Mastering guys - What are the biggest mistakes made in mixdowns pre-mastering?

[Louis Bernstone]

curious, as I am an engineer/musician...and not a mastering engineer. I just get the master back, with limited comments, and was wondering what things mixdown engineers do that really piss you off!
What things can your clients do to make it easier for you to create the perfect master?

[IIIrd]

using limiting plugins to give you that "hot", flat lined, loud mix.
that just what you need as a mastering engineer....zero headroom.
also i get annoyed with the "we'll sort it out in the mastering" brigade.

[Louis Bernstone]

Originally Posted by IIIrd

using limiting plugins to give you that "hot", flat lined, loud mix.
that just what you need as a mastering engineer....zero headroom.
also i get annoyed with the "we'll sort it out in the mastering" brigade.

that last comment goes all the way down the chain, I suppose.......if you have sh*t sounds, it sounds sh*t!

[inlinenl]

well I'm not pissed off easy ....

but ... just not 1 millimillimilli second in start off the wav ... track cut in the start off the kick ....

having very obvious clicks in the track and not telling me ...


cheers Wim

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by belolab

curious, as I am an engineer/musician...and not a mastering engineer. I just get the master back, with limited comments, and was wondering what things mixdown engineers do that really piss you off!
What things can your clients do to make it easier for you to create the perfect master?

I vaguely remember a question like this here before. One big mistake is not listening to your music over a good system and ending up missing the entire bottom 3 octaves and it's all "boom" and the balance of the bass and bass drum get screwed up.

There's a lot more, I see, and the second big mistake is mixing the entire album without any professional guidance, without listening on various playback systems to check for translation and without even sending one sample to your prospective mastering engineer to check out, give you specific advice to help you get the best mix that's the most ready for mastering.

BK

[PatrikT]

At some point one has to understand that the human who have mixed the audio has a certain responsibility.

If he or she does not know much, that will translate. If he or she knows much that will also translate.

In order for audio to sound totally wack it has to be very, very screwed and that just does not happen unless a monkey is riding the faders.

I include every little "mistake" in my process because I was given those mistakes. "Mistakes" are always balancing the line of subjectivity. If there are no obviously strange things (like files with no sound or 4 bit resolution or left channel only, etc etc etc) I treat and listen to and evaluate all incoming mixes the exact same way.


I've discovered that working this way obviosly gives close to zero requests for revisions...


Best Regards
Patrik

[Darius van H]

^^^^^

???????

[Lupo]

Originally Posted by PatrikT

I include every little "mistake" in my process because I was given those mistakes. "Mistakes" are always balancing the line of subjectivity. If there are no obviously strange things (like files with no sound or 4 bit resolution or left channel only, etc etc etc) I treat and listen to and evaluate all incoming mixes the exact same way.

So... You don't do any processing at all, ever?

[PatrikT]

Originally Posted by Lupo

So... You don't do any processing at all, ever?

I thought it was clear enough...

I balance shit and I balance gold.

I balance material that might have been runned through limiters, that is at 16 bits, that is tilted towards L or R, that is boomy, bassy, harshy. All kind of "mistakes".

What else am I supposed to do? Preach? Teach? Don't think so...


Best Regards
Patrik

[holger]

Originally Posted by belolab

.........What things can your clients do to make it easier for you to create the perfect master?

Always be ready to change things in the mix.

Trust the ME !

See your mix with some distance..

Be ready to work with the ME. Don´t think "my work is done, let the ME do the rest - he will fix it" ..

A good master needs a good mix .. And if there are still improvements to do why not ? It will help to get a better result !!

I am pissed off when I got a bad quality mix of a great song to master and there is no "money" to do a great or even better mix.. It´s a waste of good music.. and even time ..

[holger]

Originally Posted by PatrikT

What else am I supposed to do? Preach? Teach? Don't think so...

Out o f business perspective maybe the best to get the job done fast and get the money. .

But aren´t the mastering engineers responsible for the sound of the market a little bit ?

see the metallica album .. isn´t anybody askling at first, what the Me did ?

just my 2cents

[It'sJoeAgain]

Originally Posted by IIIrd

using limiting plugins to give you that "hot", flat lined, loud mix.
that just what you need as a mastering engineer....zero headroom.
also i get annoyed with the "we'll sort it out in the mastering" brigade.

