What if I want my songs to sound a little bit better

Recording, Mixing and Producing
#13

Before you read anything, I come in peace. :slight_smile: Just curious, and a little off topic. I know you mentioned complexity…but I’m really surprised that something can take you 20 hours?! I’m not being facetious…I’m really curious about this and would even offer to help you try to get that number down.

Is it something in your listening environment or are you having problems making decisions or questioning what you are hearing?

Man I could never run my business if a project took 20 hours. I’m honestly not trying to down you, just trying to understand why this may be happening? I’d also love to offer alternative work flows if you’d be open to hearing them if they would help you?

The rest of your post was spot on with “name” guys. I didn’t go there because most guys on forums these days that are hobbyists, won’t even entertain anything like that. A personal friend of mine is Beau Hill who has about 90 million+ sales with 80’s bands like Ratt, Europe, Alice Cooper, Winger, Dweezil Zappa. Beau is about $1000 per song the last we talked. I did an interview with him that I’ll share in another thread. Some good stuff.

Anyway…would love to see what we can do to get that 20 hours down. If I can’t do a mix in 8 hours tops, there’s usually something wrong. Thank God I’ve not had that happen in a very long time. The first song on an album can take a little time, but once you draw up the template, you just apply it to the rest of the songs and tweak accordingly. Hope you didn’t take my question the wrong way. :slight_smile:

#14

I don’t know where to start? So many great suggestions and options. Once again I have to play that I don’t know card. I see others copy a quote and then reply directly. That would be a help because by the time I read what a forum member says, and I get back to typing, I forget half of what was said. (you don’t understand that because you are young) I will try very soon to answer and thank all those who gave input. Been busy with installing a new water softener…cutting, splitting, and piling firewood after a wind storm…etc I hear so many so called average folks on this forum have some great sounding mixes, it makes me covet a bit :slight_smile: Good to know I will be able to take these songs up a couple notches. Thank you all

sincerely

Paul

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#15

Paul, can you post a rough mix? Even if its a really rough mix? As in…like…levels up and go!

Theres quite a few of us that would probably have some good ideas to throw at you, but it would help us out a little to have some context at this point :smiley:

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#16

Check BTR

#17

Yes, I would get fed up with it if it took eight hours, especially if it only has ten tracks. I guess it depends on whether we’re including editing - I can easily spend four hours editing, depending on the client. But again, with only ten tracks, there probably won’t be that much editing.

#18

So are the other tracks similar to this one?

#19

C[quote=“Danny_Danzi, post:13, topic:1505, full:true”]

Before you read anything, I come in peace. :slight_smile: Just curious, and a little off topic. I know you mentioned complexity…but I’m really surprised that something can take you 20 hours?! I’m not being facetious…I’m really curious about this and would even offer to help you try to get that number down.

Is it something in your listening environment or are you having problems making decisions or questioning what you are hearing?

Man I could never run my business if a project took 20 hours. I’m honestly not trying to down you, just trying to understand why this may be happening? I’d also love to offer alternative work flows if you’d be open to hearing them if they would help you?

The rest of your post was spot on with “name” guys. I didn’t go there because most guys on forums these days that are hobbyists, won’t even entertain anything like that. A personal friend of mine is Beau Hill who has about 90 million+ sales with 80’s bands like Ratt, Europe, Alice Cooper, Winger, Dweezil Zappa. Beau is about $1000 per song the last we talked. I did an interview with him that I’ll share in another thread. Some good stuff.

Anyway…would love to see what we can do to get that 20 hours down. If I can’t do a mix in 8 hours tops, there’s usually something wrong. Thank God I’ve not had that happen in a very long time. The first song on an album can take a little time, but once you draw up the template, you just apply it to the rest of the songs and tweak accordingly. Hope you didn’t take my question the wrong way. :slight_smile:
[/quote]

First of all Danny @Danny_Danzi … You keep talking to me like I’m a stranger… Just to remind you, I’m fHumble fHingaz from RR - I just changed my screen name, that’s all.

Secondly - thanks for the offer - much appreciated… And just to reassure you, I’m not taking this the wrong way - I know you’re a friendly and helpful dude from our many discussions back in the RR days.

Thirdly - That said, and this probably sounds a little defensive, but that is not my intention - I feel pretty awkward about having to explain why I take “so long” to do things. I know it probably wasn’t your intention to provoke that kind of emotion, but I have to be open and honest. It feels kind embarrassing, actually - not because I’m ashamed of the time I take or the results I get - but that speed of work is a BIG point of pride among many audio people…

If I’m a whimp in that regard, then so be it.

But, at the same time, having to explain myself feels a little bit like handing in a note to the teacher or something. At 48, I’m extremely sure of my own mind, & I’m well past that.

