ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,919
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Post by ericn on Aug 15, 2017 21:53:54 GMT -6
Hiatt is a know quantity in markets with strong progressive radio Madison, Austin, Boulder etc. and tours constantly, his song writing success came in the days when people still paid for music! Seen him at least 12 times and yeah he was a client! One of my MAJOR influences.... that song Icy Blue Heart is the pinnacle of lyrics for me "she came on to him, like a slow moving cold front, his beer was warmer than the look in her eyes....." cheers Wiz For me Tennessee Plates A great song a great story, Sunny Landreth live... , I had a guy who wanted to cover Have a Little Faith in Me, guy couldn't get that it wasn't a sappy love song, it's the song of a recovering addict asking some one for another chance after all the shit, I just couldn't do a Mandy Moore version to me it's sacred, now maybe Vincent or a Gospel singer I could see but to Paraphrase RT no more silly love song versions!
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Post by jazznoise on Aug 16, 2017 5:15:25 GMT -6
I used to suffer with this more, but I haven't in a long. I think the big ticket is clear communication. I meet with artists prior and I talk through them with their expectations and experience, and I'll be honest with them - ie. you won't do Pet Sounds in a day, but here's what you can do and here's the level of preparation that will best let you do it and based on what they tell me I'll give them a rough schedule in advance. If they're unhappy with the reality of it, I'm not going to sugar coat. I'd be doing a disservice to promise them something we couldn't deliver in the time we've agreed, and I tell them that. But then I'm a weirdo in that I consider the work somewhat vocational - I'm supposed to be making band's lives easier. It's fixed fee for a day in the studio with me, because anybody who charges hourly always ends up doing overtime or if not the band start freaking out 45 mins before the time is over. I'd rather we got the work done and didn't look at the clock outside of going for lunch. Obviously I do deals if the band can't afford my rates, but with live recordings the process is usually pretty cheap. My mix rates are cheap because I record what I mix and most mixes are usually simple and unattended and I think bands find this process of paying more and more time to do less and less work bizarre, I'd rather just charge more for the day I'm recording with them to offset the hours. adamjbrass 3 revisions: Rough, Middle and Final. Encourage them to not seek opinions outside of the band, as it quickly turns into "My girlfriend asked why my vocals are quieter than the other singers especially since I'm more handsome?". I also tell bands straight out, I've seen records shelved over A&R agents in tiny international labels and loudmouth boyfriends. They need to be in control all the way and you're there to facilitate their decision making process.
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Post by svart on Aug 16, 2017 6:55:55 GMT -6
There are plenty of un-connected people around the world. Not everyone has made connections in the major music centers...and that's usually where you find the people that really know how to do this stuff. So, I generally think this is a good idea...just not sure I have the temperament for it. I dunno... If somebody does have what it takes to go out and at least make a few rudimentary connections do they have any business expecting to do anything in the business? Before I left Oklahoma I'd already done one sound gig for Earl Scruggs and jammed half the night with Vassar Clements. I'd been in Cal for maybe 3 months when I landed a gig playing bass for Skip Spence (yes, the stories about him are mostly true, but that's beside the point) through a random connection with a DJ. A few months later I had an apprenticve tech job at a major service facility. If you don't go out and work for yourself why the hell should you expect anybody else to give a damn? And I'm not even going to go into the people who expect the engineer to clean up after the fact that they can't be arsed to bother learning to sing and play on a semi-reasonable level. Young people have their whole life to go out and make connections - they have no right to expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. NOW, OFF THE DAMN LAWN! The internet has taken a lot of "connections" and made them optional. The kids these days, and increasing numbers of adults turn to the internet for everything, and that means ZERO human interaction. So yeah, people are getting used to the notion of not having to interact with people and still getting everything they want, thus the increasing numbers of folks turning to online mixing/mastering, etc.
