average mix time

[jmorris]

Here is a question I thought would be interesting.What is your average mix time for a song? Lets say full band with drums gtrs and keys and maybe lead and backup.Oh, and maybe state if you mix ITB or external console

[Massive Master]

90% of it is done in a half hour (unless something is "wrong" somewhere). The last 10% can take anywhere between another half hour to a whole day depending on how picky everyone feels.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

jm,

Congrats on actually putting a closing date on the poll! Unfortunately I didn't vote because I would pick something in-between the 1 hr and 6 hr selections.

How long mix takes depends a lot upon the mix and tracking, but for me I usually say that two to three songs a day is a reasonable clip. Great tracking can be mixed completely in an hour (set-up time included), lousy tracking may take three hours before I've decided I've squeezed all the blood out of that stone that I could.

If it's a very complex mix somewhere between what Brian Wilson and David K would work on (), of course that can take a day or a week, but those kind of projects are rare in my orbit.

And because you asked, I do most of my mixing ITB. But - with a board I am familiar with - I don't see the numbers changing much in analog unless there's tape editing involved, but that's rare these days.

G.

[mixmkr]

I generally spend about the same amount of time as I do tracking. The larger and more complicated the mix, the time curve goes up.

I'll save sessions in a way, so tweaking isn't a huge ordeal.

Mixing in the box nowadays too. Otherwise, it'd be like the old days with 4 guys manning faders, grease pencils, and being less than 1/2 happy....or burnt out after 15 passes.

[antichef]

I spend much longer than a day, but that's because I have to reference on a bunch of systems because my monitors and room are suboptimal, and I generally don't know what I'm doing. The plus side is that no one is waiting (and indeed, there are those wish it took me much longer )

edit: totally ITB for this cat

[bigtoe]

that's a great question.

if everything is 'on' with the sounds and performance...an hour or so... tops. i'll mix an entire record of 10 songs like this in an 8-10 hour day or so.
last month i mixed a 11 songs record tracked mostly live in a room in 6 hours.

if sounds are off - it can take a couple tries... even on different days of 2 or 3 hours a track. this is mostly on friends and clients' home recorded stuff. interesting sounds...weird takes...i reguralrly work on 8 track cassette stuff that is really challenging to do.

oh...external console.

i will say if it's taking more than three hours i go to something else as it gets boring... and so does the mix. mixing, to me, is like songwriting. sometimes the best ones happen in a flash....

Mike

[jmorris]

wow, very interesting answers.Lots of good points. Glen, if I thought this throgh a bit better I would have had poll times more like 1 hour 2 hours 4 hours etc. But still, it brings up points for all of us to remember that there are many things we can all do to make the mix eaiser.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by Massive Master

The last 10% can take anywhere between another half hour to a whole day depending on how picky everyone feels.

LOL, I started my current tune last May and I'm finally happy with it as of two days ago. Of course, that includes writing the music as MIDI, then replacing most of the MIDI with live playing. I tweak the mix as I record, but I can spend literally weeks tweaking the mix after everything is recorded. However, most of my pieces are large productions, not a five-person pop band. My current tune is 5-1/2 minutes long and has almost 100 tracks.

--Ethan

[joeym]

how about....FOREVER????

you left that option out....for people (like me) who are hardly ever satisfied with their mixes!

[Roguetitan]

I am with Joeym.

[soldierone]

It's all over the map with me on this one. I'd have to say that the biggest factor that comes to play in my case would be the arrangement. Some songs are arranged well and almost mix themselves, but some arrangements can be a big pain to work with. The fast mixes sometimes take an hour or so, but the tough ones might go into the several day category. If it's one of the tough ones, I usually tend to take a break after a few hours and come back to it later.

I usually mix in the box.

[Ed Dixon]

When I do songs, I generally play all the parts separately. Vocals are done by others. On average, it takes 100 min to get 1 min of song. This presumes I already know what each part consists of.

So a 3 min song, 300 minutes.

Ed

[Mindset]

mixing for us, about an hour.
mixing for $$, as long as I can

[MCI2424]

I worked in some commercial facilities for most of my teens to twenties and learned to do it in an hour. So. I still do it in an hour or leave it alone for another day. If it does not immediately sound like a good mix with the faders up, there are some things wrong or tracks that don't do anything but take up space. I usually end up re-tracking problem tracks again. Even though it usually is my music, I have no problem trying different things and erasing those that don't work.

[suprstar]

Originally Posted by Mindset

mixing for $$, as long as I can

Ha yeah, that's what the guy recording us thought too..

[Frankie Rage]

I have voted for a day, but I mean days!

