This is optimistic. Optimism is good. You have to roll the dice every once in a while. My only caveat is, if you're gonna invest your extra time and effort into clients, Just make sure that investment goes into your best clients.

Keep us posted on how this goes.

 

I would have done the same.
It's the most professional, most grown up thing to to.
I learned a lot from Adam Savages YouTube channel.
As some might know he was practical fx guy for ILM and worked on star wars among others.
He has an section where people ask things and a lot deals with how to communicate, how to treat costumers - the ups and downs of being a freelancer in an not too easy field.
It's good advice he shares there.

 

I always get paid.and since am getting paid, I will give my best to every client because I do not offer "discounts." To be clear, I do not have a pay scale for a platinum artist or a newbie. Both are going to be paying the same fee. Such a fee is one that I feel compensates me for what I do, and leaves no room to cut corners because I feel am not being well compensated.

 

I'm sure most won't agree with me but I find this cool.

HOWEVER...

I find this cool in the same way I find garage rock, DIY, lo-fi, waporvawe, punk stuff with tons of humor cool.
I'm aware that is NOT what the "artist" wanted.
So it's a fail.
Or the guy is a friggin genius.

 

I'm 100% with you.

If the target was a 1993 Queens Bridge Rap Mixtape, that would have been almost bang on.

But as you pointed out, this type of punk garage sound is...garage!! Ozuna is an A class artist with top notch production value for its genre.

We (the conversation with the artist) were not talking about that sort of Garage target to begin with.

I personally don't find any value in charging kids to mix a song like I'm using a portastudio but if that's what he want, I wont charge him as it takes about 30 minutes in and out.

It's been a while since I had any interest in that sort of grimy sound.

Maybe he will bring back a trend.... who knows.

I'm still wishing him all the best even though I am still not interested.

 

@Martel If he was targeting Ozuna, he needs a new GPS because his sense of direction is fucked up. Maybe the Colombian skies are cloudy. Who knows. The lyrics are not bad but the hook sucks. Moreover, you mentioned that he sounded like Daddy Yankee back in the 90's. Please, this guy delivery leaves much to be desired. At times he sounds like he can do it but halfway through the verses he fails to deliver confidently with "flow." As for the beat, you mentioned that he is a reggaeton artist but the snippet you uploaded is not reggaeton. It leans more to Spanish Hip-hop. He is in need of guidance big time. I hope he reads this, and stops wasting his money. Colombia is full of talented producers, and managers that can help him take a leap forward. He must avail himself of someone with the experience to help him grow artistically.

 

Correct, correct and correct.

As I said, he was able to make it sound worst then it already was.

I tried to talk his ''manager'' friend to talk him through his ''street'' path and at first we seemed to be on the same path but then further down the line it ended up that even the guy that acted as a reference gave up on him and we both agreed that we would be losing our time.

As we say on the coast, puro ñero.

Not saying that I had more to offer then his Colombian counter part as I prefer to let it speak by itself and your testimony is a proof of what I was saying from the jump start.

Now I'm not founded of internet bashing so let's just say that he's young and has a vision to follow until he can stay awakes to the ways of the world (his shit is deep). For whomever can understand the reference. Cali, sicario blah blah blah.

 

I am very honest here ( as always haha). I clearly think reference tracks are absolute garbage and do not worth anything for mixing. Every track that you would like to adjust to is unrealistic.

The myth is, that there is something like a "professional sound". There is nothing like this.
What there can be, is a genre specific balancing that most people enjoy.

That's fine and there are some tools for this. But instrumentation and interpretation has to be set into context.


So as a result simply ignore reference tracks.
If it sound good, it sounds good, no?

 

Last edited: Aug 29, 2023

@Lieglein , I couldn't disagree more with your statement that a reference track is useless.

Let's just agree to disagree and move on.

 

I disagree. Of course, it rarely helps when the client presents a reference that has 0% correlation to the submitted material and says, "I want my song to sound exactly like the reference."
But:
It's much more helpful if the client can show me, based on a reference, what kind of effect he wants for the vocals or how he imagines the dynamic feel of the track. Maybe the client doesn't want a generic, polished production, but a specific sound for a song. Those references help me way more than if the client says the song should sound "blue" or it should sound like "the moment Robocop remembers his former life" or it should sound like "a skeleton drumming with bones".
And no, I'm not kidding. I have actually received requests like that. And yes, I seem to have succeeded in making a song sound blue. The client was satisfied.