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Post by svart on Aug 16, 2017 7:23:24 GMT -6
^Deposits are fine Doug. But this has to do with an unknown amount of time, really. There is no way to know, other than [as Martin rightfully pointed out] how long it will take to become happy with the work. I can only estimate it. They hold me to that. But Mixing takes a lot of time. Clients don't know, so they can't budget for it. Even I don't know. No one is prepared to be unhappy. Really? They give you a deposit for X amount of time. They use X amount of time. It's time for another deposit. If they don't have it they can go back to their jobs tending bar, flipping burgers, driving for Uber, or pimping gear to newbies until they do. Repeat as necessary. You don't deal with "unknown amounts of time", you break it into known increments. If they don't want to deal on a reasonably professional basis, let them go deal with Joe Blow's cousin with the bedroom studio. I think the point being made was that in order to get enough work to keep the studio sustained, you must work to the lowest common denominator.. And that means pandering to the majority. As everyone points out, the big studios are mostly gone due to the proliferation of the bedroom studio, so now the "professional" basis IS becoming the bedroom studio, so to even keep business coming in, you have to cut rates and start being a lot more "flexible", or else that potential business will just move down the street to someone who is more "flexible" with their time and rates. I think I've pointed out that here in the ATL, there's only a few big studios left who even take outside jobs, and those who do have started charging the equivalent to bedroom studio rates in order to keep the lights on. Thankfully the movie industry has picked up here, so the rest of the bigger studios who were on death's door two years ago are getting enough ADR/voiceover work to at least stay afloat, but I've been told by a few studio managers that it's shoestring budgets for everything, and they take on projects that they would have refused a few years ago simply to keep some income flowing.. So you can talk about doing things the old way, but that would essentially cease any volume of work you might do.
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Post by adamjbrass on Aug 16, 2017 9:05:45 GMT -6
^Deposits are fine Doug. But this has to do with an unknown amount of time, really. There is no way to know, other than [as Martin rightfully pointed out] how long it will take to become happy with the work. I can only estimate it. They hold me to that. But Mixing takes a lot of time. Clients don't know, so they can't budget for it. Even I don't know. No one is prepared to be unhappy. Really? They give you a deposit for X amount of time. They use X amount of time. It's time for another deposit. If they don't have it they can go back to their jobs tending bar, flipping burgers, driving for Uber, or pimping gear to newbies until they do. Repeat as necessary. You don't deal with "unknown amounts of time", you break it into known increments. If they don't want to deal on a reasonably professional basis, let them go deal with Joe Blow's cousin with the bedroom studio. The boys came to me [like most every other band I have worked with in the last 7 years..] and we discussed how long it would take. This initial conversation, is how I assumed they were trying to budget for the amount of money they are trying to spend on completing their project. And yes, Not really knowing how much time it will take them. That is where I come into play. I asked them what we would be doing. I gathered some info from them. It seemed like the guitar player had a clear vision, so I assumed he would be producing. Which wasn't the case. But he made me feel that he would be more in control of their approach. Of course, it should be stated that I normally market myself as an Audio Engineer. And I don't really get into acting like a Producer beyond most every aspect of Audio Engineering. That is based upon a certain desire to approach with my business, and also my stated rate. I don't include being a producer for that rate. I normally do not market myself as a producer, up until more recently when I saw a need, in that....there seems to be less of them these days in nearly all my sessions. I gather people don't even know about producing...since everyone is a "slash/slash/slash" type of guy...Anyway, I am certainly capable, I just don't come across many clients who understand why its needed in every session. And that it would take an extra amount of work to do. So, I estimated that I could do the entire work in the time I estimated. And I did. But that was not good enough, seeing as their production input, was at least 50% of my mixing choices. Like I said, I did it WITH them. Which I always like doing. Unless they are simply not experienced enough to do that. Which is the entire premise of this thread. I don't think you fully understand, that I asked for more money to spend more time on the project and they replied that I should finish the record. Do you think I should have let them down? That would have made me feel poorly about myself, my work and probably lose their respect for me. Had I asked for them to pay me the money before releasing the work, they may have never heard the mixes. Was it that big of a deal to put in 20 more hours to satisfy myself. Sure was. If you think I should have told them to pay me, and they couldn't...I would have ended up being angry at them for no reason.....and I would have been upset at myself for not completing the work the way they wanted. Lose Lose. This way, I can say I tried my best and stood behind my work. Next time, I will try to educate my lesser experienced clients as I always try to do. But there are times when you cannot and will not be successful in getting everything you want in life. Which is again, the premise of this fun thread. Maybe we all will learn and grow from it. Instead of being hard assed about it, lets just get better from it.
