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\"It Sounds Too Good\"

BTLG

Established Member
ARGH

Just spent months tracking / mixing a hip hop record. Things started out great. You know, retracked all the vocals so they weren't all distorted and thin sounding, got the tracks to bang and sound big, things felt really good. Played stuff for some friends of mine who do this for a living (as some of you know, my desk jockey job currently keeps me from doing this as full time as i'd like to)

Then BAM! the artist comes in and says 'It sounds too... good' 'can you make it sound like the demos? ' 'the vocals are too 'in your face' ' etc etc.

Ultimately he decided that he wants to just go back to the demo'd vocals, and mix them into the 2 tracks.

Jesus. I think I've officially mixed my last hip hop project.


Anyone else ever run into this situation? How did you deal with it?

Matt
 

imdrecordings

Venerated Member
WOW...
We have parallel lives.....

I just got done writing a big reply and this site didn't put it up.
Damn it.... it just made me that much more frustrated...
I was writing about an EP I had just finished recording, mixed and Mastered..... It was a remix job, I volunteered to do it, a year down the line, because the band had not released the original material.....


anyway, to make a long story short I remixed the whole thing to sound fuckn awesome and at the end of the day the \"leader\" of the band decided to go with the poorlly mixed, L2ed ruffs I did, a year ago.
I'm pissed... Those sound no where near as good as the stuff I spent hours and hours on and 3 brand new reels of 1/4\" tape. FUCK! I'm so pissed.

I did this shit for free...

I'll speak more of the matter tomorrow.

We can vent together... this thing wit hthe web site not posting my reply, ticked me off!

I'm so pissed I can't sleep! :evil:

-S-

p.s.- I also just had a night, at the bar , full of conversations about the War and gun control.....AHhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

BTLG

Established Member
Yeah man, I did this one at like HALF PRICE.

HALF PRICE!!!!

I'm never cutting my rate again.
 

Eddie Macarthur

Active Member
you can never predict what a band will like. i spent time fixing some badly out of tune vocals on a track. then the singer comes in and demands that i put back all the out of tune bits, claiming it was deliberate. what really was happening is that he was bored with the song, and didn't WANT to make a good job of it. the rest of the band wanted it to sound good, but were afraid of hurting the singer's ego.
as a compromise, we did a mix where it was MOSTLY in tune!
moral of the story; try to give them what they want, but also offer your opinions. if they don't want your opinions, stop offering them and just take the money without busting your ass!

Ed
 

Eurocide

Active Member
Similar experiences here.
1. Band members said \"it has to be more punchy!\" although the mix was powerful as hell. I increased the volume of the monitors by 3db. Collective answer: \"YEAH!!!! That's it!\"

2. A singer wanted a complete mix re-done. I told him \"OK, sit here, I turn on the multitrack and you turn the knobs\". I went out for a while, and when I came back he said euphorically: \"Here listen, this is what I wanted!!\". I nodded and stopped the original playback loop which was routed directly straight to the monitors... (not nice, I know :twisted: )

Also it is tedious: you sometimes have to show, who's the boss behind the desk. Only then difficult customers will appreciate your work and don't ask for silly corrections.
 

BTLG

Established Member
at this point, I've decided to just let him have his record sound like it was a hack job, and not attach my name to it.

matt
 

Plec

Venerated Member
If you want to play the game... :)

I started from scratch, doing the local artists and now I'm featured sometimes on releases that go out in 1-2 million units as producer, mixer, engineer or writer. The fun thing is that the workflow doesn't differ that much from the beginning. At least in my experience, whenever a problem arises in the production process it has always something to do with a fear-related issue and people not having enough experience and not knowing their place... including me.

Also... that's a reason I don't work with bands anymore, just the ones I have a very good rapport with from earlier on. If you really want to work with artists and bands that are less experienced, you really need to have a bag of trix ready and be the Dr. Phil of music... just like previous poster said... turn up the volume, let them make changes that aren't happening bla bla. But, once I took that step.. that is to not work on projects that I know will have issues due to the people involved or just inferior quality material, and just focusing on the stuff I know, can and will be great... my career just went through the roof. (I'm still in the transition though)

I always take care of business and roles first when I get involved in a project or I need someone to do something. The art and business of music are two totally different things that most often than not shouldn't be mixed together. I now have the fortune of having other people taking care of most of my business which really frees my mind up a lot to concentrate on the art. But, when you handle your own business.. the biggest problem for most people is to keep the feelings out of it. If you have a project that you really want to work on and the other part senses and knows that... they can pretty much send you away with the worst possible deal known to man... AND you've accepted it. That is the #1 reason 99% of artists get screwed over by labels and don't make any money from their music.

I as a producer I will make a lot more money than the artist from their music, even though I have just 1/4 of the royalties that they do. The difference? I make money from sales on record one.. they have to recoup the labels costs first. The fun part is... the labels usually anticipates selling just 1/5 of the total sales an artist needs to recoup the labels costs. The labels are still making a lot of money from this, but since the artist hasn't recouped their costs yet according to their contract.. they will never recieve a single penny from album sales. The reason artists accept these kinds of deals is just that it's an estabilshed fact... these are standard deals.. none out of the ordinary. In practice... IF an artist meets their break-even,, the label has usually made ten times the money they've spent on the entire project... without paying the artist anything.

That's also a reason I don't like to work with labels that do this to their artists (that is most of them). IMHO the massive drop in record sales is just what the business needs to get some power back to the artists again.

Sorry for the rant guyz...
 

Plec

Venerated Member
Maybe that was for another thread... back to BTLG's situation here...

I'd like to ask.. who is the producer?
What is your assigned role, what do they pay you for?

It sounds to me as the artist is producing this himself? Or isn't there a clear producers role cut out? IF the artist is the producer here, all that you say or think is just an opinion that they should very much consider. But in the end it's not your call to make final decisions on what is good and bad. That is if you've accepted the role of engineer/mixer and know what is and isn't expected from you.

I think you're doing the right thing though... if a producer or artist wants something done that you totally disagree with and you feel you can't play it for a friend and be proud of your work as a result, do what they ask and leave your name off the record.
 

BTLG

Established Member
Things actually came out pretty good in this case. I managed to pull some of the things out of the 2 tracks that I wanted to, the vocals are good enough, so at the end of the day it's whatever.

for what it's worth, I managed to borrow an API 2500 bus compressor from one of the rental companies in town. If you have a spare 2500 bucks lying around, I highly suggest you get one.

Matt
 

Eric Dahlberg

Purveyor of musical dreams fullfilled.
There's a term for this - demo-itis or something like that - referring to what happens when the artist grow so accustomed to the sound of the demo that they don't want to stray from it. PJ Harvey apparently released \"4-Track Demos\" for this reason, so at least you can say that you & Steve Albini have that in common. :)
 

BTLG

Established Member
Overall, I'm happier with the results than I thought I would be. 3 or four of my multitracked mixes made it on the record, so that's pretty dope... they do sound better than everything else though.

At the end of the day, the clients happy, I'm ok with it, screw it.

Demo-itis indeed.

Matt
 

imdrecordings

Venerated Member
We have to stop having the same experiences, Matt.

After hearing the stuff I did a year ago, I wished he had not let me remix anything...
It sounded fine.
Woops :oops:

I still think the new one sounded better, but the old one still sounds great... 8)
 

BTLG

Established Member
I'd call her and tell her if I could.... but I think I used up all my cell minutes on your sister.
 
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