$$$ for MIXING on this forum - > RULES?

D

dcb

nerd
Dec 7, 2008
1,350
0
36
guys, i just wanted to ask if we should have some rules for people looking for mixing engineers here on this forum ?
(note : i dont know if thsi has been discussed and if i'm not aware of this, but nevertheless do i never see people post what they are willing to pay right off...)

here are some thoughts on rules for ($$$ for mixing) :

1. i think that we need something like a minimum rate.

i feel that most bands think we're just sitting there, loading our presets from our cracked software ,taking 1 hour to mix a full length sounding like randy staub...
(( take a look at this video here : Mastering : The Movie )) i watched this, totally laughed my ass off... and then i realized : sadly, this is how bands approach my work.

i want people to recognize that we are also artists in what we do, i'm not a plumber, i really put my heart into what i do...
(if there is plumbers around here : no offense! :lol: i know there are plumbers who put their hearts into their work)

2. hard facts!

maybe they should post some crucial facts about what is the band/label going to pay per song / per hour... (more than minimum wage is always welcome of course ;-):
in the end hopefully people let quality decide, not who takes less money. (but maybe our different currencies might become a problem...)

3. only users with + 50 posts can ask for mixing

this shows me, that these people are serious about what they do, that they know this forum, and appreciate our work here.
i compare that to the nigeria connection on ebay. they have names like "0454XXdksdj" and have 0 transactions yet.
then, they buy your stuff, ask you to send the stuff BEFORE you receive any money. they tell you they have currently no account,
because they got divorced yesterday and also their dog got sick and so on ;-)....


4 . only short clips

also i think we should only post something like a chorus (or maximum 30 seconds). people are expecting to
upload a whole song and make us fully automate, sample replace, pocket, vocal tune etc. before ever getting payed.
this secures us from people stealing full production ideas (harmonies, fx, climax in a mix)

this way, the engineers abilities show through,
also its way faster for people to listen through 20 >> 30 secs clips than
20 >> 3,5 minutes clips. and decide.


final thoughts :
these are just thoughts and maybe we can work on this, just to protect us all here from people abusing this forum and all the talent that is around here.
i know this is all connected with problems .

but hey : these are just some quick thoughts,
and lets start a discussion about this.
 
thing is....
there ARE people on this forum doing the preset sx3 thing you were talking about :)

and also there are sooo many people who're willing to do it for free aqnd offering it as soon as someone comes with "wanna pay a mixer"...
you can be sure the second post will be "just post the files, people will give it a shot for free"....
that ruins the whole business thing about it, so I won't even open those threads anymore.

It really never is a paid job, people on this forum always chime in and say "post it, we'll do it for free"....And frankly I think that the ones here that have to make a living from this won't even give it a shot, just because they don't have the time doing one free testmix after the other on a forum.

we should also have a subforum in the "gear for sale" section for stuff like this I think (something like "job offers" or so)
 
^ Totally.

It's a bit of a catch 22 situation, but it should be up to the individual to cover their own ass. This is why in the last 'mix-out' I only posted like a 1 or 2 minute clip, with absolutely no automation work. This way, if I didn't get the job, I didn't unnecessarily spend half a day riding levels and crafting FX.

I think it would be fair for the potential client to post a rough budget that they are working from, but it is also up to the engineer to suss this out and set their own minimum rate.

As Lasse mentioned, so many people are so keen to do free mixes here, using cracked tools and very cheap monitoring equipment that requires almost no overhead to run. This way the bands get an understated sense of what the mix engineer profession actually entails and the industry on a wider scale gets de-valuated even further. It's up to the individuals to realize this, because you really can't mandate insight and common sense. Most people have to learn the hard way. Usually once they hit full time work and realize that there are kids undercutting them, as they once did to others, with absolutely no profit margins. If you don't ascribe a concrete value to your own work, nobody else is going to either.
 
Lasse Lammert said:
thing is....
there ARE people on this forum doing the preset sx3 thing you were talking about :)

and also there are sooo many people who're willing to do it for free aqnd offering it as soon as someone comes with "wanna pay a mixer"...
you can be sure the second post will be "just post the files, people will give it a shot for free"....
that ruins the whole business thing about it, so I won't even open those threads anymore.