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Post by adamjbrass on Aug 16, 2017 9:10:58 GMT -6
adamjbrass 3 revisions: Rough, Middle and Final. Encourage them to not seek opinions outside of the band, as it quickly turns into "My girlfriend asked why my vocals are quieter than the other singers especially since I'm more handsome?". I also tell bands straight out, I've seen records shelved over A&R agents in tiny international labels and loudmouth boyfriends. They need to be in control all the way and you're there to facilitate their decision making process. Can't disagree with that one bit, but I would also say, I am here to work with people as best as I can...short of making my life a problem. I have done many revisions for mix clients before. I think I have done around 13 or 14 one time. Does that make me a shitty mix engineer? Probably. I didn't record these tracks though
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 16, 2017 12:05:29 GMT -6
I dunno... If somebody does have what it takes to go out and at least make a few rudimentary connections do they have any business expecting to do anything in the business? Before I left Oklahoma I'd already done one sound gig for Earl Scruggs and jammed half the night with Vassar Clements. I'd been in Cal for maybe 3 months when I landed a gig playing bass for Skip Spence (yes, the stories about him are mostly true, but that's beside the point) through a random connection with a DJ. A few months later I had an apprenticve tech job at a major service facility. If you don't go out and work for yourself why the hell should you expect anybody else to give a damn? And I'm not even going to go into the people who expect the engineer to clean up after the fact that they can't be arsed to bother learning to sing and play on a semi-reasonable level. Young people have their whole life to go out and make connections - they have no right to expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. NOW, OFF THE DAMN LAWN! The internet has taken a lot of "connections" and made them optional. The kids these days, and increasing numbers of adults turn to the internet for everything, and that means ZERO human interaction. So yeah, people are getting used to the notion of not having to interact with people and still getting everything they want, thus the increasing numbers of folks turning to online mixing/mastering, etc. That doesn't make it either a good or reasonable thing. Here's an article I ran across on the general bad effects of the internet and smartphones on society - it's interesting and has ramifications for various aspects of the music industry: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/?utIt is, of course, up to the individual engineer what sort of clients they choose to accept. Me, I'd rather not not deal with those types, but I don't have to rely on mixing for survival. My own feelings is that there are a lot of people "playing at" music these days who aren't willing to really put in the work (on both sides of "the glass") and the resulting impact is bad for everyone who is serious about their art and bad for the industry as a whole. But that's just me, and a lot of people regard me as a "Luddite" - which I find rather insulting, really. I perfer to regard myself as a cynic and/or traditionalist, if there has to be a label. Of course, as I've indicated before, I also believe that the same engineer should follow the project through from setup to final mix. If you can't trust yourself to do that you should probably be assisting, not engineering. And of course there are always exceptions, nothing's written in stone.