When I first started recording songs there wasn't much mixing, it was either playing live straight to master (I laughingly call then masters!) or I was overdubbing straight to 'master'. Some of it wasn't bad but more by luck than judgement. I then went to 4 track but everything took an age and I never could get the individual tracks as I wanted them in the first place, so the mixes were fraught with disatisfaction.

I am just building a PC based studio at long last and hope to get better results this time by trying to do it 'right', IF (a big if..) I can find out what 'right' is!

I am hoping this is the place to learn a few things!

[suprstar]

Originally Posted by Massive Master

90% of it is done in a half hour (unless something is "wrong" somewhere). The last 10% can take anywhere between another half hour to a whole day depending on how picky everyone feels.

I'll agree with the 1st sentence, but after that, I approach 100% asymptotically over the course of the rest of my life I still dink with projects weeks and months later, but eventually the return isn't worth the effort, so they stay in the 'pretty good' or 'good enough' categories. I have no 100% projects..

[mikeh]

Interesting thread. I normally anticipate 1 hr. for a mix. If all the parts were tracked and recorded well, I can complete a mix quicker. If, the arrangement is complex and/or if various parts were not tracked well or performed unevenly, then I could spend 4 hours on a mix.

Since a lot of the stuff I track/mix is my own material in which I perform all the parts and then bring in good singers.....I make sure the tracking is even and since I know what I want the end result to sound like even at the tracking stage, much of my stuff is more than 3/4 mixed at the end of the tracking stage.

[KineticSound]

Originally Posted by suprstar

I'll agree with the 1st sentence, but after that, I approach 100% asymptotically over the course of the rest of my life I still dink with projects weeks and months later, but eventually the return isn't worth the effort, so they stay in the 'pretty good' or 'good enough' categories. I have no 100% projects..

Something like "Art is never finished, only abandoned?"

[caryindy]

I voted 6 hours only because it's never 1 hour. It takes about 1/2 hour for me to get the files onto the computer. Most of my mixes take me three to five hours.

[jmorris]

This has been interesting. It reminds me of how important it is to get tracks recorded correctly the first time. Some have stated that the mixes are quicker if they have good tracks to start with. Something maybe we all can convey to clients if ever complaints pop up about time tracking!

[bigtoe]

Originally Posted by jmorris

This has been interesting. It reminds me of how important it is to get tracks recorded correctly the first time. Some have stated that the mixes are quicker if they have good tracks to start with. Something maybe we all can convey to clients if ever complaints pop up about time tracking!

amen. i think this is crucial to bring up to client's over and over and over.

if you spend a small amount more time tracking - your mix time is cut exponentially. the less time you spend at the beginning/more stuff you put off, the more it is going to cost ya to get it done.

heck if i do the tracking to my satisfaction - i can do a 'normal' band's record start to finish in a couple 5 or 6 hour sessions and tell them not to worry about the heavy mastering bill unless it's going super pro.

if it's a more "creative" project this obviously doesn't apply.

tracking is mixing is mastering. it's all the same beast. your final product starts the second you hit record...i'm thinking about the mastering as soon as i see the drumset when i walk in the door.

Mike

[G-Jay]

Most of the pro mixers I've read interviews with say they take about a day to a day and a half to do a mix.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by bigtoe

if you spend a small amount more time tracking - your mix time is cut exponentially.

Absolutely true, but I'd like to take it back even a step further:

The more time you spend practicing, the less time you'll spend in the studio in general.

My biggest peeve recording/mixing other people's stuff is that they are in such a hurry to "get a recording" that they not only have no arrangements ready when they get into the studio - they all just hack their own way through a song, which is impossible to mix to everyone's satisfaction - but the parts they do play they just don't play that well yet.

It's like showing up at a photography studio to have your picture taken looking like you just had to run an Army obstacle course to get there.

G.

[bigtoe]

Originally Posted by SouthSIDE Glen

Absolutely true, but I'd like to take it back even a step further:

The more time you spend practicing, the less time you'll spend in the studio in general.

My biggest peeve recording/mixing other people's stuff is that they are in such a hurry to "get a recording" that they not only have no arrangements ready when they get into the studio - they all just hack their own way through a song, which is impossible to mix to everyone's satisfaction - but the parts they do play they just don't play that well yet.

It's like showing up at a photography studio to have your picture taken looking like you just had to run an Army obstacle course to get there.

G.

so true. as much as i like experimentation in the studio and off the cuff records...it's hard to explain to bands how much better they could have it if they planned it out a bit more.

sound of the "experimentation" often ends up really sounding like "practicing" or just learning the song as it goes by. it can be cool tho! sometimes you get that magic...but more often than not - you don't.

the more you do this stuff the more you know it's what's in front of the microphones not the gobs of gear behind em.

Mike