Hiring a Mix Engineer for an upcoming CD?!?!

[dave_w]

Hey slutz,

I produce music in a group and I'm looking for a mixing engineer for our upcoming CD. The first one that was released was mixed entirely by me and mastered by a great guy in Vancouver. I've gotten alot of positive feedback for it.. but I know that I'm not the greatest and that someone with better knowledge/gear could make us sound alot better.

I want to hire someone who can make it pound and not sound so flat.. but be smart enough to know when enough is enough with the low end. What is the best way to go about hiring someone for this?

Hear what they've worked on? Ask them to do one song and hope for the best?

And how does it work if I'm mixing in logic? Would I have to send a whack of files with ftp??

Thanks!
Dave

If you're curious to see our abstract style you can listen at:

MySpace.com - Transition - CA - Experimental - www.myspace.com/transitionvictoria

[RyanC]

I think hard drives are the best way to move stuff around, for full projects it's just easier and safer. . . B1B1 audio and don't print too many FX.

Also the other thing to consider is that I think it's never good to be at the low end of someone budget wise. Which is to say that if Joe Bob mixer usually charges X, but he'll give you a deal for less, don't bother. You are much better of to be in the category of an important client in someones budget, then to be the job that the interns do 90% of while working all night long. . . I can do better mastering than the local grammy winning place, if you are their cheapo client.

If someone wants to mix it for cheap because they think you have got it, they will also want a piece on the back end.

I do a lot of mixes for people all over, but I'm not much for trying to pimp myself on GS, PM me if you want some more info.

[dave_w]

Good advice Ryan. Thanks!
It would be great to find a hybrid hiphop/rock producer.
Anybody have any business cards?

[Chaellus]

Best thing to do.. depending on how much doe you bring to the table is to find an already establish artist that you like and can relate to soundwise and see whos done the work on it.. chances are youll be spending big cash but youll have someone with great experiance working behind it.. or you could listen to what someone has done and the last beening you could have someone mix half a song or 30 seconds of a song and see if its met your demand.... when working locally what you should have with you is a Harddrive to Store your Files after the mix engineer has worked on them because the studio will most likely discard them after your sdervice is done..also when preparing the session it saves the engineer time if you label all your indiviual tracks....if your going to send stuff very distant FTP comes in to play and you just convert your indivual files to Wav 24 bit 44.1K so that they are supported on all systems. hope that helps im no hybrid hiphop/rock producer but i have mixed indie,rock and rnb...as well as country...

[robmix]

Originally Posted by RyanC

I think hard drives are the best way to move stuff around, for full projects it's just easier and safer. . . B1B1 audio and don't print too many FX.

Also the other thing to consider is that I think it's never good to be at the low end of someone budget wise. Which is to say that if Joe Bob mixer usually charges X, but he'll give you a deal for less, don't bother. You are much better of to be in the category of an important client in someones budget, then to be the job that the interns do 90% of while working all night long. . . I can do better mastering than the local grammy winning place, if you are their cheapo client.

If someone wants to mix it for cheap because they think you have got it, they will also want a piece on the back end.

I do a lot of mixes for people all over, but I'm not much for trying to pimp myself on GS, PM me if you want some more info.

I couldn't disagree more. Any engineer who is established is going to approach each project with the same degree of dedication as their name is on it too. If they didn't have time for the gig they wouldn't offer. And as someone who assisted some of the biggest mix engineers in the biz while I was coming up, I can tell you that I was never put in charge of a mix behind the clients back, nor have I ever heard of it being done.

Sometimes the low budget stuff gets more time in my place because it's usually done at odd hours without the client even being there.

As far as file transfer, I've done stuff with hard drives, DVD-R's and ftp. If the sessions are small FTP could work. Otherwise, some kind of media would be best.

[JGILL]

I do mostly hiphop/ soul/ indie rock. If you can up load one of your tracks, I'll give it a test mix for free. If you like we can then talk about a budget.
J

For some songs I just mixed check out:

MySpace.com - SPERATIC "Come Join The Circus" - ORANGE COUNTY, California - Hip Hop / Rap / Jazz - www.myspace.com/speratic

[MYAMS]

Originally Posted by dave_w

Good advice Ryan. Thanks!
It would be great to find a hybrid hiphop/rock producer.
Anybody have any business cards?

PM BGrotto hes an excellent engineer who mixes across several genres. He works in a studio with loads of great analog gear.

[bgrotto]

Originally Posted by MYAMS

PM BGrotto hes an excellent engineer who mixes across several genres. He works in a studio with loads of great analog gear.

