How Many Bands in a Month?

[NSGUITAR]

Hello. I'm curious as to how many bands is 'too many' in a month to work with. Right now, I have all 4 weekends booked for next month, each band recording from friday to sunday night. All of these bands are shooting for about 3-4 songs for the weekend. Out of curiosity, do you think this is too much work to handle? As in, do you think it'll be difficult to take on the workload side of things (tracking/editing/mixing). I've never really worked on the scheduling side of things with recording, because I'm so used to having only 1 or 2 bands in a month, so it's been really easy to manage that.

 

[006]

"Too many" is all down to your workflow and how efficient it is, as well as how quickly the bands can track their parts sufficiently. IMO anyway. 3-4 songs over a weekend should be a piece of cake though.

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

as long as you do your editing WHILE you are tracking (which can be tough when you are working in short time frames like that) it's not too bad.. but if you let the editing for everything build up and you have to do it all at once you are GOING to get lazy and start cutting corners, unless you are on coke or have the strongest willpower/patience known to man or something.

3-4 songs in a weekend is kind of a lot. I would convince them to do less songs or more days.

 

[NSGUITAR]

"Too many" is all down to your workflow and how efficient it is, as well as how quickly the bands can track their parts sufficiently. IMO anyway. 3-4 songs over a weekend should be a piece of cake though.

Sweet. Thanks.

It's relatively fast, my workflow. I take my time on the mixing process and I'm not super fast at drum quantizing yet, but it's still quite efficient.

 

[NSGUITAR]

as long as you do your editing WHILE you are tracking (which can be tough when you are working in short time frames like that) it's not too bad.. but if you let the editing for everything build up and you have to do it all at once you are GOING to get lazy and start cutting corners, unless you are on coke or have the strongest willpower/patience known to man or something.

3-4 songs in a weekend is kind of a lot. I would convince them to do less songs or more days.

Yes. I never know what to make the band do during drum edits! Usually I just say 'errmm.. there's a fucking awesome skatepark right across the street, and a nice cheese place as well' haha

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

Yes. I never know what to make the band do during drum edits! Usually I just say 'errmm.. there's a fucking awesome skatepark right across the street, and a nice cheese place as well' haha

yeah I know what you mean.. I just kinda, stopped caring about this. they've got a TV and an xbox 360 to play around with at my place. I would rather them be bored than have to edit 12 songs all at once. I did that on my first few full lengths and..... never again.

 

[NSGUITAR]

yeah I know what you mean.. I just kinda, stopped caring about this. they've got a TV and an xbox 360 to play around with at my place. I would rather them be bored than have to edit 12 songs all at once. I did that on my first few full lengths and..... never again.

This one time I didn't edit the drums before I tracked everything else... It made me hate life more that life itself.

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

This one time I didn't edit the drums before I tracked everything else... It made me hate life more that life itself.

oh shit I've never done that haha I just mean I tracked all the drums at once and then edited them all at once after the band left, and that was bad enough.

 

[pipaguapique]

what?? 006 you're fast!

I usually spend a full month with a band doing a full length. On Demos and things like that it's one day tracking per song and one day for mixing, and then another for mastering, so a week for demos.

 

[AudioGeekZine]

FML

 

[NSGUITAR]

FML

?

 

[aortizjr]

I think that is totally doable especially if you can work some evenings during the week.

It will be a long month and you probably won't be able to get them the mixes in the same month, but it shouldn't be too bad.

The wildcard of course is how tight they are and how much editing and such they are paying for. But for 3-4 songs, drums 1 day and editing that night or into the morning. Guitars and bass the next. Vocals and solos after that. Additional editing and get the first mix passes during the week, tweak from there. But put in 10 hour days, at least for drums to get them edited and ready to go.

If they aren't tight and can't lay down their parts during that weekend, you will either have to put them during the week, or tell them you are booked for the rest of the month. It is the way it goes.

I don't know if you would want to do this with a day job every month, but plow through one month, shouldn't be bad. Or if you "book" weekend time to mix, then mixing will have to wait till you are available again.

 

[AudioGeekZine]

FML

?

To put it nicely

You say you have too much work

I've worked about 5 hours in the past month.

 

[NSGUITAR]

To put it nicely

You say you have too much work

I've worked about 5 hours in the past month.

I don't think it's too much, I was just worried that I wouldn't get it all done in a punctual manor. =(

 

[barricade]

Make sure that the band has all songs prepared and done with all the tempo changes and backvocals etc..

...so you will record,mix and master 4 songs in 3 days?

 

[NSGUITAR]

Make sure that the band has all songs prepared and done with all the tempo changes and backvocals etc..

...so you will record,mix and master 4 songs in 3 days?

No, just do the tracking and edits those days.

I'm just worried that my workload may be too much to handle.. It'll probably take me a week or so to mix master all of the songs, and at the point I'll already be tracking another band, so it was just the scheduling thing that I'm worried about. I already have my girlfriend yelling at me for not spending enough time with her! haha .. But that's just not true.

 

[Seth Munson]

2-3 days per song. That let's me do pre pro, any rewriting and building transitions then track/edit everything and then get a good start on a production mock up including sound effects and post stuff

 

[jimwilbourne]

efficiency and organization is all key.
but in addition, look at what best suites YOU and your preferences.
if you like working at a slow pace, don't take one 5 bands a month.
if you like working quickly, don't take on 1.

 

[B36arin]

This one time I didn't edit the drums before I tracked everything else... It made me hate life more that life itself.

I've just been there, NEVER AGAIN!

 

[NSGUITAR]

I've just been there, NEVER AGAIN!

yah.. Fucking sucks.