Classical editing - man oh man

[LX3]

I'm finally getting to the end of a project that wasn't supposed to be that huge, but in the end has taken nearly a year to complete.

It's a number of choral pieces, twenty two in total.

Originally I was told that the choir would get them in a couple of takes each. But instead they turned out to be incredibly difficult pieces which in the end were recorded in a large number of sections - from complete run-thrus to just a couple of lines. For instance, one song has 48 separate takes (not all good takes, but even with my notes from the session, it's a major job piecing it all together).

There's 22 songs like this.

When I've finished, I'll count up, but it looks like the album as a whole will contain over 200 edits.

I know that 200 edits for a classical album isn't that unusual, but it's not what I was expecting (and certainly not what I am being paid for) when I originally started this project.

I'm glad the end is in sight, although I'm now told that the producers have notes on every piece and that there's going to have to be a second round of editing! That's going to be an interesting discussion, as I'm curious to see how many sections they want to fix, and how they're going to establish if there's really a better take we could be using (because as far as I'm aware, from my notes and careful listening, I've compiled each piece from the best takes that were recorded).

This is a fairly unique situation for me. So I'd be interested to compare experiences with the rest of you classical guys:

1) how do you balance tight "credit-crunch" budgets with the amount of editing that a work might need? What kind of budgets are you working with and does it leave scope for this sort of intensive editing? Are strict limits set on the editing time or the number of edits that are allowed?

2) Do you personally undertake the editing on projects you record, or is the editing done elsewhere? I think in terms of man hours, I had a solid month's editing work to do on this project. If I'd spent an entire month editing continuously, I'd have had to turn away a lot of other jobs. On the other hand, the client is understandably unhappy at having to wait this long. But having quoted them for the job, how could I then say "Actually, the amount of editing means we need to charge you seven times what we originally quoted"? Because getting reasonable compensation for my time is the only way I could have turned away other work.

3) How many edits does your work typically contain? (I know it's hard to generalise). Is 200 in a 74-minute CD a lot by your standards? What kind of artist can afford to have 200 edits in a single release?

I'm struggling to figure out how the economics make sense for the label or the artist. I don't know what sales figures are like on classical these days, but can they ever justify a five-figure recording budget for less-than-world-famous artists? It's bad enough in blues and jazz (fields I know a bit more about), but even if blues or jazz artists never recoup their recording costs from CD sales, they can at least use their recordings to help promote their live shows - which in turn results in better sales for their next album. How on earth does classical survive?

[NorseHorse]

Related threads/posts:

Ozpeter: What's up with classical piano recordings these days?

John Willet: What's up with classical piano recordings these days?

Re: profitability concerns: Classical Music Recording: For Profit or Promotion?

[jpupo74]

Hi,

It is actually quite simple.
The reason I LOVE to work with classical music is because there's no place for BS.
What is written has to be performed. Period.
200 edits is nothing, not really that much.

Charge per day. It is the ONLY way unless you receive the project already tracked, then you'll see how much you need to edit and then try to make a package, otherwise u r screwed!

Cheerio and good luck,
Pupo

P.S.
Classical music survove because they usually rehearse a lot before tracking and then spend one or 2 days on location. Couple edits and they're done. It can cost as low as 2000 to make a great sounding classical album.

[mpdonahue]

Paul,
Just to give you a frame of reference, I just finished a 75 min project of Choral, Choral and Organ and what amounts to a piano concerto with organ and choral accompaniment. It was recorded over 4 days of rehearsal with a concert and totaled somewhere north of 500 takes of 16 track material.
The total edits of the project were somewhere around 300 and the editing and mixing combined came to about 25 hours of studio time. The master was Stereo and surround.
Normally, we quote a fixed price up to and including a first edit. After that the client is "on the clock" for the normal studio rate. We can pretty accurately judge the total amount of work that a typical project will take based on past experience, but a good average is about 2 min of finished material for each hour of post time. Obviously there are exceptions, but the rule holds pretty true.

All the best,
-mark

[John Willett]

I would never quote for a complete project as it's so easy to get stuffed with loads of edits.

In fact they misled you by saying each one in a couple of takes - as soon as you noticed it taking a lot longer you should have immediately drawn this fact to their attention and told them it will cost more because they are not delivering on their part of the bargain.

You should have said this right at the start when it began to go over time so they could make the decision as to increase the budget or live with a less than perfect performance.

