Murphy's Law

So this is week two that my little recording studio is in business. DH came over last Monday to check out the equipment, listen to a few projects I had in the works, and brought me demos of the material he planned on re-recording and releasing -- to the public, I hope. He must have been somewhat impressed with my work, since Wednesday found us tracking the very first song. Between 7:00 and 10:00 PM, we had the guitars, bass and a rough drum track cut. Things were moving swiftly and sounding impressive.

Saturday I placed half a dozen mics around my drumkit, and proceeded to cut a preliminary drum track. If it was good enough, it might end up being the keeper track, but I had a few ideas for the drum parts that I wanted to run past DH for his approval first. Several hours of tweaking the drum track over the weekend resulted in a decent drum sound, however, I think I made a few critical errors, and I think the drum part will have to be re-cut. So that was my first mistake.

Yesterday, DH returned to the studio, to check on my progress, and lay down the vocal tracks to the first song. What transpired over the course of the evening was nighmarish. Everything that possibly could go wrong, did.

In four hours, we couldn't even get a keeper vocal take. I had equipment troubles of every kind. I couldn't even use the new tube preamp (hence, expensive) I bought just to use on DH's voice.
By 10:30 I only had snippets of about half the lead vocal track.

I had wasted many hours of my time preparing for the session, moving equipment up two flights of stairs, setting up microphones in the bathroom, and connecting several components in the adjacent bedroom across the hall. Nothing seemed to work.

DH didn't like the sound of the bathroom. He didn't like the headphone mix; tracking vocals in the hallway went marginally better. One of my computer interfaces decided to go on strike, and every track we tried recording had random digital pops and spikes every few seconds, lending otherwise keeper takes useless.

After several hours of frustration, we moved the gear back downstairs and tried a few more things. disconnected my Mackie Spike and instead used my Alesis MultiMix8 as my recording interface. At least we eliminated the source of the digital spikes and pops. By then, it was nearly 10:30, and I was frustrated, tired, and I wanted a stiff drink. DH was getting burned-out, both vocally, and physically, and I think he was a little bummed that we didn't make as much progress as we had hoped.

The more complicated my studio grows, the more things don't work right. I am wondering if I should just stick to a minimalist recording setup, instead of having loads of impressive electronic equipment littering my basement.

Having a recording studio (albeit a small one) is a learning experience. Not only am I learning the art of, but learning to deal with artists who have opinions, and I have to troubleshoot every little issue. I worked more problems last night than I have had to in some time. May I say that perhaps my day job is easier?

You're right; I'd never say my day job is easier.