How to stop band from sharing unfinished rough mixes?

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RawDepth

RawDepth

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Every band I have ever recorded has asked for rough mixes to take home overnight for a listen. Even during the tracking stage when nothing has really been mixed, they always want me to dump it to CD. The very next session they are full of comments about what the mix needs. One guy even told me that his sister was playing it for her coworkers and they said..."blah, blah, blah..."

I think once those rough mixes get passed around, it makes me look bad as an engineer because they usually sound horrible. Is there any tactful way to say no to this, or at least stop them from passing it around to their friends?
 
Say just that. "It's not finished, and it's going to make me look unprofessional if anyone hears how it sounds as of now."

All the local studios do just that with bands they get (and the few studios I know of in town get acts from across the country that they have to tell that), and no one gives the engineer any flak for it. If the musicians DO give flak for that... Well, I dunno what to tell ya. xD
 
I typically just tell them not to share until it's done. Also, I never burn CD's until finished and paid. I will email samples when mix is close to finished, for critique, usually only to the member of the band that seems the most musically competent. Nobody needs 5 chefs in the kitchen. :eek:
 
I know the feeling. My solution with my own band: they don't get them. For our last album I gave them a rough mix CD just to listen to the songs to fine tune their parts and/or think of any arrangement changes they might wanna implement. What did those fucking mongos do? Put that shit all over the net, on facebook, etc. It sounded terrible, wasn't even close to halfway mixed, and these goofs are sharing that shit with everyone. I was like, you fucking dummies. That won't happen again. We're working on our next album with me at the helm again, and these guys will not posses one second of it until it's finished. They can come over and listen if they wanna hear it. They will not be getting any test CD's or anything.
 
Once you give them a copy and it's out of your hands, you have NO control over it.

The only way to stop it is to not give them copies. Period.
 
Greg_L said:
I know the feeling. My solution with my own band: they don't get them. For our last album I gave them a rough mix CD just to listen to the songs to fine tune their parts and/or think of any arrangement changes they might wanna implement. What did those fucking mongos do? Put that shit all over the net, on facebook, etc. It sounded terrible, wasn't even close to halfway mixed, and these goofs are sharing that shit with everyone. I was like, you fucking dummies. That won't happen again. We're working on our next album with me at the helm again, and these guys will not posses one second of it until it's finished. They can come over and listen if they wanna hear it. They will not be getting any test CD's or anything.
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Pisses me off just thinking about it! My band is pretty much the same way. They CONSTANTLY (like once a day during say, a whole month of which I would take to mix a song in my spare time) ask for a "sample" of the progress. I tried to explain that bouncing the mix, setting a limiter on it, fading in and out the beginning/end, dithering it and converting to mp3 THEN emailing it, takes time. To do this for every new instrument I EQ or pan is just ridiculous.

The funny thing is, the paid clients have never given me flack about it, because they trusted what I said. The hard part is having to constantly say no and seem like I'm being "difficult" or just a dick to my bandmates, which is probably how they look at it. They feel entitled to endless service from me I guess because it's taken for granted getting this for free. I just sent my bassist just the mixed drum track with his bass and a scratch vocal and guitar track on it. I wanted him to tell me if he dug the bass overdrive I had going so I could move along and start mixing the guitars in. What does he do? Tell all the other members of the band that i sent it to him and that he loves it. Naturally, now each member of my band wants to hear it! Then one of them shows it to a coworker in his car who's never heard us before. They first thing he probably heard is the AWFUL guide vocal track and muddy ghost guitar track!

A song we recorded in a shitty local studio that never passed our satisfaction didn't make our last EP. Then a year later, after all agreeing to NOT share it with the public, all of the sudden one of them uploads it to the net, soundcloud, fb, and shares a message online "listen to this it's my fav tune". All without even telling us. I happened to stumble upon it and I instantly deleted it everywhere. So f*cking unprofessional and embarrassing.

End rant.
 
This is America ....... shoot 'em.

That'll put a stop to it.
Most musicians need shooting anyway.
 
RecordingMaster said:
Pisses me off just thinking about it! My band is pretty much the same way. They CONSTANTLY (like once a day during say, a whole month of which I would take to mix a song in my spare time) ask for a "sample" of the progress. I tried to explain that bouncing the mix, setting a limiter on it, fading in and out the beginning/end, dithering it and converting to mp3 THEN emailing it, takes time. To do this for every new instrument I EQ or pan is just ridiculous.

.
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just say no ..... if they get mad tell them to do the rest in their studio. You can't be having all your time tied up doing free work.
 
Give em all the copies they want just leave their instrument off the rough mix, or vocals, Ive done both.
 
Chop off a few seconds at the beginning or end. Put a 1k/1s tone here and there in the mix.
 
A three stooges eye poke while yelling mutton head works for me every time. :p
 
dreib said:
Give em all the copies they want just leave their instrument off the rough mix, or vocals, Ive done both.
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That's clever! Combat stupid egotism with stupid egotism! If they're instrument is missing, they will intuitively understand that the song isn't finished and be less inclined to share it!
 
Voxengo makes a VST plug that puts random beeps/noises on a mix while rendering.

That said -- If they're all paid up, it's really their's to do what they want.

THAT said, EVERYONE is going to ask what those "beeps" are - Which sort of forces them to explain that they're not finished mixes. Everyone wins.
 
On the flip side, you could work towards making it sound good from the get-go. That is what I aim for. If I'm not getting the sound I want to hear later on, what the hell am I doing?

Mixing is over rated. Get the sound now and give them what they want.

That's what they're paying you for.

Cheers :)
 
if the songs were any good people wouldn't comment on the mix. so you are an eye opener really.
 
Only had this problem once or twice, but it usually goes something like:

"Hey, can we get some rough mixes?"
"Nope."

Simple :)
 
Thanks, everyone. Some good ideas here. (Maybe I'll make the rough mixes really, really horrible sounding so the band won't want to let their friends listen.) :D

I'll probably end up just giving them excerpts instead of whole songs. That might work too.
 
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