Really, you should have nipped all this in he bud at the start.

Now, I would suggest you politely advise them what you would have charged them had you known at the start how long it was going to take and make clear what a bargain they are getting.

If you really think that it's all perfect now, especially as they misled you with the time it would take to record, I would suggest that you tell them that any extra editing would be chargeable.

They really are taking the pi** with you on this.

On a recent piano project where the budget was set, it was quoted as 25 days - 15 days recording and 10 days editing to produce 5 CDs.

I had worked with this artist and producer before, so had a good idea of what it would all entail. In the end the CD count was reduced to 4 to keep it all within budget - I had actually worked two or three extra days on CD preparation, but recovered this in the profit on supplying the CDs as a package.

But even on this one, I made it clear that I would be prepared to add an extra day or two free of charge, but if it really over-ran, then I would charge for the extra work involved. In the event they reduced the CD count to keep in budget.

With anyone else I would quote by time only and they make the decision as to when to stop.

I feel for you as you have really been stuffed - but part of it is really your fault as you could have nipped it in the bud at the start as soon as you noticed them going well over-time on the sessions.

[John Willett]

Reading all this again - you really should have made it clear that your price was based on the information they gave you and as soon as it was clear that the actual recording was *not* as they told you - you should have stopped and renegotiated.

Possibly, as a gesture of goodwill, added a bit free of charge, but told them that anything beyond xx would be charged extra.

That would have enabled them to focus on what was essential and to balance the artistic and financial.

As it is, I would definitely try and charge for all this extra editing after you have finished - they have an absolute bargain even with this extra.

[LX3]

Originally Posted by jpupo74

Hi,

Charge per day. It is the ONLY way unless you receive the project already tracked, then you'll see how much you need to edit and then try to make a package, otherwise u r screwed!

That's the problem, estimating the time that a job will require in post before have a grasp of how proficient or well-rehearsed the group are going to be. Clients understandably want a firm price up-front. The problem is that you can't necessarily take their word for how the session is going to go, so your guess as to the time required could be way off (as ours was).

I guess it's all about experience - you just get a sense when certain jobs are going to be very involved, and others aren't. I do that when recording rock and pop shows (my main occupation) - you can tell one job will be straightforward, while another will be a nightmare, even though at first look both jobs seem much the same.

It's fair to say that I under-quoted on this job. Then again, if I'd quoted any more, I know I would not have got the job - I was told what the budget was and asked if I could do it. Perhaps I shouldn't have said yes, but I was keen as I knew the performers (if not the material).

Classical music survove because they usually rehearse a lot before tracking and then spend one or 2 days on location. Couple edits and they're done.

A couple of edits! Oh, if only!...

Yes, I agree that classical could be done that way, and maybe often is. But in this case we've got a professional 30-odd voice choir who've never sung this kind of material before. I expect there are limits on rehearsal time as it's going to be another part of the budget. Also, I think that when the red light goes on, the conductor/choir master and producer start to listen more critically, and aren't prepared to let anything much short of perfect go without another take... or four.

It can cost as low as 2000 to make a great sounding classical album.

Yup, I don't doubt that. Just not this time.

So what do people do to keep a $2000 recording on-budget? Who makes the call when the hoped-for "three straight-thru takes" approach turns into recording pieces one line at a time?

Mark, thanks for your post. It's cool that you've been able to establish a sort of rule of thumb.

300 edits in 25 hours of post time sounds fast to me. That's over 10 edits an hour, every hour, 7 hours a day, for four days. Or one edit every five minutes. Wow. It must be more a question of note-taking and making editorial decisions during the recording, because with five minutes per edit, there can't be a lot of time for repeated listening and decision making in post.

Or maybe I'm working at this too hard!

I took copious detailed notes during the session, but it still necessitated a lot of repeated listening to decide the best course of action during the edit.

[mpdonahue]

Originally Posted by LX3

Mark, thanks for your post. It's cool that you've been able to establish a sort of rule of thumb.

300 edits in 25 hours of post time sounds fast to me. That's over 10 edits an hour, every hour, 7 hours a day, for four days. Or one edit every five minutes. Wow. It must be more a question of note-taking and making editorial decisions during the recording, because with five minutes per edit, there can't be a lot of time for repeated listening and decision making in post.

Or maybe I'm working at this too hard!

