Average mix time

[superburtm]

Curious on how many hours and days you guys mix a decently funded indie artist 12 song CD in.

[mwagener]

one to one and a half day per song if everything is clean on the tracks, plus a day for transfers and a day for compiling everything. One day is 7 - 8 hours max, lots of ear breaks

[Kenny Gioia]

For Pop mixes I agree with Michael.

For a Rock Indie record I make sure all the production is sussed out, and than I'll devote 1/2 day per song.

Although I don't know what an eight hour day is. Closer to 12 for me.

[wwittman]

I'm with Kenny...

About a song a day for a big budget record... about 2 songs a day for an indie budget.

I just mixed a 15 song VH-1 live concert though in 2 days...

[superburtm]

Thanks so much for the replies! Not to mention from some big shots

[opus]

Man, I wish I had time like that! My clients are paying for out of pocket and when thay ask me"How long will it take you to mix per song?" I reply hopefully "I'd like 3 hours a song." ( Blank faces... ) "2 hours????" And they usually come up with half of that!!! Someday I will be mixing 12 hour days, a song a day. That would be the way to work.
Any advice on convincing people to put the proper time in to the process????

[Relax]

Originally Posted by opus

Man, I wish I had time like that! My clients are paying for out of pocket and when thay ask me"How long will it take you to mix per song?" I reply hopefully "I'd like 3 hours a song." ( Blank faces... ) "2 hours????" And they usually come up with half of that!!! Someday I will be mixing 12 hour days, a song a day. That would be the way to work.
Any advice on convincing people to put the proper time in to the process????

do one in 2 hours and spend 8-12 hours on the same mix. play both mixes for the client and ask which they like better. mabey even give them that first one free so there friends can tell them how much better it sounds compared to their other mixes. just some ideas.

[Pepe Ortega]

Originally Posted by opus

Man, I wish I had time like that! My clients are paying for out of pocket and when thay ask me"How long will it take you to mix per song?" I reply hopefully "I'd like 3 hours a song." ( Blank faces... ) "2 hours????" And they usually come up with half of that!!! Someday I will be mixing 12 hour days, a song a day. That would be the way to work.
Any advice on convincing people to put the proper time in to the process????

I live in Mexico and for many small record companies 3 days mixing a record is a lot of time. They usually askme to mix a complete project 10-14 songs on 2 or 3 days , 8 hours by day.
On personal projects I use one day by mix

[ron florentine]

I generally take anywhere from 4-8 hour to mix a pop alternative song and if i have the luxury give it a listen the next morning and make a few tweeks for an hour or two while my ears are real fresh. I had a situation come a few weeks ago where a client who spent close to a year tracking his record here decided to go up to LA and get it mixed out of house......so I was told to quickly to get some very good roughs of the record out quickly,,,,,,,I did 11 mixes in 9 hours!!!! I was completly fried by the end of the session so I waited a few days before i listen to the mixes.........I swear more than half the record sounded asesome.........started to get me thinking that we we spend to much time tweeking little crap that in the end usssually doesnt matter.How many of you print your mixes as your mixing....sometime the bare bones mix in the 1 or 2 hour might sound better than the one that took 6-8 hours to mix...........anyone run into that strange syndrone!

Ron Florentine
Soundswest Studio

[Fletcher]

I have 3 modes... [1] get it done in an hour; [2] get it done in 4-6 hours; [3] take at least a day, sometimes two and occasionally 3.

Murphy's Law #17: Work expands to the time allotted.

[WEAPON_X]

I always wished i could do mixes in one or 1 1/2 days, but mostly one day goes off only for editing and cleaning up the tracks that i get. you canot believe how crappy tracks show up here, and the band goes on and on with "make it sound like korn, or linkin park or or or...". and then they have recorded all and everything on the cheapest available gear in their bedrooms (the money, it s all bout the money) and .... argh... i would like to really start a rant about a current project. it is so crapped out, you cannot believe it. really. there is not a single track that is not clipped, distorted, clipped or distorted or has so much redundant noise and diffent signals on it... really. eg the cymabals in the kick drum track are louder than the kick (although i have no idea how they managed to dop this). guitars are just a plain mess of low end and piercing highs, and clipped to f++k.

this will take a LONG time to make it at least identifiable as music ... uh, i need holidays....

sorry for ranting, my friends...

when everything is clean and the tracks sound decent, its normally a day, and most of the time the song jsut mixes itself... the better the tracks, the easier.

