Maybe going to court - but am I in the wrong?

[Ramshackles]

Ok, so first of all, this is going to be a thread about a musician complaining about a studio/engineer. So I realise I may not get much sympathy, but I hope you can see it from an unbiased point of view.
Scroll down to 'the facts from my end' for the summary...

So, a few months ago, I asked a local studio owner to mix a song. It was agreed that the final audio file would be delivered upon reciept of payment. Note that no contracts etc were involved and this was all done via email. In my head, from delivery of the raw files to delivery of the mix is what, a 2-3 day job? Is that reasonable? Or, if it is going to take longer, I would expect a 'I'm booked up for this long, but I can deliver it to you by...' kind of message. I didnt get that.

Anyways, after more than a month of waiting and the guy making various excuses about personal problems getting in the way of work but that he is going to do my mix asap, I final got a preview of the mix.
I thought the mix sucked, but out of politeness and naivety I initially sent an email saying that I was fairly happy with the mix. I then sent an email correcting myself and saying that I was disappointed with the mix - I felt it was of poor quality and not in keeping at all with the audio samples on the studio website, and that he had not been honest with me at all about how long it would take him to complete. For those reasons, I didnt want the final audio file and wasnt going to pay.

But, the guy chose to ignore this last email I sent, instead sending an invoice for over 12 hours of work. I have no way to verify that he actually did 12 hours work, but even if so, it seems even more unreasonable that it took over a month to do 12 hours of work...
I ignored the invoice he sent, but I'm now being threatened with the small claims court.

What are my rights in such a situation? I've been stupid and naive in that I should have withdrawn the work when he was delaying and delaying and in my initial email saying the mix was fine.
Am I screwed?

The facts from my end:
1) Work was below the standard as suggested by his website and below the standard that I expected and requested
2) Work was finished extremely late. About 1 and a half months to complete a mix is unreasonable, no?
3) Despite taking so long, the engineer only claims to have worked for around 10hrs or so on the mix
4) I have no way to verify that this many hours were spent on the work. The quality of the result suggest not at all. I guess this doesnt matter at all, apart from the fact that how would the guy in question even prove he worked on it for 1 hour? Does that even matter? (in a court)
5). I have not paid for the work. Audio file has not been delivered. As per agreement.

Facts from his end (I'm trying to be unbiased here):
1). Work was completed as per agreement.

I'm even questioning now if I am even morally wrong in refusing to pay. I think it was shoddy work, unreasonably delayed and I dont believe that this amount of time was even spent on it.

Should I send these complaints to the guy to try and prevent court, or just wait for court?

[always_ending]

Going to be difficult IMO to get a judge in small claims to get your point of it being a "shoddy mix" and not up to your standards.

In their eyes, they'll see this as a man worked 12 hours and has the work to prove it; you sent an initial email stating the work was satisfactory, and now you won't pay the agreed upon amount.

Going to be an "uphill battle" for you I believe, sorry to say. Although you might have an "out" being that there's no official contractual agreements for work.

I would suggest just calling a local law office and asking around till you find one that'll offer a "free consultation" or "advice" on the situation and explain to them that you didn't have a written contract and ask what your state laws are on "binding agreements" between two parties and how the email correspondences play into that (if they're legally binding or not in this case is what everything "rests upon") .

BTW, how much is he charging you per hour for this "poor" work?

If you'd like, PM me about the work. I'd love to know what it is, what you're looking to get out of it, etc.

I'd be willing (as some others around here might as well) to take the track stems that you have (that is what you have correct? stems, or all the original track wav files?) and provide you with a "quick mix" for free on a single track to see if you were satisfied and wanted the job finished or not.

I can use the work mixing and would gladly help someone who's getting screwed over get what they deserve (a GOOD mix).

PM me some details if you'd like man, I'll help out as much as I can reasonably do.... and I'm certainly not a crook nor would I attempt what this person is doing.

Peace

[always_ending]

And the time it takes to do a "mix" completely depends on what the project even is.....

Is it a singer/songwriter? full "standard rock/pop/blues/etc" band setup? larger than average composition (40+ tracks)?

Is this one song? a "Demo"? EP? LP?

[Jeff Hayat]

Originally Posted by always_ending

Going to be difficult IMO to get a judge in small claims to get your point of it being a "shoddy mix" and not up to your standards.

In their eyes, they'll see this as a man worked 12 hours and has the work to prove it; you sent an initial email stating the work was satisfactory, and now you won't pay the agreed upon amount.