I took copious detailed notes during the session, but it still necessitated a lot of repeated listening to decide the best course of action during the edit.

Well, that's where the producer comes in. I had about 250 edits in the first edit and 50 in the second. The mix took me about 6 hours, but I had been roughing it in while I was editing. The piano editing goes really fast, while the choral with organ takes the most time. The real trouble comes if there are huge pitch problems. Then all bets are off.
15 edits an hour is quick, but really not that fast. There are others that edit faster, but if the stuff is recorded well, the edits go together pretty quick. Back in the days of editing on the DAE-3000, with 3 umatic players I could keep up the 15-20 edits per hour if the producer put the times in the score. I don't spend a lot of time belaboring the edits, if I don't hear it , I move along to the next.
All the best,
-mark

[Roland]

It's easier if the pieces are short, for example to edit a 10 min piece takes, (as a rule of thumb,) 3 times as long as two 5 min pieces. Most times on a session you will take the piece in its entirety at least 2, possibly three times. Obviously if there are serious issues, this can be more, but on the whole you would expect pro's to be able to nail at least one pretty good take in three attempts. Editing will almost always take longer than the playing, so a two day recording session will equate to around three days editing, three days sessions to 4-5 days editing.

As you said, Marks session was edited and mixed quite quickly considering the number of edits involved, however I suspect that the mixes were part way there from so many days on the session/rehearsals, and it quite possibly the producer already had a good idea of what takes were to be used where. Having a map for the edits considerably speeds things up, though there will always be changes made on reviewing the session back at base.

You don't say how long the original sessions were, but I am assumming that they were carried out over a couple of days. you mentioned one piece having 48 takes, this would probably indicate to me that perhaps after the first take the machines needed to be turned off, the conductor brought in and some serious rehearsal and fixing before going again. Often if they are not getting it it's worth discussing with the key parties involved rather than just burning "tape", however, I understand this is not always possible unless you are producing the project yourself.


Regards


Roland

[LX3]

Hey John, how's it going?

I did express my concerns repeatedly during the recording (while trying to avoid upsetting anyone or derailing the whole session). But you know how it is, once the red light is on - which it was fairly continuously during the two-days of recording - everyone is focused on getting thru the material however they can in the time available, and getting the performance up to scratch. If that meant umpteen takes and breaking each song into sections, nothing I said was going to stop them.

In the end, it was going to take extensive editing just to piece things together so that there was something to listen to.

Which left me in an awkward position - since they had no more money to pay for the editing necessary to put something together.... I suppose I could have just handed them the multitracks and walked, but I'd rather not just dump the whole project and leave them with nothing.

I'm looking back on this as a learning experience - one that may effectively take most classical work out of the picture for me, which would be sad.

Which is why I'm wondering how people balance the budget available and the extensive post that might be needed?

(Unless the classical world is divided into those that have a realistic budget, and everyone else that's using enthusiastic amateurs to get commercial-standard recordings done on a shoestring.)

[mixmixmix]

Paul, don't feel sorry for underrehearsed musicians.

Those people are taking advantage of your sense of duty.

Overediting is a disease. The final record will not sound good anyway. It is going to be too labored.

Positive points - you are getting experienced with contemporary classical music production process.

Often it has nothing to do with music - just petty egos of musicians and producers and labels.

The only real professional in this situation is you. Respect yourself.

It is OK to renegotiate the terms of your engagement
at any point. It is never too late.

Be strong, speak up. Just getting courage to do so will make you a stronger person / artist.

Good luck, Phillip

[mohthom]

The worst that I did was for a friend's Ph. D. He'd sorted the performers and there was a cracking pianist sorted for an accompanied piece - well practiced etc., stone cold incredible contemporary player. Number available to those in the UK that might need someone of the highest calibre - I don't mind pimping for the best, so PM for details!

So we turn up at the hall we're recording in - five or six minute piece and I get the mics set. Eight of them, nice and tidy - two main pairs of DPAs and four LDCs set in various positions around the players. Session starts. It's clear that it's not as rehearsed as I was led to believe. In fact, it seems that it hasn't been rehearsed at all. No time to worry, I was hoping that because I'd been told they were awesome players they'd just pick it up without a problem (and, for perspective, some of the other 'awesome players' I'd been given by this guy have since gone on to become principals at major orchestras, inc. a few rather famous ones that I would drool to work with!). So, roll the session, just get as much as poss in the limited time available (the hall needs to be vacated at a particular time - no real chance of an extra session as it's so busy/expensive, and there's nowhere nearby with a similar acoustic and quality of piano available). The friend is trying to get every little section perfect - three quarters through the four hour session (for a five minute piece) and we'd got half of it down (ish). Polite talkback systems go out the window, and I leave the booth to run the session from the floor. Turns out that being at the beginning and all, the first half was better rehearsed than the second half .

