does any one have more trouble mixing their own band?

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Does anyone else find it much harder to mix their own band as opposed to someone else's.. I'm having a hard time because i'm playing the role of musician, and engineer.. the rest of the band have very limited knowlege of recording techniques and mixing.. they just know what they like when they hear it.. It's really frustrating sometimes because it's like i'm working with my band to get the sound but also working with clients as an engineer. It's like everyone wants to have an equal say in how it should sound and they have a hard time taking suggestions i have as seriously as say we went into another studio.

has anyone here had this problem? how'd you deal?

would you ever just go mix in another studio?
 
First thing I'd recommend is to get them out of the CR while your mixing. Just tell them that it's noting personal, but you just cant have 5 cooks in the kitchen even if they are friends.Mixing is no different than playing an instrument, you have to trust the musician to play the right stuff and not have 5 people trying to play one instrument.

Make the mix yourself, and before and when you bring it back to them for a listen, no matter what you did to the mix, tell each one of them privately that you specifically turned them up in the mix.

G.
 
Well put southside. I have the same problem most times. Specially when I'm recording a rapper. Most of those cats speak up when they hear something they don't like. I'm sittin here like damn I'll get to it, I have to do other things first. But yea, never thought about kickin cats out the CR. Gotta stop bein a nice person.
 
this is a good idea... but i don't know if they'd go for it... they think they're helping me by being there ... (they feel bad because basically i do EVERYTHING... the recording/mixing/graphics/web design/jam space/bookings)

I just thought of something productive.. I'll ask everyone to lend me their favourite cd.. ex our singer i'll ask him to give me a cd of his favourite vocalist.. guitarist the same.. our bassist is a different story because i can honestly say i've never heard a sound like his... (ton's of pedals/effects and some unconventional playing.... closest thing i can think of is the guitarists on my bloody valentine only it's bass)

some how i'll convince them to let me mix myself.. which brings me to the next problem... when you're mixing your own stuff... is it a bad thing that i'm too close to the music? sometimes i think it is.. sometimes i think it's a good thing..


mixing other bands is soo much simpler
 
Yup, I definitly have the same problem. I'm also my own worse critic so I will tend to be overly self critical on my own playing. Plus you have the extra stress of the allready existing band dynamic. I'm trying something different this time, I'm getting another member of this board to mix, we'll see how it goes.
 
I'd recommend that you tell them that there's a bunch of boring computer related stuff that needs to be done (assuming you are on a computer based system here) or something like that before the real mixing can begin. Then get a good rough mix together by yourself and call them in when you think you have something pretty good. At this stage they might have some useful or creative input. They probably will not when your trying to eq the bass guitar.
 
Been there. I'd suggest you humor them by letting them be part of the process (nudge, wink). Then after everyone's gone home and gone to bed, put on a pot of coffee for yourself and get to work on the real mix. When you present it to them, just tell them you made a couple of minor tweaks, even if you really reset the whole board and started from scratch.
 
Robert D said:
Been there. I'd suggest you humor them by letting them be part of the process (nudge, wink). Then after everyone's gone home and gone to bed, put on a pot of coffee for yourself and get to work on the real mix. When you present it to them, just tell them you made a couple of minor tweaks, even if you really reset the whole board and started from scratch.
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best idea yet!!!!!



ahh band politics.. sometimes i wish i were a solo artist hehe
 
yep

Robert D said:
Been there. I'd suggest you humor them by letting them be part of the process (nudge, wink). Then after everyone's gone home and gone to bed, put on a pot of coffee for yourself and get to work on the real mix. When you present it to them, just tell them you made a couple of minor tweaks, even if you really reset the whole board and started from scratch.
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--------------- i have done exactly that
 
Robert D said:
Been there. I'd suggest you humor them by letting them be part of the process (nudge, wink). Then after everyone's gone home and gone to bed, put on a pot of coffee for yourself and get to work on the real mix. When you present it to them, just tell them you made a couple of minor tweaks, even if you really reset the whole board and started from scratch.
Click to expand...

I've done this too. Only problem is that this actually hurts your productivity by wasting time pretending to mix and going off on dumb tangents. Why not just send them away immediately? They will feel part of the process after a rough mix is developed because they actually will be part of it instead of wasting time. All this assumes that they really don't know anything about mixing.
 
This is sorta 2 questions - is it hard to mix yourself? (and) Is it hard to mix with the rest of the band in the room. The answer for most people, I would think, is "Yes" to both.