Nevertheless, perhaps because it might benefit the discussion, I will try to explain myself…

I put it down to this: I’m not a “fast” person when I do creative things. In fact, I have no desire to be. For me, it takes the pleasure out of doing creative work. This is a deliberate choice on my part… I realise this may sound strange to you, or even to most people, but bear with me…

I was (and am) a precociously gifted visual artist. I could draw with three dimensional realism, shading and perspective at an age when most kids have difficulty drawing a stick figure. From the time I could hold a pencil until I left school, I drew constantly for pleasure and relaxation. Then I started to work at a day job where my artistic skills were part of what I did each day. From that point on, I stopped drawing for pleasure - it no longer held the allure and escape it provided me when it was not assciated with work.

I now work all day in an industry that requires us to work faster and faster for less money. I’ve been working in that industry for over 30 years. We have been working with computers since 1986, and I have been using computer programs for artwork design since then, so I’m very familiar with the correlation between workflow, speed and productivity. I honestly have no desire to come home and work on things for pleasure that put me in the same “faster, faster, more, more” mindset.

I don’t run my studio as a business, full time, and I doubt whether that would ever happen at my age. I see it as more of a hobby that rewards me with a little bit of money to perpetuate it, and that brings me a great deal of satisfaction.

Regarding your questions about decisions: No, I don’t have any problems making decisions. Due to my line of work, I’m used to, & very experienced at making creative decisions and decisions of balance and proportion. That kind of experience transfers very well from the visual world to audio. My mixing environment is as accurate as possible for me in my circumstances - I’ve tested it to my satisfaction, so I don’t second-guess myself. I don’t want to sound arrogant, but that is the honest truth.

When I speak about 20 hours to mix a song, I’m including all the time editing timing, tuning etc etc. Some songs take a lot of prep before you even get to mix - Some songs you can get to work straight away. I’m including all of that time.

You mentioned that I was accurate with my estimates of Pro rates. As I said, that’s because I listen carefully to a lot of Podcasts and interviews on the subject. With that in mind, one of the other things that listening to these interviews revealed to me is that, while I’m definitely not on the fast end of the scale when it comes to mixing, I’m by no means the only person who takes my time. Many professionals mention figures of a day, a day and a half to mix. In many cases, that excludes mix prep, which is often done by an assistant.

All in all, taking an average of the professional mix community, I’m pretty satisfied with where I’m at speed-wise, especially considering the fact that I don’t do this full time.

My goal in mentioning the time it takes me in the first place was to raise awareness of the fact that a lot of work is involved in getting a mix that approaches professional results. In most cases, it isn’t just 3 or 4 hours from “go” to “woah”.

To sum up: I think we look at this thing from very different perspectives, and our goals are different. My goal is to take myself away from the pressure to perform artistically and make money in very tight time constraints. Understandably, your goal is to get to the destination as fast as possible. On the other hand, mine is to enjoy the journey.

I hope that answers your questions… & I too come in peace :grinning:

But this is not about me… Sorry to go off-topic @feaker Paul - back to the subject at hand.

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#20

Hi Jonathan This happens to be a rock song. I do many ballads…weird stuff…and a couple country. I usually have a couple guitar tracks left and right. Maybe another guitar track with accents. Bass. Usually three or four vocals depending on how many harmony parts. Then EZ drummer or a studio one drum loop thangy. I don’t have any midi except of course the drums. I usually just pick out canned studio one EQ, compression (male vox 1), reverb (something like catherdral) I guess I am over answering your question. Yes

Sincerely

Paul

#21

Hi FH Did not know your new name:) I like when folks go a little sideways in a post. You learn about them and I find that very interesting. I’m too old to argue or fuss tho. The best to you

sincerely

Paul

#22

I didn’t realize that. @ColdRoomStudio Andrew, given the quality of work you do, I too would have assumed otherwise. This makes perfect sense then, if you choose to compete with everyone around you on the quality scale, but not pressuring yourself to match the economic and efficiency scale of studios that compete based on exactly that.

That has a lot to do with it. I can remember spending several hours having to patch up a horribly tracked session. Haha…I’ve had sessions so bad that I had to outsource hundreds of dollars worth of autotuning to other people on this website.

This is part of a highly competitive mentality. Feel free to opt out. I noticed the same thing in lawyers, accountants, chefs, and computer programmers. Like…the guys who learn to punch key commands on their DAW’s like they’re playing a video game, all so they can 1-up all the other assistants in the company…it doesn’t have much do with ACTUALLY mixing.

I remember Marcella Araica in an interview (I think it was on Pensados place), talking about how producers in NY nicknamed her ‘turtle’ (I think…or something like that) because she was soooooo slow on her daw. But if you don’t care to compete with insane speed mister DAW operators in New York city, I doubt it’ll matter much if you get your mixes prepped in 60 minutes opposed to 45.

