When you face a rude awakening that you're just not that good at mixing

[bozmillar]

I know of one person who will approve of this preset

I approve of this preset.

[venuestudios]

told ya.

[Jonathan]

Ah! Yes. I can see where that would be pretty universal. Cutting around 200, boosting 3K, then adding some air Can’t go wrong with that!

[Danny_Danzi]

I’m always late to the party…but I’ll give you my take for what it’s worth. This will probably be my shortest post because I think the issues are cut and dry…at least to me. 2 possible issues or a bit of both.

1. Listening environment: the biggest waste of time that stopped me from getting work done quickly and accurately was a bad monitor set up. I second guessed everything constantly, fought with processing and certain frequencies just weren’t in the cards. I got new monitors, a sub made a few room corrections, started using ARC by IK multimedia, and my whole world changed. I can mix any project from start to finish and have a good handle on it in less than 2 hours. 4 to 6 hours for bigger mixes, and if we’re doing an entire album, 6 to 8 hours per song max unless we’re under the gun. We’ve realistically tracked, edited, mixed and mastered in 2 weeks for 10-12 songs. Make sure your gear tells you what you need to know without second guessing.

2. Knowing how to achieve sounds and knowing what to do with them: this can take forever if you’re not in tune with sound identity and how to process certain sounds. You may just need to brush up on certain processing tricks before taking the job on, or you try to experiment a little on the side when the client leaves if you have to. I don’t know how long you’ve been at it, but it’s been about 38 years for me.

In that time I’ve learned lots of old school as well as new school tips and tricks. I often times feel like a doctor and have to constantly update my skills. I welcome that but I can say this, the newer stuff doesn’t impress me. It all seems to try and cut corners but with the sacrifice of quality. That said, I can whip stuff up nearly as fast as the new stuff and preserve the quality.

At the end of the day, you may just need a little direction from someone that may be a little more advanced than you are right now. I once had a client who was one of my rivals, come to me and ask me for help. As part of my.business, I offer video lessons (or in person) where I take a mix and totally annihilate it instrument at a time while showing how to make things sound good in seconds. I’m not trying to sell you…but this guy came to me, swallowed his pride and opened up his mix to me, flaws and all. I was quite surprised at how far below me in knowledge he was. He talked s good ballgame always, was cocky, and always had clients.

Well, after one in-person rape and redo of one of his mixes, he had an epiphany and “got it”. Sometimes we miss the obvious, other times there are things we simply don’t know. As I worked.on each instrument of his mix, I showed him all the different ways he could process, I showed him when a track was garbage and should have never been accepted as well as how to salvage it.

2 years later, the guy felt so good and was so happy…he closed his business. LMAO! Yeah…it’s funny…the reason being? We got along so good, I offered him a job and he works in my other studio. Hahaha!

In any case, the two things above are my first response items. If they are both in good standing on your end, nothing should be an issue other than maybe you are in a tough spot being in the area you’re in with competition. I don’t have much competition because no one in my area does the specialty items I do. We have 15 studios in my back yard…none of them.affect me. I do enough online client work from all over the world to where it’s a good enough living without my other studio and the physical walk-ins. Grab your niche. And if you ever need.to talk, shoot me a message.

[Jonathan]

Listening environment: the biggest waste of time that stopped me from getting work done quickly and accurately was a bad monitor set up.

I’m probably ok here…at least I think for now. I looked into moving into a JBL or Augspurger system but my monitor chain and converters are basically maxed out for the scale of my room. I don’t think there’s much else I can do.

Knowing how to achieve sounds and knowing what to do with them: this can take forever if you’re not in tune with sound identity and how to process certain sounds. You may just need to brush up on certain processing tricks before taking the job on

Noted.

At the end of the day, you may just need a little direction from someone that may be a little more advanced than you are right now.

I’ve been wondering about this for a while now. I’m trying to figure that part out. Reached out to some instructors recently, but its gonna require traveling out of state for several months. I’m trying to figure out how to not let the downtime wreck the company while I’m away. I may have to hold off until I have an employee in place who can run the entire facility.

If they are both in good standing on your end, nothing should be an issue other than maybe you are in a tough spot being in the area you’re in with competition. I don’t have much competition because no one in my area does the specialty items I do. We have 15 studios in my back yard…none of them.affect me. I do enough online client work from all over the world to where it’s a good enough living without my other studio and the physical walk-ins. Grab your niche.

The ones in my backyard don’t bother me…the ones I’ve been loosing work to in Nashville, Atlanta, and Dallas are infuriating and pissing me off to no end. I don’t expect to be able to compete with LA and NY studios. Those major dub stages will win jobs purely on the equipment and the cubic square footage of the rooms, and the operator skill is a complete non-factor at that level. That’s a little ways down the road. But I’ve got to figure out a way to win more consistently on the smaller regional stuff that’s right infant of my face here and now.