Thanks, MYAMS! You're makin' me blush


Anyway, Dave, if you're interested, shoot me an email at bgrotto@gmail.com; I'll get it and be able to respond to it much faster. I'll be happy to answer any questions you got.

[dave_w]

I love what this has turned into.
Why not look for someone right here on GS?

I love the guys that are sending me PMs with examples of their stuff and prices. If anybody wants to send that, it's welcomed warmly.

[Chaellus]

ok might om you tonite

[bgrotto]

Originally Posted by dave_w

I love the guys that are sending me PMs with examples of their stuff and prices. If anybody wants to send that, it's welcomed warmly.

Originally Posted by Chaellus

ok might pm you tonite

Wow, so it's really a buyers' market, huh?

Do you mind if I ask you how many people are PMing you?

[dave_w]

I'm getting quite a few. I was just checking out the redgreenblue thread that alot of you have written on.. and I love the mixes that were coming out of it.

What is the best way for me to throw 2 gb worth of individuals tracks up for people to get their hands on. I figure whoever can mix our music best would be the ideal choice.. right?

[Chaellus]

pack all your files wav 24bit 44.1khz and zip em in a folder and winrar that crap to Free File Hosting - File Dropper: File Host for Mp3, Videos, Music, Documents. post a link and if you are going to do the same thing like RGB you should post in the artist showcase just make a link from here to there...

[Alxi]

HI Dave

You should tell how much you are willing to pay for a mix before it starts. This will prevent some people from waisting there time. If you ever decide to do this, i think that you should be more present then Jazzy was on the RedGreenblue thread.

Good Luck

-Alxi-

[chris carter]

Originally Posted by Alxi

HI Dave

You should tell how much you are willing to pay for a mix before it starts. This will prevent some people from waisting there time. If you ever decide to do this, i think that you should be more present then Jazzy was on the RedGreenblue thread.

Good Luck

-Alxi-

There really should be a rule that if you post a mix-off you must indicate the MINIMUM you will pay for a selected mix. And then you have to be publicly held to it. These mix-offs get abused all the time and they start out looking like a paying gig, but rarely, if ever, turn out to be paying - or pay joke money. If you say you will pay at least $750 for a mix you like, and then people mix it, including pros who normally get at least $750 for a song, and then you tell them "I like your mix, but I had to make my car payment, and my buddy needed to buy some weed, and so now I can only pay like $250. That cool?" then you should be banned from the forum for LIFE. If you pick a mix, then you have to pay at least the $750 (or whatever you quote) or don't pick anything. I think a minimum is better that a max because every idiot will say their max if a billion dollars for the right mix, and nobody will have the right mix LOL. If you set a minimum it's like saying "any mix that is going to be satisfactory to me is worth at least $750". If you have low standards, then maybe you could say $100; then everybody who won't do a mix for that little money knows not to bother.

[Alxi]

Originally Posted by chris carter

There really should be a rule that if you post a mix-off you must indicate the MINIMUM you will pay for a selected mix. And then you have to be publicly held to it. These mix-offs get abused all the time and they start out looking like a paying gig, but rarely, if ever, turn out to be paying - or pay joke money. If you say you will pay at least $750 for a mix you like, and then people mix it, including pros who normally get at least $750 for a song, and then you tell them "I like your mix, but I had to make my car payment, and my buddy needed to buy some weed, and so now I can only pay like $250. That cool?" then you should be banned from the forum for LIFE. If you pick a mix, then you have to pay at least the $750 (or whatever you quote) or don't pick anything. I think a minimum is better that a max because every idiot will say their max if a billion dollars for the right mix, and nobody will have the right mix LOL. If you set a minimum it's like saying "any mix that is going to be satisfactory to me is worth at least $750". If you have low standards, then maybe you could say $100; then everybody who won't do a mix for that little money knows not to bother.

I'm with you on this 100%
Lets make rules before there's abuses.

[bgrotto]

The threat of banning from the forum isn't all that, well, threatening.

If the mixers plays it safe and smart, and send only snippets or files with interruptions of some kind, they'll have the leverage to say: "Gimme the money and you'll get your files".

Perhaps we should be more concerned with defining a standard format for these mixes' delivery.

For example:

- everyone must submit a 192kb/s mp3
- the submitted mix must fade in and fade out
- the submitted mix must be only through the second chorus
- the submitted mix must contain audio dropouts every 10 seconds
- etc, etc

You guys could decide to use all, some, or none of these guidelines, but everyone must submit their mix in the exact same format. That way everyone from the "client" to the "mixers" know what they're getting into, and the moderators could (hopefully) feel good, or at least unweary, about the whole situation.