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 16, 2017 12:13:34 GMT -6
Really? They give you a deposit for X amount of time. They use X amount of time. It's time for another deposit. If they don't have it they can go back to their jobs tending bar, flipping burgers, driving for Uber, or pimping gear to newbies until they do. Repeat as necessary. You don't deal with "unknown amounts of time", you break it into known increments. If they don't want to deal on a reasonably professional basis, let them go deal with Joe Blow's cousin with the bedroom studio. I think the point being made was that in order to get enough work to keep the studio sustained, you must work to the lowest common denominator.. And that means pandering to the majority. As everyone points out, the big studios are mostly gone due to the proliferation of the bedroom studio, so now the "professional" basis IS becoming the bedroom studio, so to even keep business coming in, you have to cut rates and start being a lot more "flexible", or else that potential business will just move down the street to someone who is more "flexible" with their time and rates. I think I've pointed out that here in the ATL, there's only a few big studios left who even take outside jobs, and those who do have started charging the equivalent to bedroom studio rates in order to keep the lights on. Thankfully the movie industry has picked up here, so the rest of the bigger studios who were on death's door two years ago are getting enough ADR/voiceover work to at least stay afloat, but I've been told by a few studio managers that it's shoestring budgets for everything, and they take on projects that they would have refused a few years ago simply to keep some income flowing.. So you can talk about doing things the old way, but that would essentially cease any volume of work you might do. Yeah, that's a problem. It seems to me kinda like a choice between a quick catastrophic crash and a catastrophic crash in excrutiatingly painful slow motion, but what do I know? What was is John D Loudermilk said? "Bring dynamite and a crane Blow it up, start all over again Build a town, be proud to show Give the name Tobacco Road"
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 16, 2017 12:21:49 GMT -6
I don't think you fully understand, that I asked for more money to spend more time on the project and they replied that I should finish the record. Do you think I should have let them down? That would have made me feel poorly about myself, my work and probably lose their respect for me. Had I asked for them to pay me the money before releasing the work, they may have never heard the mixes. Was it that big of a deal to put in 20 more hours to satisfy myself. Sure was. If you think I should have told them to pay me, and they couldn't...I would have ended up being angry at them for no reason.....and I would have been upset at myself for not completing the work the way they wanted. Lose Lose. This way, I can say I tried my best and stood behind my work. Next time, I will try to educate my lesser experienced clients as I always try to do. But there are times when you cannot and will not be successful in getting everything you want in life. Which is again, the premise of this fun thread. Maybe we all will learn and grow from it. Instead of being hard assed about it, lets just get better from it. Well, what I think is that this time around you kinda blew the planning and negotiation stage, primarily due to taking on a role for which you were somewhat unprepared and inexperienced. Next time you'll be able to handle it better, and it makes a good instructional tale and subject for discussion on the forum from which many may benefit, hopefully. We're all always learning. If you stop learning you start dying.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Aug 16, 2017 12:25:41 GMT -6
I don't think you fully understand, that I asked for more money to spend more time on the project and they replied that I should finish the record. Do you think I should have let them down? That would have made me feel poorly about myself, my work and probably lose their respect for me. Had I asked for them to pay me the money before releasing the work, they may have never heard the mixes. Was it that big of a deal to put in 20 more hours to satisfy myself. Sure was. If you think I should have told them to pay me, and they couldn't...I would have ended up being angry at them for no reason.....and I would have been upset at myself for not completing the work the way they wanted. Lose Lose. This way, I can say I tried my best and stood behind my work. Next time, I will try to educate my lesser experienced clients as I always try to do. But there are times when you cannot and will not be successful in getting everything you want in life. Which is again, the premise of this fun thread. Maybe we all will learn and grow from it. Instead of being hard assed about it, lets just get better from it. Well, what I think is that this time around you kinda blew the planning and negotiation stage, primarily due to taking on a role for which you were somewhat unprepared and inexperienced. Next time you'll be able to handle it better, and it makes a good instructional tale and subject for discussion on the forum from which many may benefit, hopefully. We're all always learning. If you stop learning you start dying. We're all always dying. If you stop dying, you're dead.
