dealing with +100 tracks and revisions

[Tony Maserati]

Originally Posted by Russell Elevado

hello tony,

major props for maintaining your career after all these years. you have managed to embrace the digital format better than i have been able to. thanks for taking the time to be here. i had a great experience when i did my Q&A here...best of luck with your time here and hope you have as much fun as i did.

more and more i'm getting sessions that have 100 or more tracks. and it seems people still expect you to complete a mix in the same time for less money but with double the amount of tracks. for me that equals less time for creativity. although i have a loose guideline as to how the sessions should be organized before they send them to me, i still end up spending too much time organizing. then everyone is asking to have revisions and that can go on indefinitely for as long as you let it...

so it got me thinking one day, would it be fair to scale the mix rate according to the amount of tracks? how many revisions do you do for "free"? where do you draw the line? and how do you feel about printing stems for clients?

BTW, i still mix OTB and still use tape (2" and 1/2") for about 85% of my work.

all the best

Hey Russ,
Wow! Still using analog tape and mixing to 1/2 inch! Whoa! I can't imagine doing that.

My assistant and I tag team on the bigger sessions to get the 'prep time' done as fast as we can. Luckily it's not that often. (I jus had one that was over 250 tho. I had to spend hours bouncing vocals into stems jus to get the thing to fit into 192 voices!!!!) We tried the setup guidelines for clients and that jus didn't work... Although, I do know a particular mixer who can do that...

Regarding the issue of track count/dollar; lots of my colleagues are doing different things. If they have a studio they may charge for all the additional studio time to make changes, or rental fees for the esoteric equipment... That being said, I'd love to think there's an equitable situation to be worked out, but there never is. Our business is about tallying it all up at the end of the year (or end of a career) and hope it comes out on the plus side. ... and even if/wen i try to do that, the details are so mushed up in me brain, I'd rather take the day off, I've given myself, and get a beer with friends.

I say it over an over, make the best deal you can at the time, hopefully you've charged the 'problem' client a bit extra for your time. In the end you still deliver top professional quality and creativity you can... If you dig going into work more than 65-75% of the time, yer way ahead.

Enjoy,
t