should i be worried? (producer I'm working with is not answering my mails)

[chewyfhtts]

if you havent met me yet. i'm new here. i thought i'd make this thread because a lot of you guys seem to be quite knowledgable about this sorta stuff and have worked with big producers etc...

so basically i play in a band. i've tracked all the stuff for our upcoming release. i've organised to get the mix and master done by a BIG NAME metal producer. now there's not much time left to organise all the specifics. he has confirmed that yes, he will book me and do the mix/master, so that's all good.

what i'm worried about is that i emailed him a bunch of questions over a week ago, and he still hasn't replied to my email. maybe i'm just paranoid, but because i'm asking him a shitload of questions, i get a "slight" feeling he might be getting a bit .. well.. annoyed haha.

should i be worried? he's never taken this long to reply to any of my previous emails, and i'm a little scared to email him to ask if he got my last email, cos he might get pee'd off. lol. it's not long before i gotta send off the files to him etc. that's why i'm stressing out.

oh, and i really hope he doesn't visit this forum and reads this, hah! but if he does.. hopefully he doesn't see this in a bad way.

what should i do? should i send another email or wait? i'm even tempted to call the phone number just to see if everything is still good.

by the way, i'm not a stalker, haha!

 

[-Gavin-]

If you're paying him and he's confirmed for the mix/master, it's his duty to answer your questions (No matter how stupid or annoying.)
Phone him and if he doesn't take it well, take your business elsewhere!

That said, he's probably just balls deep in another mix and hasn't realised you've emailed.

Just call.

 

[chewyfhtts]

yeah, that's what i figured. i'm sure he'd be really really busy so that's why i don't wanna get on his bad side. you know when you get "that" client..?? i don't wanna be "that" client

 

[AudioPhile777]

He hates you and now you will never know fame and titties. uke:

 

[chewyfhtts]

dammit. i was hoping he didn't !

he did mention that he was having problems with his mail server on one of his emails, so hopefully he got the email.

bit nervous to call him too, cos i'm not sure if he'll know what the hell i'm saying considering we're from differend sides of the globe.. hmm

 

[Lasse Lammert]

.....

not saying this applies to you....just from a producer's point of view:

a band usually only records once a year (if that), so for the band, especially if they're young, it's the biggest and most important thing in the world, if it's the first time in the studio their thoughts really circle only around that one thing and they've got tons of questions...
that is understandable and I'll help my clients as good as I can....BUT

now the other side....I'm usually booked at least 6 months in advance with 10-15 productions a year (also counting EP, singles etc)....
that means if the band booked for "in 6 months" there'sll be like 5-7 Bands before that and a couple more after that who've already booked in the meantime.
for ALL of them it is the most important thing in the world (understandable) and they've got tons of questions.
so it's like 5-10 Bands mailing the producer almost every day and asking questions/being excited.
What these bands often can't see, is that the producer has other bands/gigs that he not only has to reply to but also record, mix, produce etc....
Now imagine you're on a tight schedule...dealines etc and have lots of work to do to keep the dealines, also you have to organise all the upcoming bookings, talk to labels and potential clients etc...how is the producer supossed to answer all those mails coming from all those young bands expecting the producer isn't doing anything but their stuff.
That happens to me all the time...even labels think that I don't have anything to do but wait till they want me to do something for them....there's one lable for example that keeps asking me "can you record band x ?" I say "sure I can" lable says "cool, they can record in 3 weeks from now, and it has to be done in 6 weeks cause we've got a releasedate already".
seriously...if I still wouldn't be booked for the next 6 weeks, what would that say about my quality? they don't see that, they think I'm only waiting for them to send me bands.....and if he's BIG NAME he'll have these problems even more than I do.

What I'm saying is.....
if it's 1 mail per week you're sending him you can easily handle that...but if everyone of his clients sends him one mail per week he can't do anything but answering mails all day long.

so my advice would be send him ONE mail asking the questions (and only if they're really important for the project) and then wait for his reply. If he doesn't reply send him another one after a week or two to remind him, but DO NOT send followup mails like "oh, I forgot...one more thing"...and 10 mins later "...also should I?" and one day later "I forgot to ask" and another 15 minutes later "..and my drummer just asked if he...". Also make sure to ALWAYS write your mails from the SAME address, not some from myspace, some from your work addy and some from your private addy
cause that'll just cause an unorganizable mess in the producer's mailbox, especially if other bands are doing the same thing.
also make sure to always quote the entire conversation in your mails.

summarized: try to cause as little extra work as possible, sum all your questions etc up in ONE mail, word everything very clearly and give him time to answer.

[rant]
when I'm getting more than one mail per day from a single client asking questions I usually tell him to sum it all up in one mail and send that one again. they usually reply with "but I sent you all the questions already in the last 4 mails"....fucks sake, I'm receiving an average of 40 mails per day (not talking about spam!), how am I supposed to piece all the scattered mails/questions together?
/rant

again, not saying that's what happened in your case, just wanted to get rid of this thing in general

 

[digitaldeath]

Great post Lasse!

 

[ahjteam]

Great post Lasse!

+1

 

[chewyfhtts]

and if he's BIG NAME he'll have these problems even more than I do.

What I'm saying is.....
if it's 1 mail per week you're sending him you can easily handle that...but if everyone of his clients sends him one mail per week he can't do anything but answering mails all day long.

Understood.

so my advice would be send him ONE mail asking the questions (and only if they're really important for the project) and then wait for his reply. If he doesn't reply send him another one after a week or two to remind him, but DO NOT send followup mails like "oh, I forgot...one more thing"...and 10 mins later "...also should I?" and one day later "I forgot to ask" and another 15 minutes later "..and my drummer just asked if he...". Also make sure to ALWAYS write your mails from the same address, not some from myspace, some from your work addy and some from your private addy
cause that'll just cause an unorganizable mess in the producer's mailbox, especially if other bands are doing the same thing.

summarized: try to cause as little extra work as possible, sum all your questions etc up in ONE mail, word everything very clearly and give him time to answer.

[rant]
when I'm getting more than one mail per day from a single client asking questions I usually tell him to sum it all up in one mail and send that one again. they usually reply with "but I sent you all the questions already in the last 4 mails"....fucks sake, I'm receiving an average of 40 mails per day (not talking about spam!), how am I supposed to piece all the scattered mails/questions together?
/rant

again, not saying that's what happened in your case, just wanted to get rid of this thing in general

Great advice! And yeah, that's definitely NOT what has happened in my case. I always try to explain everything as detailed and as clearly as possible in one email.

I guess I'm just a bit worried that he's taken so long to reply to my last mail, and the dates we are booked for is in early Nov.

Only thing I'm a little concerned about is that I need to know some of the stuff asap, cos then I can organise stuff that needs to be done, and with less than 2 weeks to go. I'm a little scared And considering I'm doing all the tracking/editing for this project, I really want to MAKE SURE everything is as prepared as it can be 110%, ya know?

But yeah, like you said, I'm sure he is VERY busy with other work, as when I first mailed him, he initially said he had "some" spare time. so I might just send him a polite reminder email in the next couple of days if I don't get a reply by then.

Thanks heaps for your advice Lasse, really appreciate it!

 

[gabriel g.]

+1 for lasse´s post

And I must say:

All audio-engineers I worked with (only a couple) are always super nice and totaly aware of their responsibility.

I always make a list with questions like:
1. ->10.

I mostly get a list back with:

1. yes
2. no
3. yes
4. bring it in if you want
5. great
6. please dont