20 Years For 30 Seconds


We once hired a first-call New York session player to play sax on a :30 TV spot. The guy was as good as it gets, but the client was going to be at the recording session (always a treat) so we didn't quite know what to expect.  


Our sax player shows up on time, looks at the chart, warms up for a minute or two, climbs in the booth, and nails the track perfectly on the first take, just as we expected.  The client was thrilled, but leaned over and whispered, "That only took a minute. Do we have to pay him for the full session?"

We politely told the client that he had already gotten his money's worth.  After all, it didn't take the sax player 30 seconds to do that session. It took him 20 years.

It reminds us of another client we heard about who didn't want to pay for studio time while the engineer took five minutes to get drum levels and sounds. "By this time, you should know how to do this!" he announced loudly. The next day he came back to the studio to complain that the drums didn't sound as good as other records he had.

[Editors Note: Nothing against all you clients out there.  We love you...really...just not at music recording sessions!]

Doug & Dave

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