Agreed. Your mistake was that email that said you were happy with the mix. Why would you do that?

Also, depends on where you live. If in the US, you stand no chance whatsoever. Laws dictate that if someone does work for you, you HAVE to pay them. Again, that's the law. You would have to show either, that they didn't do all or some of the work, (cant do that here), or that they didn't do the work properly. Cant do that here either, because sound quality is a subjective thing, and even if the judge moonlights as an audio engineer at a multi-million dollar studio, it is not his/her place to say whether the audio quality is good or bad. And remember - the burden of proof is on you.

Next Q: why would you ship the track off to a studio, and not attend? Attending a session can allieviate so many problems. Also, was there any stipulation that x-mixes would be done until you were happy? If there wasn't, you should not have used that studio.

Cheers.

[DaveE]

Wait a sec... I'm no lawyer but you might have a few legs to stand on.

1) You didn't receive finished product (the full version of the full res file)
2) You didn't commision 12 hours of work (you commisioned finished product)

It was a mistake to say you were happy with the mix when you weren't. Its common to do a mix test/example of say 30 seconds of the mix- when customer approves the mixer finishes the rest of the song.

This is the unfortunate result of poor communication. He ignores one email, you ignore the next- when the whole thing could have been setted quickly by you giving thumbs down to the preview.

[stuartb]

How much was the payment you agree to pay to receive the full mixes?

Was it an hourly fee or a lump sum for the mix? Did you talk about how many hours/days it would be until you received the finished mix?

If you have these discussions in an email you may have a point to argue.

If not then I'm sorry but I would just chalk this one up to naivety and learn to ask more questions (ie how much is this gonna cost me!) before you hire someone's services next time.

[couch11]

Sounds like poor communications on your part. Personally I don't think you have a leg to stand on. You hired someone to do some work. They sent you a mix and you initially said you were happy with it. You then change your mind(at least from his point of view) and said you weren't happy with it. Whether you are happy with it or not, he should be paid for his work.

[jonathan jetter]

there are several problems here, as already stated.

1. sending an email approving the mix and then another one renouncing that approval is really problematic. in his shoes, i would view this as the client getting cold feet and wanting to pull out of the agreement after i'd already invested my time. i would hate that, and would quite probably follow up with an invoice, and then small claims if needed.

2. 2-3 day turnaround time. i pretty much can never do that. usually am booked 2 weeks or so in advance, and other people more established are booked much further in advance. now, granted, i would always say that up front, and if he didn't, that's poor communication. but the idea that the engineer is just sitting there ready to go as soon as the files are delivered is not really accurate.

3. the poor quality. it's possible that he's being lazy and doing a half-assed job. but also possible that your tracks are not recorded well, and that there's no way for them to be mixed as well as the samples on his site. are you sure that your tracks are good?

4. engineer spending 10 hours on this. i'm not sure why you're complaining about this relative to the long turnaround time. (it's like you're complaining that the # of hours is low?) if anything, 10 hours is definitely toward the longer end of the potential time i'd spend to mix one song. but it's definitely in the "reasonable" ballpark.

5. prepare for the inevitable onslaught of GS peeps wanting to mix your track.

based on what you're saying, it sounds like the mixer is really not pulling his weight on this one. but there's enough ambiguity that there could easily be other explanations.

also, if you don't mind my asking, how much was the invoice for?

[Ramshackles]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm gonna answer in full when this is shortly sorted out...

[Duardo]

Did you agree on any sort of price at the beginning?

In any case, if he's open to it, you might tell him what it was specifically about the mix you didn't like and give him the chance to get it right. How well that would go over may depend on the specific arrangements you made for payment.

[chrisso]

You commissioned someone to work for you. You seemingly didn't agree a budget before hand. 12 hours is a completely reasonable amount of time to perform a mix. Whether it is any good or not is subjective.
The fact is in the music industry people are generally paid for the hours they work. If you aren't happy with the work, the worker is still generally paid. That's how it works, exactly because creativity is subjective.
The studio owner is completely in the right, and even though you aren't really wrong in being upset about paying for a product you don't like, you needed to nail a lot of these things down ahead of time, maybe dropped into the studio while the mix was still in progress to pass on some honest observations.
Pay the man and regard this as some tough lessons learnt.
Going to court is only going to cost you more money!

[Chris Lago]

For future reference, agree on a set price for mixing + revisions. Don't pay per hour for mixing. 12 hours is reasonable, and the fact that he made you wait so long is not. I don't think you can win this unfortunately. Next time, be honest right off the bat. And please I suggest that once everything is settled, that you post a before and after mix on here, and you let us know his name.

