• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Mixing at studio: How long?

Papersen

Papersen

Supporting Member
Mar 22, 2002
2,927
243
52
#1
I´m finishing the (home) recording process with my band. We´ve already made some rough demos that are Ok, but I´m looking for a better quality that won´t empty my wallet.

We´ve recorded 12 songs, 4 minutes average. Just vocals, 2 guitars, bass and drums (some extra tracks for solos, strings in one tune).

I´ve already contacted some local studios to mix the album and got several different budgets. My question is: what´s an average time involved for mixing something like this ?

I know it depends of several factors, but just get an aprox. idea an try to fit my budget as much as possible.

Thanks
 
#2
There's no real answer to this question, as far as I know. The more time devoted to mixing, the more time a good engineer has to make it better, until you hit the point of diminishing returns. One day per song isn't unreasonable, or even longer depending on the source material. OTOH, a good engineer, depending on your music, might be able to mix the entire album in one day or less.

The real questions, in my mind, are:

A)How much time can I afford? To a certain extent, more time=better mix, so I'm going to buy as much time as I possibly can.

B)Which engineer? I'm going to want someone whose recordings I like, and who is familiar with my type of music. They're more likely to know what type of sound I'm going for, and achieve it more quickly. Shop around, and ask for examples of an engineer's work.

C)Save money for good mastering! I can't stress this enough. That should be included in your budget, too. A good master makes a recording come alive, and a bad master makes it unlistenable.

Sorry to muddy the waters for you, but I don't believe there's an easy answer for your question. Shop around, and don't skimp if you don't have to.
 
#3
It depends a lot on the gendre of music - blues & jazz can go pretty quick if there's not a lot of harmony singing & the like.
A lot will depend on what your standards are too...

For mainstream rock/pop - if it's for release figure a minimum of four hours per tune...some will probably take twice that...or more.
 
#4
Thanks for the input guys, I appreciate it.
Our genre is rock/hard rock.

I´ve already heard some work from some engineers. The problem is that some of their albums are Ok and some are so so.

We´ll try to enter the studio with as many things decided as possible (desired sound, instrumentation, arrangements, etc.) but know that some other might turn in a different way.

Our first album took about 60 hours to mix. We weren´t there when it was done and the results were far from desired.

To jabberwock777, were saving extra money for mastering the album, thanks for your advice.
 
#5
It took us 4 full day sessions. Thats roughly 9-5. So...8x4 = 32 hours to mix. And it cost us about 200 for a full studio day. We were lucky and had a very good engineer working with us, who understood what we were going for (he worked with Guided By Voices and Robert Pollard if that means anything).
You can hear our results on our myspace (in your mind and flower child), and we also used an analog studio.
Remember... some engineers may've just been listening to the band, so it sounded "so-so." If you have the idea of what you want, and the engineer can provide your direction- you're golden. Just don't advance until you like the song. Get your mixes done, listen to them at home, then note anything you want to "remix." This is especially tough to do with an analog studio, but we did it, and it was worth it, we honestly should've done it more, but we didn't
Mastering is a great idea as well.

Best of luck
Dan
 
#6
It really varies; I've mixed whole albums in a day, and I've spent 3 days (counting revisions) on 2 songs. Folks have mentioned that it depends, and this is true - the album I mixed in a day was pretty easy because (A) we knew that we wanted the end result to sound like it did when we tracked it, and (B) I engineered the session and had fabulous, studio savvy musicians working on it. (Seriously - we didn't even need to write automation for ANY of the instruments, and very little for the vocals, because the players and singers were that good).

Your best bet is going to be to decide how much you can spend, then talk to the engineers and studio owners who you might want to mix your project. Get their price per hour or per day, and divide you total budget by that amount. Then you'll know how much time you can spend. if you don't think that will be enough time, look for another engineer/studio who will work cheaper. But remember, you usually get what you pay for...

Good luck!
 
