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Post by jmoose on May 23, 2024 15:53:17 GMT -6
Avoid them if at all possible. That is another whole discussion on how to pull that off, but yeah, avoid doing it. Cause turds always smell..... There's a lot of power in saying "no" - and there's a lot of reasons to say no. Some of them legit. Timing & schedules. Sometimes things just don't work out. Someone has a deadline and we can't meet it or move the thing that would allow time. Happens. We'll meet again on the next one. And truthfully there have been times in my life & career, and this is certainly one of them right now where I don't care who's calling or what it is. Even if its Dave Grohl... I'm simply not available until... today's May 23? Maybe October. Really sorry Dave can this wait? If not oh well I understand. Bummer. You need another name? Otherwise No. No these songs aren't ready... you need to re-record some bits first. No... no you aren't ready for this kind of process. No you don't have enough money. No you have un-reasonable expectations. No this is never going to sound right. No you aren't mature enough for this kind of feedback. No this BS isn't worth my sanity for this little $$. No no no. Truthfully ? I screen and vet everything and have for years. Lots of things die a natural death during the intake process. Which is perfectly fine & how it should be. There's a real art to sorting and... well... interrogating people to find the red flags & potential landmines without getting anyone too worked up. Most of them are fairly basic, innocent questions about who they are and what they're doing... and how I can possibly help... Not the first of which IS EVER about the money. Never comes up. Not from me anyway. We'll talk about that later. Everything starts with the music. It is absolutely music first. What are the artists goals? What's in their head? If they can't answer some basic questions about that kinda thing I'm kinda not real interested in working with them. Sorry. Possibly their looking for someone else? As for the money? Because its all about the corporate rock here! To a degree, at this point in my journey people usually contact me knowing that I'm not going to be the least expensive option. They come in knowing its an investment. If someone's poking around based on rates... I can sniff that out right quick and they're just gonna keep moving on. Though a couple times a year, no doubt someone will come along looking for production assistance... They want to ratchet up their home toolz project to a certain quality level... come looking for session drummers and maybe a horn section? And I'll listen to their hot mess for 90 seconds, offer feedback and a general estimate where they go into immediate sticker shock because - Yo! Newsflash! My buddy Nick isn't going to play trumpet on your junk for $50 a track. I'm not even going to ask him. Going rate i$ hundred$. Its gonna be $3k a song to whip this crap into shape by the time we're done. Shocker? They disappear. We often do feel a need to completely remake these kinds of 'home toolz' projects because deep down, we know that's what their junk really needs. And that in reality its part of the gig. Sometimes a really hard part of the gig. Even on 'rockstar' level stuff where its obvious that things just aren't working. Only thing I'll really say about equipment - subpar mics & rooms etc - That's all par for the course. If your hanging a shingle out on 'mix for hire' then you get to navigate those murky shallow waters on a daily basis. And that, my friend is a large part of why I have a desk and small mountain of outboard gear for mixing. Its not all here to look rad. If this were a mechanic shop vs audio production? Some days its only an oil change & tire rotation. Other days its full-on bent frame collision damage and geez... its gotta function and even look like a fucking car again. The "problem" for us? More production minded people is that some of these projects right - People just don't know any better. They maybe have just enough equipment and knowledge to plug a microphone into an interface and record everything from DC to light with 100dB of dynamic range fully intact. And so all our "outboard gear" be it physical hardware - or plugs ITB - we are NOW trying to do what should of been done in tracking. And we might even have to do some of that... and even more w/ edits & tuning blah blah - BEFORE we can even start to really mix. Hail Satan. Kill me now. Total uphill battle. Not really the same thing as mixing a project where yes, there was some intent and focus on what was happening during the actual recording. To say nothing of the real hitter tracking cats who are meticulous at that stage... at which point yeah, just throw up the faders and its kinda mixed & sounding great. Great rooms + intent / wide gap / Beavis with a pile of knock off mics & and a $300 interface in a room filled with egg foam ?? Something like that? |
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Post by nick8801 on May 23, 2024 17:17:42 GMT -6
Avoid them if at all possible. That is another whole discussion on how to pull that off, but yeah, avoid doing it. Cause turds always smell..... There's a lot of power in saying "no" - and there's a lot of reasons to say no. Some of them legit. Timing & schedules. Sometimes things just don't work out. Someone has a deadline and we can't meet it or move the thing that would allow time. Happens. We'll meet again on the next one. And truthfully there have been times in my life & career, and this is certainly one of them right now where I don't care who's calling or what it is. Even if its Dave Grohl... I'm simply not available until... today's May 23? Maybe October. Really sorry Dave can this wait? If not oh well I understand. Bummer. You need another name? Otherwise No. No these songs aren't ready... you need to re-record some bits first. No... no you aren't ready for this kind of process. No you don't have enough money. No you have un-reasonable expectations. No this is never going to sound right. No you aren't mature enough for this kind of feedback. No this BS isn't worth my sanity for this little $$. No no no. Truthfully ? I screen and vet everything and have for years. Lots of things die a natural death during the intake process. Which is perfectly fine & how it should be. There's a real art to sorting and... well... interrogating people to find the red flags & potential landmines without getting anyone too worked up. Most of them are fairly basic, innocent questions about who they are and what they're doing... and how I