Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - I am about to mix my debut album and need some tips

bckid · 29th June 2008

haha. i love this forum!
thanks for all your replies!

let me point some things out:

first of all this release happend to be quite accidentally.
i was just giving a demo cd with crappy 128 k mp3´s to a friend of mine just to listen to what i do besides dancefloor shit.

the songs were never meant to be released in this condition. but how things go, the demo was making its rounds and i got offers from a couple of labels to buy the complete "album" as heard (128 k mp3 in very rough mixes).

from this point i started to talk to people involved in the music industry/music press and did some research on how to put this piece out and got quite different answers. everybody thought to hear some very different references (from moby to the knife or super collider

)
but in the end everybody stated, that there are some "hits" on the record (whatever a "hit" means these days..)

so i thought, ok, if people think there is some substance in these recordings i´ll have to give my best to give the songs the shape they deserved. and my FIRST idea was, to hire an external mix engineer, so he can work on the material without beeing emotionally involved.

BUT: as i am located in berlin i realized quite fast, that there is only one person i would trust to lay my stuff in his hands. (berlin is full of decent minimal techno dudes and some rock guys but smooth pop producers are hard to find.)

unfortunately his schedule was too busy to fit the mixjob in. he then sent me to some colleagues he thought they´d do a good job on this one. but while listening to their showreels i realized, that their approach on music would not fit my/the music´s needs. plus the money they wanted for this job would have killed the budget. (music biz is a bitch these days and you never know...)

so i finally decided to do the mix myself. i did some research and found this nice studio just around my corner with exactly the specs i always dreamed of when thinking about producing my first artist album. plus i will have an experienced engineer by my side, who is familiar with that particular studio.

so here i am. beeing a bit nervous because of the responsibility

.
but in the end i think the sound can just benefit and get better than these mp3´s (remember: its all rendered in live) when putting the stuff on a neve via protools hd and tweaking with some slutty outboard

.

i asked for tips and got some really helpful answers so far.
thank you all for this. i will keep you updated on the process and will post some before/after examples.

and now i have to get back to the studio as the mastering for the first single will be on tuesday and there is still some stuff i have to fix.

cheers ya all.

b.c.

29th June 2008	#30
bckid Gear interested Joined: Jan 2008 Posts: 24 Thread Starter	haha. i love this forum! thanks for all your replies! let me point some things out: first of all this release happend to be quite accidentally. i was just giving a demo cd with crappy 128 k mp3´s to a friend of mine just to listen to what i do besides dancefloor shit. the songs were never meant to be released in this condition. but how things go, the demo was making its rounds and i got offers from a couple of labels to buy the complete "album" as heard (128 k mp3 in very rough mixes). from this point i started to talk to people involved in the music industry/music press and did some research on how to put this piece out and got quite different answers. everybody thought to hear some very different references (from moby to the knife or super collider ) but in the end everybody stated, that there are some "hits" on the record (whatever a "hit" means these days..) so i thought, ok, if people think there is some substance in these recordings i´ll have to give my best to give the songs the shape they deserved. and my FIRST idea was, to hire an external mix engineer, so he can work on the material without beeing emotionally involved. BUT: as i am located in berlin i realized quite fast, that there is only one person i would trust to lay my stuff in his hands. (berlin is full of decent minimal techno dudes and some rock guys but smooth pop producers are hard to find.) unfortunately his schedule was too busy to fit the mixjob in. he then sent me to some colleagues he thought they´d do a good job on this one. but while listening to their showreels i realized, that their approach on music would not fit my/the music´s needs. plus the money they wanted for this job would have killed the budget. (music biz is a bitch these days and you never know...) so i finally decided to do the mix myself. i did some research and found this nice studio just around my corner with exactly the specs i always dreamed of when thinking about producing my first artist album. plus i will have an experienced engineer by my side, who is familiar with that particular studio. so here i am. beeing a bit nervous because of the responsibility . but in the end i think the sound can just benefit and get better than these mp3´s (remember: its all rendered in live) when putting the stuff on a neve via protools hd and tweaking with some slutty outboard . i asked for tips and got some really helpful answers so far. thank you all for this. i will keep you updated on the process and will post some before/after examples. and now i have to get back to the studio as the mastering for the first single will be on tuesday and there is still some stuff i have to fix. cheers ya all. b.c.