[strauss]

Originally Posted by ron florentine

.How many of you print your mixes as your mixing....sometime the bare bones mix in the 1 or 2 hour might sound better than the one that took 6-8 hours to mix...........anyone run into that strange syndrone!

I've started printing mixes as I go. Sometimes it makes me realise I went to far with something. It's also a good wat to make sure I'm making progress instead of going in circles!

Average mix time for me is a song a day. Sometimes it end up being very long days!

If I'm mixing an album of a band I can sometimes use the same eq, dynamics and fx for more songs, with maybe some minor tweaks. This way I can mix an album in a couple of days (if it's tracked properly at least).

[DirkB]

If I start with solid tracks (i.e. no editing or tuning ), it takes me about 2-3 hours in general to get a balance. The other 3-5hours are spent to automate/adjustFX/finetune levels. During this time I spend quite some time on different sections and don't listen to the song front to back. Once I think I'm about done I mostly listen to the song beginning-to-end and try to catch anything that doesn't feel quite right yet.

Greetings,
Dirk

[Jules]

2 days a song is cool

But I am lazy and hate mixing..

But it gets done...

[papiel]

I recently can make the song play right in a about 6-7 hours, if the tracks are clean and well recorded.
Then I come back the day after and do automation and some additional tweaking.

The problem starts when a few days later the client (artist or producer), who really likes the mix, wants to change the song structure, or edit the vocals or drums etc...
That's when I really hate mixing in the box. But I guess the client is always right.

[robmix]

4 hours to get it there. Another couple hours of me listening and tweaking while I do other things - listening on headphones, from the other room, big speakers, etc.





.

[thethrillfactor]

These day its either 3-5 hours(with a 45 minute break somewhere in there) or a day(6-7 hours) and half(3hours).


Even though i make more money with the second my hope is always the first.

[parissound]

I once took a project I tracked to a well known studio here in NJ and he mixed
5 salsa tracks in 5hours and they came out flawless.

He did an awesome job, great engineer.
I left with my jaw dropped, it takes me like 2hrs to get a track to where I am happy.

[dokushoka]

Depends on how good the band is.

[jeronimo]

It depend´s a lot, if it´s a demo, sometimes I mix something like 4 to 7 songs in around 4 hours...

When it´s a record I worked since the begining, I spend something like 3 to 5 hours on the first song, and something like 2 hours on the following songs, unless they have very different song structures (different instruments, musicians, etc), if this happens, it´ll take like 4 hours each song....

[Drumsound]

I'm about 4-6 per mix. On a full length there's usually one thats way longer and one that comes is faster.

[I Lurk]

It depends if I get paid by the mix or by the hour.

regards

[Fletcher]

Originally Posted by parissound

I once took a project I tracked to a well known studio here in NJ and he mixed
5 salsa tracks in 5hours and they came out flawless.

I did an album where we tracked 15 songs [complete with overdubs] in two days, and mixed the 12 songs that appeared on the album in 12 hours... but they were serious motherfukker players who pretty much balanced themselves and all the tracks lined up from song to song [analog project]. The first mix took two hours, the rest averaged 1/2 an hour to 45 minutes... Warner Bros. picked up the band and about 1/2 the album came from those sessions.

[andychamp]

I just did 12 songs in 1 day (14 hrs ) for a hardcore/street-punk band. They're happy with the results, I think it could be better.
If I can get away with it, I like to take 1 whole day (about 8-10 hrs.)per song,ALONE, and have the musicians come in at the end of the day to fine-tune the mix to their taste.