can possibly help... Not the first of which IS EVER about the money. Never comes up. Not from me anyway. We'll talk about that later. Everything starts with the music. It is absolutely music first. What are the artists goals? What's in their head? If they can't answer some basic questions about that kinda thing I'm kinda not real interested in working with them. Sorry. Possibly their looking for someone else? As for the money? Because its all about the corporate rock here! To a degree, at this point in my journey people usually contact me knowing that I'm not going to be the least expensive option. They come in knowing its an investment. If someone's poking around based on rates... I can sniff that out right quick and they're just gonna keep moving on. Though a couple times a year, no doubt someone will come along looking for production assistance... They want to ratchet up their home toolz project to a certain quality level... come looking for session drummers and maybe a horn section? And I'll listen to their hot mess for 90 seconds, offer feedback and a general estimate where they go into immediate sticker shock because - Yo! Newsflash! My buddy Nick isn't going to play trumpet on your junk for $50 a track. I'm not even going to ask him. Going rate i$ hundred$. Its gonna be $3k a song to whip this crap into shape by the time we're done. Shocker? They disappear. We often do feel a need to completely remake these kinds of 'home toolz' projects because deep down, we know that's what their junk really needs. And that in reality its part of the gig. Sometimes a really hard part of the gig. Even on 'rockstar' level stuff where its obvious that things just aren't working. Only thing I'll really say about equipment - subpar mics & rooms etc - That's all par for the course. If your hanging a shingle out on 'mix for hire' then you get to navigate those murky shallow waters on a daily basis. And that, my friend is a large part of why I have a desk and small mountain of outboard gear for mixing. Its not all here to look rad. If this were a mechanic shop vs audio production? Some days its only an oil change & tire rotation. Other days its full-on bent frame collision damage and geez... its gotta function and even look like a fucking car again. The "problem" for us? More production minded people is that some of these projects right - People just don't know any better. They maybe have just enough equipment and knowledge to plug a microphone into an interface and record everything from DC to light with 100dB of dynamic range fully intact. And so all our "outboard gear" be it physical hardware - or plugs ITB - we are NOW trying to do what should of been done in tracking. And we might even have to do some of that... and even more w/ edits & tuning blah blah - BEFORE we can even start to really mix. Hail Satan. Kill me now. Total uphill battle. Not really the same thing as mixing a project where yes, there was some intent and focus on what was happening during the actual recording. To say nothing of the real hitter tracking cats who are meticulous at that stage... at which point yeah, just throw up the faders and its kinda mixed & sounding great. Great rooms + intent / wide gap / Beavis with a pile of knock off mics & and a $300 interface in a room filled with egg foam ?? Something like that? Thanks for not sending me 50 dollar trumpet gigs lol! All good stuff here man. Like I said earlier, doing this kind of thing as a business is kind of new to me. The singer in this band I’m gonna work on is a really good dude that I’ve known forever. They’re all retired older guys just having fun, but….and it’s a big but….at first he’s like, these are just demos. Just balance everything out so we can put them online and book gigs and whatnot. But after I sent them that, I could tell they wanted it to sound more polished. So now I’m in a situation where I need to take their meh recordings into some kind of territory that they’re just not in. I enjoy the challenge of course, but I also want it to be fun. Either way, I’m using this as a learning experience. Both on the business end and the musical one. |
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Post by Johnkenn on May 23, 2024 20:03:57 GMT -6
This is all great stuff and making me feel a little better. Johnkenn is so right. It all really plays into my imposter syndrome. I put on the mix I did for these guys in my car yesterday and got super depressed! It was just so...blah. I like the idea of just banging this out quickly. Might just run the session through one of my transformer boxes to get some harmonics happening, because everything just sounds so "grey" to. I'll push the levels so it's nice and loud and call it a day. Pretty sure they will dig it. THIS is why the trinnov is so important to me. I need to feel like I have a correct baseline. Something I KNOW is right. So I’ve done a ton of room acoustic treatment (arm and a leg) and spent $5k on a Trinnov (which now sells for exactly half FML) Also use the Ozone Tonal Balance plug that gives a visual representation of how your mix compares to a ref song, or you can put in like 10 different songs and it will make an average target. These days, I end up looking as I get towards the end, but I’m usually right within where I should be. And can adjust if it’s not. So after getting great translations for a couple months, I just stopped checking. And I was much, much happier. Lol. But today showed me I still need to check. The balance on the drums and bass on this particular song were way out of whack…and I noticed that in the 4Runner. Went back to the mix and while it wasn’t as pronounced - it was there. So maybe all of this just tells us we need to mix for an hour and take a break for an hour or whatever. I’m going to definitely rest for a while before I send stuff from now on. |
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Post by Johnkenn on May 23, 2024 20:08:58 GMT -6
There's lots of tricks like this that can add production quality that overrides poor production. Duck the bass with the kick drum. Duck the guitars with the vocals but use EQ in the sidechain so it's only a small band of midrange so the guitars don't sound ducked but still get out of the vocal's way. I dunno.. I guess it matters what the end-goal is. just made a thread talking about how I was getting paranoid about ducking too much…but that’s probably just it. Too much. |
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Post by smashlord on May 23, 2024 22:29:41 GMT -6
