Engineer is giving my band information, IS IT THE TRUTH??

[ThatOneGuyOverThere]

Hello and thank you for reading.......

My band has recorded our latest album with a small studio 1200 miles away from home that uses Pro Tools HD on a Digidesign board. We are happy with the tracking, but he just finished mixing the album and it is not suiting our ears.

We have a studio closer to our home with the same Pro Tools setup and Digidesign board that we recorded and mixed our first album ourselves in, our hope is that we can have him send us the files, and we can improve on the mix he has worked on up until this point.

We like what he has done with the EQ
We like what he has done with compression
We like some of the reverb & delays he has used.
We just want to work on the mixes, panning, add verb & delay in spots

This is what our Engineer is saying

"50% of the mixing has been performed with outboard hardware and the other 50% has been with plug ins. If you guys take these files elsewhere for mixing you will be starting completely over!"

So is this true?

1. If the Pro Tools tracks are sent to us, and we don't have the same plugins/outboard hardware then will these adjustments be transparent to us? He is saying he used expensive compressors etc. on our instruments, and if we take the tracks from him, all that will be lost because we don't have the same equipment. Otherwards all work will be lost and we will have to start over with raw tracks.

We just want more creative control with the mix, this engineer is good at tracking but his mixing skills are lacking.

What's the truth about all this?

Thanks

~ TOGOT

[crizdee]

Originally Posted by ThatOneGuyOverThere

1. If the Pro Tools tracks are sent to us, and we don't have the same plugins/outboard hardware then will these adjustments be transparent to us?

Yes! if he has used outboard on the mix then this will be missing if he sends the sessions to you.

There are options to bounce the tracks down as audio files? maybe if he's willing and able to do it correctly. You certainly wouldn't lose the expensive compression if he was to bounce the tracks to audio!!! the complications are the effects that are used!! if these are outboard as well then they will also be lost.

Other option could be stems! but this could be complicated if not thought out before hand.

I would ask him to send you one of the sessions and get it loaded at your local studio and take a look and see whats missing. chances are most of the effects could be re-created quite quickly.

The engineer does have a point! but he should also offer ways to get around this! carefull bouncing of the files with clear mix notes and it could be done, but would cost in time and money to do so.

Chris

[hummerZ]

Either give him comprehensive notes to work from and make adjustments, or get someone to mix it locally. and yes, you'd have to start from scratch, more or less.

[Carl Kolchak]

Are you still on friendly, or at least professional terms with the engineer concerned?

He's right in that if you don't have the same plugins he has, the mix will not sound the same, but you could rent / buy / in some cases even demo those plugins which would restore the data.

The critical thing is the outboard equipment he has used. Even if you did have access to the exact same equipment, it's extremely unlikely you would be able to set it up exactly the same - there are just too many intricate variables to make it absolutely exact.

The thing he seems not to have mentioned is that he could (for a fee I would expect) print each track through its individual F/X chain to another track.

This would then allow you to mix / pan etc however you liked - though again, as it's all about context you may find you effectively end up starting from scratch regardless.

This also brings up the interesting debate (certainly in terms of who gets credited - or even accepts credit - for the mix let alone gets paid for it) as to his "intellectual property" involved in the mix. If he's done most of the work and considers the session to contain his hard earned "trade secrets" that you will simply be tweaking, he may not be prepared to hand that part of the data over unless it was clearly stipulated in the original agreement.

Things to think about.

[Keybeeetsss]

Again Criz, from the good ole days of Family Fued "Good Answer-Good Answer"

[Kenny Gioia]

As a mixer, anything I get is a completely from scratch remix.

I don't see much point in preserving something that you don't like.

Just hire someone else (why would you think you could mix any better?) where you like their work.

Gear won't be an issue with a new mixer.

And the guy is telling you the truth. In fact, without further payment I doubt that he's going to reprint pieces of his out board gear for you.

I don't know any professional mixers who'll do that for you.

[KingFish]

Not to follow Produceher around today, agreeing with everything... But - I also make about 70% of my living Mixing.

I have MY favorite compressors, outboard gear, and a tremendous investment into the plugins "I like to use" and at the end of the day... like a musician, or any other artist, I get "A" sound that's kind of my own, as does Kenny, as does anyone who mixes, and I'm generally hired because people love what "I get"

I generally wouldn't touch the other Mixers "Printed compression tracks", if you don't like his mixing, find someone who "Gets it" for you, and have them mix from scratch.

[s.d. finley]

I would agree with the start the mix over camp. Keep the other
guys final mix, just in case you like it better.

[crizdee]

Hi,

Thinking about this another way! many of us now do mixing and mastering for clients all over the globe and its easy to throw mixes back and forth as MP3 and make amendments as you go! its even possible to install Nicecast and have the engineer stream the mix right into quicktime or itunes and listen in real-time and use say skype or e-mail to send info back and forth.

No man is an island

Chris

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by s.d. finley

I would agree with the start the mix over camp. Keep the other
guys final mix, just in case you like it better.

Good point. In fact, send the mix to the newer mixer with instructions as to what you like and don't like.

Many times I get a rough mix where the artist wants to preserve something about it.

I just don't need his gear. Just the target.