Making an Album

I'd love to work mixing a full album for an awesome band/musician that is trying to make it! It's my ideal scenario, mixing-wise.

If you are evaluating going into a recording studio to make an album, but have some doubts or questions, let me know! I may recommend a good studio in your area. I've been to every single studio in the world. Crazy right? That's a blatant lie. But I do know what to look for in a studio and not all music genres have the same needs. Also, I could advice you on how to best spend your limited budget, so that perhaps you record certain things in the studio and others either at home or at a super home-y small studio. That sort of stuff. Reach me and I'll help if I can, whether we end up working together or not. I'm just a good guy like that (and I also believe a little bit in real-life karma points. Gotta earn them whenever you can, man).

The Craft of Mixing and Music-making

This is why I don't believe in super fixed rates and in filling out forms to send out your tracks (even though I absolutely understand why studios do that. People can be dumb and things can get crazy).

Mixing music is not like a Fordist factory, where you put your tracks on one end and I poop the finished product on the other end. It's an organic process and it can be as much a part of the composition as anything else. For me, at least, mixing is not purely a technical process of polishing but also an opportunity to make creative and artistic decisions. So that's why I prefer to keep things flexible and not stick to a process set in stone.

Mastering

I don't master. I fiddle with mastering every now and then and I'm very much interested in the process but here is how I think mixing and mastering differ in this aspect. I mix fully in the box, all the magnificent tracks you hear in my soundcloud have been mixed with software on monitors that you wouldn't believe (they are so cheap, I love them and know them so well). But serious mastering is a craft of precision.

I see guys offering mastering services, I look at what they offer and sometimes it's quite evident they don't have the gear. You can master with software, sure, there are a lot of great plugins out there. But at the very least you need a pair of mother fucking awesome monitors/speakers, and not near-fields. Ideally, you should have at least a pair of some Bowers & Wilkins or something of that caliber. You need to be able to hear some deep detail and for that you can't get around having the proper hardware.

You can record at home, you can mix at home, but mastering? Leave that to the pros who have at least some great gear. Also, whether you are paying for it or not, don't ever have the same person who made your mix do the mastering. Trust me, you are going to treasure having a pair of fresh (and trained) ears for that final stage.

More so, mastering is comparatively cheaper than mixing (it does take a lot less time to focus on two tracks than on 30), so taking your songs to some of the best mastering houses is not prohibitively expensive (Bob Ludwig might be though. But he should be, that guy is awesome).

What I will do, however, is deliver what I call a jiffy master. Basically, I put a limiter on the master bus and pump the volume to radio-friendly/commercial music levels. You can use that for reference, to post online, to show to your friends and impress girls and guys alike. Along with that, I'll give you a wav file (or aiff, whatever tickles your fancy) ready for mastering. Mastering engineers love me, I mean they would, if they knew me. Because I think of them and make files with plenty of room for them to flex their mastering muscles.