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#23

I’m only a couple of years behind you “old-timer”. Now, why did I sit down at the computer?

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#24

Props Andrew, that must have took some courage. :slight_smile:

[quote=“ColdRoomStudio, post:19, topic:1505”]
Some songs take a lot of prep before you even get to mix
[/quote]Ain’t that the truth! As I said in my earlier post, the editing can take longer than the mixing sometimes.

From your perspective, as someone who enjoys the process that makes sense. From my perspective, I don’t really ‘enjoy’ any part of the recording process, it’s a blight, a compulsion. The sooner I can get a mix wrapped up the happier I will be - and I don’t mean from a professional viewpoint, I mean from a personal one. That’s the polar opposite of your approach!

I hate the prospect of being faced with a shedload of editing before I can even start mixing, so when I’m recording a client, I do all the editing on the fly, I make it part of the recording process. The client doesn’t really notice that much, it’s just a quick 30 seconds here, one minute there, in fact it seems to de-intensify the session and give people a chance to calm down, eat a sandwich, have a quick chat etc.

I guess that doesn’t apply to you much Andrew, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re more of a ‘mixing/mastering’ services kid of guy? But if you actually enjoy the editing, maybe that’s bonus for you.

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#25

Thanks Adrian…

No, I don’t particularly enjoy editing, especially timing and tuning. Fortunately, of late, most of the stuff I’ve had to mix has been pretty much editing-free. I’ve gotten much faster at editing over the years, but it’s still time consuming.

…and you’re right - I don’t have people come and record at my studio, unless they are close friends or bandmates, so most of my comments are made from an “online mixing” perspective.

#26

Really glad you posted this summary Andrew… very illuminating. I totally understand that feeling of how your attitude changes when what was once something done purely for pleasure becomes the livelihood. It’s a big reason I give thanks that I abandoned music for science as my career-- music has remained pure pleasure. Cheers!

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#27

First, feaker, thank you for allowing this to go a little sideways. It’s my fault…I just saw the perfect opportunity to ask a question and maybe see if anything I could do might help Andrew if there was a need.

Andrew, so sorry for forgetting about your new name. I remember now but for some reason, it didn’t hit me until you mentioned it.

Next, I’m sorry for making you feel uncomfortable with discussing the internal studio stuff. I honestly stuck a hand out in hopes that if you needed me, that I would be there to try my best to help. I also thought of messaging you privately, but felt a little awkward myself. So apologies for any awkwardness and sincere thanks for giving us a glimpse of what goes on. That really means a lot that you shared that and again I thank you.

Also, just so you know in case you may have forgotten, I am, and always have been a fan of your work. So if it takes time and is therapeutic to you, you are right where you want to be.

A little about me if you’re curious. I’m totally against quantity over quality. I will never sacrifice it to a client and have only sacrificed quality one time in my life with my own personal project due to a record company mistake where I didn’t have s choice. It was release the first album or miss the boat. The album quality is not very good compared to even some of the demos here…and it haunts me every day. It actually sold fairly well and helped put me where I am. But hey…I didn’t know what I know now in 1989 which was when I started the album. :wink:

Anyway, always quality first for me. But, with a growing business comes deadlines and sometimes like my album, you can miss the boat. Once I got all the issues with monitoring out of the way, my life changed for the better. The mixing part took form on its own. From there, my practice routine was to learn how to work smarter, not harder.

I have what I call lab work two times per week that I make time for no matter what I have planned. 3 things that always happen…date night with my fiance every Wednesday, lab work with procedures on Monday morning and lab work experiments on Friday morning.

The Monday morning procedures lab is me experimenting with how to do things better and faster that take time out of my day. A lot of this is keystrokes where I press one or two buttons to do something where I’d have to use a mouse with movements before.

Editing: for some dumb reason, I’m good at this and can go so fast through it, if I ran video you would think I sped it up. The other side of that coin for me is, I don’t do it unless I have to or it’s requested of me.

Fortunately for me, I’m at the stage where I’m secure enough to pick and choose my jobs. I know that sounds cocky but it’s not meant to. Why take on a job that someone slopped together that needs 4 hours of editing before you even start?

If you need the business or you enjoy that sort of thing, it’s great. But I’m a record, mix, master guy…not a garbage man. Not meaning to imply those that do editing are garbage men. I’m just saying…I’d rather not do it and not be taken advantage of. I kill all dead spots in audio and have a tool in sonar that will batch process all that. So I don’t even have to manually do it anymore. “Remove silence” with a little trial and error is an incredible tool. Dangerous too of course if you don’t tweak it. :slight_smile:

Or, I simply use gates and set them accordingly. I don’t mess anything up as every track is auditioned individually and I take notes on the super low pieces that may be in the wave file. But 9 times out of 10, I can have an entire project edited in an hour or less.

