anger management?

I hate that.

First time I pissed and moaned on every new mix listen, so they brought it up.

This time around, I didn't even respond to the 'let me know what you think,' so i assume they (correctly) assumed what i thought, & brought it up

 

Ask for your part of the money back. No bass = no pay
regards
Mark

 

Heavy doses of drugs, or a large pepperoni pizza. But I don't have this problem yet, as we do our own recording and editing, with plenty of bass guitar presence.

 

I bought a RIC to combat that.

 

Post here and bitch about it.

Looks like we have the same regimen.

 

Doesn't help man, they just turn you down more and EQ out your mids.

 

Fire the drummer of course! Obviously he's playing too loud.

 

I would be beyond furious. Seriously. I work to damn hard on my lines for some tech to EQ them out. My blood pressure is going up just thinking about it

 

It depends:

First mix - I wouldn't get mad, I'd just tell them to turn the bass up or EQ it properly.
Subsequent mixes - I'd let them know that I wasn't participating in any more recording or supplying any more funds until the issue is fixed
Final mix - If I had mentioned it previously, I would tell them that I'm not paying or agreeing to anything until the bass is audible.
CD pressed - If I had told them multiple times and they ignored me I'd leave the band because it would be obvious that they didn't respect me.

Without knowing where you are in the process, it's hard to know if you should be mad at all. If this is the first time you've mentioned it, it's not their fault. If you've been bringing it up all along, you need to move on.

 

The bass is very powerful ... a little too much can overwhelm a recording. That's why i think people doing the mixing tend to err on the side of less.

That aside, I throw out the "Why should I bother playing all those notes if nobody can hear them? Especially me, cuz I KNOW they're there!"

 

The worst is when you get mixed out and the band says they like the mix.

 

Give them Jason Newsted's number and walk out. Don't pay a dime.

 

SHOULD HAVE BEEN LARS.

 

Tell them you need them to do it again and specifically ask for what you want.

 

Who's mixing it?

If you're paying an engineer, it's pretty easy to tell them to turn the fader up; even with the most seasoned engineer there is likely to be at least a round or two of revisions before they're paid in full.

For one of the last records I did, the engineer was working remotely and we got as far as five or six rounds of revisions on some of the tunes.

Hopefully they already has a reference track or two, but if they don't the band should send them; it does away with a lot of ambiguity, since they can literally compare directly as they're mixing.

If one of the band members is mixing it and can't figure out how to properly slot the bass in the mix, it's probably time to consider hiring a qualified engineer.

 

I obviously should have scrolled down a bit further

If the first pass was that far off the mark, don't just try to explain what you want again: send the engineer a few reference mixes to work from so there is no confusion.

If the second pass is still not even in the right ballpark, you'll know you need to hire someone else who can actually deliver the results you're looking for.

 

I am finding this happening more and more. Seems the engineer is mixing with his eyes instead of his ears.