Let’s Set Some Limits!

What makes me leery of this is the memory of doing an EP on 8 track for a band versus 16 as a ‘savings’. Just using 16 would’ve saved all sorts of hassles when they got picked up and the label wanted a remix….but the drums were premix to 2. The other ADAT was sitting right there.

Then there’s the mono only crowd, who fill a niche. Those clients can’t seem to envision a studio that does more than mono being any good at mono. There have to be ways to have conversations about what limits might save, while thinking of expanding past that as a la carte expansion.

Sure doesn’t hurt to try things like this!

I've done this. The results are demos, thats all. The problem is they won't hear it as demos, they will hear it as the best recording ever that just needs to be re-mixed over and over. So set that expecation quick, and make sure that they know its a demo and will have to be re-recorded when they get signed. I didn't know to do this, and it made my life miserable, as they'd keep paying for more and more low budget productions and my satisfaction less and less. It did pay the bills during some dark and scary times though, and I did get to experiment on tons of bands and learn a lot of techniques.

Yeah^^^ great post. Resonates with me.., For me the idea was they will hear how not-great it is and want to pay to upgrade. If it’s not great they’ll only blame the sound guy and go somewhere else. If something happens to turn out great because you learn some stuff, it will be hard to convince them to pay more to make it better. Why pay $3000 when I got the same thing as other expensive studios for $300? That’s what you will find.
All that said, working fast, 3 hour slot *could* be magical- as long as everything is setup in advance. Every drum head tuned, mics in phase, guitars intonated, cue mixes perfected, room mics rocking, compressors and EQ pre dialed. So that’s how you might offer a deal if you wanted to.. house setup and instruments, very best mics and gear: one song played live as many takes as needed, a couple vocal overdub passes, a faders up mix and print. Then if they want more songs, can do same thing. If they want to add layers to songs, more hours. A real mix, more hours

It's a mistake to do anything other than the best you can possibly do. Anything else will damage your self-esteem. Limit time, not quality. I once did a great demo in 48 minutes with an old band of mine. The gear was great, it was all set up, and I used a vintage C-12 for vocals.

Also, you never know where something will go. You might track a 14 year old singing a few songs and two years later she's Taylor Swift.

If you want to challenge yourself, do it for yourself. Track something only using the plug-ins in your DAW for instance. I once did an album for a 16 year old student using only Logic because he couldn't afford anything more than Logic, the interface, the mic and Les Paul he'd just bought.

It was great fun and a great learning experience for both of us.

I still use Logic's DBX style compressor on everything. It's as good or better than the dozen other brand plug-ins I have.

Stock non-linear processors universally are defective shit boxes. You’d be kicking yourself trying to do anything not a pumpy, grindy, smacky mess with them.

They can’t get the job done no matter what people on the internet say.

And there are very well known itb guys who literally have no effective peak control on their mixes. Their mixes are all peaky and hard despite being slammed because they have no effective dynamic control based on their itb workflow that was set in stone 10 years ago. They also have no treble saturation/softening or heavy distortion from any individual plugs because they’re still using Waves type stuff that sound awful hit hot. They physically can’t do it. If they added even some basic hardware like a few bang for bucks compressors and a silver bullet or something, , or maybe like 300 bucks in modern plugs, they could do it.

Meanwhile a bunch of newer dynamics plugs have effective dynamics control. They’re just not emulations and can’t be used exactly like an 1176. Nobody seems to want to learn them.

You guys are no fun

IMO, always put your best foot forward. Always make the results as good as you can. Regardless of budget. Excellence is the best business card and the best job security. The notion of rolling the dice with clients sounds “dicey” to me. My clients are my well being. And return clients are the stability in my career. “Fun” is good for the moment but doesn’t always create security or legacy. Quality results do. And getting to continue making music for a living…. That is fun

(This is not directed at you, phdamage - just a general aphorism)

If you are actually trying to make money at this, it is never worth it to chase the bottom dollar - UNLESS you are in your first year of business.

It's a very odd thing.

The more I started charging the more money I made.

The clients changed, to people who aren't looking for cheap but quality.

You just have to be able to deliver that quality.

There's lot's of people in a race to the bottom - but it doesn't mean you have to run with them.

The problem, to me, is that what is interesting to you (in this very particular instance) really has no bearing on what is good for the artist - you are potentially offering them less for less.

Depending on how things go, they might get nothing at all. Not something I'd pay any amount for.

I don't get this.

The client isn't not hiring you so you can "have fun" or "challenge yourself". They don't care if you use the coolest hyped plugins or stock ones. Or what kind of mics you use(although plenty of people will know when you are using a nice mic very a cheaper mic they themselves might already own and that can look like you aren't going to do any better than they could) they just care that you make their job easier and that it sounds great.

If you want to shoot yourself in the foot in the recording stage only to wish you'd done it right to save yourself work later...go for it. You'll only do it a few times before giving up on that. Sure it'll make you appreciate some things but you won't learn to be a really better engineer because of it. Not in the long run. ESPECAILLY if you are not recording really really really good musicians all the time that know how to just sound great in any situation and balance well. If you do drums with 3 mics with a crap drummer you'll hate yourself and you probably won't get hired again by them either. If they are a killer drummer and understand what is happening and play correctly it can be great.


If you want to limit yourself in the mix stage, go for it. I honestly don't see anything wrong with this idea and even encourage it. It'll make you save money in the long run by not buying plugins all the time. BUT, I don't see the point of offering a "client special" just to use stock plugins. They don't give a fuck what you use or are using. Just make it sound great. Seems silly to have a price point and act like stock plugins make your job easier/faster because your limited in options and the results somehow not as good if you could use other plugins.



Basically, Record for what is needed from the gig you are doing with the tools you have. Its still the most important part before mixing.

Mix however you want. But you should saddle your client with an "option" on how it's mixed. Either give them an hourly rate and get good at working hourly, or do it on a project basis with set number of revisions. Then use whatever you want. If you want to "challenge" yourself and use all stock plugins. Great. Do it. But I see no point in letting the artist know that or decide that to save a buck.