This Guy Wont Listen To What Im Telling Him. Can Someone Give Me Some Advice????

C

czar of bizarre

New member
OK GUYS HERE IS THE SITUATION. A FRIEND OF MINE IS WORKING ON A CD. HE HAS ALL THE SONGS FINISHED. THE MIXES SOUND LIKE CRAP. IM BEING HONEST WITH YOU JUST LIKE I WAS HONEST WITH HIM. HE TOLD ME "I LISTENED TO YOUR MUSIC AND IT SOUNDS CLEAR I WANT YOU TO DO THE SAME TO MINE". I TOLD HIM THAT MY MUSIC WAS TRACKED PROPERLY AND MIXED BY ME AND THE ENGINEER. I TOLD HIM THAT I HAD A LOT OF ROUGH MIXES AND THAT I STAYED AWAY FROM A LOT OF EQ AND COMPRESSION.


SO BASICALLY WHAT THE GUY WANTS ME TO DO IS POLISH A TURD. THE SONGS HAVE HISS AND SOME ARE DISTORTED. SOME ARE BASS HEAVY OR HAVE HIGHS THAT WILL RUIN YOUR EARS.

MY ADVICE TO HIM WAS TO REMIX THE SONGS.I TOLD HIM AS A FRIEND WHO CARES (NOT A YES MAN) AND FROM AN HONEST PROFESSIONAL VIEW.


I TOLD HIM THAT I WOULD GIVE IT A TRY. HOWEVER I *WARNED* HIM. I TOLD HIM THAT I WASNT A MASTERING ENGINEER BUT THAT I *COULD* IMPROVE THE MIX IF HE HAD THE MULTITRACKED VERSIONS (EACH INSTRUMENT IN EACH SONG SEPERATE).

SO I WENT THROUGH AND TWEEKED THE SONGS AND SENT THEM TO HIM. HE TELLS ME THAT THE SONGS ARE LOWER THAN WHAT HE SENT TO ME. I TOLD HIM THAT I HAD TO CUT FREQUENCIES INSTEAD OF BOOSTING AND THAT I COULDNT MAGICALLY MAKE IT SOUND "CLEAR" IF IT SOUNDED LIKE CRAP. I TOLD HIM THAT I COMPRESSED THE SONGS (THEY NEEDED IT) BUT THAT IT WAS 4:1 COMPRESSION AT THE MOST.


NOW WHEN I PLAYED BACK THE SONGS ON MY SYSTEM AND A-B TESTED THE SONGS MY VERSIONS WERE LOUDER THAN HIS BY A COUPLE OF DB. HIS HIGHEST LEVEL ON ONE SONG WAS -6.7 AND I RAISED IT TO 0.3. I EVEN PLAYED THE SONG BACK FOR HIM.


I TRIED TO EXPLAIN TO HIM THAT IF I CUT THE FREQUENCIES ON ONE BAND THAT IT WOULD EFFECT THE ENTIRE MIX. HE HAD A SONG THAT NEED A *BIG* BASS CUT. SO I CUT IT AT 400HZ A COUPLE OF DB. HOWEVER IT EFFECTED THE SNARES ALSO. HE DOESNT UNDERSTAND HOW THIS IS POSSIBLE.......


SO WHAT SHOULD I DO? HOW CAN I GET ALL THE SONGS TO THE SAME VOLUME AND LEVELS?

MY PLAN NOW IS TO SIMPLY LOAD THE FILES IN SOUND FORGE, NORMALIZE TO 0.3 (JUST UNDER ZERO) AND USE THE "SMOOTHER" PLUG IN ON ALL THE SONGS.


ANY SUGGESTIOSN OR TIPS? MY SUGGESTIONS AND TIPS WOULD BE TO REMIX BUT HE DOESNT LISTEN.

ALL FEEDBACK IS HELPFUL

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DONT MIND MY CAPS............


CZAR THE JESUS OF RAP


PS DONT MIND MY CAPS
 
Normalizing may not help becuase the RMS is what you need to mess with. That is the average level of the piece and when looking at the waveform it will be the really dense middle section. You need to get that closer to the top to make the whole song sound louder.

Compression and limiting are the tools there.
 
Compression and limiting are necessary, but you're defeated from the start if the original tracks are as bad as you say they are. Distortion and clipping cannot be reversed. If he's already, for instance taken all the lows out of something, there's nothing for you to put back, no matter what kind of eq you're using.

