Best day job ever - Session Musician

[Mathieu Benoit]

So yesterday I was in session with Andrew all day, and I gotta tell you it's the best job ever. If only I could wake up every morning and go to work at a studio and make a living at it. Andrew is the luckiest guy I know.

I arrived at the studio with Andrew around 8:30am, and before I knew it it was 8:30pm. Time sure does fly by when you have the best day job ever.

The project was a lot of fun too and I had some pretty interesting performances in there. I can't wait to hear the rough mixes even. The great thing this time around was that I only had to worry about drums. I also had all the time in the world to set up the night before so my kit was super comfortable, and all day during the session I felt really at easy and it really makes a difference. There wasn't any stress just people making music. Client was great, easy to work with and the other session players were great too. Aaron Currie joined us, which of course was awesome. Dan Crain, the owner of Outreach, joined us on bass, and man, that guy can play the friggin bass. I hope to do plenty more work like this. It's a whole different animal from playing live, and I think the fact that I'm slightly uncomfortable with it makes it that much more appealing.

[clinton]

I felt the same way when we did Andy's album. I'd love to do it full time...especially on drums.

[Mathieu Benoit]

I felt the same way when we did Andy's album. I'd love to do it full time...especially on drums.

It's great when you just have one responisbilty eh? Like I'm sure it was way different when you were doing your album where you had to wear many hats at once. To just sit back and help someone else achieve a dream of theirs is pretty great.

[Malcolm Boyce]

I love being able to just play for tracks. As Matt said, perhaps the most fun ever.

I also hate when people want me to play on stuff that I'm recording/producing. There are unusual cases where it's no big deal, but most times, splitting my energy just makes things less cool all around.

Glad you had a good one.

As much as I enjoy playing in the studio environment, I get as big of a rush out of tracking a room full of great players who are all prepared to do great work. As you said Matt, the day just flies by.

[macrae11]

You certainly caught me on a good day Matt. Unfortunately not every day can be that much fun, but a least we've got a couple of more of those days coming up in the near future.

It almost makes up for all those days spent editing audio how to manuals for microwave internet systems.

[Mathieu Benoit]

I want you to make me a loop of that last drum groove I did for my christmas present. The groove at the very end of the song when everything else fades. Just get me the beat and I'll make the loop myself, although it'll be faded out, I kinda liked how I ended it.

[Nick H.]

You certainly caught me on a good day Matt. Unfortunately not every day can be that much fun, but a least we've got a couple of more of those days coming up in the near future.

It almost makes up for all those days spent editing audio how to manuals for microwave internet systems.

I've always wondered, what does editing audio manuals like that consist of?

[macrae11]

I want you to make me a loop of that last drum groove I did for my christmas present. The groove at the very end of the song when everything else fades. Just get me the beat and I'll make the loop myself, although it'll be faded out, I kinda liked how I ended it.

Done

[Mathieu Benoit]

It almost makes up for all those days spent editing audio how to manuals for microwave internet systems.

Ouch!

[macrae11]

You certainly caught me on a good day Matt. Unfortunately not every day can be that much fun, but a least we've got a couple of more of those days coming up in the near future.

It almost makes up for all those days spent editing audio how to manuals for microwave internet systems.

I've always wondered, what does editing audio manuals like that consist of?

Really??? Not really sure why anyone would want to know that. Basically it starts with a very large script. In this case it was about 300 pages. We then hire a professional narrator to do the read. As the read is going down I take very detailed notes with timecode references everytime he/she coughs, rustles papers, pauses too long, misses a word, etc. Basically anything that shouldn't be in the final product.

Then the editing is fairly straight ahead. I make a new track for the final takes. Then I just edited all my timecode chunks down to the new track. Then I listen all the way through from top to bottom to make sure I didn't miss anything and that all my edits are clean, nothing chopped off or anything like that. Then it's just final formatting and outputting.

Total time for 3 hours of finished audio, about 15-18 hours.

[adam]

I too would love to do the session musician thing full-time.
Even part-time.
Playing music is awesome, and I get periodically but increasingly burned out on playing live (although my tone is fantastic).

[Mathieu Benoit]

I get periodically but increasingly burned out on playing live.

Do I ever hear that...

[Mathieu Benoit]

I'm all done for now. It was a lot of fun, and I learned a whole heck of a lot. I will make a post of my experiences tomorrow.

[Greg H.]

I hear the so called "science experiments" are always fun... I had a full night of doing that while recording a radiohead cover. Some strange things happened, including a pick-up being run through a marshall and dropped. There was noise!

[Mathieu Benoit]

Once again, want to express how much I enjoyed my time at Outreach Productions. Super friendly and organized staff, expect for the Andrew jerk. Chris (Andrew's) assistant is like the ultimate assistant. He'd change the sheets I had on my music stand between songs, get me coffee and also doubles as a bass/guitar/piano player to boot. Danny Crain, the owner, is a super terrific guy and one heck of a musician/producer. We're lucky to have such a great professional facility this close to home, where people like Andrew and Chris can get paid to do what they are put on this Earth to do.

If we stopped buying preamps, maybe we could afford some all-star employees like that. But we'll never stop buying pres so we'll never know.

[macrae11]

I've heard that Andrew guy is a real ass. Hope I never have to work with him.
Truly I am blessed to work at such a great place.

re: preamps. You just have to make more money, so then you can afford preamps and staff. Of course then you might end up buying other things, and then you'd have to make even more money. You might have to make a whole lot of money. hmmmm. I sense a vicious cycle here.

[Mathieu Benoit]

I'm thinking of designing a preamp buying Algorythm, I will work on it and post the results.

[Mathieu Benoit]

So Andrew just emailed me about another session this coming Monday. I have already secured a leave from my work. I'm excited.

[macrae11]

Frig you're excitable. I haven't even cleared it with the client yet! Well hopefully he gives us the go ahead. If not, you should just come up anyways and we'll drink beers.

[Mathieu Benoit]

Either way I have the day off... and I've been in a deep dark hole of depression since the end of the summer so I'll take whatever excitement I can get my hands on. Besides I'm sure you can convince them.

[Mathieu Benoit]

It's a go. Andrew told me Matt Chamberlain meets Dave Grohl. I couldn't be happier. See you Monday Andrew!

[Mathieu Benoit]

Ummm... Andrew, these tunes are really good. I've got some cool ideas brewing. I'm bringing the whole kit and I'm showing up early. I'll be there before 9am.

[macrae11]

Now I'm friggin excited. I know they're good tunes, he's one of my favourite artists that I work with.

[Mathieu Benoit]

This session is right up my alley...

[Mathieu Benoit]

I just received my first rough mix of some material from my first session at Outreach. Two things; Andrew, it sounds phenomenal and I can't believe that's me in a way, but I know that it is. It goes to show what working with a great crew does to a person. Again, I'm really appreciative to have gotten the opportunity to work with such a wonderful group of people. I can't wait until these are finished and released. I'm both proud and humbled to be a part of these projects.