 

Last edited: Aug 29, 2023

I'm curious how ''blue'' sound

haha

 

Well, that's what I asked myself. My approach was to find descriptions that could be associated with the color blue. In the end I delivered a very open, separated, cold (only subtil saturation, lexicon reverb, restrained bass range, etc), wide mix and that was apparently exactly what my client expected.

 

Last edited: Aug 29, 2023

A Jerk would like to sing like Stevie Wonder and can pay as much as you ask, but at the end you lose tons of time and energy plus the money he didn't pay.

Take your conclusion.

 

I don't remember the artist nor the producer, but some time back in the late 80's I walked into a big fancy apartment in a big fancy building in NYC (I do remember that I was with the nice lady who at the time was heading the Woman In Music organization and who was managing the aforementioned artist), and there in my view while taking up a nice chunk of real estate in front of the huge panoramic picture window facing a nighttime lit up NYC skyline, sat a very large and very beautiful Solid State Logic SL 4000 G desk. The fellow was doing the A/B thing, tweaking the artist's mix with that Huey Lewis song called Perfect World. I guess that sometimes reference tracks do matter.

 

I had a guy once tell me that his song "should feel like a mountain" and that mix should be "more yellow and triangular".

The interesting bit is he left really happy, and I have no idea what I actually did.

 

Yeah. That really is the answer. I don't think someone complains if it does not sound like "blue" or whatever, but just good.

That's what I meant. It's good if it sounds good, whatever the reference may be.

One can of course do a more sound design thing. It's a different approach. My approach is just very pragmatic.

 

Last edited: Aug 29, 2023

We all don't know what we are doing so don't worry about that bit

EDIT: Except Pirate of course.

 

Bro, I was ready to hack your production DAW up until you edited, and stated the obvious: The Pirate knows every fucking thing ...and nobody can't contest that.

 

I disagree 100% on a blanket ban to the use of reference track for the reasons I will state below.

I agree 100% with your statement. If it sounds good, it sounds good. period.

As @Lois Lane stated sometimes reference tracks do matter. Specially if you are working with different genres on a daily basis. A reference certainly track will help you keep perspective in focus. Simply put, it will serve as a reset button when jumping from genre to genre. I remember back in the early 90s I was the in-house producer and engineer for a major label's latin division. One day, I was contacted by the A &R guy, and told that we had 2 weeks to finish almost 200 demos for several actors from a major Spanish TV Network that wanted to participate in the OTI Music Festival. I can say with 100% certainty that reference tracks allowed us to meet the deadlines by helping us establish the overall tonality of each track, which by the way were comprised of every genre you can think of.
Another use for reference tracks which is seldom mentioned is to keep your production from sounding from certain artist or producer. Yes, that is exactly what I said. Again, a reference track will help you keep your production from sounding like it was made by a copy cat.

Love it! As I told @Martel, at the end that is all that really matters. A happy client. Since we can't please the whole world, we must do our best to please the one paying us.

 

Yes and no. If it sounds good it is good. I agree with you there. It's about conveying the song well and not about mixing for the sake of mixing.

Where I disagree is in the implementation of the client's request. You haven't heard the song, of course, but I can assure you that "blue" brought all the puzzle pieces together once I got into the concept. It was hard to get into the concept first, but after I got into it, it was a perfect guide. Every association I could draw from the color was appropriate in the context of the matierial. If the client had wanted "red," for example, the associations would have been way less appropriate in retrospect. With red, I would probably associate attributes such as density, confinement, saturation, heavy, dull, etc. My approach would have been completely different, perhaps not understanding the client's concept request in the first place. In any case, it would have required much more clarification with the client.

Of course, there are customers who specify something as a request just to have said something, without having a precise idea of what they want. That happens. But in most cases, clients have a certain idea of how the product should sound in the end, even if they can't put it into technical words. And my job is to make that happen. Mixing is a service.

Nevertheless, I prefer it when the client presents me with a reference, points to an element with his finger, and says, this is what I want. Then I can just give him what he wants and don't have to get involved in experiments.

 

Last edited: Aug 30, 2023