hey, pipeline I need an opinion

theron3 wrote on 8/4/2001, 11:14 PM

Not to disclude anyone-if you've input, please give it up- . Pipeline. I've read a few of your suggestions and find a sound mind and gregarious disposition.
Here is my quandry. I've a decent grasp on the recording end of things. I don't always follow the "rules" but, I can get a solid/useable signal if I pay attention.
I know next to zero about mixing. I can make a song sound decent enough to have a person listen and go "cool" or make a recording mix so that outside talent can cut a guitar track ect...
I havn't even tried to master anything. I've read so much about mixing and mastering to realise I can't expect to do a competent job at it regardless of gadgets. So, how do I present my audio tracks to a mixer and masterer. In what format? How much input to the overall song can I hope to have if I give my baby over to another? Is it possible to send the raw audio tracks via internet to a mixer and then a mastering person? What am I to do? I'm just a song writer with a little recording knowlege and a bilious distaste for the analog 4-track demos I've made in the past. Vegas has been wonderful so far. I've enjoyed the results and it has reasurred me that I can harness the pc digital domain. I just want to realize my limitations and not get soo caught up in learning that I forget how to write a song.
Thanks in advance for your time.
Theron.

Comments

PipelineAudio wrote on 8/5/2001, 12:48 AM

If you are truly a novice at the art of mixing, and someone says " cool " to your mixes anyway, that probably means you have a great song! Rejoice!

If your mixing skill is enough to convey the feel and guts of your song, again rejoice!

"I just want to realize my limitations and not get soo caught up in learning that I forget how to write a song."

LOL!!! then you are WAY smarter than me! I dont even play with my band anymore because the studio takes most of my time, and whats left, I spend messing with new apps, or building mic pre's and things.

"So, how do I present my audio tracks to a mixer and masterer. In what format? How much input to the overall song can I hope to have if I give my baby over to another? "

The usual way is to bring a band in to play your songs at a studio, using the tracks you made as guides for the musicians. Or if your tracks are recorded smartly enough, maybe bring them to a studio on a hard disk or as *.wav files on a CD.
You bet your bottom dollar that if you bring your tracks into a studio, the engieer BETTER listen to you! You are paying the money, and that makes you the boss! Always listen to helpful suggestions though! they do do this for a living.

You take a final, two track mix to a mastering lab, they only deal with the FINAL stereo file.

With high speed data in everyone's homes nowadays, its getting more and more possible to send tracks over the net to have others mix them.

Bets bet though, I think, is to either book some time at a studio, and write down everything you see, and WHY they do things, or maybe just figure out a way to hang out at a studio. Best scam is to say you just graduated from a recording class and tell them you need " intern hours" even if it means mopping toilets or whatever. The studios dont expect graduates of ANY recording class to know JACK about recording! no joke!

Anyways, I hope I answered some questions, or at least gave you some new stuff to chew on.

theron3 wrote on 8/5/2001, 10:09 AM

Thanks for your time and experience. I'm trying to avoid recording at a studio due to the $. I'l check on local mixing houses or maybe continue to do it myself. You've been a help, thanks
Theron

RobSoul wrote on 8/5/2001, 10:41 AM

Just hopping in here but I may have some insight for you...

If you want to have a "pro" mix your Vegas tracks you have a lot of options...but most cost at least a little money.

1.) If your basic set-up is anywhere near decent, you could have an engineer from a local studio come to your place and either mix the tune for you, or give you some one-on-one pointers about your mixes. Unless you strike up a friendship with someone, you're looking at paying a small hourly fee.

2.) You could bring your PC to a local studio and patch the outputs into to their system with relatively little difficulty. Hourly rate for a studio + an engineer is a little higher.

3.) You can burn your tracks to a CD-R and bring that to a local studio where they can import it and mix the tune while you sit over their shoulder and comment/learn. If they have Vegas it's really simple, if they have some other audio app, you just need to export each track in the appropriate format for their platform and app. (i.e., if they're running Pro Tools, export your tracks as .aif files.)

4.) You can burn your tracks to a CD-R and mail it to a studio somewhere. You can't learn as much as being there, but you'll get a better mix than you can create yourself.

5.) Sending files via the Internet is feasible, but not recommended unless both sides have high speed access and the tracks themselves aren't too big. I record everything at 24-bit and some of my songs have 1 GB or more of data...too big even for my Cable Modem access (and lack of patience) to handle efficiently.

If you saw my post recently, I am searching the audio NGs for a professional mixer to mix an album we're just finishing up the tracking on. It's for an amazing singer/songwriter named Debra Soule. Even though I have a lot of experience recording and mixing commercial audio (jingles, underscores, theme songs, etc) I want a guy that's done world class album mixes to handle this album.

We've had a lot of responses and we haven't made our decision yet.) But whoever we decide on will be out of state, and I won't actually be at the mix. But you can bet I'll supply them with pages of notes on what we want the mixes to sound like! We'll use the Internet to review mixes and make adjustments, but doing it long distance requires a good amount of trust on your part that the engineer you're hiring can deliver the sound you want. Or at least get closer to the sound you want than you can yourself!

As for mastering, it makes no sense to me to attend the session. The only opinons I can offer the mastering engineer are uninformed ones. :-) Mastering really is an artform...which is why someone like Bob Ludwig (who has mastered a good percentage of the CDs in your collection) gets $650 an hour and is booked three months out. Mastering is the stage where they make your CD as loud as possible without distortion, they EQ the overall mixes to sound more balanced, they clean up the beginning and ending of the songs and put them in the order you want with the amount of space between them that you want, and they can even smooth out the overall sound a little with some dynamic processing. This step is not necessary if you're just making a demo of a song. But anything released to the general public really should go through this stage if you want it to be competitive production-wise.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents!

Rob

Hypersound Music & Audio Design
www.hypersound.net
www.debrasoule.com