Long story short, it was a tough week. There was deadlines involved which made this worse (though fortunately not mine - I was able to be fairly impartial and cruel when required), and between us we worked 24 hours a day for 5 days straight. Note by note, I breathed LIFE into the piece. Sometimes it was only possible to tell where the performers were going from by the direction I'd given before the playing, or by a note or two in the left hand of the piano (it was a tough piece!).

3000 edits in 6 minutes.

Never again!

However, at Ph. D. results, my friend (though it was touch and go on the friendship stakes for a while after this one!) passed with an A1 - those who've been involved in the process will know what this means! A member of the panel had done some work in the classical world (produced a few piano CDs) and commended the quality of the recordings, so it must have been alright.

Paul, don't give up on classical recording. The advice I always give prospective clients is a nugget I learned from this very board. There's three criteria and the client can choose only two. The finished product can be two of these three;

• Fast
• Good
• Cheap

Either way, going hourly and breaking down the budget into record/edit/mix times/fees could have been useful in this scenario - a little education (on the part of the client) goes a long way.

[Plush]

Don't feel too bad, OP. Your problem is very common for those who don't do it a lot. It's also common for groups to say that they don't have the budget for a lot of editing. Budget classical labels also want to have one do an all in project and for that reason it is not a productive business relationship unless you get 30 records out of them per year.

The group probably truthfully believed that they could do it with a few takes. When you found out on the session that they could not, you needed to act as the session producer and advise the client that the original business arrangement would need to be modified.
Then you needed to charge for your editing time. I find the proposed guidelines for editing progress per hour optimistic for sophisticated and dense music or for editing that must take into account matching drifting pitch.

About intonation in choral music---if the group cannot reliably and repeatedly end an a cappella section on pitch, they are not ready to record.

I suggest that you charge the group an hourly editing fee for any more work requested by them. You have brought them this far and now to have the cake (re) iced they must pay. Since you are the person most familiar with the choice of possibilities for editing, one can only imagine how the client will convince you that there are better takes lurking somewhere on the masters.

I've been in your position any number of times too. After it happens a few times however, one learns. I have not taken this abuse for some years. Since then I put my foot down and insisted on charging an hourly edit fee for whatever the number of hours spent. I love to make money on editing since often this is where the record is made and where the real expertise is shown off.

[Corran]

The thing that stuck out to me was that you chose all of the edit points. In that capacity you became much more than just the "engineer" and should charge accordingly, or, let them do it themselves.

I have two stories, each time a classical recording that required some edits due to poor prep. The first was done by a very professional conductor. He took the takes and gave me very specific edits to do with minute/second times and measure amounts (and he knew me and my musical ability, so there was no question of understanding this all). Anyway, the edits took no time at all and it was all in all a very good recording. The second was NOT done that way and was going to require a great deal of edits. At the point that this was apparent, I made a simple CD of the takes and gave it to the conductor who was paying for the recording. I told him to tell me what edits he wanted very specifically. It never was done, and I got my (very good) fee with no extra work.

My point is, once this became apparent, I would simply give them a CD with a take sheet and tell them you'd be happy to edit it with their suggestions at your editing rate of $X/hr. Stipulate that you were hired as a recording engineer and that's what you did. No need to just drop them. And if they can't pay, well consider doing it pro bono if you need the client or reference but only a certain amount. 200 sounds like a bit much.

I have also once or twice suggested a client simply work on something before I recorded it!

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by LX3

Hey John, how's it going?

I did express my concerns repeatedly during the recording (while trying to avoid upsetting anyone or derailing the whole session). But you know how it is, once the red light is on - which it was fairly continuously during the two-days of recording - everyone is focused on getting thru the material however they can in the time available, and getting the performance up to scratch. If that meant umpteen takes and breaking each song into sections, nothing I said was going to stop them.