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Post by adamjbrass on Aug 16, 2017 12:43:06 GMT -6
I don't think you fully understand, that I asked for more money to spend more time on the project and they replied that I should finish the record. Do you think I should have let them down? That would have made me feel poorly about myself, my work and probably lose their respect for me. Had I asked for them to pay me the money before releasing the work, they may have never heard the mixes. Was it that big of a deal to put in 20 more hours to satisfy myself. Sure was. If you think I should have told them to pay me, and they couldn't...I would have ended up being angry at them for no reason.....and I would have been upset at myself for not completing the work the way they wanted. Lose Lose. This way, I can say I tried my best and stood behind my work. Next time, I will try to educate my lesser experienced clients as I always try to do. But there are times when you cannot and will not be successful in getting everything you want in life. Which is again, the premise of this fun thread. Maybe we all will learn and grow from it. Instead of being hard assed about it, lets just get better from it. Well, what I think is that this time around you kinda blew the planning and negotiation stage, primarily due to taking on a role for which you were somewhat unprepared and inexperienced. Next time you'll be able to handle it better, and it makes a good instructional tale and subject for discussion on the forum from which many may benefit, hopefully. We're all always learning. If you stop learning you start dying. I think its funny you would call me inexperienced, when I finished the work on their budget under my own estimate. I was happy with it. I had 50% input on it. I simply did us both a favor.
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Post by swurveman on Aug 16, 2017 12:51:28 GMT -6
Interesting thread. I'm lucky that I don't have to make money from my studio. I feel for those who can't say, "Here's your money back. Go away." Fortunately, I have not had to do that yet.
I think if I had to do this for a living, I would have quit by now. The satisfaction payoff would be nowhere near the hassle in my small market town compared to other ways of making money. I understand why people in major markets with good studios and quality bands hang in there though. I hope things get better for you.
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 16, 2017 12:56:15 GMT -6
Well, what I think is that this time around you kinda blew the planning and negotiation stage, primarily due to taking on a role for which you were somewhat unprepared and inexperienced. Next time you'll be able to handle it better, and it makes a good instructional tale and subject for discussion on the forum from which many may benefit, hopefully. We're all always learning. If you stop learning you start dying. I think its funny you would call me inexperienced, when I finished the work on their budget under my own estimate. I was happy with it. I had 50% input on it. I simply did us both a favor. We're all inexperienced in one aspect of things or another, no matter how much experience we might have in our primary areas. In this case I was talking about the specific sort of situation being discussed, business wise (or maybe it's diplomacy? Whatever's appropriate.) Sometimes doing what you think is a favor results in difficulties down the line, especially when you miss your estimates. (This is an area I'm particularly poor at, and have learned a fair amount by watching others, not that I'm very good at implementing what I've learned.)
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Post by adamjbrass on Aug 16, 2017 13:00:00 GMT -6
I think its funny you would call me inexperienced, when I finished the work on their budget under my own estimate. I was happy with it. I had 50% input on it. I simply did us both a favor. We're all inexperienced in one aspect of things or another, no matter how much experience we might have in our primary areas. In this case I was talking about the specific sort of situation being discussed, business wise (or maybe it's diplomacy? Whatever's appropriate.) Sometimes doing what you think is a favor results in difficulties down the line, especially when you miss your estimates. (This is an area I'm particularly poor at, and have learned a fair amount by watching others, not that I'm very good at implementing what I've learned.) Not really. Rather, it was their expectations had not been met by my estimate. If I estimate more time to spend, they say no. As was this case. Clients want their mixes to sound better than they are willing to pay for. I don't know what school of engineering and producing you come from, but its likely a lot different than mine.
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 16, 2017 13:28:03 GMT -6
We're all inexperienced in one aspect of things or another, no matter how much experience we might have in our primary areas. In this case I was talking about the specific sort of situation being discussed, business wise (or maybe it's diplomacy? Whatever's appropriate.) Sometimes doing what you think is a favor results in difficulties down the line, especially when you miss your estimates. (This is an area I'm particularly poor at, and have learned a fair amount by watching others, not that I'm very good at implementing what I've learned.) Not really. Rather, it was their expectations had not been met by my estimate. If I estimate more time to spend, they say no. As was this case. Clients want their mixes to sound better than they are willing to pay for. I don't know what school of engineering and producing you come from, but its likely a lot different than mine. Well, I'd say you just put your finger on what I was trying to express. You missed a contingency. Next time you'll be aware that you need to make provisions for such things, even if you don't believe that they'll be needed. I have a somewhat peculiar viewpoint on a lot of things because a lot of my early training was as a service tech and service techs are trained to analyze potential points of failure, whereas the majority of people look at things from the viewpoint of the way things are supposed to work. A lot of people think I tend to be excessively pessimistic while it seems to me that most people are dangerously optimistic. Reality, of course, is probably somewhere in the middle, and floats with the situation... "Why would I need a parachute, this plane isn't going to crash!" Most of the time that's correct, but when it isn't........