I would re-track all the parts myself and try to convince them it was just studio magic. This. I have re-tracked entire EPs myself, bass and guitar because the players couldn't play in time or without bending strings out of tune. I could bill them for hours of cutting and slicing for it to still sound like ehhhhhh or spend 20-30 minutes learning the tune and recutting it. Some people are excellent songwriters and even good players, BUT, the studio, as we all know is an entirely different beast. For example, many guitar players when playing live or @ practice aren't thinking about a lot of the finer details that make a great recorded performance. Why would they? They aren't layering tracks, so if they don't strum the same way each time or bend a chord out of tune it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, its our job to give the artist something they are stoked on and preferably in a way that doesn't have us working for $5/hr. Whatever it takes. |
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Post by rowmat on May 23, 2024 23:24:28 GMT -6
This kind of relates to John’s ‘Bass track with no mids or top’ thread. This wasn’t actually polishing a turd. The client’s material wasn’t bad, but dealing with the personal quirks was something else. This was more like turning a chocolate eclair into a turd then wondering why it no longer tastes like a chocolate eclair. The client/singer (forthwith known as *TCFH) during a bass overdub wanted all the top/mids wound out of the session bassist’s miked speaker cabinet but also refused to allow me to DI the bass because she wanted “a pure organic bass tone.” I explained it was standard practice to DI bass on a separate track in parallel with miking the cabinet and leave any final decisions for the mixdown. I also explained it was better to leave any drastic EQ decisions until mixdown and that it was not an issue to turn the high frequencies down afterwards but was near impossible to regain decent definition from miked bass speaker cabinet that had been recorded with no mids/highs at all. I also suggested that having a DI’d track was a good idea because it allows you to re-amp the bass later if you decide the amp tone isn’t what you wanted. I explained you wouldn’t go out in a boat fishing without a life jacket or sailing on a large yacht without an auxiliary motor. She said… “I hate boats and I’m a vegan!” So much for my clever analogy! I warned her it would be impossible to hear the bass on small phone/iPad/computer speakers etc without anything much above 200hz or any harmonics present in the track. However she continued insisting we did it her way. So after quietly talking to the producer and the bass player it was agreed they would distract her while I connected a DI anyway. However she became suspicious and when she realised I had connected the DI she went seriously nuts. So to pacify her the DI was disconnected. (You know where this is going don’t you?!) So the bass was recorded as she insisted, no mids, or tops or DI, she left, and we sent her a rough mix the following day. About 10 days later she returned for another session and the first thing she said was the rough mix we gave her had no bass on it at all. I said it did and she proceeded to pull out her iPhone select the mix we had sent her and held it out in front of me. “See! There’s no bass! You sent the previous mix without the bass overdub.” I asked her what else has she played the mix on besides her iPhone. “Have you listened to it in the car or on headphones/earbuds?” She didn’t answer. So I selected the track we sent her on the studio iMac and played it through the monitors. There it was big fat pure subby organic bass with nothing much over about 200hz. “That’s not the track you sent me!” she insisted. “Oh yes it is.” So I told her to turn on the Bluetooth on her iPhone and connect to our Heritage Bluetooth receiver. “So play the track on your iPhone that according to you has no bass.” And there it was big fat bass. So you would have thought game over. That’s it. We’ve vindicated ourselves. Unfortunately no. She then claimed we were tricking her by playing a different track through the monitors. At that point I left the control room and sat on the swing under the oak tree in the garden dreaming of fly fishing for monster trout in the Eucumbene River. We did one final session with her from memory and then never heard from her again. She never came back to finish the final mixes. Spent about $12k and disappeared. *The Client From Hell |
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Post by nick8801 on May 24, 2024 3:52:30 GMT -6
This kind of relates to John’s ‘Bass track with no mids or top’ thread. This wasn’t actually polishing a turd. The client’s material wasn’t bad, but dealing with the personal quirks was something else. This was more like turning a chocolate eclair into a turd then wondering why it no longer tastes like a chocolate eclair. The client/singer (forthwith known as *TCFH) during a bass overdub wanted all the top/mids wound out of the session bassist’s miked speaker cabinet but also refused to allow me to DI the bass because she wanted “a pure organic bass tone.” I explained it was standard practice to DI bass on a separate track in parallel with miking the cabinet and leave any final decisions for the mixdown. I also explained it was better to leave any drastic EQ decisions until mixdown and that it was not an issue to turn the high frequencies down afterwards but was near impossible to regain decent definition from miked bass speaker cabinet that had been recorded with no mids/highs at all. I also suggested that having a DI’d track was a good idea because it allows you to re-amp the bass later if you decide the amp tone isn’t what you wanted. I explained you wouldn’t go out in a boat fishing without a life jacket or sailing on a large yacht without an auxiliary motor. She said… “I hate boats and I’m a vegan!” So much for my clever analogy! I warned her it would be impossible to hear the bass on small phone/iPad/computer speakers etc without anything much above 200hz or any harmonics present in the track. However she continued insisting we did it her way. So after quietly talking to the producer and the bass player it was agreed they would distract her while I connected a DI anyway. However she became suspicious and when she realised I had connected the DI she went seriously nuts. So to pacify her the DI was disconnected. (You know where this is going don’t you?!) So the bass was recorded as she insisted, no mids, or tops or DI, she left, and we sent her a rough mix the following day. About 10 days later she returned for another session and the first thing she said