Originally Posted by inlinenl

well I'm not pissed off easy ....

but ... just not 1 millimillimilli second in start off the wav ... track cut in the start off the kick ....

having very obvious clicks in the track and not telling me ...


cheers Wim

i am at the very bottom of the food chain so i receive on a daily basis all of the ^^ above and I am also the one to check for:

low bitrate mp3 *mixes*
Mono mixes
seriously DC off set mixes
Mixies with yo-yo lead vocals
mixes with the end cut off
mixes with weird artifacts (besides clicking) and all over the place
mixes with an instrument (like bass guitar) phase inverted
hip-hop and dance music mixes with teeny bass drums
mixes in session files of an obscure digital software
tyhe list goes friggin' on..............

Yo seriously, i have the biggest collection of the most ridiculous mixes submitted for mastering u'll ever hear

[Dave Davis]

Stuff sounds best when the mix engineer SELECTIVELY sets high and low pass filters (as appropriate) on tracks - there's always garbage on the bottom, and it builds up fast... if its removed at the tracks, the whole mix opens up, but instruments with actual low end energy really pop forward. Masking happens at low freqs too!

-d-

[Darius van H]

I had a good one recently:

Two guys arrive at the studio for a session. When i ask for the files, they look at each other.

IDIOTS!

The only thing that really pisses me off is carelessness and thoughtlessness.

[IIIrd]

slightly off topic, but in the same vein...

playing a client a really long fade and he says "sorry i wasnt listening, can you play that again"

darius, thats funny....i had a guy turn up from france....he handed me a cd and said, we're cutting from that. i openned the cd case....empty....still in his stereo in paris. doh!

[Joe_caithness]

FAKE SUB BASS!

Bane of my life!

that strange buzzing bee type sound with zero boom at all.

[wado1942]

Consistently, the biggest mistake I find on most mixes is the monitor level being too low. It forces the mixer to crank up the low end, push everything super hot, etc. I just went to a fellow sound for video mixer's place yesterday and his monitoring system was a good 15dB too low. So even though he had pretty good ears, spoken voice was maximum loudness and everything else was the same. I had him hop on the internet and download some test noise off my site, play it from his editor while I turned on my SPL meter.

[Everlast]

Overbrightness and overbassyness...and both combined

[Jerry Tubb]

What's the biggest mistake mix engineers make?

Not taking the project to a real mastering engineer!

I have a long list, that I won't post (yet).
Mainly DIY pseudo mastering, Formatting, & Monitoring issues, could write a novel on this.
Over the years we've seen nearly anything & everything happen.
A big part of our job as MEs is to effectively deal with the wide variety of these issues, and make the best of it.
Just yesterday we had clients show up with mixes that were crushed to death by the mix engineer,
trying to master as he mixed, we sent them home to reprint the mixes at a sane level.
I'm not complaining, just musing and happy that people are coming in our door with something.

JT

[Sunim Koria]

A severe -12dB notch at precisely 250Hz on the 2bus EQ.

SK

[24-96 Mastering]

Originally Posted by IIIrd

playing a client a really long fade and he says "sorry i wasnt listening, can you play that again"

Indeed, same thing when clients just start talking to each other while they (or even just you) are supposed to be listening. Mind you, I don't care nearly as much if they're paying be the hour ;)

Originally Posted by inlinenl

track cut in the start off the kick ....

Happening a lot here with electronic tracks. First kick scrambled because of zero prerun on bounce/export. Luckily most electronic tracks are quite repetitive, so ctrl+c -> ctrl+v




A couple of other (OT) session annoyances:

- When you ask: "Right, so what's the order of the songs going to be?" and the client answers: "Good question... what would you suggest?"

- When after the session is all done, the client says: "Great master! Now can you please make a version a couple dB louder for itunes. Just burn it louder... no change in sound necessary"

- When at the end of an 8-hour session, the client says any of the following:
"Dirk* said you'll make us a really good price."
"Dirk* said to expect an album mastering to cost around 200 Euro."
"Surely we get the 'privately financed artist discount'... we run the company/label/publishing company/multinational media conglomerate ourselves"
"Thanks man. Just send us the bill, we'll transfer the money as soon as we make some money with the release."
"Glad the project is done. I'll send you the instrumental mixes, TV-Playback mixes, remixes, b-sides, promo and radio edits tomorrow, then you can just let em run through with the same settings... that won't cost extra, right?"

- any of the above get even better when followed by: "Hey, should we pitch in for the coffee & Haribo?"


