Had a band in my small mixing room in London last night, mixing one of their tunes. Really good band, really good tune, really painful session.
Band had come to mix something that I’d done a rough mix of. In these sessions, the band is paying for your time, not necessarily for your mixing. So, even if you know better, you kinda have to do what they want.
So we start looking at the drums.
Kick
Band: ‘can we listen on it’s own?‘
(solo)
Band: ‘yeah that’s fine‘.
[thought]OK, that was easy.[/thought]
Snare
Band: ‘can we listen on it’s own?‘
(solo)
Band: ‘hmm that’s got too much bottom and mid. can we get some more top on it?‘
Engineer: ‘you don’t need it, that’s in the overheads. the snare mic is largely there to support the overhead mix‘
Band: ‘yeah, but, surely we should make it sound good by itself, then mix it in‘
Engineer: ‘O…K…‘
(EQ snare to loads of top end and less bottom end)
(solo off)
Band: ‘oh no. way too much top end. can we add some low mid and bottom end to make it sound punchy again‘.
(didn’t even bother dialling it in, just recalled the EQ setting from earlier)
Band: ‘yeah that sounds fine mate, cheers‘.
[thought]no surprise there then…[/thought]
4 hours of that. on the bass, on the guitar, on everything. new mix done. sent to band. and guess what? It sounds absolutely no.frikkin.different.
But, of course; because they were sat there with me telling me what to do, the old mix is now complete crap and the new one is loads better. I’m pretty sure, had I sent the old mix AGAIN, they wouldn’t have noticed.
This is where I really do question how it’s even possible that band’s egos come so much higher in the chain than their budgets, despite them calling you for 3 hours begging you to cut a better deal as they’ve got no money and it’s not their fault and they don’t go to work as they have practice but some dude from sony really likes them (apparently) and because he’s a mate of the guitarist’s girlfriend’s dad’s best-mate’s drinking-buddie’s casual-sex-partner’s dog-walker; they’re the next big thing and in no time they’ll be touring around the world with Muse as their support band and selling 25,000 records a night and will give you HALF the royalties (apparently), and thus you should record them on the cheap – whereas if you charge full price you won’t get any royalties.
this isn’t a rant. this is a lol. yes, a lol. an actual, genuine, laugh. out. loud.
PS: forgot about this bit. band say the kick hasn’t got quite enough punch. So, I solo’d it, opened the EQ, and noticed it was a bit quiet. turned it up just to make it easier to EQ. after fiddling the knob, which, on the MOTU 828/2 is cleverly concealed to look a lot more technical than a plain volume knob, the kick has simply got louder, no EQ yet. ‘OH YEAH MATE, THAT SOUNDS MINT’. I think that pretty much sums up the session.
if the current generation of bands genuinely feel that the best way to make things sound better is simply to turn the studio speakers up, and the ability for bands now to buy their whole home studio for the price of a week in the studio (see last blog), it is no wonder that half the demos I get sent to consider for production deals sound like utter, utter turd. And turd sounding records (that only sound good when the speakers are at full volume), don’t get production deals. Or record deals. Or publishing deals. Or… any other type of deal. Lesson to learn here bands? If you want to be successful, get it recorded, mixed, and mastered, by somebody who knows what they’re doing… Properly.
Dave