In the end, it was going to take extensive editing just to piece things together so that there was something to listen to.

Which left me in an awkward position - since they had no more money to pay for the editing necessary to put something together.... I suppose I could have just handed them the multitracks and walked, but I'd rather not just dump the whole project and leave them with nothing.

I'm looking back on this as a learning experience - one that may effectively take most classical work out of the picture for me, which would be sad.

Which is why I'm wondering how people balance the budget available and the extensive post that might be needed?

(Unless the classical world is divided into those that have a realistic budget, and everyone else that's using enthusiastic amateurs to get commercial-standard recordings done on a shoestring.)

Hi Paul,

You have worked well over and above the call of duty - from what you say you have already delivered.

If, after you have delivered the finished edit, they still want more edits - I would say charge now for any extra editing because you have already fulfilled what you said you would do.

But explain quietly and politely what a bargain they have already had and what it would have cost had they been honest with you in the first place.

If they have a low budget and need to produce a CD at minimal cost - then they should be very well rehearsed so as to keep recording and editing time to a minimum. They should have had extra rehearsals to make sure they were as good as they could be before they started.

But a good producer is important here - making notes on the score and producing the edit list of what was good and what wasn't, what was a "maybe" etc.. This way you have the edit list already prepared on the session, which makes the editing process much quicker.

This was partly why I could edit a 15-day recording session in 10-days.

Anyway, it's probably illegal for you to carry on working as you would be working for less than the minimum wage.

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by Plush

Don't feel too bad, OP. Your problem is very common for those who don't do it a lot. It's also common for groups to say that they don't have the budget for a lot of editing. Budget classical labels also want to have one do an all in project and for that reason it is not a productive business relationship unless you get 30 records out of them per year.

The group probably truthfully believed that they could do it with a few takes. When you found out on the session that they could not, you needed to act as the session producer and advise the client that the original business arrangement would need to be modified.
Then you needed to charge for your editing time. I find the proposed guidelines for editing progress per hour optimistic for sophisticated and dense music or for editing that must take into account matching drifting pitch.

About intonation in choral music---if the group cannot reliably and repeatedly end an a cappella section on pitch, they are not ready to record.

I suggest that you charge the group an hourly editing fee for any more work requested by them. You have brought them this far and now to have the cake (re) iced they must pay. Since you are the person most familiar with the choice of possibilities for editing, one can only imagine how the client will convince you that there are better takes lurking somewhere on the masters.

I've been in your position any number of times too. After it happens a few times however, one learns. I have not taken this abuse for some years. Since then I put my foot down and insisted on charging an hourly edit fee for whatever the number of hours spent. I love to make money on editing since often this is where the record is made and where the real expertise is shown off.

Exactly what I was trying to say - but put much more eloquently.

[NorseHorse]

Originally Posted by LX3

1) how do you balance tight "credit-crunch" budgets with the amount of editing that a work might need? What kind of budgets are you working with and does it leave scope for this sort of intensive editing?...

I'm struggling to figure out how the economics make sense for the label or the artist. I don't know what sales figures are like on classical these days, but can they ever justify a five-figure recording budget for less-than-world-famous artists? ...How on earth does classical survive?

I'd like to respond to your money questions. In the community circuit (both amatuer, academic, and professional) doing a project at or under $2000 isn't necessarily cheap. After all, they might NEVER break even, so it's critical that they can weight the costs/benefits right away, or they might not record at all. Groups need to know how much $ it's going to take up front. They survive on grants and donations (and loans...), so they walk a very fine line trying to promote themselves while staying afloat.

With this market, it would be dangerous to get bogged down in tons of edits. To get around this problem, I make it clear to groups that if there was a mistake, they need to redo the whole section (whatever that might be). And like Corran, I also leave it up to the music director to dictate the edits.

Groups that have less money often choose to release live recordings instead. Periodically, clients schedule a recording of a rehearsal or tack on a "dub session" immediately following a concert in order to have extra material to splice into the live recordings. Again, these splices occur in sections.

[David Spearritt]

Originally Posted by Plush

I love to make money on editing since often this is where the record is made and where the real expertise is shown off.

A mantra to live by. We make our real money on editing because we are expert at it, and when we run the sessions (produce) we can ensure that each take has a start and end that covers the editing margins. I hate doing it, but its where real expertise and unique service can separate you from the rest of the pack in getting the classical gigs. Its a part of life.