[Jeff Hayat]

Originally Posted by Chris Lago

And please I suggest that once everything is settled, that you post a before and after mix on here, and you let us know his name.

That's not really fair. As alluded to earlier - say the recording was subpar, and the mixing engineer was extemely limited. I mean, who knows - the drums could have been two stereo tracks, there could have been one mono guitar track, and the bass could have been nothing but mud. I am not meaning to suugest that I think Ram gave the engineer crap, but the point is, we dont know. If the recording was bad, the engineer might have done a 'good' job with what he had to work with. He might have other work that sounds steller. And then here we go, outing this guy, saying, "listen to this crap mix!" - and then he goes and gets a bad rap. For what? Not right, IMO.

Cheers.

[Chris Lago]

Originally Posted by Jeff Hayat

That's not really fair. As alluded to earlier - say the recording was subpar, and the mixing engineer was extemely limited. I mean, who knows - the drums could have been two stereo tracks, there could have been one mono guitar track, and the bass could have been nothing but mud. I am not meaning to suugest that I think Ram gave the engineer crap, but the point is, we dont know. If the recording was bad, the engineer might have done a 'good' job with what he had to work with. He might have other work that sounds steller. And then here we go, outing this guy, saying, "listen to this crap mix!" - and then he goes and gets a bad rap. For what? Not right, IMO.

Cheers.

Yeah I guess you're right.

[Ramshackles]

Thanks for all replies. Some things that I didnt post earlier that I have had recapped of after looking back through my emails:

1. The only agreements we made in writing (again, just email) is the hourly rate and the fact that after 1-3 hrs of work (when he reached a good point for 'review') a preview would be sent, we pay for that work and see if we want to continue. No previews were sent except of the final mix.

2. After finally receiving the preview of the final mix and invoice, I sent an initial email saying I quite liked the mix. A little bit after that (under 24 hrs) I sent an email stating that after a few listens, I had these problems with the mix (followed by a list of my issues - in which I think were a fair few non-subjective issues. Although, its probably subjective as to whether they were subjective). In the subsequent emails asking why I havent paid, he has made no note of this email.

3. A couple of specific of things that we discussed (timing correction, panning of acoustic guitars) were not carried out - this isnt a subjective complaint as it was explicitly stated.

4. A couple of points about pricing from his website state that for all jobs:
He should send a proposal detailing how long he would expect a job to take and fix the price at that. That wasnt carried out.
He also states that 'If you are still not happy, dont pay'. This is on his website.

5. This is maybe not relevant as it is above 'normal' serivces, but for learning purposes I asked him to send some notes on what he was doing with each update (stuff about what processing he was applying etc) which he agreed to. Like the other updates, this wasnt done.

As an aside (I dont think this actually has anything to do with this specific complaint we are discussing, although it does give me a clearer image of who I'm dealing with), I discovered today that on another website promoting his services - (it seems his studio recently moved location or something and both websites are still up - the one Im familiar with and this new one) - he has a 'before and after' sample of our song available, which is up without my permission. It's actually on one of those soundcloud widget things, so it's on 2 sites - his and soundcloud. Am I wrong, but dont I still hold the rights to the music and the recording, regardless of what mixing he has done?
I'm also misquoted on the website as being a 'happy customer'.


Now, in reference to all the points that have been made in peoples replies:
I realise most of you are engineers/studio owners and probably have stories about ahole artists that have tried to get out of paying. I sincerely believe that this is a different situation, even if I've f*cked up so badly that I am screwed.

I realise now that I have been totally naive and stupid in my communication and agreement toward letting him mix. It was actually the first time I've had any experience of working with outside people/commissioning these types of services. I think now that this guy hooked onto that and thought he could make a quick buck out of me and rolled out his usual 'BS to impress' routine to snare me. Thats something I'll learn from.
I've done it many times since with other people (this incident dates back to september/october) but now of course always have a clear agreement with what the cost will be and of course dont pay per hour! (Taken out of context that sentence could easily by about hookers...)
A couple more things I've learned -
- I should always be completely honest straight away about how I feel about peoples work. After talking to a few people, most of them state that if someone is unhappy and it cant be fixed, they offer half price or for free.
I dont know if its naievty/idiocy/stuipdness of youth/ignorance or whatever, but something about the subjective and personal nature of this kind of work and the fact that he gave off an air of being so much more experienced than me, made me too timid and polite to say 'I think it's no good'. That was stupid.

