contest: paid job, black/death metal w/ violin

Just thought I'd chime in again and explain that I didn't steal business away from any other more expensive engineer. If I didn't mix it, no one would have
 
^ pretty sure no one thought you "stole" anything, Melo... but if you think that no one else would have taken a job mixing and mastering a CD for a well-known, and cool label like Relapse if you hadn't... well, i'm guessing you know what i think of that one, ;)
 
Haha
The band had never had anything actually mixed before, so one of the guys actually had to convince the others that I was worth the price :lol:

Sorry, I thought you were implying my low rates were so heinous at least in part because I make it harder for the big studios, and at least in this example, it's not the case.
 
ahjteam said:
Alright, let's break down the given assignment without downloading a single byte or listening a single second of the tracks:

- 6 songs, unnamed lenght. Given the genre (black/death metal), I am assuming quite long and technical songs, so guessing about 20-40 minutes in length (6 * 4 minutes = 24 minutes, 6 * 7 minutes = 42 minutes)
- There are violins and vocals that need editing/tuning
- midi drums, so needs drum sampler and possible midi editing
- di guitars and bass tracks, so needs reamping and possible time editing
- atleast "loudness" mastering wanted
- $400 reward
- 268mb download


Then what this requires to make it sound atleast remotely professional:
- I only have a 1mb connection, so I can download at 100kb/s speed. Estimate to download the 268mb package: 1 hour
- Beginning a session, organizing the tracks, adding grouping, routing and giving the first few spins and wondering wtf I just downloaded. Estimate: 1 hour
- Listening the track several times, tuning the vocals and violins, possibly the bass too. Estimate 2-3 hours
- Time editing the guitars and bass, if needed. Estimate 0.5-1 hour per guitartrack
- Reamping the bass and tweaking the tone. Estimate 0.5 hours
- Reamping the guitars and tweaking the tone. Estimate 1-2 hours
- Setting up the drums and making sure that the hits are on correct channels. Estimate 0.5 hours
- Doing the rough mix. Estimate 3-4 hours
- Automation and finetuning. Estimate 4-8 hours
- Possible feedback from the band for tweaking. Estimate x hours
- "Mastering". Estimate 1-3 hours

So that is about 27 hours of work, just for one song. Multiply that by 6, that makes 162 hours. Thats $2.47 an hour. You make $7.25 an hour at McDonalds.

So no thank you. Offering $1000 would be reasonable, but still dirt cheap AND below the minimum wage. I would do it for ~$2000 (1500€) or $25 (20€) an hour.
Click to expand...

And there it is! A fairly basic strip down of the effort/ time involved in a project like this. You guys don't realise that supplying some midi and di's is not asking for a mixing job. You're essentially getting tracking out of it too. etc.

Now again, I understand the OP probably has no ill intentions at all, and I think we can all agree on that, but it doesn't change the reality of this thread at all. Again look at it this way. You DIDN'T PM some one asking for a 6 song mix/ master and for them to do it at $400 quality. You came onto a board of AE's, offered them a $400, by competing against each other. Now OF COURSE some will try really hard, because they know they want to prove themselves, and when you chose their mix, you are going to expect that same quality across the whole EP am I right?

Like I said earlier, unless you're happy to chose a winner, and then realise you should be content with a mix sub par to the comp one, then this thread is null to begin with!

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Haha
The band had never had anything actually mixed before, so one of the guys actually had to convince the others that I was worth the price

Sorry, I thought you were implying my low rates were so heinous at least in part because I make it harder for the big studios, and at least in this example, it's not the case.
Click to expand...

Not at all man, but by lowering your own rates to ridiculous prices, bands will expect it from you always, and when you stop offering it, they will go elsewhere. You say one of the guys had to convince the band to begin with, well I have to be blunt here man! That's bullshit, and if that's the attitude they want to have, then it's not even worth busting your arse over.

My band is spending $10.000 out of our own pocket for our album, we are on a label, and they will pay for other things, but the onus is on us for the recording. And we realise what it's worth and what results will be reaped because of it.