was the rough mix we gave her had no bass on it at all. I said it did and she proceeded to pull out her iPhone select the mix we had sent her and held it out in front of me. “See! There’s no bass! You sent the previous mix without the bass overdub.” I asked her what else has she played the mix on besides her iPhone. “Have you listened to it in the car or on headphones/earbuds?” She didn’t answer. So I selected the track we sent her on the studio iMac and played it through the monitors. There it was big fat pure subby organic bass with nothing much over about 200hz. “That’s not the track you sent me!” she insisted. “Oh yes it is.” So I told her to turn on the Bluetooth on her iPhone and connect to our Heritage Bluetooth receiver. “So play the track on your iPhone that according to you has no bass.” And there it was big fat bass. So you would have thought game over. That’s it. We’ve vindicated ourselves. Unfortunately no. She then claimed we were tricking her by playing a different track through the monitors. At that point I left the control room and sat on the swing under the oak tree in the garden dreaming of fly fishing for monster trout in the Eucumbene River. We did one final session with her from memory and then never heard from her again. She never came back to finish the final mixes. Spent about $12k and disappeared. *The Client From Hell 12k and you didn’t even have to finish?? Sounds like a dream gig 😄 Just kidding….but wtf wouldn’t she let you even try a di. It’s not like that would corrupt the rest of the tracks. |
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Post by rowmat on May 24, 2024 4:05:59 GMT -6
This kind of relates to John’s ‘Bass track with no mids or top’ thread. This wasn’t actually polishing a turd. The client’s material wasn’t bad, but dealing with the personal quirks was something else. This was more like turning a chocolate eclair into a turd then wondering why it no longer tastes like a chocolate eclair. The client/singer (forthwith known as *TCFH) during a bass overdub wanted all the top/mids wound out of the session bassist’s miked speaker cabinet but also refused to allow me to DI the bass because she wanted “a pure organic bass tone.” I explained it was standard practice to DI bass on a separate track in parallel with miking the cabinet and leave any final decisions for the mixdown. I also explained it was better to leave any drastic EQ decisions until mixdown and that it was not an issue to turn the high frequencies down afterwards but was near impossible to regain decent definition from miked bass speaker cabinet that had been recorded with no mids/highs at all. I also suggested that having a DI’d track was a good idea because it allows you to re-amp the bass later if you decide the amp tone isn’t what you wanted. I explained you wouldn’t go out in a boat fishing without a life jacket or sailing on a large yacht without an auxiliary motor. She said… “I hate boats and I’m a vegan!” So much for my clever analogy! I warned her it would be impossible to hear the bass on small phone/iPad/computer speakers etc without anything much above 200hz or any harmonics present in the track. However she continued insisting we did it her way. So after quietly talking to the producer and the bass player it was agreed they would distract her while I connected a DI anyway. However she became suspicious and when she realised I had connected the DI she went seriously nuts. So to pacify her the DI was disconnected. (You know where this is going don’t you?!) So the bass was recorded as she insisted, no mids, or tops or DI, she left, and we sent her a rough mix the following day. About 10 days later she returned for another session and the first thing she said was the rough mix we gave her had no bass on it at all. I said it did and she proceeded to pull out her iPhone select the mix we had sent her and held it out in front of me. “See! There’s no bass! You sent the previous mix without the bass overdub.” I asked her what else has she played the mix on besides her iPhone. “Have you listened to it in the car or on headphones/earbuds?” She didn’t answer. So I selected the track we sent her on the studio iMac and played it through the monitors. There it was big fat pure subby organic bass with nothing much over about 200hz. “That’s not the track you sent me!” she insisted. “Oh yes it is.” So I told her to turn on the Bluetooth on her iPhone and connect to our Heritage Bluetooth receiver. “So play the track on your iPhone that according to you has no bass.” And there it was big fat bass. So you would have thought game over. That’s it. We’ve vindicated ourselves. Unfortunately no. She then claimed we were tricking her by playing a different track through the monitors. At that point I left the control room and sat on the swing under the oak tree in the garden dreaming of fly fishing for monster trout in the Eucumbene River. We did one final session with her from memory and then never heard from her again. She never came back to finish the final mixes. Spent about $12k and disappeared. *The Client From Hell 12k and you didn’t even have to finish?? Sounds like a dream gig 😄 Just kidding….but wtf wouldn’t she let you even try a di. It’s not like that would corrupt the rest of the tracks. Not a dream gig. It went on for ages and she had all these weird rituals she would go through prior to each vocal session. Fisherman’s Friend Lozanges, herbal teas, Feng Shui involving where she stood in the studio in relation to the microphone. All kinds of nutty shit. She would have been better off spending $6k with us and the other $6k on a shrink. Then the sessions would have taken half the time and we would all have come out at the end of it slightly more sane. Yeah and refusing to let me DI the bass was nuckin’ futs. I told her it had no affect on the other track and we didn’t have to use it but she seemed to be on some kind of delusional authoritarian power trip. Once she got some dumb idea in her head, no matter what you said, she would just double down on it regardless of how stupid it was. |
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Post by nick8801 on May 24, 2024 4:11:44 GMT -6