You may have bitten off more than you can chew, but I would take one song and work on it on your own for a long time, trying many different techniques. At the very least you'll have an awesome learning experience, and you may end up impressing him enough to get paid for doing the rest over.

Ken Rutkowski
www.OuterLimitRecordingStudio.com
 
@ TexRoadkill i ran one of his tracks in sound forge. i set the normalize function to RMS and set the level to 0.3. when it was all said and dont the track became LARGE but it was like one big "block". compared to the unprocessed version.

compression and limiting? tried that. i compressed the songs with a 4:1 ratio. i NEVER used anything but 4:1 on his tracks. so guess what happens when he listens to it? he listened to a song that started off with some "soft sounds" (like a soft synthesizer/string sound) and he asks me "WHY IS IT LOWER THAN WHAT IT WAS BEFORE?". i told him its not pumping/breathing and that the instrument level didnt rise and fall. so basically you COULDNT "hear" the effect of compression. all he knows is that the passage was more quiet than what it was previously.......which is a good thing because the instrument was LOUD. did the compression work on the entire song (besides the part he complained about)? yes it did. it seems more smooth and now certain spots dont "jump out" at you.

@Kendog



Compression and limiting are necessary, but you're defeated from the start if the original tracks are as bad as you say they are. Distortion and clipping cannot be reversed. If he's already, for instance taken all the lows out of something, there's nothing for you to put back, no matter what kind of eq you're using.
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ok what kind of compression and limiting should i use? the tracks are rap/hip hop/r&b. here are his common problems and its due to MIXING and TRACKING.


1.bass and kick drum are not blended well

2.songs are bass heavy (and sometimes distorted)

3.lack of mids

4.EXTREME HIGHS (run your nails on a chalk board)

5.sibilance

6.hiss (i dont know if its from a tape or too much eq)

7.vocals have low levels in some ares but are high in others


THESE ARE HIS SEVEN DEADLY SINS. each of his song will have 1 or all of those problems. i suggested to him that he just send it out to one of those mastering houses at a duplication plant. I wouldnt send my music to be mastered at a duplication plant but he doesnt have the money for a real mastering ME. not to mention that the mastering ME would do one of two things. send it back to be remixed or he or she would charge $$$$$$$$$ to get it to sound halfway decent.

its really a case of polishing a turd.



You may have bitten off more than you can chew, but I would take one song and work on it on your own for a long time, trying many different techniques. At the very least you'll have an awesome learning experience, and you may end up impressing him enough to get paid for doing the rest over.
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im actually tired of working on his music. i mean if it sounds like crap from the start what can i do? now if i were to mix the tracks i would do a good job (people in my area have me come in and help mix). but when the tracks have not been tracked right from the start what can i do? i told him it all starts in the recording phase. if its recorded wrong you are screwed. i told him that the next step was mixing and that if its mixed wrong your screwed.


he thinks that i can go in and zone in on the all the hi hats and lower them without it doing harm (or good) to the entire mix. he doesnt understand that if i boost or cut ANYTHING on that songs that the ENTIRE song will be affected. im calm when i explain it to him but im also blunt and up front. im not the type of person to say it sounds good when it sounds dumb.


this thread is more of a rant/question thread. i cant really spend more time on his project because i have other things to do. i will try some hard limiting (if someone can suggest some ratios) and i will play with the rms and "smoother". would it be better if i combined all the tracks into one long track?


as always thanx a million.


czar
 
^^^^ you have told me things in the past (along with sjoko) and at times i slammed you for it. however i DID listen. i just didnt let YOU know that i listened. like multitracking to the reel. i didnt do that. i mixed to the reel. i took the advice of people who knew more than me.........(and once again thanks)

this guy doesnt really have knowledge of recording and i have tried to explain to him using different analogies and methods. he thinks that because my music sounds clear compared to his that i can "magically" make his problems go around. thats not the case. i took time tracking the music. we took time mixing the music and if it wasnt broke we didnt try to fix it. i opted for a cd with DYNAMICS than a LOUD cd. all he knows is that he wants a loud ,clear cd and to be honest it WONT come out right unless he remixes.

i have told him from a professional standpoint that he SHOULD remix the music and even retrack some of the music. especially if he is going for a commercial release. i mean he is placing his NAME on it he should make sure that the stuff sounds good.

