Either way the goal is the same for me, and the formula to reach that goal is relatively simple: Shit hot songs + shit hot performers + shit hot recording = many happy listeners. Yes, it’s all subjective and there are many outliers but generally, we all instinctively know when something is ‘good’ - or indeed ‘bad’, otherwise music wouldn’t be the global phenomenon that it is today - there is a general concensus of ‘good’.
If I got paid on every record that was supposed to be a hit, I’d be a very rich man right now. The general consensus of what is good, is precisely what I’m talking about when I use the term reaction. It’s the reaction that we measure, not the quality of the sound.
From Musician’s Survival Guide to a Killer Record:
"Now, let me just address this whole “hit record” concept because I know that some of you just can’t fathom why I’m making this about hits and not quality. I mean, there have been lots and lots of terrible songs that have been hits, right?
Put simply: Quality is subjective. Hits are quantifiable.
You see, whether a hit record is even feasible is almost irrelevant, because surely your goal is to cause a reaction. You want people to respond to your music, even if it’s only 100.
Hits are just songs that got a huge reaction. The quality is irrelevant. When you think about it, the only difference between a hit record and your record is scale. If the masses love a song, it’s a quantifiably great song, because it got a reaction that converts into sales, spins, and streams.
There are all sorts of songs that you or I might believe to be great that aren’t hits. But what if we disagree? What if you think my favorite unknown song is shit? Then what? Who’s right?
Whereas the quality of any given song is debatable, the popularity of a song renders the quality irrelevant. If the goal of a song is to generate a reaction, then it can only rightly be judged by the size of the reaction it causes.
Let me put it this way to you, because I walk the talk on this. If somehow I manage to produce the worst piece of dog shit record known to man, and it becomes a major hit? That track will go prominently on my discography, forever amen, and mother fuckers will hire me because of it. There is no blame to be appropriated for one’s participation in a hit song. Just credit.
So, let’s not pretend that this whole record-making shit is about quality. It’s about tapping a vein."
Mixerman:
I don’t accept reference tracks. I judge the tracks the client gives me only.
Yes, a judgement call must be part of the process, of course.
I look upon reference tracks as a means of communication. Instead of saying “I want the snare to sound warm and crisp, with some air” or some other meaningless bullshit, a client can simply refer to an already-existing track and say ‘can you make the snare sound like this, please?’ It gets me from point A to point B as quickly as possible.
And I view the recordings as their method of communication. And if a client asked me to make their snare sound like this or like that, I’d tell them that’s not how it works. Because it’s not. I may choose to mangle a snare, or boost it with a replacement if the tone of it seems out of place with the record, but I’m not playing this game of fashion plate snare tones as directed by the Artist or client because it’s nothing but a wank and that’s not my position. People who come to me want me to mix the record the way that I hear it. Those who want something else are referred to someone who does something else. I’m in that position because I have my name associated with numerous records of note. That’s not bragging. That’s just the reality. Much, if not most, of this business is based on perception.
I already know how you do things, and what you must endure, because I’ve been in your position. I’ve been in nearly every position there is in this business. Which is why I can talk about them all. But for some strange reason, you seem to think that you’ve got all of this shit figured out. And you might be really talented and have a ton of potential, but if you want to charge more than $12 per hour sooner than later, then you might do well to drop the defenses a little and open up to some information from someone who has seen a thing or two.
I’ve done both. That’s how I know that charging by the hour works better for me. I don’t see any change in perception from clients when I charge by the hour. However, I do see:
A better attitude from myself because I am not begrudgingly working ‘extra’ unplanned hours on a mix. (I might be working extra hours, but I will be paid for them).
My first record in LA as a recordist was Bizarre Ride to the Pharcyde. I was paid $10 an hour to record that album, which went Gold but was also beloved by the industry in general, and that record quickly put me in a position to charge by the track. By 1995 when I mixed Ben Harper’s Fight For Your Mind, I was charging $1000 per mix. I was no longer mixing for Delicious Vinyl because they didn’t want to pay that much money for a mix. They wanted to hire someone young and upcoming that could do a great job, and who would charge them relatively little. I was that in 1993. I was not that in 1995, and so I basically had to cut them loose as a client. In general, you don’t grow with your clients, you grow out of them. Food for thought.
At the peak of my mixing career and the music business as an entity, I was paid $2500 per mix. I really didn’t give a crap whether a mix took me 12 hours or 6. All I cared about was delivering the best mixes possible so that I could continue to charge that kind of dough. When you charge by the track, you charge more than you would have made by the hour. Not less.
Of course, those days are long gone for most everyone because the music business fully shit the bed. But everything is still relative in terms of position and pricing. Prices are depressed from the bottom to the top and have been for nearly a decade now. That just puts my price closer to your price, which doesn’t make things easier for either of us.
If you want to make better records and charge more for them, then you can’t leave the trajectory of your career purely up to chance. You have to proactively parley one success with another, and you would do well to mimic how the most successful people operate and charge. In the early nineties I wanted to charge by the mix because the biggest mixers charged by the mix. The way I figured it, if I charged what the big boys did, then I would be perceived differently and taken more seriously despite my young age. That was true.
In general, you want to mimic what successful people do. Not discount it.
Enjoy, Mixerman
Mixerman: