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Post by viciousbliss on Aug 21, 2017 23:07:48 GMT -6
Was just listening to some before and after samples a Metal guy from Nashville has up in Soundcloud portfolio. The before stuff was horrendous and the after sounded like a full production from a label like Century Media. The big difference was that it sounded like the after was full of vocals and other instrumental parts that weren't there in the original song. Given that the engineer is advertising nation-wide, I doubt these bands are flying into Nashville to record. In short, it sounds like this engineer is doing the band's work for them. Same thing with a free client I had way back. Another guy worked on his song and replaced most everything, changed the tempo here and there(which necessitated unnatural slowing down of the vocals) and the client told me it felt like he didn't even write the song anymore. But that's the version he's always displayed as I've never really settled on a final one due to the difficulty of making badly recorded stuff with pre-mixed fake drums sound good. I've gotten it sounding pretty good, but you can only polish it so much, esp with very audible fan noise on vocal tracks that are often only accompanied by bass and drums. So is this a new requirement for mix engineers? That you need to be able to take very rough ideas and turn them into something that sounds like a real song?
IMO This is a very bad trend and I don't see much point to it aside from artist vanity. It goes without saying that having an engineer do 50-75% of the work isn't going to lead to the artist or band getting any better. Creatively I don't see how it helps either. All this tech has enabled so many shortcuts to be taken that it seems to have stifled famous bands even. It's just extremely easy to be trendy and make everything homogeneous. If the label has song-writers working with their roster, it gets even worse. The label is now the star. People already don't want to form bands because even bad musicians want to be extremely picky about influences and how everyone else sounds. I see the same people posting ads for years trying to find band members. I guess why bother learning the craft if you can slop something down and find some engineer who will do the work for $100-$200. It's not like legendary bands and artists made a ton of money right off the bat or had any guarantee of success. Yet they were able to gain live followings and find ways to get into the studio with little budget. There's just a real lack of drive with most every musician I've been around. Can't explain why, some of it is probably due to the belief that the mythological power of Pro Tools can fix anything.
On another note, I read about the first AI produced and recorded album. IAMAI or something like that. Will be listening to it later.
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Post by EmRR on Aug 22, 2017 5:56:35 GMT -6
....and I felt bad when I removed most of the reverb from a singer who's thing is 'lots of reverb'......
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Post by drbill on Aug 22, 2017 9:43:23 GMT -6
No. This is not a requirement of a mix engineer. If a mix engineer did that to one of my mixes, he would be fired immediately. Or, hired on as producer if it was really great. But he wouldn't be mixing my music. That's above and beyond, stepping into the producers role. Even producers, that's overstepping a bit. But it is within their jurisdiction.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Aug 22, 2017 10:11:34 GMT -6
I've had a few rare situations where an amateur "singer/songwriter" wants "their" song produced professionally.
So, they sing a verse and maybe a chorus. I figure out the chord changes to match, maybe tweaking the melody a little. Then I add a middle, maybe a musical hook, changed a few words, played and produced it. One client flipped when I said this was truly a collaboration and we should share the songwriting credit, the other was only too happy to have help and share the credit. Thankfully the former dumped me, the latter, I was glad to work with. I haven't taken those kinds of gigs for over 20 years, but recently a friend of a friend asked for help, she's sweet and appreciative, so I have no problem being her co-writer/arranger/band/producer.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,957
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Post by ericn on Aug 22, 2017 11:42:25 GMT -6
Man I must be doing it backwards, 90% of the time it's all about mute and tacking out plugins!
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Post by drbill on Aug 22, 2017 11:44:11 GMT -6
As a mix engineer, I'm VERY careful about changing anything - moving stuff around, tightening up parts unless they are OBVIOUSLY wrong, tuning parts unless asked to, etc.. That can get you in big trouble quick. And I don't like re-doing things. If ASKED to do so, that's a completely different story, and really the missing piece of the OP's puzzle. What was the mix engineer ASKED to do.
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Post by svart on Aug 22, 2017 13:24:23 GMT -6
Depends.
I've had bands who've asked me to "mix" their supplied tracks which were obviously poorly recorded, yet those same bands give me highly produced bands as mix examples.. Clearly they expected me to turn their tracks into something they weren't.
