Geezus is it really that hard?

[Plain Old Me]

So I am living up in Chico, CA, and my band is based in Sacramento. Since doing a commute for band practice is impractical, I brought my laptop and FirePod down for the band to use to record so we can:
A) Have tracks for me to practice to, and
B) Get some good recordings to put up for general listening.
So I clearly walk through everything with the rhythm guitar/singer, and even tell him to just leave everything and just put the laptop into sleep mode so that everything is ready to record, just hit the button (guitar amps in different rooms with mics, drums with mic, and singer supposed to be in a closet with a mic, and everyone had headphones). Of course, 2 days later I go back up to Chico and 2 days after that the band practices and I get some terrible recordings (vox way too loud, everything off level, tons of clipping, etc). I call up lead guitar and apparently the singer tried to use the interface and laptop for about 10 seconds before he broke out his Macbook and decided that the built in mic on his laptop with GarageBand (compared to a FirePod with Nuendo with about 4 hours of soundcheck and set up) was the best way to record. Anyone else have to deal with this kinda thing? Its really frustrating and such.
</rant>

 

[stranger0]

not yet, then again I'm the only 1 in the band that messes with this stuff, they all let me record and mix it all down and I give them copies afterwards. In my case, the guys want to learn about this stuff, so I teach them when I can.

I don't see a problem with it, you set it up, things sounded fine, you told them what to do, then they go and mess with it and it sounds like crap, politely point that out to them.