-Always go with instinct and try to look past the BS. I visited the studio before getting the mix done and remember thinking that it wasnt much more than an overly large spare room with some good speakers and a DAW. But then the guy impressed me with his talk and the audio samples on his website were very good. Of course, I didnt ask him to verify that they were actually his samples.


For the fact that my tracks were poorly tracked. That might be so, but it is tempting to put the link to the site where has put his before and after version and a link to the mix that I did myself. But it's probably grossly unfair to burn him, at least not until this is completely over...
For what it's worth in the first emailing after he got the tracks, he said 'Your tracks are all well recorded'....

On not attending the studio - this was mixed in england, near my hometown, but at the time I was studying abroad. I said that I could come and attend the session if we delayed it (in order to get cheap tickets :D) and if it was on a weekend. He stated that he'd work better without and that it would be better to get this done quick (This was before the massive delays of course).

A final thing I've learned - always keep email records until everything is over. I'm glad I still have these emails, I think there is a lot in my favour that I'd totally forgotten we discussed.
I guess all my 'lessons' are obvious, but I guess not all first forays into a new aspect of something can be good experiences. This is probably the worst experience I've had in music (so far).


Oh, apologies to everyone asking about mixing. This isnt what the thread was about. We actually had the drums redone and the whole thing remixed. The EP is actually going to be mastered next week, by an engineer that I believe has good reputation and seems to be happy with the quality - so it's not great, top quality, major label tracking, but I dont think its awful :D...

[idylldon]

The chances of you winning in small claims court are next to nil. Sorry, but there are too many issues with your side of things and no judge is going to sit there an listen to all of it anyway. He or she will cut to the chase and basically boil it down to whether or not the person did the work for you and whether or not you paid for that work. He might mediate a bit, but my experiences in this type of court setting suggest that would be an exception to the rule.

but I'm now being threatened with the small claims court

My advice is to ignore the problem until he actually files a claim. There's usually a long distance between threatening and doing. Most of the time these threats are hollow. In the event it's not, then go and present your case. Until then, put it out of your mind. It does no good to worry about something that will most likely blow over.

Cheers,
--
Don

[coffeecup77]

Hi all,

To OP, thanks for sharing, it's so nice to see people still know how to write, with good punctuation. But sorry, I cannot be of aid here. Just one question, because this has been mentionned a certain number of times above and I would like to understand:

I took this example, but could have been another:

Originally Posted by idylldon

... He or she [judge] will cut to the chase and basically boil it down to whether or not the person did the work for you and whether or not you paid for that work. ...

Does this mean that, if say, I go to a restaurant and order a large plate of fries and the "chef" serves me a plate of burnt-to-almost-charcoil potato sticks that smell of rancid oil, I would loose in a small claims court if I decided not to pay for this uneatable dish ? I mean, is that the logic ?

Cheers.

[couch11]

Originally Posted by coffeecup77

Hi all,

To OP, thanks for sharing, it's so nice to see people still know how to write, with good punctuation. But sorry, I cannot be of aid here. Just one question, because this has been mentionned a certain number of times above and I would like to understand:

I took this example, but could have been another:


Does this mean that, if say, I go to a restaurant and order a large plate of fries and the "chef" serves me a plate of burnt-to-almost-charcoil potato sticks that smell of rancid oil, I would loose in a small claims court if I decided not to pay for this uneatable dish ? I mean, is that the logic ?

Cheers.

The OP tells the judge the Mix is no good. The judge asks to listen to the mix. The judge really won't be able to tell if the mix is good or not. The judge will not understand what makes the mix bad. And the mix being bad is totally subjective. The case you presented is less subjective. Burnt fries are burnt fries.

[idylldon]

Originally Posted by coffeecup77

Does this mean that, if say, I go to a restaurant and order a large plate of fries and the "chef" serves me a plate of burnt-to-almost-charcoil potato sticks that smell of rancid oil, I would loose in a small claims court if I decided not to pay for this uneatable dish ? I mean, is that the logic ?Cheers.

Guess you've never been to small claims court in the U.S., eh? Logic seldom has anything to do with the outcome in my experience.

Couch11 nailed the difference between the OP's dilemma and your example.

Cheers,
--
Don

[Ward Pike]

You're fine. You'll easily win unless the magistrate/judge/justice has no idea about customer service and reasonable expectations... which I doubt.

Draw analogies.
You wouldn't wait 12 hours for a cup of coffee.
You wouldn't wait 12 days for a next-day delivery.
You wouldn't wait 1 month for summary arguments in a court case.