[Ozpeter]

I've posted it here before (but where?) - anyway, I get clear agreement in advance for my charges which are $x per session for recording (a session being loosely defined as a morning, an afternoon, or an evening, so we don't cramp peoples' creativity with a stopwatch). Then for postproduction, $y per minute of finished material, plus $z per edit (whether a first edit or second edit or whatever).

So a 60 minute CD recorded over three full days, followed by 200 edits (1st edit) + 20 edits (second edit) would be

$(3 * x) + (60 * y) + (220 * z)

Absolutely no scope for arguments over time taken to edit. And the client understands exactly the financial consequence of each edit.

Obviously you choose the value of x, y, and z to ensure a profit.

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

Periodically, clients schedule a recording of a rehearsal or tack on a "dub session" immediately following a concert in order to have extra material to splice into the live recordings. Again, these splices occur in sections.

I did this a few years back - I recorded a live piano recital at the Chelsea Festival.

The pianist wanted me to record certain difficult parts of his warm-up / practice session before the concert so we had bits that could be edited in if necessary.

Problem 1 - I was instructed by the organisers to move the microphones after the rehearsal session but before the main concert.

Problem 2 - he made one nasty error that had not been covered in the rehearsal session.

The answer to 1 was that I moved the microphones as little as I could get away with and the difference in position was not noticed in the final result.

The answer to 2 was a bit naughty - I had recorded the same performance a couple of weeks earlier - same pianist, same piano, same mics - just a different venue. The edit was only a few notes and I managed to edit them in so that the edit could not be heard - needed a bit of careful manipulation with levels to get it right; but even we could not hear it - listening to the CD today, I cannot hear any edit.

So - it worked - phew!

[LX3]

Originally Posted by John Willett

Hi Paul,

But a good producer is important here - making notes on the score and producing the edit list of what was good and what wasn't, what was a "maybe" etc.. This way you have the edit list already prepared on the session, which makes the editing process much quicker.

I ended up taking all the notes myself. We had someone you could call a "producer", and he was with me in our DIY control room listening, but he would mostly pull the choir up on issues of pronunciation and phrasing (not sung in English).

Most of the decisions about what was and wasn't a good take and what could be better, were made by the conductor/choirmaster... who, having rehearsed the choir for the last month or two, was in the best position to know when the choir could do better.

I would mark my notes with which takes counted as bad, good, or "keeper", all while following the score. The problem is sometimes it's only a part of the previous take that's considered good, and if you were writing at that moment rather than looking at the score... Often I was making notes about the previous take while they're already recording the next one.

Plus of course, I wasn't personally familiar with the music, so I was using the conductors comments to try and figure out which takes they felt were on the money - I'd think the second take was pretty good, but then we'd do it another four times.

So I agree, a producer taking care of all the note-taking would have been a big help.

Usually the conductor made the right call, but listening back you can tell that occasionally they weren't seeing the wood for the trees - they'd nail the ff passage they were focusing on, but maybe the rest of the take was more ragged timing-wise than one of the earlier ones. It's been left to me to figure that out. That choir were on their feet a really long time each day, it's not surprising that by the end of the day it became a challenge to hold it together.

Maybe I should ask for a producer credit! That would go down well!

Right now, I'll just be happy to get it finished.

Yep, that hit me today as well - this one absolutely proves the rule that you can only choose two out of fast, cheap, and good.

[LX3]

BTW, I wanted to say how much I appreciate everyone's replies. Thanks everyone who has posted so far.

[kstrauss]

Not much I can add that hasn't already been said here, but my procedure was to quote projects based on the number of hours my experience told me it would take. Basically it would be an hourly rate times the estimated number of hours. The fine print of my contract stated that the final bill would be adjusted up or down based on the actual number of hours spent on the project (same went for materials, postage, etc.). This had the advantage of giving clients an accurate estimate, while protecting me from being underpaid for extensive editing jobs. I always quoted on the high side so much of the time the final bill was slightly lower than my estimate which made clients happy.

I'm with David, I made most of my money on production so I never complained when a project required more editing.

Originally Posted by mohthom

However, at Ph. D. results, my friend (though it was touch and go on the friendship stakes for a while after this one!) passed with an A1 - those who've been involved in the process will know what this means! A member of the panel had done some work in the classical world (produced a few piano CDs) and commended the quality of the recordings, so it must have been alright.

