Give the engineer some
-a quickie today-
Artists, engineers, producers and every one in between often argue about the time it should take to mix a project relentlessly. Every person you talk to will have a different opinion and a different view as to how much time it should take and how much should be spent on the mix.
The key element for many musicians is the money factor. The band or artist has tracked for a series of days and have added all the overdubs, vocals and whatever else. Now comes the point where no one put together the budget correctly and now the money left for mixing is very minimal. The engineer at this point is often asked to mix down a ton of songs with only a few hours. You have now taken the song and the track that you worked so hard to lay down and now are finalizing it with a short cut mix that is not going to allow the engineer or person mixing to take the right amount of time to address the mix the best way possible.
Basically it comes down to thinking about what you are doing before you do it. If you have a song that is going to have a great deal of overdubs, horn parts, numerous vocals or lots of backing vocals, then budget the time for the engineer to have the time to really address the mix the right way.
Do not just budget a certain amount of time for each of the songs. Figure out what you are tracking or looking to track. The more instruments, the more overdubs, vocals and whatever else will need more time. Tunes that are just vocals and guitar are going to take less time.
Other factors to consider are the basic edits as well as auto-tuning if needed. Those edits of cleaning up fades as well as lining up certain notes and doing cross fades between different takes or fixes are all things that need to be checked as well.
One way to think of mixing a song can be like painting a picture. Think of the tracking of a song as the idea of filling up your pallet with all the colors you are using for this piece of art. Imagine the tracking also as the lines on the canvas that are creating the shapes, forms and foundations of the final piece. Now when you are rushing a mix or cutting corners, think of it as if you have now asked the painter to fill in all the colors as fast as possible. Don’t worry about the lines, the soft strokes, the careful small taps that give the picture the true image of what you want to get across. You have now taken away from the painting you were trying to create.
Conclusion
In some ways, you are hurting the work you have already done and are negatively effecting the tracking you have done by forcing it to be mixed too fast. There are some amazing engineers out there that can mix very fast and still deliver an amazing product, but they all their methods, their approach and the way they like to pull different sounds together to match and supplement each other.
Ask the engineer or producer you are working with about how much time they will need to mix the song or songs to the best of their abilities. Think and discuss in advance what you are thinking about doing when it comes to overdubs and additional tracks for each song too. You are taking the time, the effort and spending the money to get the right take, so make sure you are getting the right mix to present the work you have done the best way possible.
© 2009 Loren Weisman
www.braingrenademusic.com
Watch out for Loren Weisman’s book “The Artist’s Guide to Success in the Music Business” coming soon.