If I let down a customer as badly as you've been let down, I would sell my gear at a deep discount and find another line of work.

[coffeecup77]

Hi couch11,

I tried to take a common example anyone can relate to. I probably overdid the "cooking" bit. That's why I wrote "uneatable dish" and "smell of rancid oil". Enlarge the possibilities that could make a dish uneatable for your subjective reasons. I could have used, I don't know, an interior decoration example with really "horrible" color associations, or a hair-dresser not doing the "right" dye your girlfriend asked for, or etc ... etc ...

I just wanted to know the logics. If the judge is unable to differentiate a good mix from a bad one, how can he/she judge ? Is it unreasonable to think he/she could rule that the "engineer" redo the mix to the client's satisfaction ?

Again, (the thread being "Maybe going to court - but am I in the wrong?"), I'm just trying to understand the logic behind posts that say: "the judge will rule it this way.".

Edit : @ idylldon : You guessed right :-)


Cheers.

[UpNSmoke]

If you have a mustache in court, you will prevail

[couch11]

Originally Posted by coffeecup77

Hi couch11,

I tried to take a common example anyone can relate to. I probably overdid the "cooking" bit. That's why I wrote "uneatable dish" and "smell of rancid oil". Enlarge the possibilities that could make a dish uneatable for your subjective reasons. I could have used, I don't know, an interior decoration example with really "horrible" color associations, or a hair-dresser not doing the "right" dye your girlfriend asked for, or etc ... etc ...

I just wanted to know the logics. If the judge is unable to differentiate a good mix from a bad one, how can he/she judge ? Is it unreasonable to think he/she could rule that the "engineer" redo the mix to the clients satisfaction ?

Again, (the thread being "Maybe going to court - but am I in the wrong?"), I'm just trying to understand the logic behind posts that say: "the judge will rule it this way.".

Edit : @ idylldon : You guessed right :-)


Cheers.

I'm not sure why you would think a judge would be able to tell a good mix from a bad mix. Half the people that post their mixes in the Work For Hire sub forum can't even tell their mixes aren't good. How is a judge going to be able to tell the difference. So that leaves us with having expert witnesses come in and testify. So the plaintiff and defendant have their expert witnesses contradict each other.

Redoing the mix to the client's satisfaction? How many hours should the engineer have to give up of his time to satisfy the client? What happens if the client is never happy? What if what the client wants is not even possible with the tracks provided to the engineer?

[chrisso]

Originally Posted by couch11

I'm not sure why you would think a judge would be able to tell a good mix from a bad mix. Half the people that post their mixes in the Work For Hire sub forum can't even tell their mixes aren't good.

Exactly!

Forget going to court.
Pay the bill and move on. Lesson learnt.

[chrisso]

Ohhh, and I hope you don't think top artists don't reject mixes from some of the best producers and mixers in the business?
It happens all the time.

If Michael Brauer or Tony Maserati mixed your song and you decided they'd missed the spot and you needed it remixed, you wouldn't pay them?
Again, these things are routine in the industry, they happen daily.
The mixer did the work, the artist or label decide it could be improved..... but it's normal to pay the person who's mix you have rejected.

[coffeecup77]

Originally Posted by couch11

I'm not sure why you would think a judge would be able to tell a good mix from a bad mix.

I don't think anything, in one way or another, I am asking a question. But I don't see how you can outrule that possibility. And if he is unable to judge (even with the assistance of "experts"), does that not render him incompetent for the case ?

Originally Posted by couch11

Redoing the mix to the client's satisfaction?

Don't forget I was only suggesting another possible ruling. But is it not THE reason they first did business ? For the "engineer" to satisfy the request of his client ? Is that such a wild or crazy unrealistic idea ?

Originally Posted by couch11

How many hours should the engineer have to give up of his time to satisfy the client?

The ability to quantify that is one difference between the professionnal and the hobbyist. The paid professionnal is committed to his client's satisfaction and should know what it demands. The time it takes is not in the concerns of the client once an agreement is reached.

Originally Posted by couch11

What happens if the client is never happy?

I don't think either of the two parties wants this to last months or years.

Originally Posted by couch11

What if what the client wants is not even possible with the tracks provided to the engineer?

Well, if at first listening to the tracks for about 1/2 an hour, and after asking his client what he wanted, the "engineer" is not able to say "Sorry but there's nothing I can do with your tracks, we no longer have a deal", should he have the right to send invoices as a "mixer" ?

Again, I'm only trying to understand.

Cheers.

