if there is no budget for pocketing, most of the times i will not do the job.
thats because : editing has become AS important to a pro sounding
result AS the mixing (eq/compression/etc).
if the song is not working musically - no mixing engineer in this world will help.
people will say : this mix doesnt work... but most of the times its bad to no editing at all.
i think we have to let our clients know, that a major label production sounds
larger than life because of the editing process. (or great musicians , hehe)
so to answer the question :
i go through every syllable, every note on every instrument,
- starting with the drums - quantizing to click
- next i will quantize / autotune the bass (not with autotune tho, but with vari audio)
- next will be guitars, editing timing (when melodyne DNA is out i will also fix intonation!!) - fixing transitions between chords, because many guitarplayers have the problem, that they "leave" the last note of a chord too early, which results into a short pause / w scratch sound between 2 chords
- most of the time tho goes for the vocals,
correcting timing, tuning, putting vocals "into the groove"