I’ve been in music production for around 40 years and in that time I’ve heard some horror stories. A particular favourite was the one about the tape assistant who hit record on a vocal drop in, only to find he had the SMPTE stripe track armed too! Anyway, here’s mine and it has little to do with gear.

It was nineteen eighty something and I had a relationship with a local recording studio. For the area it was one of the better equipped studios. The majority of their work was gospel music. I knew the owner quite well, a mutual friend worked there as a sound engineer.

One day I got a call and was told that a female singer songwriter was looking for a producer to work on an album and was I interested. Being young and desperate to prove how good I was I said yes. Remember this was before the days of email, or even mobile phones, so there wasn’t any chance for me to see, hear or speak to the singer in the way one would these days.

I had no doubt I had both the musical and technical skills to run the sessions. I had worked on my own stuff and also in collaboration with others so thought this work shouldn’t be beyond my capabilities. Even better, the musical backing was already recorded, this was a vocal production job and then take it to final mix.

Day one and the singer turned up on time, always a good sign. We had a quick chat about the work and we listened to the the backing tracks, they sounded great. We talked about how she felt most comfortable working and laying down the vocal tracks. Some prefer to work in a booth and others like to be in the room with the producer.

Then we started to record the first vocal.

Houston We Have A Problem

She couldn’t sing. I mean she couldn’t hold a note, in fact it was so bad it was almost a miracle. In my experience most people can hold some kind of note, even if they are not the next Lady Gaga or Adele. She was flat out unable to keep any kind of pitch, or in fact even able to match the key of the track.

These are the things of funny YouTube videos, but when you find yourself in this kind of position unless you are some kind of sociopathic bully then you know you have a huge problem. I’m sitting in a studio trying to create a great album for a person who can’t hold a note - at which point do I tell them they can’t sing and the album isn’t going to happen?

Remember this is the mid 80s, not only do we not have the internet and mobile phones, we record to tape, and there’s no such thing as AutoTune.

My first idea was to suggest we try and record multiple passes of the vocal, in the hope I could create some kind of choral effect of stacked vocals. The only problem is that this only works when each track is close to being in pitch, not wildly out of key. I think we worked a whole day trying to do the music production equivalent of raising the dead. You might be laughing as you read this, but trust me I was sweating and wondering how I could get myself out of this hole.

Did the studio owner know and set me up? We’ll never know, but for whatever reason I had got myself in this mess. I should have heard a demo tape, or at least sat down at a piano and had her sing to me. I had failed to do simple 101 due diligence. So, regrettably I had to say I couldn't continue with the project. Perhaps you’re more into telling it like it is than me, but I couldn’t tell this singer she wasn’t one. I took a lot of flack from both her and the studio owner, but for me it was the least worse option. He never asked me to do a session again, perhaps I should be grateful for that?

Perhaps today it would be easier to make the singer sound good. I doubt it, there’s a lot of clever technology in the recording industry, but I still don’t think it’s possible to polish a turd, even if you can roll one in glitter.

Why do I write this?

Simple, we all screw up and find ourselves in the middle of sessions we wished we had never said yes to. My mistake was not finding out what I was agreeing to before doing so. If you are young and desperate to make a mark in musical production then it’s easy to say yes to things before considering what we are taking on. So my first piece of advice, be less eager to say yes, especially if you don’t have the facts. It might harm, not help your career.

My second piece of advice is whoever you have in front of you in a session, whatever their talent, or lack, remember they are people. Often their songs, voice, playing, and talent are their entire identity so treat them with kindness, even if you think they have no talent. I detest those people who like to wrap cruelty in “I was only telling it like it is.” We are all at different stages in our careers, our role is to help people on the next step of their journey, even if it’s not remotely close to where we are. I find those who forget this lesson have actually forgotten where they came from too.

So that’s my car crash… what about yours? Let us know in the comments.

Photo by ANTONI SHKRABA production