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Was this an appropriate way to be fired?
- Thread starter TheIndieKid
- Start date
So not using your own bass has nothing to do with being in repairs? It didn't fit? I'm confused now.
In my experiences, a musician gets fired from a band for a handful of reasons.
1. You're not good enough for them, or at least they think you're not. This can apply even if you can play circles around all of them. It's very possible that recording bass on an instrument that you're not comfortable with caused your parts to be played much worse than you hoped or even noticed. Isolating a recorded bass track will absolutely tell the listener the truth about that person's playing. You can't hide slop on an isolated bass track. Sometimes you can't even hide it in the mix.
2. They don't get along with you well enough, even if you think you guys all get along well, it doesn't mean they don't feel awkward around you. I've been in a band where we let a guitar player go simply because he didn't gel socially with the rest of us. It had nothing to do with his playing. He was just not fun to be around, and that's enough.
3. They don't want to deal with the challenges you may bring with you. Not having functioning equipment for the task at hand is a challenge. Not being able to drive is another challenge, even if you seem to have reliable transportation. You may not always when it's needed and many bands don't want that to be a possibility.
No matter why they let you go, it's done. There's a collective group of people who feel better off without you being a part of that group and prodding them about it isn't likely going to change that. Some probably think it's a poopy way to be fired. I personally couldn't care less if I was let go via text.
Move on. Get your gear in working order. I saw your response about having bad luck with gear. Yeah, that sucks, but it's also not their problem. It's not the studio's problem. It is your problem and yours alone. Work on your playing. You'll come out of this as a better bassist.
Also, as others have said, any band that says they're working on it for four full years is not a band comprised of musicians. As a musician, your forte should be music. If you can't produce it, what makes these guys musicians? Hanging out every week with guitars? lol anyone could do that...
1. You're not good enough for them, or at least they think you're not. This can apply even if you can play circles around all of them. It's very possible that recording bass on an instrument that you're not comfortable with caused your parts to be played much worse than you hoped or even noticed. Isolating a recorded bass track will absolutely tell the listener the truth about that person's playing. You can't hide slop on an isolated bass track. Sometimes you can't even hide it in the mix.
2. They don't get along with you well enough, even if you think you guys all get along well, it doesn't mean they don't feel awkward around you. I've been in a band where we let a guitar player go simply because he didn't gel socially with the rest of us. It had nothing to do with his playing. He was just not fun to be around, and that's enough.
3. They don't want to deal with the challenges you may bring with you. Not having functioning equipment for the task at hand is a challenge. Not being able to drive is another challenge, even if you seem to have reliable transportation. You may not always when it's needed and many bands don't want that to be a possibility.
No matter why they let you go, it's done. There's a collective group of people who feel better off without you being a part of that group and prodding them about it isn't likely going to change that. Some probably think it's a poopy way to be fired. I personally couldn't care less if I was let go via text.
Move on. Get your gear in working order. I saw your response about having bad luck with gear. Yeah, that sucks, but it's also not their problem. It's not the studio's problem. It is your problem and yours alone. Work on your playing. You'll come out of this as a better bassist.
Also, as others have said, any band that says they're working on it for four full years is not a band comprised of musicians. As a musician, your forte should be music. If you can't produce it, what makes these guys musicians? Hanging out every week with guitars? lol anyone could do that...
It sounds like they could have been more professional and should've at least expressed some appreciation of the 6 months of work you put into it. But it also sounds like you had a bad day not to mention fell behind on maintenance which ultimately contributed to your bad day.
Just my opinion and hopefully it was an experience that you can learn from.
Also, I wouldn't put much stock in what your family member is pushing on you unless that person is a musician themselves.
They did not part nicely with you.
I'm going to guess when they isolated your bass track they were not happy with what they heard.
Even though I'm considered to be a good bass player by my peers, hearing my isolated playing is sobering to me - I hear my uneven tempo, my poorly articulated notes, etc. Those issues pretty much disappear in a live band playing situation or in a completed recording because my tempo, glitches and all, contributes to the overall "herd tempo", and fret noise and other undesirables are drowned out by the combined band sound.
Musicians who've been around the block, especially as it pertains to recording know this, and are or should be listening to the overall recording and not so much individual tracks (unless the tracks are totally off the mark).