I'd like to hear more details on this - what kind of PhD was this for?

[LX3]

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

I'd like to respond to your money questions. In the community circuit (both amatuer, academic, and professional) doing a project at or under $2000 isn't necessarily cheap. After all, they might NEVER break even, so it's critical that they can weight the costs/benefits right away, or they might not record at all. Groups need to know how much $ it's going to take up front. They survive on grants and donations (and loans...), so they walk a very fine line trying to promote themselves while staying afloat.

Yes, I think that was very much the case in this instance.

Still, I understandably don't know how much money was behind this one. There was clearly a lot more to pay for than just my fee.

Groups that have less money often choose to release live recordings instead.

Yeah, I get that. Have been there myself with my own band(s), because I know how things escalate when you get the opportunity to do another take or patch sections.

Actually, I miss the days of drop-ins! Remember them? Didn't like something? You'd punch in on it. Old take is gone forever, new one replaces it. Forced you to make decisions = result achieved much quicker. Not so applicable in classical of course.

[jpupo74]

Originally Posted by LX3

That's the problem, estimating the time that a job will require in post before have a grasp of how proficient or well-rehearsed the group are going to be. Clients understandably want a firm price up-front. The problem is that you can't necessarily take their word for how the session is going to go, so your guess as to the time required could be way off (as ours was).

I guess it's all about experience - you just get a sense when certain jobs are going to be very involved, and others aren't. I do that when recording rock and pop shows (my main occupation) - you can tell one job will be straightforward, while another will be a nightmare, even though at first look both jobs seem much the same.

It's fair to say that I under-quoted on this job. Then again, if I'd quoted any more, I know I would not have got the job - I was told what the budget was and asked if I could do it. Perhaps I shouldn't have said yes, but I was keen as I knew the performers (if not the material).



A couple of edits! Oh, if only!...

Yes, I agree that classical could be done that way, and maybe often is. But in this case we've got a professional 30-odd voice choir who've never sung this kind of material before. I expect there are limits on rehearsal time as it's going to be another part of the budget. Also, I think that when the red light goes on, the conductor/choir master and producer start to listen more critically, and aren't prepared to let anything much short of perfect go without another take... or four.



Yup, I don't doubt that. Just not this time.

So what do people do to keep a $2000 recording on-budget? Who makes the call when the hoped-for "three straight-thru takes" approach turns into recording pieces one line at a time?

Mark, thanks for your post. It's cool that you've been able to establish a sort of rule of thumb.

300 edits in 25 hours of post time sounds fast to me. That's over 10 edits an hour, every hour, 7 hours a day, for four days. Or one edit every five minutes. Wow. It must be more a question of note-taking and making editorial decisions during the recording, because with five minutes per edit, there can't be a lot of time for repeated listening and decision making in post.

Or maybe I'm working at this too hard!

I took copious detailed notes during the session, but it still necessitated a lot of repeated listening to decide the best course of action during the edit.

Simple...
You are doing too much...so you might be attached to it.
Now I understand you are also deciding on takes?
So you produced, engineered, edit and, and, and...
That's another story.

P

P.S.
About the 2000.
The ensemble reharse 70 inutes ofmusic for a long time..
You choose a very nice sounding hall, one that will not need too much work.
You track one day, you choose takes during tracking session.
Next day you pput everytihng together.
Sometimes you can, sometimes you cannot!

[Thomas W. Bethe]

Most not for profit groups today are hurting badly. Their concert attendance is down and their costs are rising. If they decide to do a recording for a CD it is usually to raise money. They want the very best to show off the group but they are usually cash shy. I, like many others in this forum, try very hard to make up a reasonable estimate based on experience but when you actually get to the recording process all kinds of things can go wrong and what starts out as a simple project can become very complex especially if the group is not well rehearsed or if there are problems that no one even thought about. What you estimated was based on a set of circumstances that you assumed would happen but if they don't happen the way you thought they would you need to have a way out.