It really never is a paid job, people on this forum always chime in and say "post it, we'll do it for free"....And frankly I think that the ones here that have to make a living from this won't even give it a shot, just because they don't have the time doing one free testmix after the other on a forum.
Click to expand...

This. I'm not a full-time pro, but I still don't work for free. Even though I consider myself very cheap, it's been more than once I've been told "Yeah, that sounds really good, but we just found this guy who promised to do this for free." That's fine by me, if you don't think your music is valuable enough to throw in some $$$ to make it sound good, it really isn't my problem. I've grown to really appreciate clients who actually call me, say "Hey, we checked your samples, liked what we heard and want you to do our upcoming demo. What's it gonna cost?" That way I know they're serious and don't take my services for granted, and for those people I'm more than happy to give a bit of a discount.

I've done a couple of "free samples" here, but frankly, I'm not very enthusiastic about spending five or six hours on a song for nothing. I realised that if I'm going to turn this into a profession, I can't spend shitloads of cash into equipment and get nothing for it much longer :)

Hope this doesn't sound too pompous, and I definitely don't mean it's wrong to do this stuff just as a hobby. It's a fucking good hobby, after all! :)
 
Jarkko Mattheiszen said:
This. I'm not a full-time pro, but I still don't work for free. Even though I consider myself very cheap, it's been more than once I've been told "Yeah, that sounds really good, but we just found this guy who promised to do this for free." That's fine by me, if you don't think your music is valuable enough to throw in some $$$ to make it sound good, it really isn't my problem. I've grown to really appreciate clients who actually call me, say "Hey, we checked your samples, liked what we heard and want you to do our upcoming demo. What's it gonna cost?" That way I know they're serious and don't take my services for granted, and for those people I'm more than happy to give a bit of a discount.

I've done a couple of "free samples" here, but frankly, I'm not very enthusiastic about spending five or six hours on a song for nothing. I realised that if I'm going to turn this into a profession, I can't spend shitloads of cash into equipment and get nothing for it much longer :)

Hope this doesn't sound too pompous, and I definitely don't mean it's wrong to do this stuff just as a hobby. It's a fucking good hobby, after all! :)
Click to expand...

+1 ... I couldn't agree more with what you just wrote ... or maybe I could, hmmmmmm

+2

there we go :)
 
I agree with everything that's been said. I enjoy mixing (a lot) but it is kind of a bummer when you spend a few hours, then you don't receive any indication that anyone has even listened to the mix. Meanwhile, it could be streaming from their myspace page for all we know. Mixing for experience is great, but we should all do what we can to avoid devaluing this as an art AND a profession.

I think we should make a pact to only mix and upload verse 1 thru chorus 1, then SNIP.
 
Jarkko Mattheiszen said:
This. I'm not a full-time pro, but I still don't work for free. Even though I consider myself very cheap, it's been more than once I've been told "Yeah, that sounds really good, but we just found this guy who promised to do this for free." That's fine by me, if you don't think your music is valuable enough to throw in some $$$ to make it sound good, it really isn't my problem. I've grown to really appreciate clients who actually call me, say "Hey, we checked your samples, liked what we heard and want you to do our upcoming demo. What's it gonna cost?" That way I know they're serious and don't take my services for granted, and for those people I'm more than happy to give a bit of a discount.

I've done a couple of "free samples" here, but frankly, I'm not very enthusiastic about spending five or six hours on a song for nothing. I realised that if I'm going to turn this into a profession, I can't spend shitloads of cash into equipment and get nothing for it much longer :)

Hope this doesn't sound too pompous, and I definitely don't mean it's wrong to do this stuff just as a hobby. It's a fucking good hobby, after all! :)
Click to expand...

This is my exact POV. Cheers mate :kickass:
 
There's no way to really enforce any of that stuff. I would just forget about it and leave it as is. Anyone who is serious about getting a good mix is going to contact the right people through the right channels anyways, not fish around for free work on a forum.
 
There's no need for "enforcement" per say, but if all the best mixes that show up are short snippets...
 
While I partly agree with what has initially been said, I too think everyone should decide on their own if they are going to participate or pass. More advanced studios/producers will generally have enough business already to be worrying about someone choosing another studio because it's cheaper.

Similarly, it's only normal that the client is given chance to make their choise based on their priorities and/or budget. If they want an awesome mix and can afford one then in most cases they wouldn't be making such threads but would rather contact a studio whose work has grabbed their attention. If they want an awesome mix for as little as possible, then there's still a good chance they'll get one as there are some very talented people on this forum that are willing to do things cheap simply because they need the recognition and/or publicity.