*some previous client or shared acquanitance

[ncoak]

Originally Posted by Darius van H

I had a good one recently:

Two guys arrive at the studio for a session. When i ask for the files, they look at each other.

IDIOTS!

The only thing that really pisses me off is carelessness and thoughtlessness.

lol!

[Bob Olhsson]

Not labeling files clearly soars above every other indiscretion as an annoyance.

The most common sonic problems are clipping plug-ins and the crunchy sound of multiple undithered DSP generations applied to 16 bit files.

Another problem is so much signal processing that the mix only sounds balanced on the same speakers at the very same volume in the room where it was mixed. Sometimes this can be straightened out with radical overall eq. but it's often pretty hopeless.

[jdtrbn]

Originally Posted by 24-96 Mastering

A couple of other (OT) session annoyances:

- When you ask: "Right, so what's the order of the songs going to be?" and the client answers: "Good question... what would you suggest?"

- When after the session is all done, the client says: "Great master! Now can you please make a version a couple dB louder for itunes. Just burn it louder... no change in sound necessary"

- When at the end of an 8-hour session, the client says any of the following:
"Dirk* said you'll make us a really good price."
"Dirk* said to expect an album mastering to cost around 200 Euro."
"Surely we get the 'privately financed artist discount'... we run the company/label/publishing company/multinational media conglomerate ourselves"
"Thanks man. Just send us the bill, we'll transfer the money as soon as we make some money with the release."
"Glad the project is done. I'll send you the instrumental mixes, TV-Playback mixes, remixes, b-sides, promo and radio edits tomorrow, then you can just let em run through with the same settings... that won't cost extra, right?"

- any of the above get even better when followed by: "Hey, should we pitch in for the coffee & Haribo?"

That's some scary shit right there.

[RDMS]

Handing over a cheap audio cd in paper sleeve with biro writing that clearly has affected the play surface, is scratched and already slammed through a BAD limiter. (This from a well known studio !!!???!!)

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Not labeling files clearly soars above every other indiscretion as an annoyance.

How about "Your files CD is in the order of the album." Yeah... only the files CD is in ALPHABETICAL order. Don't forget to send the list of the order of the album!

[Jeff Carroll]

Mixes in which the drums take up too much space in the stereo spectrum is a common mix mistake. Sometimes they are phasey, but more often it's just too spread out for the song & it tends to clutter things up. Just because the kit was recorded with 17 mics doesn't mean they all have to be used. Some of the best mixes have very focused drums, perhaps recorded with just one overhead mic instead of two. A minimalist approach to mixing drums can really free up space in the spectrum, and often serve the song better. Avoid wacky phase problems, especially on kick & snare.

[graincloud]

"Another problem is so much signal processing that the mix only sounds balanced on the same speakers at the very same volume in the room where it was mixed. Sometimes this can be straightened out with radical overall eq. but it's often pretty hopeless."

spot on bob!
i'm working on experimental electronica most of the time what means really wet signal, busy mixes and loads of dsp processing... also mean experimental way of mixing that could turn out great but doesn't have many point of reference to judge the mix... you'd better know the genre and intentions to work on it.

was trying to explain the phenomena to the artist the other day but i felt he was considering my point as a bit strange and suspicious....
how do you handle that as of course the client will check the work back on the system he has written and mixed on ?!

- other than that : mastering compilation with files squashed to -4 rms with files with loads of headroom, another sounding like mp3 and so on... no way to have files remixed... and people asking why i was giving a master that sounded lower than the -4squashed file...cuz they want it loud for both gigs and mp3 players hm

so my problem is more in weird/non realist expectations from the client in relation to the material submitted.

[Kiljoy]

Originally Posted by Darius van H

I had a good one recently:

Two guys arrive at the studio for a session. When i ask for the files, they look at each other.

IDIOTS!

The only thing that really pisses me off is carelessness and thoughtlessness.

That happened to me just 2 weeks ago. The mix engineer had not even prepared the mixes yet and it took 3 day for them to get me the data... Awesome!

[Table Of Tone]

Originally Posted by Darius van H

I had a good one recently:

Two guys arrive at the studio for a session. When i ask for the files, they look at each other.

IDIOTS!

The only thing that really pisses me off is carelessness and thoughtlessness.

Ha Ha!
When I once asked an artist for the 24 bit audio files, she gave me the email addresses of six different mix engineers!
This was after she turned up to get the stuff mastered!

Some people are just SUPER flakey!