I was having a decent time mixing some stuff recently (mostly on my own - the band doesn't help), until I got to my own vocals. Geez, that's a humbling experience. One minute the vocals seem to sit ok at -4 dB, 10 minutes later you find that they should be at -9. The next day, back to -4. I guess it might help if I could sing worth a damn.

As for the band, I would definitely say that if you can convince them you need to do some editing, before the mixing, then that buys you some time to get things pretty close before you solicit their input. You definitely want their input, just not too early, or it slows things down.
 
yeah we're supposed to mix tonight.. I might tell them that i'm feeling ill or something then mix by myself all night
 
The time spent building a first mix with the band usually isn't wasted time. It's how you find out what they want, which is important if it's a democratic band structure. And usually, they'll have some good ideas to add to the production, even if they don't know how to impliment them. Even if you waste a couple of hours, it's a decent investment in keeping your bandmates feeling engaged in the creative process, not feeling left out, or worse, looking at you like you are power tripping.
 
To address the "mixing yourself" problem:

One technique I've used over a few years of mixing my own stuff (I do alot of one-track-at-a-time original material) is to break up sessions by listening to similar music I like by other people--to compare with what I've been putting together. During that 15-20 minutes every couple of hours where I take a piss break or go get something to drink/eat, I pop in one or two favs (preferably something that matches what I'm mixing--not Metallica if I'm mixing bluegrass;)) and have a listen. How do the vocs sit in the mix? Where's the low end? Etc. When I go back to my own mix, I find I have a much better feel for what's working and I'm able to isolate what needs tweaking.

I can't count the number of times I've been working on a track (and I find this is doubly true for my own stuff) and I start second guessing: Is the voc too present? Are the drums too far back in the mix? This usually happens after I've been at it for a few hours.

Bottom line is my ears get tired, and listening to a finished mastered track that I know like the back of my hand as a reference every once in awhile helps me keep things headed in the right direction.

Hope this helps. Good luck with the session.
 
Here's a simple solution. If they don't like the way you record and mix then tell them to pay somebody else to do it.
 
Best suggestion yet! Mixing your own stuff is quite difficult, I always find I mix myself too quiet, probably because I automatically listen out for Drums more, and I think they're louder than they are.

Does anybody else experience this?
 
I'm in the same situation, and for what it's worth I've taken the opposite approach and only mix when everyone is in the room, they all add their suggestions and I only mixdown when everyone is happy. I no longer waste my time spending all night / week mixing a song only for the bass player to say he could be louder, drummer complaining about the snare, guitarist wanting more and the vocals not up enough.

It can be annoying as every request normally comes from a point of complete ignorance coupled with a misapprehension of how things work, but once everyone is happy you know done means done! and no more endless tweaks to keep the moaners at bay.

Also there's usually a suggestion that will improve the mix immeasurably which you probably wouldn't have thought of yourself... we were just about to mixdown our last song when the drummer said could you beef up the kick drum through the choruses, that's now my favourite bit and it makes the song.
 
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we did some mixing last night.. it was just me and the guitarist for the most part and it went quite well.. the bass player showed up in time to make a car test of the song.. had to tweak the bass a bit after (the bass guitar is my biggest challenge with this mix because it almost has to be mixed as the 3rd guitar..) I got everything really close to how everyone likes it so now it's just little tweaks and cleaning up a bit of the "mud".. I'm just under lots of pressure because we've been working on the god damn ep for a LONG time and everyone just wants it done .. (but that means i have to start on the artwork and all the fun promo stuff so it's even more pressure..) We wanted this done by july 1st and we're at the 13th now.. i might take a day off work next week and just put this one to bed.
 
Tell me about it, everyone wants it done but ultimately it's you that's got to do all the work (after you've probably paid for all the latest gear, while the guitarist is still using a dodgy guitar cable used by their dad in 1973). What starts off as a labour of love can become a lot worse than any proper job.

And while you're sweating your balls off they'll be in the pub phoning you up asking if it's done yet! (That's another reason why I get everyone round to be honest, if I've got to go through the boring pain barrier then so can they, even if their only job is to make my tea! When they keep asking 'is it all mixed yet' I say pop round for 10 hours on the weekend and we'll get it sorted, tends to shut them up :) )
 
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Personally, I wish I could mix my own stuff all the time! I love being sure the source material is 100% what I want first, then when it comes time to mix: no surprises! I'm the primary song-writer in my band, as well as the engineer, so naturally I love all of our music haha...
 
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