noob question: How good should a demo be?

[mrbean667]

In terms of mixing, what should one aim for?
Does it need to be as good as possible, or just decent?

 

[brianhood]

as good as possible. Definitely

 

[Sean in Silence]

why would you not mix anything to the best of your ability?
Not aimed towards you
but just any engineer in general

 

[Dylan S]

I think it should be done to the best of your ability, also within your budget and other things like that.

I'm very close to mixing my band's demo album, and although I know it doesn't sound as good as a lot of the stuff here, it's as good as I can do with the time I have, and the fact we have no money means i have to do it all myself.

It depends what you want to use it for as well. The main idea for our demo was to have all our songs in the 'one spot' so to speak, because they'd all been written/recorded over the space of about a year and they all sounded different. We also did it so we could have it all in one .zip file on the net and let anyone and everyone download it, and we figure free music is free music, and it sounds good enough for people to take us seriously.

Just a few things to think about I guess.

 

[bibz]

As good as it needs to be to get the song across. If you need mega production to make the song sound good, its a crappy song imo

 

[fade_2_black]

Personlly, I cant stamp my name on anything less than the best work I can do. Unless its completely out of my control (musicians, etc).
Budget is always another issue you cant control.

 

[egan.]

It depends on the goal. If it's for internal use it doesn't matter. If it is to try to get something from someone else (money, gigs, contracts, laid) then it should be the best product you can possibly conjure.

 

[WestCoastCrush]

I say, as good as you can possibly afford, within reason. Quality first. And the better you sound, the better chance of getting label attention. And before anyone jumps in saying "fuck the labels," if you're not demoing for them, who are you demoing for? Your mom?

 

[Dylan S]

if you're not demoing for them, who are you demoing for? Your mom?

Well without sounding like an asshole here, it could be a number of possibilities.

It could be for putting together a few songs to distribute between local venues to try and secure some gig spots, or it could be do distribute between all of their friends and family, or yes it could be for labels also.

 

[mick thompson]

well a recording never lies so number 1 your band had better be good and you should be able to nail your riffs in the studio to perfection. secondly there is no point going to a studio with crap gear, old skins, dead strings and a hangover. so get your equipment up to scratch.

people always say the quality doesnt matter for a demo, because its only showing off what your working on, but you know just as well as i do that a good mix is pleasing to listen to compared to a piece of crap. if its mixed good it will make a more striking impression - and it means your band feel strong about what they do and are willing to spend money to get what they want

thats how i feel about it

 

[egan.]

Well without sounding like an asshole here, it could be a number of possibilities.

It could be for putting together a few songs to distribute between local venues to try and secure some gig spots, or it could be do distribute between all of their friends and family, or yes it could be for labels also.

That's true but I think his point still stands. It doesn't really matter who, if it isn't for internal use then you want it to sound amazing. Long gone are the days when anyone accepted anything short of album quality.

 

[Caustica]

Definitely as good as possible, the none-pro audio kind of listeners (let's call them lay people) can't tell a hell of a lot of things, but they can tell when something is wrong like you wouldn't believe. So if the demo is for the general public, they're not going to sit through it if it's not up to scratch with what they normally listen to. The good news is that this is usually badly encoded mp3s through even worse headphones, so it's doable.
If you're aiming your demo at labels and you have something that already sounds shit hot the recording labels see this as a way to save money by just remastering your demo for release instead of re-recording and mixing the entire thing.

 

[scorpio01169]

The thing about what people are now calling a demo ( demonstration ) cd is a recording of their band, all songs edited, reamped, sound replaced and all. and it should be a demonstration of what the band CAN sound like. 2 songs three songs tops. anything more than that then you are basically recording the bands CD. I remember back in the 80s hair metal bands were filling studios for 2 or 3 song demos just to get that tape (yeah i said tape) to a label. yea get it to sound as good as possible but if they are paying you demo prices...give them demo quality.