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Post by popmann on Aug 16, 2017 14:33:22 GMT -6
I think it's a mistake to think that recording studios, as a rule, were ever "sustained" by production of music. Between commercial jingle, voiceover, audio for video work.....and straight up fronts for laundering money, which may or may not be related to the labels that gave them the music production work....even on the small scale, when "small demo studios" existed the first time around-the one I worked in (mostly arranging FWIW) was 90% income from the music lessons being taught out of it during the day. The night time music production/recording work was too sporadic for that to keep the doors open. The owner closed it when HE realized this was never going to NOT be the case.
Now--I'm sure there were/are exceptions....but, that's what they are.
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Post by adamjbrass on Aug 16, 2017 14:40:11 GMT -6
Not really. Rather, it was their expectations had not been met by my estimate. If I estimate more time to spend, they say no. As was this case. Clients want their mixes to sound better than they are willing to pay for. I don't know what school of engineering and producing you come from, but its likely a lot different than mine. Well, I'd say you just put your finger on what I was trying to express. You missed a contingency. Next time you'll be aware that you need to make provisions for such things, even if you don't believe that they'll be needed. I have a somewhat peculiar viewpoint on a lot of things because a lot of my early training was as a service tech and service techs are trained to analyze potential points of failure, whereas the majority of people look at things from the viewpoint of the way things are supposed to work. A lot of people think I tend to be excessively pessimistic while it seems to me that most people are dangerously optimistic. Reality, of course, is probably somewhere in the middle, and floats with the situation... "Why would I need a parachute, this plane isn't going to crash!" Most of the time that's correct, but when it isn't........ I would defer to the term "estimate", which isn't something that is set in stone. Unless I missed a memo somewhere. Its sometimes used as ammo, but I digress. Never the less, managing expectations is always going to be an issue. There is no free lunch for anyone. The Wheels of karma spin in ever flowing directions. But the overall point is that you have to pay attention to what Clients are asking for, against their imaginary and possibly unknowable expectations, with what you know how to accomplish in the time that you said you could get it done. I can probe and probe and probe and probe, but if they don't know...I wont either... Another interesting bit to my story, is that they waited to tell me they were submitting the album to some kind of battle of the bands and it needed to be done and submitted by a certain deadline. So yea, there was a box and they cornered me in it. To me, I feel like a fool for even listening to their input on my mixes. But that is how I like to work, using the clients input as my guide. This time, it was totally a waste of the time. In that same day I could have mixed it correctly if they left me alone and put on my brainwave helmet.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Aug 16, 2017 14:55:22 GMT -6
I think the actual problem in many of these situations is simply the estimate. Now I realize the climate has changed, but when I was producing commercials, I don't think I ever went an hour, maybe an hour and a half beyond my estimate and I had plenty of wiggle room anyway. These weren't simple estimates either. Sometimes I had to account for 7 to 12 performers, union contracts, including studio time with engineers, mixing time, which sometimes meant inserting five or six different voice overs with in the same commercial and running copies. Yet, I don't think I ever underestimated the time it would take to do what I was doing in 10 to 12 years of doing that. So, the choice really is, do you tell them how it's really most likely going to go, and risk them not hiring you, or do you play along and hope they'll kick it a little more money when you reach the end and it's not finished.
In the end, since they don't have much experience and you do, it's on you to get the estimate right. I don't mean that in a smart ass way, I understand how difficult it can be working with inexperienced people with ego and attitude involved, plus the pressure of paying your bills and building a reputation. But that's your job, to finesse all these things and come out ahead. Producing is actually very similar, just more of the musical decisions are involved.
The more you do it, the easier it gets.
Good luck to all of us, we need it.
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