I've also had at least one artist that we spent an incredible amount of time getting "tones" for everything, and they agreed they sounded great, to have them be upset that it sounded "too good" in the end..
But most of the time the bands leave the majority of the mixing decisions up to me and I try to mix so that the end product fits their genre. Most of them are happy for me to do so.
However, you have to realize that most of the stuff you hear on the radio is assembled, as in put together from pieces. It's nothing for the vocals alone to be built from syllables and words taken from dozens of takes and then tuned and mixed. Drums are little more than triggered samples, and guitars/bass are built from pieces or re-amped, or simply re-tracked by session musicians..
The industry hasn't been about *the artist's* work, but about the finished product and how much money it can make. It has to be perfect and formulaic so that it appeals to the mass audience.
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Post by viciousbliss on Aug 22, 2017 16:21:21 GMT -6
I think I read that Puig does a lot of re-producing. CLA I think does as well. Not sure about Pensado. When I used to visit the Cambridge multitrack forum, I noticed people re-producing some of the tracks there. Not just replacing the fake drums, but other things. When Brandon Drury had Recording Review, he would often boast about being able to replace drums without a client even knowing. Giving people a finished song made from junk is probably a valuable skill. CLA gets hired because labels know he'll take ownership of the song and his formula has a proven track record. Thing is, you start to get a "been there done that" feel when you hear new things he's mixed. It's familiar and not bad if you're at a theme park or something, but I think a lot of people probably feel like they have enough music like that. It wouldn't be bad to ask what creative ground is left to break by noted re-producers. The fact that the average band can get pretty similar results to what they hear from record labels if they know their software kills off a lot of the mystique of newer acts.
Here's a song created with use of the Amper AI:
Sounds pretty decent aside from the usual hissy vocals. AI will eventually put producers out of business, it's just a question of when.
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Post by wiz on Aug 22, 2017 16:43:07 GMT -6
For me it has always depended on he client.
I got paid for my time....if they wanted me to sing on it,play guitar etc I would.
I would never do something without them knowing I did it though...it's their art.... not mine
Cheers
Wiz
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 22, 2017 22:58:16 GMT -6
AI will eventually put producers out of business, it's just a question of when. Screw dat!
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Post by donr on Aug 22, 2017 23:05:36 GMT -6
I almost posted the Amper AI article I read here yesterday, but decided not to bring people down.
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Post by ChaseUTB on Aug 23, 2017 2:16:32 GMT -6
Yeah welcome to my life To Shit to shinola ... what I get sent vs what I give back yeah I should have co-production credits and ownership 😂😂😂 don't get me wrong some mixes fall in love beautifully others have to be surgically sewn together so To speak
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Post by subspace on Aug 23, 2017 21:27:07 GMT -6
I mostly track what I mix and I've done replacement during the mix process. As in, spent over a year with the artist building up tracks, including session players at multiple studios. When it came down to final mix sign off, wasn't feeling the track so sent the artist home and replaced everything but the drums and lead vocal in about an hour. Artist heard it the next day and made it the title track of the album. That's more about the artist living with a song long enough to tire of it and being relieved to hear it in a new light, it went from an acoustic number to effected electric guitar layers, hardly a 'sweetening' process. Not something I would do as a mixer for hire in general. This is more common for me tracking things that people have played for a long time before recording, the one's where you ask them to make simple melody change and they sing it exactly the same despite themselves... "Goddamn it! I can't hear it any other way! Can you do it?"
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Post by Quint on Aug 23, 2017 22:00:25 GMT -6
If the band/artist explicitly agrees to such wholesale changes to their music, then I guess it's whatever....
It's not something I would ever want to be involved in as a mix engineer unless it was intended to be a dynamic collaboration from the outset.
It's also something I would be adamantly against for music I created. I would never want someone mixing my music to think they had license to add their own interpretation. Full stop.
Why further cheapen an industry which is already viewed as cheap with covert shenanigans like replacing parts?