Don't let bands like this treat you like they own you and you owe them. You only owe them a job relevant to their own monetary input, you are doing a job, not a favour!

:)
 
good job man! I like the mix! glad you realize it's definitely worth more than $400 for this kind of work too! :)
what are the guitars dude??? i actually like the tone :)
 
Melb_shredder said:
Now again, I understand the OP probably has no ill intentions at all, and I think we can all agree on that,
:)
Click to expand...

I don't agree.The band is from Germany,why they offered US$ then???
I 'm sure they were hoping to get some cheapo mixer from US,to cut the cost even further, $400 is ~ 300 Euro.

And that story about $300 label work,,,seriously, it's beyond ridiculous.
 
Melb_shredder said:
good job man! I like the mix! glad you realize it's definitely worth more than $400 for this kind of work too! :)
what are the guitars dude??? i actually like the tone :)
Click to expand...

Thanks, I really think 400$ for editing (guitars need to be silenced, timing at times + humanize midi drums), tuning, reamping, mixing & mastering isn't enough for me to bother...as I said allready, I even saw more money when working at the supermarket :lol: :p
Even if its just ampsims (so no "real" reamping) and pseudomastering, its not enough for me to do a whole EP.
I guess when it comes down to things you don't really "need" (unlike food and haircuts for example) people don't see the value of the work so much.

For the Geetaars: It was the first time I tried SoloC as booster (saw it in one of Eriks old threads and wanted to try it out since) in front of the Le456. s-preshigh + 11 inch ala Sneap impulses (rly like that combination)
EQ EQ EQ EQ EQ as always with ampsims :lol:

Dexter_prog said:
Sounds pretty fucking awesome. I love the clean guitars. What did you use for them?
Click to expand...

Thanks man, it's Amplitube3
 
Mago said:
Thanks, I really think 400$ for editing (guitars need to be silenced, timing at times + humanize midi drums), tuning, reamping, mixing & mastering isn't enough for me to bother...as I said allready, I even saw more money when working at the supermarket :lol: :p
Even if its just ampsims (so no "real" reamping) and pseudomastering, its not enough for me to do a whole EP.
I guess when it comes down to things you don't really "need" (unlike food and haircuts for example) people don't see the value of the work so much.

For the Geetaars: It was the first time I tried SoloC as booster (saw it in one of Eriks old threads and wanted to try it out since) in front of the Le456. s-preshigh + 11 inch ala Sneap impulses (rly like that combination)
EQ EQ EQ EQ EQ as always with ampsims :lol:



Thanks man, it's Amplitube3
Click to expand...

Whats is funny is that guitars are always my weak point in my mix. Now for this mix I said to myself '' I'll just do really basic eq cause I eq too much'', so I just did lo/hipass and a cut at 4-5k to tame some fizz...Now I just woke up and listened to your mix and mine, and yours rips the shit out of mine :lol:. I'll work again on it today.

I'd do it for 400$, but I wouldn't spend 27 hours a song as ahjteam said, and i'm sure the band don't have in mind someone would spend 162 hours for 400$. I'd spend 40 hours max on all the songs. I mean if I take 10 hours for the first song, the other songs should take 5 hours, cause it's juste importing the tracks, do some edit and some automation.
 
am i doing something wrong or is everything out of time?...
really bad timing issues :S
 
HandsOfDespair said:
I'd spend 40 hours max on all the songs. I mean if I take 10 hours for the first song, the other songs should take 5 hours, cause it's juste importing the tracks, do some edit and some automation.
Click to expand...

You might save the 3-4 hours from doing the rough mix and mastering, and maybe 1 hour from the drum, guitar and bass settings, but you still need to do all the other stuff (tuning, editing, reamping, midi humanizing, automation and finetuning), which still takes a lot of time.
 
Lasse Lammert said:
couldn't agree more
Click to expand...

I'm with James, Lasse, and others here feeling this way also.

So Melodeath - In fact, I gave you some very similar advice over AIM recently, but you were very stubborn about it and although you heard what I had to say, you seemed determined to continue charging rates that are essentially free. And I actually like your work, you could (and should) easily charge 5 or 10 times more for what you do, man!
 
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