[couch11]

I understand your questioning Coffeecup77. And I don't disagree with it, I'm just saying that the client asked for a service, the engineer gave him a product and charged for it. Going purely off the original post(since that is where we are hypothetically basing our judgements), there was poor communication from both sides. But 1) He should have never assumed the mixes would be done in 1-2 days. Yes the engineer should have been more upfront about when he would get the mix done, but the OP failed to ask. 2) I'm not sure there really ever was an agreement except for that a song would be mixed and payment was to be received upon delivery 3) the OP should have never said he liked the mixes. 4) After the OP said he didn't like the mixes, I'm assuming that the engineer just said "fine" and billed for his time.

I'm thinking the amount the OP owes isn't enough for the engineer really to bother with. More money is usually lost trying to take someone to court over a little amount. But what the Studio/Engineer could do would be to warn other engineers and studios in the area not to take work from the OP. If it's a small enough recording community, then that could be something to worry about.

I'm all for trying to make the client happy and obviously this engineer didn't try. Maybe the engineer was having a really bad day, week, or month. Hopefully lessons were learned by the OP.

[jonathan jetter]

Originally Posted by Ramshackles

1. The only agreements we made in writing (again, just email) is the hourly rate and the fact that after 1-3 hrs of work (when he reached a good point for 'review') a preview would be sent, we pay for that work and see if we want to continue. No previews were sent except of the final mix.

as a mixer, i'd never agree to those terms. but if he did, then yes, it's his obligation to adhere to them.

2. After finally receiving the preview of the final mix and invoice, I sent an initial email saying I quite liked the mix. A little bit after that (under 24 hrs) I sent an email stating that after a few listens, I had these problems with the mix (followed by a list of my issues - in which I think were a fair few non-subjective issues.

this is a huge issue on your part. the #1 thing in my mind if i ran into this as a mixer would be that the client played the mix for his "friends" and one of them wants to have a crack at "mixing" it.

4. A couple of points about pricing from his website state that for all jobs:
He should send a proposal detailing how long he would expect a job to take and fix the price at that. That wasnt carried out.
He also states that 'If you are still not happy, dont pay'. This is on his website.

again i'd never offer those terms. but if he did, then yes, it's his job to follow them.

5. This is maybe not relevant as it is above 'normal' serivces, but for learning purposes I asked him to send some notes on what he was doing with each update (stuff about what processing he was applying etc) which he agreed to. Like the other updates, this wasnt done.

this is a little weird IMO. if he agreed to it, then cool. but again, i wouldn't do it, in his position.

As an aside (I dont think this actually has anything to do with this specific complaint we are discussing, although it does give me a clearer image of who I'm dealing with), I discovered today that on another website promoting his services - (it seems his studio recently moved location or something and both websites are still up - the one Im familiar with and this new one) - he has a 'before and after' sample of our song available, which is up without my permission. It's actually on one of those soundcloud widget things, so it's on 2 sites - his and soundcloud. Am I wrong, but dont I still hold the rights to the music and the recording, regardless of what mixing he has done?
I'm also misquoted on the website as being a 'happy customer'.

i know you call this an "aside," but to me it's actually the most blatant screwup on his part. this is actually quite inexcusable.

-Always go with instinct and try to look past the BS. I visited the studio before getting the mix done and remember thinking that it wasnt much more than an overly large spare room with some good speakers and a DAW.

a good operator with good speakers and a DAW is all you need. i'm not saying i'm god's gift to mixing, but there have been at least 4 situations in the past 2 years where me and my humble little PTHD + handful of outboard pieces was called in to fix some truly horrendous mixes from older, much more established engineers with much better equipment. judge the operator, his skills, and his ears.

[coffeecup77]

You are definitely right Couch11: very poor communication on both sides. And I think that's where a lot of hassle comes from a lot of times. But I do not forget that one of the two is a "billing professionnal". The client is not, and does not have to be (a professionnal).

Another question that comes to mind is: Do all "engineers" get the mix "right" (or to the client's satisfaction) the first time around ? I think the answer is obvious. I would suggest the studio/engineer to ask his client what he would like to have corrected, agree to do it in the presence of the client, spend 4-6 hours on it, shake hands, get paid... then go buy some new gear !!!

BTW, how's the weather in Nashville ?

Cheers !

[suedesound]

i think you two should talk and settle on maybe a half payment. too many obscurities in the communication. pay him something for spending a day on your mix and call it a day. not worth going to court by any means. i also would not have him do another mix at this point because he's pissed at you and that will reflect in the work and continue this