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Post by swurveman on Aug 24, 2017 7:59:40 GMT -6
I do it all the time. I'll be tracking a band and say something like "lots of bands double track and pan the guitars during this chorus part" and they'll say "no we like it the way it is". Then, I duplicate the part and do Billy Decker's psuedo stereo trick of the guitars during the chorus when I mix and they go "wow, I didn't know how good that would sound". I shit you not. I guess you guys are getting mixes, or tracking bands who really know how to arrange songs. Out here in small town America they don't and I help them sound better. Also, I find that singer's have no idea of what their vocal effects should be. So, I usually mix it the way I think it should sound. I then show them other ways I can make the vocal sound with effects and they have the last word. Am I producing? Also, bands will tell me, "we want the raw sound of our drums". Then I sample replace/augment and they say "holy shit that sounds great". So, I don't get the big fury here. In my world it happpens all the time.
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Post by swurveman on Aug 24, 2017 8:53:08 GMT -6
I almost posted the Amper AI article I read here yesterday, but decided not to bring people down. I asw the AI Video and it reminded me of this Mona Lisa Smile clip that starts a 1 min mark. "Now every one can be Van Gogh".
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Post by subspace on Aug 24, 2017 12:12:43 GMT -6
I think I read that Puig does a lot of re-producing. CLA I think does as well. Not sure about Pensado. When I used to visit the Cambridge multitrack forum, I noticed people re-producing some of the tracks there. Not just replacing the fake drums, but other things. When Brandon Drury had Recording Review, he would often boast about being able to replace drums without a client even knowing. Giving people a finished song made from junk is probably a valuable skill. CLA gets hired because labels know he'll take ownership of the song and his formula has a proven track record. Thing is, you start to get a "been there done that" feel when you hear new things he's mixed. It's familiar and not bad if you're at a theme park or something, but I think a lot of people probably feel like they have enough music like that. It wouldn't be bad to ask what creative ground is left to break by noted re-producers. The fact that the average band can get pretty similar results to what they hear from record labels if they know their software kills off a lot of the mystique of newer acts. Here's a song created with use of the Amper AI: Sounds pretty decent aside from the usual hissy vocals. AI will eventually put producers out of business, it's just a question of when. Sounds like a great program for producing sound-a-like schlock. Whoever was producing those Kidz Bop records might be out of a job. Maybe if she had a human producer they would've mentioned how to pronounce quarantine.
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Post by viciousbliss on Aug 25, 2017 3:26:50 GMT -6
I do it all the time. I'll be tracking a band and say something like "lots of bands double track and pan the guitars during this chorus part" and they'll say "no we like it the way it is". Then, I duplicate the part and do Billy Decker's psuedo stereo trick of the guitars during the chorus when I mix and they go "wow, I didn't know how good that would sound". I shit you not. I guess you guys are getting mixes, or tracking bands who really know how to arrange songs. Out here in small town America they don't and I help them sound better. Also, I find that singer's have no idea of what their vocal effects should be. So, I usually mix it the way I think it should sound. I then show them other ways I can make the vocal sound with effects and they have the last word. Am I producing? Also, bands will tell me, "we want the raw sound of our drums". Then I sample replace/augment and they say "holy shit that sounds great". So, I don't get the big fury here. In my world it happpens all the time. Sounds like you're just enhancing what's already there instead of becoming an honorary member of the band.
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Post by Quint on Aug 25, 2017 6:59:12 GMT -6
I do it all the time. I'll be tracking a band and say something like "lots of bands double track and pan the guitars during this chorus part" and they'll say "no we like it the way it is". Then, I duplicate the part and do Billy Decker's psuedo stereo trick of the guitars during the chorus when I mix and they go "wow, I didn't know how good that would sound". I shit you not. I guess you guys are getting mixes, or tracking bands who really know how to arrange songs. Out here in small town America they don't and I help them sound better. Also, I find that singer's have no idea of what their vocal effects should be. So, I usually mix it the way I think it should sound. I then show them other ways I can make the vocal sound with effects and they have the last word. Am I producing? Also, bands will tell me, "we want the raw sound of our drums". Then I sample replace/augment and they say "holy shit that sounds great". So, I don't get the big fury here. In my world it happpens all the time. From what I can tell, in your case it sounds like the band is involved in those decisions though. I can't speak for others but, at least as far as I'm concerned, I was disagreeing with the notion of replacing parts without the band's knowledge.