[cookiekixx]

i usually do a song a day and always print the next morning. alot of the time when i come back in the next day with fresh ears i can detect a handful of subtle flaws which i can sort out quickly. these flaws are oftenly impossible for me to detect at the end of the night. i learned this method by observing russell elevado who leaves his mixes up also.

another factor is the bands involvement. if the band is sitting on the couch behind me i find it alot harder to get the mix together efficiently so alot of the time i like to get it together and then have them come in and listen. bands are usually alot easier to work with if they have a couple of records under their belts. the first record is usually where certain mix methods are met with opposition and debates occur. a couple of records in and the band will listen and just say 'sounds good' without their whole concept of identity being in a state of crisis because there's an eventide on the guitar

anyone else find this to be the case?

ttyx,chris coady

[WEAPON_X]

the first record is usually where certain mix methods are met with opposition and debates occur. a couple of records in and the band will listen and just say 'sounds good' without their whole concept of identity being in a state of crisis because there's an eventide on the guitar

anyone else find this to be the case?

i do often find that bands who are making their first demos/records do change their sonic identity and "want-to-sound-alike" very very often, sometimes really from one end of the spectrum to the other in one day, and very often this goes along with their current favourite cd they are having in their car's stereo.
i find this always quite annoying, and irritating, especially when it includes changing the vibe of a song. however, most of the time i find a compromise and they are happy.

[Junkie]

This is a rough mix i did, local girl rock group needed some demos. They're a young good bunch of lasses but i think the weakest link was the drummer im afraid... the kit was shabby to begin with which meant i had to replace the acoustic snare with a sample and will probably replace the kick too (in fact i might just hire out a session drummer for them who owns a sweet sonor kit!!), will probably ask them to record the whole thing again as they laid the drums down first which resulted in a poor rhythm track, everything else was ok apart form it being played along to the beat...
She is a stubborn drummer too; she wouldnt play to a click track, didnt want any effects on anything etc!! didnt know what her problem was, rest of the band were cool though.
Gimme some tips on effects (forget the musicalilty for a minute!) and also how to deal with stubborn clients, in the end we did votes on what should be put where because the drummer wanted to disagree with everything!!

Thanks

[joeq]

Originally Posted by opus

Man, I wish I had time like that! My clients are paying for out of pocket and when thay ask me"How long will it take you to mix per song?" I reply hopefully "I'd like 3 hours a song." ( Blank faces... ) "2 hours????" And they usually come up with half of that!!! Someday I will be mixing 12 hour days, a song a day. That would be the way to work.
Any advice on convincing people to put the proper time in to the process????

If I like a project, I offer the client a flat rate mixing option for an unattended mix. Unlike Jules, I really enjoy mixing- it's my favorite part. I want to get better and better at it and have good stuff out there with my name on it, so I am willing to put in the extra time to that end.

As long as I can put in that time at my convenience, without somebody looking over my shoulder and not have to clean the place, or get dressed or shave, it is OK with me.



Relax's idea of giving a 'sample' of an 8 hour mix is a good one. How about the old Ann Landers trick- showing your client (an edited printout of) this thread? Let them see how many engineers agree that a couple of hours is not enough.

[Messiah]

Originally Posted by Jules

2 days a song is cool

But I am lazy and hate mixing..

But it gets done...

@ Jules.


Thank you. I thought it was just me.

Me too.

Mixing actually turns any project into a major ball ache for me.
If I am going to get stressed out at any stage, it's mixing.
It kills the enjoyment of a project/session for me.

For the record, I aim for 2 songs in 3 days usually. Any less, song wise, 1 track per day followed by the following day to commit to it.

[superburtm]

Do you guys charge by the hour or by the mix?

Originally Posted by Messiah

@ Jules.


Thank you. I thought it was just me.

Me too.

Mixing actually turns any project into a major ball ache for me.
If I am going to get stressed out at any stage, it's mixing.
It kills the enjoyment of a project/session for me.

For the record, I aim for 2 songs in 3 days usually. Any less, song wise, 1 track per day followed by the following day to commit to it.