#7
Dave Martin said:
It really varies; I've mixed whole albums in a day, and I've spent 3 days (counting revisions) on 2 songs. Folks have mentioned that it depends, and this is true - the album I mixed in a day was pretty easy because (A) we knew that we wanted the end result to sound like it did when we tracked it, and (B) I engineered the session and had fabulous, studio savvy musicians working on it. (Seriously - we didn't even need to write automation for ANY of the instruments, and very little for the vocals, because the players and singers were that good).

Your best bet is going to be to decide how much you can spend, then talk to the engineers and studio owners who you might want to mix your project. Get their price per hour or per day, and divide you total budget by that amount. Then you'll know how much time you can spend. if you don't think that will be enough time, look for another engineer/studio who will work cheaper. But remember, you usually get what you pay for...

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice Dave. I appreciate it.
 
#8
as an engineer, and working alongside an even more experienced engineer who mixes my bands material when we record (i never record my own band, not subjective enough) we take around a day to mix 2 songs usually...

however, working with other bands with smaller budgets/less time available, we often mix entire albums in 2 days (and fair enough im not always happy with the results but its a necessity...)
 
#9
from an engineering standpoint there are 2 things that need to be said.
a) depending on how the songs were tracked, there is only so much you can do in the mix. a good recording is really about getting the right sound from the beginning, so if you recorded it in a mediocre home studio, or rehearsal space, it will only sound as good as something recorded in a mediocre space.
and finally point b) when having somebody else mix your tunes, the worst thing you can do is sit in the room with them while they do it. This has happened to me. mixing is a process, and if the guitar player is constantly saying "no i don't like that" when you have the guitar solo'd for some eq'ing, it wastes time to tell him that he has to trust you and that it will sound different in the mix then when it is solo'd. If you don't trust the enginner to do it...get a new engineer. Bands should produce their own material yes...but let the mixing engineer mix before you start telling him what has to change. he already knows. he's doing what he can with what he has been given.
 
#10
I know that there's been enough info given already, but since I'm in the middle of this myself, I thought I'd weigh in. My band, WAKE, is having our second batch of 4 songs mixed down. We paid about 500 for the whole deal, a day of recording, mixing, and I think mastering. Anyway, we figured it would be about 3 hours per tune, depending on how tight you are when you initally lay things down. If you have to tighten a lot of drum parts and re-do bits, it can get spendy, as you can imagine. That's my 2 cents.
 
#11
This is a really open ended question. It is possible to record and mix entire albums in a day, I have done it, but its also possible to spend a lot more time. It is not all that uncomon for a major label artists to spend 3 - 4 weeks mixing (or even more)

The best thing you can do is find an engineer that you really trust and give him an honest answer about your budget and he/she should be able to make the process fit in your budget.

Although you have not told us what your budget its, I think its important that you have realistic expectations about the end result. You can not really spend 3 day mixing an album in a small studio and be upset with the engineer if it does not sound like the last Tool album (which was 21 days of mixing in a very high end studio.) that said a great mixer will probably do a better mix in 4 hours than a not so great enginer will do in 2 days.

A big part of the end result is going to be how the tracks were recorded. If the musicians are sloppy, drums were recorded badly and the guitars were recorded with Line6 pods, all the time in the world will not make is sound great. If track are recorded great, its possible to get good sounding mixes in 30 minutes and great ones in a few hours.

As a guy that has mixed a couple hundred records, I can throw in this advice. If your budget is small, worry about the big picture. Make the over all sound great, and do not get too hung up in minute details. There is nothing that will kill an album and drain the budget as much as obsessing about the high hat level in a bridge, etc.

Also (I am potentially opening up a fight here) but analog mixing is generally better for mixing rock. Its much easier to make rock records sound big and powerful with analog mixing, analog compression etc. The down side to this is that it is much harder to go back and make small changes. For me personally I would much rather have a record that sounded great, that I could not go back and make small changes to, than a record that sounds just so so, that I could go back and make lots of changes to (to make it a different so so record)
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back