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Post by swurveman on Aug 25, 2017 8:57:03 GMT -6
I do it all the time. I'll be tracking a band and say something like "lots of bands double track and pan the guitars during this chorus part" and they'll say "no we like it the way it is". Then, I duplicate the part and do Billy Decker's psuedo stereo trick of the guitars during the chorus when I mix and they go "wow, I didn't know how good that would sound". I shit you not. I guess you guys are getting mixes, or tracking bands who really know how to arrange songs. Out here in small town America they don't and I help them sound better. Also, I find that singer's have no idea of what their vocal effects should be. So, I usually mix it the way I think it should sound. I then show them other ways I can make the vocal sound with effects and they have the last word. Am I producing? Also, bands will tell me, "we want the raw sound of our drums". Then I sample replace/augment and they say "holy shit that sounds great". So, I don't get the big fury here. In my world it happpens all the time. From what I can tell, in your case it sounds like the band is involved in those decisions though. I can't speak for others but, at least as far as I'm concerned, I was disagreeing with the notion of replacing parts without the band's knowledge. Yeah, perhaps that happens for people who send mixes out to mix only places. When you're recording and mixing, it's much easier to sustain a rapport and help the band accomplish their goals imo. You can pre produce during tracking by making suggestions- and if they reject them- reintroduce the idea during mixing by saying "this is what I was talking about during recording". Then they can reject it again, but sometimes-particularly when they don't have a lot of studio experience- they embrace the idea.
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Post by Quint on Aug 25, 2017 12:45:36 GMT -6
From what I can tell, in your case it sounds like the band is involved in those decisions though. I can't speak for others but, at least as far as I'm concerned, I was disagreeing with the notion of replacing parts without the band's knowledge. Yeah, perhaps that happens for people who send mixes out to mix only places. When you're recording and mixing, it's much easier to sustain a rapport and help the band accomplish their goals imo. You can pre produce during tracking by making suggestions- and if they reject them- reintroduce the idea during mixing by saying "this is what I was talking about during recording". Then they can reject it again, but sometimes-particularly when they don't have a lot of studio experience- they embrace the idea. Yeah, I don't see any problem in that context. I have, however, read people saying that they would go and replay and record a guitar track (or whatever) and replace the band's original track with their own without the band's knowledge. That sort of thing should never happen.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Aug 25, 2017 12:54:05 GMT -6
I once sat in on a James Blunt mixing session after he recorded five live tracks, and he and the band had left the studio.
The engineer re-amped the guitar track, which admittedly sounded weak. The improvement was obvious, and my friend, the producer argued about it with the engineer, who just wouldn't leave it alone. He was right, it was better, but my friend, in frustration asked me what I thought, and I said, "you can't turn a blond into a brunette without askking first".
So in that instance, he either gets the artist's permission, or he's obligated to leave it the way it was done.
Obviously, this discussion refers mostly to less experienced musicians, but I thought you guys would get a kick out of it.
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Post by Quint on Aug 25, 2017 13:19:50 GMT -6
I once sat in on a James Blunt mixing session after he recorded five live tracks, and he and the band had left the studio. The engineer re-amped the guitar track, which admittedly sounded weak. The improvement was obvious, and my friend, the producer argued about it with the engineer, who just wouldn't leave it alone. He was right, it was better, but my friend, in frustration asked me what I thought, and I said, "you can't turn a blond into a brunette without askking first". So in that instance, he either gets the artist's permission, or he's obligated to leave it the way it was done. Obviously, this discussion refers mostly to less experienced musicians, but I thought you guys would get a kick out of it. I'd agree with you on the reamping, especially given the generally particular nature of guitarists when it comes to their tone. Though I think the performance itself still remains intact in that situation. I wouldn't place that on the same level as replacing a part altogether.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Aug 25, 2017 13:41:41 GMT -6
Drum sample replacement and reamping is standard operating procedure in mixing in this day and age. If I'm hired to mix a song and thing those techniques will make my mix better, I'm doing them without asking the band. That's part of what I was hired to do.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Aug 25, 2017 14:00:14 GMT -6
Interesting jcoutou. I wouldn't argue or say that's wrong, but in a case of people on the level of james Blunt, who at the time had the biggest record in the world, I believe the guitarist printed it the way he wanted it, and the way James Blunt liked it. So, I would have give a quick call to someone and gotten permission if possible, or mix two versions and ask them to choose later.
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