Hi,
How do you solve the problem when the clients sit behind your chair and tell you things randomly on the mix session. They just tell me things the way they want it, I don't want to be more specific. At the end I have a feeling that It's just another amateur mix. They just want to keep bringing certain random elements up in the mix untill it overpowers the whole track, and stuff like that that doesn't make rational sense to me.
If I am hired to mix it, how can I make a sonic judgement without affecting client's irrational request ?
The other day I had a "producer" in my chair (the guy who made the beat)...He was so "particular" about his drum sound and the levels of his drums. At some point he had a single kick drum soloed for 4 hours (not exagerating) just EQ-ing the bottom, just dragging the eq with the mouse up and down for hours and walking around the room and listening in the corners. Also he had me put the compresor on over-the-top limited and compressed kick drum. Also when he bounced down his "drum mix" that he was working on for hours, the tracks came out bounced at unity gain.
I "mixed" one sinlge song for 4 sessions with them attending each time, and he was always lacking something, whether kick wasn't good, or the vocal was too quiet, something needed to be brought up in the mix, nothing ever needed to come down considering that the meter was banging red. Nothing was ever just right.
And the best part is that I agreed to charge a flat fee for the whole record.
What woould be the most professional response to this ???
What would you tell him if it was you in this situation ?
How do your people skills kick in this situation ?
