mixing price

  • Thread starter Thread starter RobbieD
  • Start date Start date
Non essential info from the feeble minded !

arcadeko said:
That's a hell of a tip
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A few years back, I played bass at this 3 day conference. I was a bit apprehensive as I'd just gotten a 5 string bass and I'd never given it a full workout. The guy playing keyboards really gave me a hard time and the musical director {he was the drummer} pushed me to the Nth degree. The woman who was presenting the music kept chopping and changing and improvising but I had a great time after an apprehensive start. When the three days were up, they had a collection and gave me £500 {nowadays, $802} ! That was an unexpected bonus.
Then a few days later when I went to register my son for the school we wanted him to start later that year, I reversed into this brand new awning the school had just rebulit. Cost £350 to repair. I was philosophical about it. Philosophically livid !
 
grimtraveller said:
A few years back, I played bass at this 3 day conference. I was a bit apprehensive as I'd just gotten a 5 string bass and I'd never given it a full workout. The guy playing keyboards really gave me a hard time and the musical director {he was the drummer} pushed me to the Nth degree. The woman who was presenting the music kept chopping and changing and improvising but I had a great time after an apprehensive start. When the three days were up, they had a collection and gave me £500 {nowadays, $802} ! That was an unexpected bonus.
Then a few days later when I went to register my son for the school we wanted him to start later that year, I reversed into this brand new awning the school had just rebulit. Cost £350 to repair. I was philosophical about it. Philosophically livid !
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Easy come easy go! man that sucks dude

I feel the same way - Friday I got a refund check form the Electric Company - I had left an account on autopay and forgot about it when I moved out - then the account just got turned off cause of the new renters - anyway - Friday I get a check in the mail for $850!! I was like hell yeah - then the renter called me cause the garage door broke - had to do a complete replacement of all the hardware cause the bearings seized up - so Saturday I had to turn around and pay the Garage Door guy $450 :mad::mad::mad::mad: - so that sucks...
 
If it was strictly mixing and mastering I would argue $600 is a bit steep.

If there was editing involved though (like your song was really badly recorded or something) then I can $600...

But that song better fucking sound good when it's delivered.

And why the fuck at that price is he even offering to master the track as well as mix it? IMO of course, but I find that shit unprofessional.
 
Guitargodgt said:
If it was strictly mixing and mastering I would argue $600 is a bit steep.
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That depends on the guy and the studio, if it's a $1m plus studio and a top engineer it's cheap.

Guitargodgt said:
If there was editing involved though (like your song was really badly recorded or something) then I can $600...
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There could well be a few hours of work just to get it into the software, how many tracks, how well recorded, tracks line up, delivered in an easy to understand logical way, in a folder with correct names etc.

Guitargodgt said:
But that song better fucking sound good when it's delivered.
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Some of this will depend on how well it was recorded in the first place, I am sure that they quoted a price to their best work.

Guitargodgt said:
And why the fuck at that price is he even offering to master the track as well as mix it? IMO of course, but I find that shit unprofessional.
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They may have a mastering dept, it may not be the same guy, or maybe it's the only way to keep it in the budget.

This discussion is why the music industry is the way it is. How much do you think you would pay a plumber to fix something in your house, $150 for the first 15mins then $60 for each quarter hour? But a sound engineer that had to learn the craft, build a studio, pay his overheads (rent, insurance, etc) is not worth $600 to work on a song, the $600 is probably a day rate for the studio, which is pretty fair, or a plumber for just over 2 hours. We have to realise that people that work in the industry are worth paying.

Oh buy the way, I mixed a single on Sunday, took 6 Hours, my day rate (10 hours) is AU$500 (US$535), as this was the continuation of a project I charge the hours at the day rate hours (AU$50/hr) so the mix cost $300, my normal walk in rate is $70/hr so it would have cost AU$420. This did include mastering which I did in this case as it's a promotion single for down load MP3, when a collection of singles is put together for an album (we are up to 5 singles with this client) the unmastered mixes will then go to a mastering house to be mastered as an album. The 6 hours did not include any file work as the project was recorded in the studio and the recording was only finished the day before.

Alan.
 
grimtraveller said:
Though constantly in demand, so many of them have to take private out of hours jobs so they can't be that well off !
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Maybe not in the UK, but were I am it's a different story. They only take on the extra jobs to help pay for the Cabin Cruiser.

Alan.
 
witzendoz said:
A lot of what ifs...
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The problem with what ifs is just that, we don't know. I agree if the stuff was sent in less than ready to mix then the price is actually LOW.

But in all seriousness:

1. Who on earth would send stuff so fucked up that it takes 2 hours to get it into the software. I would hope if it was sent correctly that the engineer would do the professional thing and request bounced tracks that all start at the same point. I certainly wouldn't bother taking 2 hours getting something into the software I was using when a simple new request would save time.

2. $1M per song (since we are only talking 1 song in this situation) is insane no matter what level your at. I'm willing to bet you could get Butch for less than that on 1 track (mixing only of course ;)).

3. I'm aware that some studio's can master in house with a different engineer... my only point was it's my belief that if you can help it, mastering should be done by someone else.

4. Again like I said, $600 could even be cheap if the song is a cluster fuck of fuck. It's all about the "what ifs" :laughings:

Since you brought up the plumber thing I'll bring up another analagy:

You walk into a tattoo shop with a SHITTY picture you drew yourself would you want the person your hiring to:

A. Fuck it, slap that shit on without saying anything about how horrid it is.
or
B. Be professional, refuse to be associated with such shitty work and re draw that shit symmetrical or straight up refuse to do the work.
 
I have come across RobbieD elsewhere on the forum where he has linked to videos of live performances, songs he has recorded and photos of his bedroom studio. I think he has an oustanding voice, a passion for writing and performing, a desire to buy the best equipment his money can buy, and an untreated recording and mixing room. The latter, along with his lack of knowledge and experience that he has mentioned in this topic, probably means that whoever he has given his recordings to for mixing will need to do some fixing as well as mixing - but I haven't heard the song he is talking about so cannot be certain.
 
Yo everyone heres that song that i got mixed, everything except the last chorus, mixed professionally check it out
 
first, i don't think that 500$ is that much for a professional mix, my rate is roughly the same for mixing of a song.
but after listening to the youtube video, i would not be satisfied. i mean the levels are ok, but there are some strange mixing-decisions for my taste. the reverb on the vox doesn't really fit & the mix is too wet in general (see also the piano). the masterbus is pumping quite heavily & sounds distorted...might come from the rather unoptimized & too deeply tuned bass area. there are other things as well.
but the biggest problem from my view is the pitch of the vocals. every serious engineer should notice that there are problems. this needs to be fixed (or rejected for re-recording, since the timing is also critical).

sorry for the direct critic, but this is just my view (& you asked for it).
 
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I am going to have to agree 100% with karumba here. IMO, that is not a $500 mix. :(
 
I think you would have spent your money more wisely going into the studio for a couple of hours... sorry I know that's not constructive dude, but the vocals are really pitchy I couldn't give it a full listen. A quality studio would habve given you a better quality demo for half the money.
 
I feel bad for ya Robbie. Send me the files and I'll throw one out for ya if you wish.
 
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