Can you mix a song in 4 hours?

[Hazer]

Just that I was quoted that time scale for a 20 stem mix and was wondering if it's a realistic proposition before I splash the cash! They are an established quality local studio just wanted to get people's thoughts.

[BJG145]

There are people I'd trust to mix a song in that time if they said they could do it. Depends on expectations and the current state of the track really. (Eg it's going to have to be in pretty good shape to start with. Have they heard it?)

[Drew Stephenson]

I think that's the critical thing. Has it been fully prepped, multed, trimmed, tidied, laid out etc.
I.e. is it just mixing, or is there any fixing and editing to do too?

[Hazer]

It is simply a mix everything else is fixed, nothing in terms of timing or anything just consolidated WAVs to go straight in their DAW

[James Perrett]

I'd say yes - that seems to be a typical amount of time that I'd spend on a mix that didn't need anything too creative doing to it. If you are expecting the mixer to add to what you have already (like adding extra drum samples to enhance the sound) or massively change the sound of a part then it could take longer.

[CS70]

If everything is well recorded and in good shape, yes.

[Hazer]

This is utterly ridiculous I've been royally d****d about by a remote engineer whose first version took seven days and subsequent revisions were 2-3 days ending up almost a month and I wasn't even happy

[Sam Inglis]

I think four hours is reasonable if it really is literally just a mix. As soon as you involve things like vocal tuning or timing correction then you're looking at a much longer time frame.

[Aled Hughes]

This is utterly ridiculous I've been royally d****d about by a remote engineer who's first version took seven days and subsequent revisions were 2-3 days ending up almost a month and I wasn't even happy

Did she/he charge for 10 days’ work?! Maybe it still only took a few hours, but she/he had a lot work to get through?

It’s common to not be able to start a job immediately. It doesn’t mean the mix actually takes that long!

[CS70]

This is utterly ridiculous I've been royally d****d about by a remote engineer who's first version took seven days and subsequent revisions were 2-3 days ending up almost a month and I wasn't even happy

Very few of the projects I see are in a shape to require just mixing. Unless you have done the assistant work, there’s always loads of cleaning up to do even if things are recorded well.

[VOLOVIA]

With all the love and affection that I can muster for SOS, I think at least for the less experienced reader, a wrong impression is given by the remixed, or 'fixing tracks' articles.
Of course, they are great to read and most useful but they blur the difference between "mixing" (balancing tracks and improve the sounds, in essence) to full production.
It is usual to find one of the SOS 'boys' adding instrumental parts (I don't know, sub-bass on a weak bass guitar), but also much more radical steps such as cutting one of the guitars out in the first chorus, shortening the ending etc. Let alone fixing timings and tuning of everything...

Another potential problem for the mixing engineer is that nowadays most of us record the instruments 'dry to the bone' because "the sound will be made in the mix". It seems ideal, but this means a LOT of responsibility on the eng. shoulders to create, literally, a vocal sound, a guitar sound and so forth. Four hours?

Sure this is nothing new. When again we read about 'name' eng.s who worked on classic tracks, we read that they stripped the songs down, taken the rhythm guitar out, added a tambourine in the chorus, double the vocals, etc. (let alone getting a new drummer...).

So, what the 'amateur' recording artist (from his spare bedroom), such as me, nowadays looks at the mixing stage is at least to a co-producing role, hoping that the eng. will sort out his/her 5 tracks of clashing guitars and choose the best bits, i.e., producing it. Am I wrong? Of course, if then the engineer is called upon a kind of co-producing role, he is never going to get it right, unless as I wrote, s/he strips the song down and makes it sound like a TOP 10 records. In this case we are looking at 4 days work, not hours. And how much would you charge for that??

[muzines]

This is utterly ridiculous I've been royally d****d about by a remote engineer who's first version took seven days and subsequent revisions were 2-3 days ending up almost a month and I wasn't even happy

Just because it took 7 days to turn it around doesn't mean the mix itself didn't take four hours. There just may be many mixes ahead of you in the queue, existing priority arrangements and so on. Busy people are, well, busy...

As far as being happy with the mixes go, it's difficult to comment. Sometimes it's difficult for people to match expectations if they are unrealistic, for example - people can only work with what they have. Sometimes the communication between the artist and mixer isn't good, so the artist isn't really getting across what they want - and the mixer, from listening to that track, might be hearing a different vision of what the artist was thinking, and went more in that direction. Some of these things can be sorted out by better communication.

And sometimes, collaborations just don't work out, for no particular reason.

[muzines]

It is usual to find one of the SOS 'boys' adding instrumental parts (I don't know, sub-bass on a weak bass guitar), but also much more radical steps such as cutting one of the guitars out in the first chorus, shortening the ending etc. Let alone fixing timings and tuning of everything...