I did a choral recording of a local children's choir. It was done in a local church. When we did the remote survey there seem to be no problems. It was done approximately two weeks before the recording session. The day we had chosen for recording arrived and I went to the church but was somewhat astounded to see that the area in front of the church was "under construction" and that the workers were working on Saturday. There were large bulldozers and cranes and huge trucks were moving in and out of the site. I went over to the foreman's trailer and talked to the foreman. He was very nice and I asked him how late the trucks and other heavy equipment would be working and he told me 12:00 noon. The recording session was scheduled to start at 10 am. I called the director and told her of the LARGE problem that had developed and that the church would not be quiet enough for the recording. She is a very nice person and a GREAT director but she told me that there was nothing that she could do as the parents had been told to pickup the kids at 1:00 pm and there would be no way to change that. So we did the recording session with large trucks, bulldozers, and cranes making a real racket outside the church. It was a mess. The director would not allow more than two takes of each song since she was trying to save the children's voices. We got though the session and packed up,. I went home to listen to the material and found that the construction noise was not that bad and by doing some judicious editing I could get around the problems but it would take way more time than I had estimated. So I went back to the Director, told her the problems and we agreed that we would charge them for the additional editing and we got the project done and made into a CD. I have been working with this choir for 18 years so that may have had something to do with how easy this was to work out.

To the OP. Problems develop and there is no way to foresee all the pitfalls that will happen. The best advice is to be very open with the people that have hired you and tell them of the problems as soon as you discover them and then suggest a solution but with a cost attached to it. Always leave your self some wiggle room in the estimate and also in the wording of the contract.

Best of luck!

[Thomas W. Bethe]

Originally Posted by John Willett

-

The answer to 2 was a bit naughty - I had recorded the same performance a couple of weeks earlier - same pianist, same piano, same mics - just a different venue. The edit was only a few notes and I managed to edit them in so that the edit could not be heard - needed a bit of careful manipulation with levels to get it right; but even we could not hear it - listening to the CD today, I cannot hear any edit.

So - it worked - phew!

I had a similar problem. We did a large orchestra recording over the space of two days. I was working with a very nice producer but he was not use to the demands of a large recording session and the conductor was a very busy person so everything had to be done quickly. We were not using union musicians. We recorded the work and then discovered later that we had left out a large part of the work (three pages). The conductor was so rushed and the producer was NOT keeping the best notes so they did not find the mistake until the editing sessions began. I was not doing the editing and it was being done by the producer. He calls me up in a panic telling me of the missing music and asks for suggestions. The session would have been impossible to reconstruct and some of the musicians were not even available for a redo. I too had recorded this group live in concert in the same hall just after the recording session but with a different orchestral setup and with different miking. The two recordings were close enough in sound that by some judicial use of reverb and eq we were able to splice in the groups performance and luckily there were no glaring errors and the audience was nice and quiet so we were able to pull this off. Today when I listen to the CD I cannot tell the difference and luckily it is a fairly long section so if there were a change in ambiance or sound it would not strike the listener as something odd.

There is also the story of a multiday recording session where after the first DAY the custodial staff came in to "clean up the hall"and moved all the chairs off the stage and took up all the spike tape which meant that the next day we had to start all over again which was not fun. We had a very long talk with their supervisor and told her of how much damage the custodians had done by just "doing their job" I learned my lesson to always keep her informed of recording sessions going on and we made it a "rule" that the custodians were NOT to remove any spike tape and I would remove it after the session was completed.

Best of luck!

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by Thomas W. Bethe

There is also the story of a multiday recording session where after the first DAY the custodial staff came in to "clean up the hall"and moved all the chairs off the stage and took up all the spike tape which meant that the next day we had to start all over again which was not fun. We had a very long talk with their supervisor and told her of how much damage the custodians had done by just "doing their job" I learned my lesson to always keep her informed of recording sessions going on and we made it a "rule" that the custodians were NOT to remove any spike tape and I would remove it after the session was completed.

Thanks for the tip - I think a lot of us would have forgotten this one.

I agree, moving all the chairs and tape is an enormous problem in setting it all up properly again.

[Corran]

Yeah, custodial staff...I've had my entire mic setup picked up and moved. Not good!

[Plush]

May I make a suggestion?

Never worry about what the other elements of the production are costing. Only consider what your fee should be. If the group brings up other costs, ask them, "what does that have to do with me?"

I suggest that people learn to never allow the group's management to balance the production budget on the head of the recording person. Unfortunately it is one of the first tricks they will try. Just say, "no."

Also for non hobbyists, engage now to move away from jobs from not-for-profit groups.
Move towards working for those who require the recording. (Radio, music publishers, tv)

The above advice took me 20 years to learn.