i told him all of that and his reply to me is "i had to work with what i have etc etc etc". ok i understand that but i know guys who achieved decent recordings from an old fostex 4 track.

if he and his engineer are lame whos fault is that??????? the gear shouldnt even come into play because its not a matter of the quality of equipment. i blame HIM and the ENGINEER who mixed it. hell they went directly out from the keyboard. they didnt multitrack. IF you are going to go that route i would recommend that the keyboard and recorder are synced with midi. that way once the lyrics are laid but something needs correcting in the music they can go back and re-record the music and still have the song on time (i have done this before with my own music). did they do this???? i doubt it.


this is nuts


czar.........a confused czar
 
Have him send those bad-boys on over to me. I will insert a very cool, yet unnecessary reverberated intro. People will think the intro sounds so cool, that they will forget how bad the rest of it is. And I'll even charge less than Blue Bear.
 
czar of bizarre said:
^^^^ you have told me things in the past (along with sjoko) and at times i slammed you for it. however i DID listen. i just didnt let YOU know that i listened. like multitracking to the reel. i didnt do that. i mixed to the reel. i took the advice of people who knew more than me.........(and once again thanks)
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Oh, good. Too bad you had to such an asshole about it. Obviously you learned something, which always is good. I thereby retract my earlier statetment. :)
 
blue bear i might just have to send it to you myself. i will send you a pm in regards to rates.

its 15 songs (but the first and last are intro and outro).

czar
 
First, please pardon any typos - I had a pretty nasty mountain-biking accident yesterday and my hands are mangled.

I thouhjt you said that you had some of theseparate tracks...

If not, these songs will never sound good. No amount of mastering could possibly fix what you're describing if all you have to work with is a 2-tr mix.

It is strange that this guy messed it up so badly though. In my experience hip-hop is the easiest to mix because in most instances the instruments are computer or synth generated and theregfore have many less aspects about which to be concerned:

Compression is not used to compensate for bad playing because there really is no human error, sounds are usually pretty damn good even before eq and compression, and timing is generally perfect due to quantizing.

Tell us a little more about how this guy recorded it, please, and we'll have more to say.

Ken Rutkowski
www.OuterLimitRecordingStudio.com
 
If your names going to appear in the credits, BAIL NOW...BAIL FAST...RUN FOREST RUN!!! You think this guy doesn't understand? Wait 'till you have to try to explain to the next potential client that this shitty mix isn't your fault!
 
If your names going to appear in the credits, BAIL NOW...BAIL FAST...RUN FOREST RUN!!! You think this guy doesn't
understand? Wait 'till you have to try to explain to the next potential client that this shitty mix isn't your fault!
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hell no i dont want my name on the credits. not with the music sounding like it does. i listened to it again this morning and im not going to send it out. hell it doesnt need to be sent out to anyone. it NEEDS to be RETRACKED (SOME SONGS) and remixed (all songs). i dont get it. if you are an ARTIST shouldnt you want your product sounding as clean as possible? i dont care if you dont know about a pan pot or fader. ASK QUESTIONS! ask the engineer why he or she is doing what they are doing. ask them why your music doesnt play well from source to source.

thanks Monte

whats even more disturbing is the fact that this guys music WOULD be decent (it would appeal to his market) if he took time with his delivery (cleared up his slurred words and vocal messups).


im just going to remove myself from this guys product.


@regebro you can learn a lot from a dummy :) jk.
yeah i have learned A LOT from you and others on the board. im still "green". i havent been doing this for a long time like most of you have, but i do give credit where its do and you guys do know your shit. i know i came off hostile and harsh in the begining and i apologize for that.


@ken he has seperate tracks on adat (some of the songs are multitracked). he is HELL BENT on polishing these songs and pressing them up. that would be good if he polished them by remixing them.


he recorded the music in denver. the MUSICAL aspect (playing,composition and arrangement) is GREAT. however the music suffers because of the terrible mix jobs and his rushed lyrics.


a lot of the songs have an r&b and funk feel to it. he also has a lot of singing. im not into singing and r&b. im into rock or funk so i cant get too deep into his music.


@bruce i pondered sending you the tracks my damn self. however i must be honest. the tracks NEED to be retracked and remixed. a commercial release should NOT sound like this

czar.
 
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