Mixing Time frames For High End, Major Label Projects

[jjohn031]

Hey guys I am wondering what is the average time it takes an engineer to mix a major label session in a high end studio environment {New York, LA, Miami London and Nashville}? Also what are the average editing time frames for engineers?

[bpatural]

Most mixers take a day...some like CLA can do 2 a day...some high profile ones where there are too many opinions involved can take 2 or more. Most mixers have the basics in a few hours and then it's just small level tweaks and rides for hours.
Editing is an ongoing process which can just be involved while tracking the material, but usually at least a few hours to a day afterwards to tighten and tune everything...sometimes it can turn into a never ending tweakfest though.
-brian

[Sui_City]

brian,

are you saying a song a day or a project a day?

you were involved in mixing Lateralus weren't you? how long did it take to mix that album?

[bpatural]

A song a day is pretty standard...for Lateralus it was a different story. That was the longest I've seen anyone take on a mix (though there was some time spent for editing/OD/vox and the occasional gong recording ). It took up to 4 days a song, though at that time some of the album tracks were two parts of one song and I think one of the songs was around 15 min long!!. A lot of time was spent tweaking crazy effects like delays regenerating through the board with fx pedals inserted...and a lot of time was also spent riding and trying to orchestrate dynamics...The band was very particular about having the record sound like a whole entity with the vocals and gtrs merging into a whole instrument so it was a battle of maintaining vocal clarity and gtr energy.
Of all the projects I assisted on over at Larrabee, Tool was probably the most persistant and involved of the bands I worked with and approached the mix as a major artistic part of the record.
-brian

[Sui_City]

brian,

thanks a lot for the info. it is greatly appreciated.

[poncival]

Yeah, A song a day for mixing is typical, usually most of the editing is done already by the time "mixing" begins but usually there are a few fixes that are discovered along the way during that day of mixing. Hopefully that "day" is about 10 hours with the setup etc. taking an hour or so and the bulk of the mixing taking about 4 hours with a few breaks along the way and then some tweaks and rides etc. for another couple hours and then an hour or two of printing stems...

[jjohn031]

Thanx you guys really proved my point