I'm going to guess when they isolated your bass track they were not happy with what they heard.
Even though I'm considered to be a good bass player by my peers, hearing my isolated playing is sobering to me - I hear my uneven tempo, my poorly articulated notes, etc. Those issues pretty much disappear in a live band playing situation or in a completed recording because my tempo, glitches and all, contributes to the overall "herd tempo", and fret noise and other undesirables are drowned out by the combined band sound.
Musicians who've been around the block, especially as it pertains to recording know this, and are or should be listening to the overall recording and not so much individual tracks (unless the tracks are totally off the mark).
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First off, you screwed up. Never record with someone else's equipment. Unless you are really good, always use your own stuff. Plus, always have a backup bass just in case. It just makes you look bad. Recording in a perfect situation will expose all your flaws, so to do it on a bass you are not used to is not a good idea.
It would have been bad enough if the studio bass was similar to yours, but completely different. Wow, you probably sounded horrible.....
It would have been bad enough if the studio bass was similar to yours, but completely different. Wow, you probably sounded horrible.....
C'mon. Do you really have to even ask?
- Jun 6, 2012
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- I don't wait 30 minutes after eating, to go swimming.
What was so wrong with it that you couldn't fix it in an hour or so?
^^^THIS! THIS! And more THIS!^^^
@TheIndieKid: Congrats! Now is the time to celebrate due to what happened! Why? Because you are no longer associated with those lowlife bozos who just *used* you to record. Would you actually want to spend any more time with pathetic dweebs like that???
You are now free to pursue musical projects with normal, trustworthy people. That is reason enough right there to celebrate! 
Yeah, the overall mix is important, but keep in mind OP did say that the mix he listened to had the bass barely audible, so perhaps even in the mix, there were flaws. Obviously, this is conjecture, but just about every band drama thread is conjecture seeing as we have a window into the situation by one person out of a group.
They're clearly spinning their wheels. They'll likely never play out. Consider yourself fortunate.
Nowadays, with multitrack recorders at everyone’s fingertips, including on phones, there should be ample time for a few practice recordings before getting to the actual studio situation. Record your part at home, play it back, and work on the weak spots.
No, but it's music, not the corporate business world. Accepted rules of conduct don't seem to live here. On the bad side, you feel used. On the good side, you're out of a loser situation. Four years without getting any gigs or studio work sounds like a serious waste of time, but maybe there was some other reasoning behind it we're unaware of. The most important thing is for you to understand the gravity of the situation in regards to studio time. Unless the bass was run over by a Sherman tank there is NO WAY it should be out of commission for so long. Have a serviceable back up instrument ready to go at all times. That may have been the deciding factor in getting canned.
The problems present at and before recording might have been hidden by playing in the mix.
Maybe they heard your tracks isolated and didn't like what you were doing, especially since you were playing an unfamiliar bass, and knowing that you've been having gear issues for at least six months, they figured it would be best to find a player that played what they wanted, how they wanted, without having the gear problems?
At the end of the day it doesn't matter why they fired you--though I, too, would like to know why I was fired from a band if I were in your shoes--you're still fired and now have time to get your gear sorted out without the pressure of having to hit deadlines you have no control over, or the added pressure of learning/playing on a foreign instrument.
Even with this lockdown, I don't have the time to dwell on things like this, and I'm sure you have better things to do with your time than worry about why a jam band dropped you.
I think they strung you along, and let you go when something better came along. But no great loss on your part. 4 years of perfecting originals, no gigs, and investing in studio time are not success indicators. You could suspect "something better" might be fairly obtuse, given those indicators. Best wishes for a better project.
I'm siding with the band. They were obviously happy and used to the way that you were playing the songs or else they would not have invited you to play in the studio. I don't know how much studio time costs but it's probably not cheap. They invited you to 2 video chats which you blew off. For the sessions you didn't use the bass that they were used to hearing but instead opted to put that bass into the shop. Instead you used a bass that admittedly you were not familiar with and it changed all of your sound and playing dynamics. I'm a little confused about this part but you also apparently changed the bass lines a bit too.
Honestly that would seriously piss me off.
Honestly that would seriously piss me off.