Drum replacement editing etc…I have awesome tools for this that speed up everything to where it’s near foolproof. I have a sample library that is just sick. Most of my colleagues want my library left to them when I die. Lol!

I can take a real.drum and have a replacement that sounds just like it the right way in seconds. Tuning, room sim, resonance etc…I have all this stuff built into my template already.

So quite a lot I’ve done already. Some.of my templates have taken a month to perfect. So I’ve done some serious work there and of course they need altering from project to project. But it’s amazing the time.I’ve saved just doing things like that.

One of the things we pride ourselves on is turn around time. I’m honestly booked to mid 2018 already with bands coming from all over. I do massive online work, court stuff for small municipalities that still run cassette tape on their hearings that we send to flash drive or digital media. We do phone messaging to big corporations when you call and get all the prompts. School orchestra stuff, ad spots, recording video lessons…it’s super cool and never a dull moment.

My reason for saying that, with all that stuff going on, if someone here hired me for something, I’d find the time to get it done sometime this week if possible. I don’t like turning people away. It’s not just the money…it’s sincerely about helping people and making a difference in their lives for the better.

I’m not the best at this stuff and never claimed to be. People talk you up when you’ve done something to make a difference in their world. You know how it goes…you too have some loyal and loving fans. :wink: But I’ll always choose quality over speed. Though, speed is sort of important in what I’m doing too. As long as the speed doesn’t ever overthrow the quality. Thanks for the reply…much respect and admiration brother.

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#28

I had no idea that you have put this much of your life/time into your craft, but I should have know listening to your music. Kinda what I said before about hearing such a difference between my final project and someone who knows what there are doing.

You have a great system for sure. I often will take a vox track and listen to all the garbage in between verses etc and think nothing of leaving it there. I have tried to, break the track, cut a chunk out, and then delete it. sounds just wrong. Also tried to just cut that chunk and really lower the db’s. that works better, but still doesn’t sound natural. You see, you took it to the next level and have something in place for that. Fantastic I say. I don’t envy, but more like greatly appreciate somebody that is so much more talented than me. They earned it. I can weld better than most on any type of metal. I am good at it because I studied it and practiced. I also know there are the hobbiest like myself who are very fortunate to be even allowed to be on a forum like this with all the folks that have so much talent. It is embarrassing to me not to be able to contribute to most conversations without the knowledge that many have here. (taking a deep bow) To those that have studied and earned it, I salute you. To those of us that make music for fun, just be dam glad you have an opportunity to be seated next to pro’s:)

sincerely

Paul

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#29

Great post Danny, thanks for sharing all that info (and in the previous posts on this thread)!

I really like the Lab Work commitments. You explained that Monday was “better and faster”, and I am big on keyboard shortcuts so I work on this from time to time. I didn’t see where you explained the Friday “lab work experiments” though, and was wondering if you would mind expanding on what that is about? Is it more how to get certain sounds or effects? I remember Brandon used to allocate a whole day of the week to “synth sounds” or whatnot, and it’s something I have been meaning to do.

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#30

Thanks Danny - cool insights.

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#31

Sure Stan…the Friday lab is messing with techniques that I learn or create on my own. I also try a lot of the hyped up things people swear by that are supposedly making things better.

I spent quite a bit of time on side chaining to see what all the hype was about. What I found out is…it’s nothing more than a band aid for frequency masking and an alternative to automation.

Neither impress me. However, I have managed really cool results with rhythm guitars and lead guitars with side chaining. Rhythms lower when the lead hits and then come back to where they should be after the solo section. But even using it that way, nothing drops out like the examples most use especially in techno stuff with synths. I hate the whole trade off thing…I still don’t see the need other than for those not interested in dealing with handling like-instruments the right way.

I love messing with impulses to help with enhancing direct recording. Stuff like that…different plugs in different positions, it’s a blast. My current lab project is an attempt to make a sound source larger. Not stereo widened effects, I’m literally trying to take a small sound and increase it without blatant widening or HAAS effects. So far I’ve been semi successful with a few things I’ve been working on, but nothing that replaces mic capture sound size. I came up with something that’s pretty impressive but I need a little more testing and then I’ll gladly share it…or if it works too well, I’m keeping it to myself. Lol! :wink:

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#32

Sounds like a good one, I’ll have to try it out. I have usually done it with volume automation, but that’s pretty static, and your method may allow for it to be more dynamic. I have used side-chaining on background music for voice-over quite a bit, and that has worked well.

Fascinating, I would certainly enjoy it if you found something you were able to share! I really like this methodology of testing interesting ideas and myth busting … kind of like an audio “mad scientist”. :sunglasses:

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