More importantly, this will protect the mix engineer should the "client" decide to go with a given mix but refuse, delay, or otherwise be a scheister about payment.

FWIW, I probably won't be able to participate in another one of these things (as a mixer or a critic); I'm guessing most of the others that are as busy as me will slowly ween out of these things, too. I only mention this cuz I'm not sure how successful another one of these things could be without a lot of active participation from the more experienced (ie - working-too-much-to-do-one-of-these-mix-offs) mix engineers. I'd guess that at some point it'd be all amateur folks, which is fine, but then there's really nothing to be gained for those whose mixes aren't paid for (which would further deter potential competitors).

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how something like this pans out in any event! Good luck!

[chris carter]

Originally Posted by dave_w

I'm getting quite a few. I was just checking out the redgreenblue thread that alot of you have written on.. and I love the mixes that were coming out of it.

What is the best way for me to throw 2 gb worth of individuals tracks up for people to get their hands on. I figure whoever can mix our music best would be the ideal choice.. right?

If this becomes a mix-off, you can count me out. Every once in a while I do one of these if a) I somehow have the free time and b) the song really moves me. That's happened three times in the past two years. I'm not due for another until next June LOL. As Bgrotto said, most of the folks who are good enough to kill the mix are busy with legitimate clients and rarely have time to participate in "spec" or "maybe spec, but likely free" or "not really spec, definitely gonna be free" things.

[dave_w]

Haha sorry to stir up a little slutty drama.. I suppose you're right about rules.

I'm looking at someone who would be willing to mix on the next cd for about 250 a song.. so I'm sure that it's not a very attractive offer to alot of you. I'm figuring that since we're up and coming.. maybe there is an up and coming mixing engineer that wants to get experience and get his/her name on a cd booklet.

So I'll post the files from one of our older songs later on and if you're interested, I'd love to hear what you can do. If you're a pro that doesn't have the time, sorry for getting you involved.

[bgrotto]

Originally Posted by dave_w

Haha sorry to stir up a little slutty drama.. I suppose you're right about rules.

I'm looking at someone who would be willing to mix on the next cd for about 250 a song.. so I'm sure that it's not a very attractive offer to alot of you. I'm figuring that since we're up and coming.. maybe there is an up and coming mixing engineer that wants to get experience and get his/her name on a cd booklet.

So I'll post the files from one of our older songs later on and if you're interested, I'd love to hear what you can do. If you're a pro that doesn't have the time, sorry for getting you involved.

Actually, it's not you who's stirred up the drama, it's a thread from a few weeks ago, so don't worry.

Anyway, $250/song is actually fairly reasonable if I like the music. It'll cover the studio with some loot to spare for me, so if I dig the tunes (and my schedule allows), it's totally conceivable that I would get involved.

[nickynicknick]

I agree with Benny...$250 is on the lower end but is a fair offer for an indie situation. You could probably attract decent engineers...if the music is strong...and your expectations are reasonable. Good luck!

Also...I like Benny's suggested mix off rules.

Nick

[studjo]

if the song is great and time permits count me in

Jo

[DrDeltaM]

Originally Posted by studjo

if the song is great and time permits count me in

Jo

Werd

[Chaellus]

yep 250 is surely kinda reasonable enough to try im sure youll get alot of great mixes..there are some pretty talented guys here i will tr myself

[stilts27]

Originally Posted by RyanC

I think hard drives are the best way to move stuff around, for full projects it's just easier and safer. . . B1B1 audio and don't print too many FX.

Also the other thing to consider is that I think it's never good to be at the low end of someone budget wise. Which is to say that if Joe Bob mixer usually charges X, but he'll give you a deal for less, don't bother. You are much better of to be in the category of an important client in someones budget, then to be the job that the interns do 90% of while working all night long. . . I can do better mastering than the local grammy winning place, if you are their cheapo client.

If someone wants to mix it for cheap because they think you have got it, they will also want a piece on the back end.

I do a lot of mixes for people all over, but I'm not much for trying to pimp myself on GS, PM me if you want some more info.

I like that. Pimp on the low

[dave_w]

Hey, I made a post on the showcase page and linked to all of our files.
It's a song from our last CD and if you don't want to download the giant file to see if you like it, it's on our myspace.

MySpace.com - Transition - CA - Experimental - www.myspace.com/transitionvictoria

it's called "Up In The Air"

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/work-...ml#post3591303