Mixing moral dilemma

starch said:
I usually meet with my clients at the beginning (as I did with this one) and discuss the project in its entirety to catch an overall vision of expectations for the project outcome. It takes time up front but I feel saves me time in the long run because I have a clearer picture of the goal, so I spend less time with trial and error.
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That's really smart.

I do think the changes this guy wants are due to insecurities about his voice . . .
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Absolutely. Maybe the next band/artist you meet with you can discuss this kind of thing before you even get started. "Just to let you know, most everyone is somewhat insecure about their own voice -- even those who are exceptionally talented, like yourself. :D " "And it's all too common for people to want to use more reverb or other effects than necessary." Then listen to a couple of popular/good mixes and point out to them just how dry the vocals tend to be.

I realize it's a bit much, and I don't usually go through such steps, but if it's important to you, then maybe consider it for next time?
 
I agree with all of the advice above, it's hard to see through someone else's eyes and even harder to hear through their ears. Our perception and appraisal of our world comes from lightning fast references known as Archetypal Images stored in our skull encased hard drives, this allows me to say "Chair" and you know what I am talking about. So, that said, we all have to remember that peoples' tastes in production come from what they have taught themselves to like in the music they are accustomed to. For instance Bono Vox of U2 had his vocals saturated until he realised he had a great dynamic, and then he cut back on the wet to allow his range and colour to come through, but there is still a lot of wetness in the style of British rock it is not uncommon to have a metric tonne of verb on everything, it's the space rock mentality and it has to do with drugs. Now take Dave Matthews, his style and musical upbringing is more of the Jazz/Blues bent and the mixes are a little dryer, stylistically this is the tradition of jazz and blues... Consider this rambling a way of saying "yes, it sucks that all of our productions are not governed by our own needs" but, hey, we rent our ears and minds out by the hour, and sometimes the project is further from our tastes than the Kremlin is from Hollywood, but do we quit, no, we give them what they want, do you really want to go back to flipping burgers or pumping gas, no, we are talented artists and this is how we are called to live...
Chris D'Asta CEO, Nanolabs Multimedia
www.nanolabsmultimedia.cjb.net
 
Thanks for all the input.

I just finished the mix for the guy and I think all things considered it worked out pretty well. Fortunately, I have earned the clients trust enough for him to consider my recommendations. I tried to just let him know when I really liked something and let the power of suggestion encourage him not to make amateur decisions. In the end, the final pjroduct is something we were both proud of. It wasn't all of what I would have done, but it wasn't 'MY' project either. He has listened to the final pre-master for a few days now and he just called to say how much he liked the results. So in the end, earning the clients trust, diplomacy and discretion go a long way in what we do.

It's been a great lesson for me!
 
who says what you are "suposed to do"? there isn't any rules listed for engineers in the recording bus. Just make sure that the client understands that you are going to make any decisions on "recording" his stuff to make it sound good. thats really what they want in the end and they need to trust you.
 
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