was wrong, but I had the same conversation with him a month ago, and it didn't stick. I'm planning on keeping an eye on him. I've also suggested the band, (so im not singling him out) brush up on their theory, so that everyone can communicate and understand these issues better in the future. I've got a fair bit more experience than some of the guys as far as being in bands, and like I said, I'm on recordings, I've been in paying bands, and I've played a lot of actual gigs, from bars, to festivals, and even the opera house in Toronto. We all help write songs, I run our social media, and I dont use my experiences to try and push the band in any direction, it's been generally pretty awesome. Is there a better way though, when it comes to these kinds of timing issues, to basically say, I know my stuff, this is how in needs to be?

 

[DirtDog]

It's always possible to state "It appears the bass track in the band drive has been modified from my original, and it is no longer in proper time. Therefore that altered bass track is not usable."

I'd go with that and reupload the original.

 

[LBS-bass]

Is there a better way though, when it comes to these kinds of timing issues, to basically say, I know my stuff, this is how in needs to be?

It's difficult when you are the most experienced member, because it's hard to not come across like you're banging your chest or speaking from ego. In most of my interactions with less experienced members, I try to let them learn from their mistakes, and maybe gently guide the whole group toward hearing something that's off, but the problem is that people are always where they are, not where we wish they would be, so it's not always possible to get people to hear things they aren't developed enough to hear.

If I'm working in a cover band, sometimes I'll have to encourage people to go back to the original recordings and listen more carefully to the changes and arrangement, but with originals the issues are different. Things like tempo fluctuations are hard to fix (I started a whole thread about this recently) and you need the buy-in of the person who is having the problems if you're going to really work to fix them. I am not someone who believes that everyone can fix every problem. Some people will never move past their level, and some will.

So I find myself having to accept that things are what they are more often than I'd like to, or moving on when the problems are more severe than I'm willing to put up with over the long term. It is hard to have those conversations. And I'm by far not the most experienced or advanced player out there, so I can't imagine the frustrations others might go through.

 

[Tommygun_ted]

It's difficult when you are the most experienced member, because it's hard to not come across like you're banging your chest or speaking from ego. In most of my interactions with less experienced members, I try to let them learn from their mistakes, and maybe gently guide the whole group toward hearing something that's off, but the problem is that people are always where they are, not where we wish they would be, so it's not always possible to get people to hear things they aren't developed enough to hear.

If I'm working in a cover band, sometimes I'll have to encourage people to go back to the original recordings and listen more carefully to the changes and arrangement, but with originals the issues are different. Things like tempo fluctuations are hard to fix (I started a whole thread about this recently) and you need the buy-in of the person who is having the problems if you're going to really work to fix them. I am not someone who believes that everyone can fix every problem. Some people will never move past their level, and some will.

So I find myself having to accept that things are what they are more often than I'd like to, or moving on when the problems are more severe than I'm willing to put up with over the long term. It is hard to have those conversations. And I'm by far not the most experienced or advanced player out there, so I can't imagine the frustrations others might go through.

It was all fine and dandy when we started, and we're just doing it for fun, but now that the guys want to get serious about recording, I don't want to be putting half assed stuff out there. I've brought the timing stuff up before, but I'm thinking I wasn't taken seriously since I was handling it with the kid gloves on

 

[mongo2]

We had an issue with a time challenged guitarist. We found a better guitarist. The odd thing about it was the original guitarist/singer started the group but he was either unwilling or unable to improve so we parted ways.