Farview
Well-known member
It came to my attention today that a former client of mine is releasing a new album. He is a former rock star that is no longer associated with the band that made him famous. Unfortunately, he is still under the impression that people should give him stuff for free, and that the record labels should take care of everything and pay for everything.
Since around 2008, he has sent me songs to quickly mix for demo purposes. I did them for very cheap because he is a friend and, once he got the record deal, he would record the CD in my studio. So we are talking 9 songs over the course of 6 years, all recorded with different equipment (he keeps changing amp endorsements), all in less than an hour by me. None of the mixes sound anything like each other. They were all delivered as mp3.
Last year, I closed the studio in Illinois and moved to Vegas. Right about that time, he got his recording budget... $400. He asked me to remix the entire album, plus a new song, for that $400. I would have had to start from scratch (hard drive failure took the original sessions) and actually try to make all the songs sound like they belong together, for about the price I would normally charge to mix a couple songs like this.
I told him it was going to take more money, so he decided to have someone else mix the last song and present that and the MP3's of the other songs to the record label. (The only wav file copies of the songs were on the deceased hard drive)
There is a long email from the label telling him that the album sounds like crap, but they weren't going to come up with any more money to fix it. Since there were no unmastered wav source files, they sent it to their mastering guy, who proceeded to smash the living piss out of everything to the point where some of the songs sound like they are being played through a revers reverb.
Luckily I told him that, if I wasn't going to re-record all of this, I didn't want my name on the album. Thankfully, it isn't.
There are all sorts of things wrong with this story. Artists that expect everyone else to invest in them, but won't invest in themselves. Record labels that want a professional product that won't come up with the budget to hire professionals. Artwork budgets that exceed the recording budget. I could go on.
Now that I've typed all that, I can't remember what my point was. I guess I'm just venting.
Since around 2008, he has sent me songs to quickly mix for demo purposes. I did them for very cheap because he is a friend and, once he got the record deal, he would record the CD in my studio. So we are talking 9 songs over the course of 6 years, all recorded with different equipment (he keeps changing amp endorsements), all in less than an hour by me. None of the mixes sound anything like each other. They were all delivered as mp3.
Last year, I closed the studio in Illinois and moved to Vegas. Right about that time, he got his recording budget... $400. He asked me to remix the entire album, plus a new song, for that $400. I would have had to start from scratch (hard drive failure took the original sessions) and actually try to make all the songs sound like they belong together, for about the price I would normally charge to mix a couple songs like this.
I told him it was going to take more money, so he decided to have someone else mix the last song and present that and the MP3's of the other songs to the record label. (The only wav file copies of the songs were on the deceased hard drive)
There is a long email from the label telling him that the album sounds like crap, but they weren't going to come up with any more money to fix it. Since there were no unmastered wav source files, they sent it to their mastering guy, who proceeded to smash the living piss out of everything to the point where some of the songs sound like they are being played through a revers reverb.
Luckily I told him that, if I wasn't going to re-record all of this, I didn't want my name on the album. Thankfully, it isn't.
There are all sorts of things wrong with this story. Artists that expect everyone else to invest in them, but won't invest in themselves. Record labels that want a professional product that won't come up with the budget to hire professionals. Artwork budgets that exceed the recording budget. I could go on.
Now that I've typed all that, I can't remember what my point was. I guess I'm just venting.