This is all great stuff and making me feel a little better. Johnkenn is so right. It all really plays into my imposter syndrome. I put on the mix I did for these guys in my car yesterday and got super depressed! It was just so...blah. I like the idea of just banging this out quickly. Might just run the session through one of my transformer boxes to get some harmonics happening, because everything just sounds so "grey" to. I'll push the levels so it's nice and loud and call it a day. Pretty sure they will dig it. THIS is why the trinnov is so important to me. I need to feel like I have a correct baseline. Something I KNOW is right. So I’ve done a ton of room acoustic treatment (arm and a leg) and spent $5k on a Trinnov (which now sells for exactly half FML) Also use the Ozone Tonal Balance plug that gives a visual representation of how your mix compares to a ref song, or you can put in like 10 different songs and it will make an average target. These days, I end up looking as I get towards the end, but I’m usually right within where I should be. And can adjust if it’s not. So after getting great translations for a couple months, I just stopped checking. And I was much, much happier. Lol. But today showed me I still need to check. The balance on the drums and bass on this particular song were way out of whack…and I noticed that in the 4Runner. Went back to the mix and while it wasn’t as pronounced - it was there. So maybe all of this just tells us we need to mix for an hour and take a break for an hour or whatever. I’m going to definitely rest for a while before I send stuff from now on. I don’t think my mix was bleh because of any room issues…I just think the song was kind of uninspired, so I wasn’t really driven to get it going as good as it could. This thread has helped A LOT! Thanks guys:) Spent a couple hours last night with it mixing at a nice low level. I’m having some weird tinitus issues due to allergies and my ears are incredibly sensitive at the moment, but that’s a thing for another discussion. Anyway, I did a lot of side-chaining to get things moving more. Kick to bass, separate send on an aux drum mic to the drum verb focused on snare, I even ducked the guitar bus verb because these guys were playing these janky rhythms. It sort of helped make it groove. Side-chained all the vocal verbs and delays to bounce along with his rather interesting vocal approach lol. It all really helped. Thanks for reminding me to try all that out Svart! I also took off a bunch of UAD plugs I was using. Gonna sound like Dan here, but I’m starting to kind of dislike the fake distortions they add to tracks. They’re fine if used subtly, but when I try to push them they just sound like plastic to me. Especially on tracks like these. |
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Post by svart on May 24, 2024 6:39:32 GMT -6
THIS is why the trinnov is so important to me. I need to feel like I have a correct baseline. Something I KNOW is right. So I’ve done a ton of room acoustic treatment (arm and a leg) and spent $5k on a Trinnov (which now sells for exactly half FML) Also use the Ozone Tonal Balance plug that gives a visual representation of how your mix compares to a ref song, or you can put in like 10 different songs and it will make an average target. These days, I end up looking as I get towards the end, but I’m usually right within where I should be. And can adjust if it’s not. So after getting great translations for a couple months, I just stopped checking. And I was much, much happier. Lol. But today showed me I still need to check. The balance on the drums and bass on this particular song were way out of whack…and I noticed that in the 4Runner. Went back to the mix and while it wasn’t as pronounced - it was there. So maybe all of this just tells us we need to mix for an hour and take a break for an hour or whatever. I’m going to definitely rest for a while before I send stuff from now on. I don’t think my mix was bleh because of any room issues…I just think the song was kind of uninspired, so I wasn’t really driven to get it going as good as it could. This thread has helped A LOT! Thanks guys:) Spent a couple hours last night with it mixing at a nice low level. I’m having some weird tinitus issues due to allergies and my ears are incredibly sensitive at the moment, but that’s a thing for another discussion. Anyway, I did a lot of side-chaining to get things moving more. Kick to bass, separate send on an aux drum mic to the drum verb focused on snare, I even ducked the guitar bus verb because these guys were playing these janky rhythms. It sort of helped make it groove. Side-chained all the vocal verbs and delays to bounce along with his rather interesting vocal approach lol. It all really helped. Thanks for reminding me to try all that out Svart! I also took off a bunch of UAD plugs I was using. Gonna sound like Dan here, but I’m starting to kind of dislike the fake distortions they add to tracks. They’re fine if used subtly, but when I try to push them they just sound like plastic to me. Especially on tracks like these. Don't forget that we're all friends here and I'm sure if you posted the mix for critique we'd all help you figure out if/what problems are there. |
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Post by nick8801 on May 24, 2024 7:28:12 GMT -6
I don’t think my mix was bleh because of any room issues…I just think the song was kind of uninspired, so I wasn’t really driven to get it going as good as it could. This thread has helped A LOT! Thanks guys:) Spent a couple hours last night with it mixing at a nice low level. I’m having some weird tinitus issues due to allergies and my ears are incredibly sensitive at the moment, but that’s a thing for another discussion. Anyway, I did a lot of side-chaining to get things moving more. Kick to bass, separate send on an aux drum mic to the drum verb focused on snare, I even ducked the guitar bus verb because these guys were playing these janky rhythms. It sort of helped make it groove. Side-chained all the vocal verbs and delays to bounce along with his rather interesting vocal approach lol. It all really helped. Thanks for reminding me to try all that out Svart! I also took off a bunch of UAD plugs I was using. Gonna sound like Dan here, but I’m starting to kind of dislike the fake distortions they add to tracks. They’re fine if used subtly, but when I try to push them they just sound like plastic to me. Especially on tracks like these. Don't forget that we're all friends here and I'm sure if you posted the mix for critique we'd all help you figure out if/what problems are there. Appreciate that. If I get permission, I'll post what I have so far! |
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Post by cademan7 on May 24, 2024 15:10:11 GMT -6
