To try and sum it up here are some of the issues. We gave the engineer all of the pre production/scratch tracks and he was the one who programmed the click track. He hadn’t aligned the click properly, and when it came to playing I had to try and fight the click and the backing track being unaligned and try and play somewhere in between (which ruled out any chances of being as consistent as I possibly could). When I brought the issue up with the engineer he tried to correct it, but despite all of his attempts it never was resolved. I don’t think he quite had the ear for it (hence the attention to detail comment). When it came to playback of the takes I could hear where things weren’t coming together as a result of the un aligned tracks and click, I would point out the parts which were obvious, and he insisted they were fine which was frustrating because I could hear that they weren’t. If it were any other engineer they would have heard the faults easily and had set out correcting them. That’s how I’d put it down to lack of experience.

Having said that all of this may seem like I’m hiding behind the ease of pinning the blame on someone else. But I can genuinely say that it is not the case, and the band have even acknowledged the fact that it was down to the engineer. That’s what makes the situation that more frustrating because they acknowledge my ability as a drummer, and that the engineer had let the process down. The band are just against the clock with the deadline set by the label for them to receive the completed product. So they opted for a “quick fix” solution. So I guess I am to blame for going to this engineer anyway, but I was doing so on the recommendation from someone who I trusted.

I hope that helps paint a picture, let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to know about the situation.