Murphy's Law for the Studio

[qo]

A thread for whiners. A list of corollaries to Murphy's Law in the Studio. What sorts of bad things happen to you enough times that there must be a natural law at work?

Here are some that plague me on a regular basis:

1. When connecting two devices for the first time, the cable will invariably be 1/2 inch too short.

2. The only way to find a misplaced custom cable is to buy another one. Upon returning to the studio with the new cable, the old one will magically reappear.

3. Companies announce updated products that do twice as much for half the cost only after you purchase the old model. Most of the time, the announcement comes within 24 hours of your purchase.

4. The monitor mix is never good enough.

5. Related to #4, the volume in the headphones is never loud enough.

6. The likelihood of a power outage increases dramatically when upgrading Firmware.

7. Musicians will give their best performance at the exact moment your signal chain fails.

8. Related to #7, musicians will cough up their worst performance when everything is perfect on your end.

9. A musician's ability to make it to the session on time is inversely related to your preparedness.

10. No matter how many mic stands you own, it's always one too few.

<small>[ August 02, 2005, 10:41 PM: Message edited by: qo ]</small>

[studiodog]

4. The monitor mix is never good enough.

Actually it's perfect, then an hour or two later it sucks. Even though I, the guy in charge of the knobs on the board, didn't change a thing. But it must be my fault, there's no way a persons hearing would change after being blasted in the phones for hours...

Gots to love musicians who have perfect hearing...

<small>[ August 03, 2005, 02:59 AM: Message edited by: studio dog ]</small>

[iMAS]

...haha...but at the end of the day I'm glad I'm making music instead of sitting in a cubicle from 9-5.

[Jim]

11. When your client calls to make some revisions to an old project, your backup disks will be in the most inconvenient possible location.

12. The players who know the least, have the most suggestions for how to do your job.

13. The more pre-planning you do, the more likely the players will want to try something totally new and different.

[qo]

Good ones guys!

14. The ability of a client to pay you is inversly related to their talent.

[giles117]

#14. Yes. The worse people pay the fastest, the best pay the slowest (at least in my studio. LOL) And they are the cheapest.

Mr. No Talent Spends tons of cash. Mr Max talent wants a discount. LOL

15. Just when you bought the right mic for the job in walks a clinet who sounds like crap on all your "right mics" but dang that $100 Marshall makes him sing. LOL

[jon]

Originally posted by iMAS:
...haha...but at the end of the day I'm glad I'm making music instead of sitting in a cubicle from 9-5.

haha...It's more like sitting in cubicle from 730-600. ;-(

[iMAS]

Originally posted by terance:

Originally posted by iMAS:
...haha...but at the end of the day I'm glad I'm making music instead of sitting in a cubicle from 9-5.

haha...It's more like sitting in cubicle from 730-600. ;-(

At least you know you're guaranteed a paycheck at the end of the week/month.

(didn't mean to hijack your thread qo)

<small>[ August 03, 2005, 06:29 PM: Message edited by: iMAS ]</small>

[qo]

Originally posted by iMAS:
(didn't mean to hijack your thread qo)

16. The probability of a thread getting hijacked increases in direct proportion with the inanity if the original topic.

[jon]

Originally posted by iMAS:

Originally posted by terance:

Originally posted by iMAS:
...haha...but at the end of the day I'm glad I'm making music instead of sitting in a cubicle from 9-5.

haha...It's more like sitting in cubicle from 730-600. ;-(

At least you know you're guaranteed a paycheck at the end of the week/month.

(didn't mean to hijack your thread qo)

True.. but it's just a bunch of numbers on my bank statement that come and go.

[denne]

- mixing with a drummer, kick is never present enough, even when soloed.
- during mix, the relationships temperature between engineer and drummer drops to unexplored depth.

[JackMaverik]

The most unqualified person for the job of "producer" will invariably be "The Producer" on the project.

After delivering a mix to a client, that they were in the room for, and loved, they will call you up asking for all the original files because they want to get it "mixed elsewhere".

[donreynolds]

17. cables come alive at night and tie themselves in knots

18. a good cable goes bad with out being touched or used

19. UPS is always late when you need something critical in the studio on time

[drennis]

20. no matter how much money you pay for a sound card. .... it will probably never work.

[builder]

21. No matter how many times you punch in a vocalist, they always say "Can I hear that back", as if you wouldn't let them.