I would understand if you thought the word ‘disaster’ in the title here is a bit over-the-top. I get it – a disaster is more like an earthquake or flood, but in fairness it can feel like a disaster when a project goes wrong. I’m hoping there will be a few bits of advice in this article that will keep you from feeling that sense of doom! I’ve been mixing for a while now, so these are a few of the lessons that I’ve learnt from grim experience.
If You Fail To Plan, Then You Plan To Fail
This is a tired (and trite) business-world saying, but it’s got an element of truth in it - the better planned your session is then the more likely it will come off without a hitch. One area that can be hard with mixing – especially when the client is not present – is knowing the direction that the mix should take. Should it be driven by the guitars, or the piano? Are the drums supposed to be in-your-face and punchy, or reverbed-out and at the back of a hall? Perhaps the artist has previous work that you can draw on for direction, but what if they are trying to do something new with this recording? Their previous work suddenly becomes far less relevant.
The solution I use here is two-fold. Firstly, I ask for a Spotify (or similar) playlist that features tracks that the artist thinks the song that we are working on should be able to stand with. In other words, I ask them to build a small playlist that this track should fit in. This seems like a fool-proof move, but it did bite me once in that I heard a very cool drum sound on one of the tracks so figured that would be a good direction to go in. It turned out that was the opposite direction to go in for the drums, and that track had been put on the playlist because the singer liked the vocal reverb. So now I also ask for a qualifying email along with the playlist, explaining why each song is on there. There have been no similar disasters since!
Protect Yourself
And by this, I mean to make sure you get paid. There are a few methods for this that have sprung up over the past few years (SoundBetter tries to cover you on this for example) but the bottom line is – make sure you get 50% of your fee before you start. I would actually go further and say that you should get 50% of your fee before you will even book a session in. As soon as you’ve committed time to a project you can’t take another booking in that slot, so you are at risk of losing income if the work disappears. And if you don’t take the deposit until just before you are about to start then you don’t have time to get another gig in to fill the space if it’s suddenly pulled. I’ve once had a restaurant meal used as an analogy for why someone shouldn’t have to pay anything until the mix is finished, and I think it’s a good one, but they’d missed the point of it. The person said that when they go to a restaurant they don’t pay for their meal until after it’s finished, so they know they’ve enjoyed it and that the food was what they ordered before they have to pay. I get that, but because I can only work on one mix at a time, mixing is not like sitting down for a meal in a busy restaurant, but more like booking out the entire restaurant for a party. The restaurant can’t cater for anyone else that evening because of the party, so they are likely to ask for a sizable deposit in case the person who booked it suddenly decides not to show.
Get A Visual
Now this one is more unusual but it’s a great luxury if you get the chance. If you can have a look around the session that’s to be mixed before you have to quote on it, then you can have a much more accurate idea of what you’re dealing with and give a far more accurate quote. I once had a situation where I was mixing a small live gig that had been filmed as well as recorded and, having done a lot of these sort of things before, I gave a quote based on how long a mix like this normally takes me. Everything was agreed and then the session was sent over, and within an hour or so I realised that this mix was likely to take two or three times longer than I thought, with hours of automating EQs to try and get a balanced and even vocal sound out of a mic with a huge proximity effect and a singer with no mic technique at all. If I’d had a chance to look at the session first that would have been worked into the initial quote and the whole session would have gone much smoother.
Let’s Talk
If I were to add one more it would be communication. I’ve no specific examples of catastrophe, but it’s just a really good idea to keep the artist in the loop about what you are doing and when. It can be stressful handing your precious recordings over to a mixer to finish off, and you should bear that in mind while you’re working with someone. If you can’t meet up then a Zoom call before you start can be useful, and tools like Sessionwire allow you to play a mix back to a client whilst video calling them, solo tracks in the mix for them to hear etc, all in real time and at high quality. These communication tools can help everything run smoother and should be part of your disaster prevention toolkit!
More Recording Resources From Dom Morley
Dom is the founder of the Mix Consultancy, a zero risk (money back guarantee) way to get notes on your tracks to help improve the sound. Whether you're an artist who likes to mix all their own work, a composer putting together a pitch on a limited budget, or an engineer who wants a discreet second opinion before sending a mix off to a client - we're here to help.
“I just completed a mix with the help of Dom Morley & The Mix Consultancy. The mix we turned over was qualitatively better than the one I would have gone with on my own.
It's been said that "a mix is never done, it's just abandoned", but the truth is, you *really* do feel a sense of completion and closure having worked with Dom because you know in your heart that you did everything you possibly could to get the best result possible for the client.
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In addition to the one-to-one advice Dom has produced some excellent online courses;
Everything You Need To Know About Recording Vocals
Preproduction, DAW set-up, preparing the studio, psychology, equipment. Literally everything you need to know.This is a short, free, mini-course on the four things that you really need to know in order to get great mixes, and the four things that you really don't!