Last year I left a job for this reason. It was a newly opened studio with extremely high overhead and the owners didn't have a background in music, which made for a sort of challenging dynamic when I would try to explain how turning away clients is sometimes a good idea because like you said, you end up spending more time trying to fix everything wrong with it than you would have spent on something that was actually good in the first place. Plus I think it's short sighted to be worried about losing the potential few bucks you're going to make because you're not going to get anything else out of it. You're not going to have a finished product that you can be proud to show anyone, or that will go on to attract new quality clients (turds attract turds lol), and you're not going to enjoy the experience. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine working on projects that aren't necessarily the most enjoyable, especially every so often (it is WORK after all haha), but we would go weeks, sometimes months on end without a single project coming through that would be a good representation of the studio or our engineers. We were just keeping the doors open but you have to ask yourself the question, what's even the point of keeping the studio doors open if we're not ever using it to make great music? Ultimately I decided it was best to go back on my own where I can keep my overhead low enough to be at least somewhat selective with the projects I take on. I cannot stress enough the importance of spending time on quality projects, meaning working with artists who are capable of producing a quality work, even if you have to negotiate a lower rate because to me, money isn't the only factor in negotiating rates. Other factors are: the quality of the artist, the potential exposure, the enjoyment of the project, etc. If the end product is going to be a really great representation of my work because of how talented the artist is, then I will absolutely try to make the project fit their budget because the value of having the final work in my discography is worth a lot to me as a producer.
Another thing that I think is super important is to make sure the person who is inquiring about working with you has really heard your work and loves the way it sounds. The majority of my new clients that reach out are reaching out because they heard something I did and they liked it and that helps tremendously because I at least know that their expectations should be attainable. Whether or not I will enjoy the process of getting it there or not is another story! haha Which is why I also have a policy of not committing to multiple song projects without first doing one song to make sure that me and the client both can make it to the finish line being satisfied with the end result and the process of getting there.
Anyway, hope that makes you feel better! Just make sure you're doing at least a couple projects month to month that you can feel proud of.
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Post by nick8801 on May 26, 2024 9:17:07 GMT -6
Well they approve of my mix/master so I guess it is well polished lol! Thanks for all the encouragement/ideas here. Definitely helped me tie it all together. If anyone cares to listen…. thevigilantes.net/album/2555530/the-vigilantesIt’s the song called “Fractured Rainbow”. |
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Post by Johnkenn on May 28, 2024 19:06:02 GMT -6
So just to follow up on my story. We had a big come to Jesus talk after he got the files I sent. I told him I saw his post on SB and it was complete bs...he said it was just to see what others cost. But whatever. So, we really talked it out...I actually like the guy outside of this stuff...He's a loud barker, but no bite I.e. he bitches a lot, but it comes from a place of insecurity...Come to find out, it's ONLY his vocals he has the problem with...he recorded these really bad ones at a different location, so we've just decided to re-sing those.
We've also decided to move forward with this and to do another 10...but we've got the ground rules now and I won't have any issues communicating with him now. Amazing what being honest with someone will do.
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Post by gwlee7 on May 29, 2024 5:23:32 GMT -6
Well they approve of my mix/master so I guess it is well polished lol! Thanks for all the encouragement/ideas here. Definitely helped me tie it all together. If anyone cares to listen…. thevigilantes.net/album/2555530/the-vigilantesIt’s the song called “Fractured Rainbow”. well, I think the instrument mix sounds pretty good. Wasn’t quite expecting the vocal. I have certainly heard (and probably recorded) worse. |
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Post by nick8801 on May 29, 2024 6:38:51 GMT -6
Well they approve of my mix/master so I guess it is well polished lol! Thanks for all the encouragement/ideas here. Definitely helped me tie it all together. If anyone cares to listen…. thevigilantes.net/album/2555530/the-vigilantesIt’s the song called “Fractured Rainbow”. well, I think the instrument mix sounds pretty good. Wasn’t quite expecting the vocal. I have certainly heard (and probably recorded) worse. Thanks. I did my best lol. That vocal...yeah....it kind of knocks you out of your chair. He's a life long New Yorker. Worked as grip on TV shows forever. So he has "the voice" lol. A friend of mine thought the bass was a little loud. I dunno..I had give something up the middle to support that vocal! |
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Post by Ward on May 30, 2024 5:11:22 GMT -6
I would re-track all the parts myself and try to convince them it was just studio magic. THIS. Also my method. I seem to do a lot of turd polishing to the point where one of your colleagues recently spotted my 4pt credit wardpike:wardpike on a record and sent my a text with "nobody polishes a turd like you do" . . . true story. you know who you are. re-amping can help guitars, and bass, plugins can be useful too . . . for guitars and bass. Drum sample replacements end up sounding like super-pop which is equal measures 'meh' and 'ugh' and sometimes what you have to do. However, nothing beats the out of tune vocals that need a combination of manual and auto tuning to bring back from the brink of dreadful only to be met with the surprised quick reply of "take the autotune off the vocals, it's ruining my sound" Oh the webs we weave. |
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Post by Dan on May 31, 2024 6:33:17 GMT -6