Not to mention, both sides can learn a lot from such threads and they should be acknowledged simply for their educational value.

I've "won" one of those contests and it has really helped me and made me happy in one way or another, but I've also participated in a dozen similar threads and each and every one has been beneficial in one way or another without me necessarily winning. I'm not saying it's always worth it to spend your time that way, in fact I'm missing 2 such threads in the moment because I have other stuff to deal with. You just have to decide for yourself if it's worth it, you know the benefits and you know the risks.
 
AdamWathan said:
There's no way to really enforce any of that stuff. I would just forget about it and leave it as is. Anyone who is serious about getting a good mix is going to contact the right people through the right channels anyways, not fish around for free work on a forum.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I've done tons of free sample mixes and never got hired thru them.

Every time I've worked for a band I've been contacted thru the right channels by people that has heard my previous works and wanted me to actually work for them, not a test mix...

If a band wants my services they'll have to trust my skills and get me working on their material. I won't make a test mix again I think.
 
Lasse Lammert said:
It really never is a paid job, people on this forum always chime in and say "post it, we'll do it for free"....And frankly I think that the ones here that have to make a living from this won't even give it a shot, just because they don't have the time doing one free testmix after the other on a forum.
Click to expand...

+1,000,000

Audio isn't a hobby for me. Why am I going to waste a few hours of my life to put together a test mix when a kid with a crappy mix that happens to be louder than mine gets the "job" doing it for free?
 
Mixing for free it´s not completely useless. It´s great for learning without compromising anything but only mix for free who want. I´am here a few months and I only did 2 mixes and 1 took me one week and too many hours. A thing that I dont understand it´s how people can download the raw mix in one day and present the mix the day after. WTF?:zombie: I could only do that if I apply presets in all instruments, that or mixing for 10 hours continuous. FUCK THAT, I have a life. Mixing is a very thorough job and it needs a lot of patience, sometimes a lose hours just to correct some shitty frequencies. Yeah but for free they cannot expect a lot of hard work. But If I grab a mix I will try my best but that requires a lot of time and I only do that when I realize that I need to learn more. Dont take me wrong but many mixes here dont worth the time lost because some of them dont even have the necessary conditions to ensure a good job. Like instruments out of time, out of tuning, clipping waveforms and all that shit.
 
Nuno Filipe said:
Mixing for free it´s not completely useless. It´s great for learning without compromising anything but only mix for free who want. I´am here a few months and I only did 2 mixes and 1 took me one week and too many hours. A thing that I dont understand it´s how people can download the raw mix in one day and present the mix the day after. WTF?:zombie: I could only do that if I apply presets in all instruments, that or mixing for 10 hours continuous. FUCK THAT, I have a life. Mixing is a very thorough job and it needs a lot of patience, sometimes a lose hours just to correct some shitty frequencies. Yeah but for free they cannot expect a lot of hard work. But If I grab a mix I will try my best but that requires a lot of time and I only do that when I realize that I need to learn more. Dont take me wrong but many mixes here dont worth the time lost because some of them dont even have the necessary conditions to ensure a good job. Like instruments out of time, out of tuning, clipping waveforms and all that shit.
Click to expand...

Like with any other art, you get faster with practice. You listen to something, realise what you want it to sound like, and know the basics you need to do to get there. After that, it's fine tuning, fiddling around and experimenting stuff. It doesn't necessarily mean people are just slapping presets on the tracks (though I'm sure that's not exactly uncommon, either). Then again, at least for me, 10 hours of continuous work (with food breaks etc.) after 8 hours of school is pretty normal. I haven't got a life :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

paladin shredder
New idea for this forum.
Replies
32
Views
2K
Andy Sneap
Nebulous
N
D
sneap forum band - anyone interested in mixing this?
Replies
102
Views
7K
Andy Sneap
davidbeaumont
D
MR NINE
THIS FORUM USERS PROJEKT!!!
Replies
63
Views
3K
Andy Sneap
MR NINE
M
V
This forum is getting watered down
Replies
79
Views
5K
Andy Sneap
ApolloSpeed
A
J
Why is this forum so slow
Replies
4
Views
532
Andy Sneap
jeronimo
J
Top Bottom
Back