THIS is why the trinnov is so important to me. I need to feel like I have a correct baseline. Something I KNOW is right. So I’ve done a ton of room acoustic treatment (arm and a leg) and spent $5k on a Trinnov (which now sells for exactly half FML) Also use the Ozone Tonal Balance plug that gives a visual representation of how your mix compares to a ref song, or you can put in like 10 different songs and it will make an average target. These days, I end up looking as I get towards the end, but I’m usually right within where I should be. And can adjust if it’s not. So after getting great translations for a couple months, I just stopped checking. And I was much, much happier. Lol. But today showed me I still need to check. The balance on the drums and bass on this particular song were way out of whack…and I noticed that in the 4Runner. Went back to the mix and while it wasn’t as pronounced - it was there. So maybe all of this just tells us we need to mix for an hour and take a break for an hour or whatever. I’m going to definitely rest for a while before I send stuff from now on. I don’t think my mix was bleh because of any room issues…I just think the song was kind of uninspired, so I wasn’t really driven to get it going as good as it could. This thread has helped A LOT! Thanks guys:) Spent a couple hours last night with it mixing at a nice low level. I’m having some weird tinitus issues due to allergies and my ears are incredibly sensitive at the moment, but that’s a thing for another discussion. Anyway, I did a lot of side-chaining to get things moving more. Kick to bass, separate send on an aux drum mic to the drum verb focused on snare, I even ducked the guitar bus verb because these guys were playing these janky rhythms. It sort of helped make it groove. Side-chained all the vocal verbs and delays to bounce along with his rather interesting vocal approach lol. It all really helped. Thanks for reminding me to try all that out Svart! I also took off a bunch of UAD plugs I was using. Gonna sound like Dan here, but I’m starting to kind of dislike the fake distortions they add to tracks. They’re fine if used subtly, but when I try to push them they just sound like plastic to me. Especially on tracks like these. stuff that doesn’t try to change the sound is the worst. We have our vintage warmer, sound toys, amp Sims, weirdo fuse/neold plugs and weirdo wave shapers, satin and Kramer tape, softube chandler germanium but the stuff that tries to be cleanish or functional and fail… that’s the worst. Waves SSL, most modes in VVV without heavy filtering and a mud cut, the 1176 emulations, the aliasing, the truncation, the cramped eqs or the eqs that introduce low frequency noise, they just crap up the sound. rowmat wins the thread though. That sounds like Hell |
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Post by bossanova on May 31, 2024 10:18:52 GMT -6
This kind of relates to John’s ‘Bass track with no mids or top’ thread. This wasn’t actually polishing a turd. The client’s material wasn’t bad, but dealing with the personal quirks was something else. This was more like turning a chocolate eclair into a turd then wondering why it no longer tastes like a chocolate eclair. The client/singer (forthwith known as *TCFH) during a bass overdub wanted all the top/mids wound out of the session bassist’s miked speaker cabinet but also refused to allow me to DI the bass because she wanted “a pure organic bass tone.” I explained it was standard practice to DI bass on a separate track in parallel with miking the cabinet and leave any final decisions for the mixdown. I also explained it was better to leave any drastic EQ decisions until mixdown and that it was not an issue to turn the high frequencies down afterwards but was near impossible to regain decent definition from miked bass speaker cabinet that had been recorded with no mids/highs at all. I also suggested that having a DI’d track was a good idea because it allows you to re-amp the bass later if you decide the amp tone isn’t what you wanted. I explained you wouldn’t go out in a boat fishing without a life jacket or sailing on a large yacht without an auxiliary motor. She said… “I hate boats and I’m a vegan!” So much for my clever analogy! I warned her it would be impossible to hear the bass on small phone/iPad/computer speakers etc without anything much above 200hz or any harmonics present in the track. However she continued insisting we did it her way. So after quietly talking to the producer and the bass player it was agreed they would distract her while I connected a DI anyway. However she became suspicious and when she realised I had connected the DI she went seriously nuts. So to pacify her the DI was disconnected. (You know where this is going don’t you?!) So the bass was recorded as she insisted, no mids, or tops or DI, she left, and we sent her a rough mix the following day. About 10 days later she returned for another session and the first thing she said was the rough mix we gave her had no bass on it at all. I said it did and she proceeded to pull out her iPhone select the mix we had sent her and held it out in front of me. “See! There’s no bass! You sent the previous mix without the bass overdub.” I asked her what else has she played the mix on besides her iPhone. “Have you listened to it in the car or on headphones/earbuds?” She didn’t answer. So I selected the track we sent her on the studio iMac and played it through the monitors. There it was big fat pure subby organic bass with nothing much over about 200hz. “That’s not the track you sent me!” she insisted. “Oh yes it is.” So I told her to turn on the Bluetooth on her iPhone and connect to our Heritage Bluetooth receiver. “So play the track on your iPhone that according to you has no bass.” And there it was big fat bass. So you would have thought game over. That’s it. We’ve vindicated ourselves. Unfortunately no. She then claimed we were tricking her by playing a different track through the monitors. At that point I left the control room and sat on the swing under the oak tree in the garden dreaming of fly fishing for monster trout in the Eucumbene River. We did one final session with her from memory and then never heard from her again. She never came back to finish the final mixes. Spent about $12k and disappeared. *The Client From Hell This is a future classic thread. And that's a story for the ages. My God. |
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Post by drbill on May 31, 2024 10:49:25 GMT -6
Maybe I deal with different types of clients, and generally I don't get a lot of turds - but I would NEVER replace a part without asking permission first. It would mean instant firing and word would get out. That said, I'll be OK with doing just about anything to make THEIR parts / vocals sound better. But I hold the line at replacing them. I drop the project long before that happens.
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Post by Dan on May 31, 2024 11:45:57 GMT -6
Honestly, I’ve done a lot of this. Eq like crazy, fix every problem you hear, go for cool over good, it’s not going to sound good so you don’t want to make it sound conventionally bad like a lot of pop and rap do now. FX, automate like crazy into a bus compressor, good compression, bus compressors to control your crazy moves, tuning of even drums, reamping even of mic parts (by all means get a di but if you don’t, reamp it anyway or at least run it through a bunch of tube stuff and maybe filter it), drum leveler, color that hides things instead of adds things, and working in styles of music where you can bury the poor vocal like extreme metal and Shoegaze work well. De-reverb the vocal with something like Acon Dereverber or Waves Clarity Pro. Tune only the most off key notes. No robot snap stuff. Then bury it in a reverb with a ton of chorusing like old Lexicons (real ones sound better but the algorithms ports to modern CPUs will do), PSP 2445 EMT (mix the 244 and 245 together for a ton of chorusing) , Tai Chi, Audio Damage Eos, Quadraverb set right, Tsar set to slow or fast modulation, VVV if they want to sound like modern dreck, Sonsig with ensemble cranked up if they want it really hifi.
If the artist is not cool with this and is unhappy with their crap, nothing you can do
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Post by EmRR on May 31, 2024 12:58:24 GMT -6
It usually is what it is, and anything I do is gonna frame it up better, even if it still sounds bad. Can’t work miracles unless the budget is a certain size and then that miracle is a re-record. Or you can fuck it up to make it sound on purpose bad.
Flipside - i mixed a Rick Rubin produced thing once that drove me nuts, the sounds were so generic and lacking in personality. I kept trying to make it have a vibe, and it’d have been better to just do a flat fader mix and call it a day. My attempt at vibe just made it worse. It was what it was.
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Post by nick8801 on Jun 1, 2024 6:21:40 GMT -6
It usually is what it is, and anything I do is gonna frame it up better, even if it still sounds bad. Can’t work miracles unless the budget is a certain size and then that miracle is a re-record. Or you can fuck it up to make it sound on purpose bad. Flipside - i mixed a Rick Rubin produced thing once that drove me nuts, the sounds were so generic and lacking in personality. I kept trying to make it have a vibe, and it’d have been better to just do a flat fader mix and call it a day. My attempt at vibe just made it worse. It was what it was. The budget absolutely plays into this. When you’re basically doing the band a favor, no way I’m taking the time to re-amp things, or run things through fancy outboard. I actually brought that up to them, and let them know I could do more, but it would cost more. They were like, no no…just do your thing in the computer and it will be fine. “They’re just demos man! Just make em sound good!” Lol |
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Post by thehightenor on Jun 1, 2024 10:19:36 GMT -6
Fooling clients is never a good game plan. Tell them you are super busy, and because of that your wait times have grown exponentially and your rates have gone up. Let them know their project is cool, but a very back burner project for you. They of course will not want to wait that long. If that doesn't work, ask to hear the project. Then tell them their project is cool, but you're not sure what you personally can bring to the project to make it better - and that they would almost certainly be better served by finding someone else. Both of those things are honest. Both of them will discourage most folks. For the ones that won't move on - tell them the truth. That you are no longer taking on projects that will require too much re-working of parts, tuning of vocals, extra production on top of their already finished tracks, etc.. If they still do not want to move on, start charging them top dollar to rebuild their tracks in a suitable fashion. Give them an up-front quote, and make sure you are hourly, and that the quote is only an ESTIMATE - that studio production almost always goes longer and costs more. Then, they will almost surely move on. If they don't - you just found a gold mine.... Milk it for everything it's worth. Its appears you are the master of delivering .... The Sh*t Sandwich  |
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Post by drbill on Jun 1, 2024 10:39:53 GMT -6
Fooling clients is never a good game plan. Tell them you are super busy, and because of that your wait times have grown exponentially and your rates have gone up. Let them know their project is cool, but a very back burner project for you. They of course will not want to wait that long. If that doesn't work, ask to hear the project. Then tell them their project is cool, but you're not sure what you personally can bring to the project to make it better - and that they would almost certainly be better served by finding someone else. Both of those things are honest. Both of them will discourage most folks. For the ones that won't move on - tell them the truth. That you are no longer taking on projects that will require too much re-working of parts, tuning of vocals, extra production on top of their already finished tracks, etc.. If they still do not want to move on, start charging them top dollar to rebuild their tracks in a suitable fashion. Give them an up-front quote, and make sure you are hourly, and that the quote is only an ESTIMATE - that studio production almost always goes longer and costs more. Then, they will almost surely move on. If they don't - you just found a gold mine.... Milk it for everything it's worth. Its appears you are the master of delivering .... The Sh*t Sandwich Actually, the master of AVOIDING delivering the Sh*t sandwich. |
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