There's a line between "mix decisions" and "production decisions" which every person has a different idea of what they think is or isn't their responsibility. Some mixers absolutely will not do anything to the track to change the arrangement, or to replace sounds - just what they can do on the mixer (of course, you *can* make arrangement changes on the mixer alone). Other people will do whatever they feel is necessary to make the track good, "commercial", or more pleasing to the artist. Andrew Scheps has talked quite a bit about this in various interviews etc.

All these things are judgement calls, and if in doubt, you'd probably want to check with the artist if you have an idea you think might be questionable - "Hey, is this ok to do...?"

But the bottom line is today, pretty much *every* job in the process of making a record is blurry and the edges and overlaps with other processes, particularly now that everyone has all the tools and budgets are lower and people have to do more jobs themselves. So I don't see any particular problem in articles that illustrate some problems that SOS readers might be facing, and talking through how they were dealt with...

[CS70]

Well said, Desmond. Which brings the question back to the OP... in

Just that I was quoted that time scale for a 20 stem mix and was wondering if it's a realistic proposition

it all depends on the meaning of "mix" that was quoted to him.

Honestly, 4 hrs seems very strange for a job from outside with tracks never seen before.
CLA famously does about a song a day, and even a musician's day is more than four hours.

[Hazer]

This is utterly ridiculous I've been royally d****d about by a remote engineer who's first version took seven days and subsequent revisions were 2-3 days ending up almost a month and I wasn't even happy

Did she/he charge for 10 days’ work?! Maybe it still only took a few hours, but she/he had a lot work to get through?

It’s common to not be able to start a job immediately. It doesn’t mean the mix actually takes that long!

I expected that he would not start immediately and would probably be working on other stuff simultaneously, but the way it strung out over an extended time period for really minor revisions is what got on my wick.

[Hazer]

It is usual to find one of the SOS 'boys' adding instrumental parts (I don't know, sub-bass on a weak bass guitar), but also much more radical steps such as cutting one of the guitars out in the first chorus, shortening the ending etc. Let alone fixing timings and tuning of everything...

There's a line between "mix decisions" and "production decisions" which every person has a different idea of what they think is or isn't their responsibility. Some mixers absolutely will not do anything to the track to change the arrangement, or to replace sounds - just what they can do on the mixer (of course, you *can* make arrangement changes on the mixer alone). Other people will do whatever they feel is necessary to make the track good, "commercial", or more pleasing to the artist. Andrew Scheps has talked quite a bit about this in various interviews etc.

All these things are judgement calls, and if in doubt, you'd probably want to check with the artist if you have an idea you think might be questionable - "Hey, is this ok to do...?"

But the bottom line is today, pretty much *every* job in the process of making a record is blurry and the edges and overlaps with other processes, particularly now that everyone has all the tools and budgets are lower and people have to do more jobs themselves. So I don't see any particular problem in articles that illustrate some problems that SOS readers might be facing, and talking through how they were dealt with...

This is actually what I experienced and I suppose not previously knowing how all this works I can now manage expectations. The guy seemed to do very little to it, I having no experience left the track dry and thought he would add some verbs and then EQ / compress etc using experience.

[Hazer]

I think four hours is reasonable if it really is literally just a mix. As soon as you involve things like vocal tuning or timing correction then you're looking at a much longer time frame.

There were no vocals on it at all, just an EDM number no singing. Definitely can see how having to time/ tune vox would change matters

[Hazer]

Well said, Desmond. Which brings the question back to the OP... in

Just that I was quoted that time scale for a 20 stem mix and was wondering if it's a realistic proposition

it all depends on the meaning of "mix" that was quoted to him.

Honestly, 4 hrs seems very strange for a job from outside with tracks never seen before.
CLA famously does about a song a day, and even a musician's day is more than four hours.

In fact after I questioned the time frame the studio Manager said simply send an excerpt in and feel free to chat to one of the engineers, they are legit they've been in the area for years

[Hazer]

With all the love and affection that I can muster for SOS, I think at least for the less experienced reader, a wrong impression is given by the remixed, or 'fixing tracks' articles.
Of course, they are great to read and most useful but they blur the difference between "mixing" (balancing tracks and improve the sounds, in essence) to full production.
It is usual to find one of the SOS 'boys' adding instrumental parts (I don't know, sub-bass on a weak bass guitar), but also much more radical steps such as cutting one of the guitars out in the first chorus, shortening the ending etc. Let alone fixing timings and tuning of everything...

Another potential problem for the mixing engineer is that nowadays most of us record the instruments 'dry to the bone' because "the sound will be made in the mix". It seems ideal, but this means a LOT of responsibility on the eng. shoulders to create, literally, a vocal sound, a guitar sound and so forth. Four hours?

Sure this is nothing new. When again we read about 'name' eng.s who worked on classic tracks, we read that they stripped the songs down, taken the rhythm guitar out, added a tambourine in the chorus, double the vocals, etc. (let alone getting a new drummer...).

So, what the 'amateur' recording artist (from his spare bedroom), such as me, nowadays looks at the mixing stage is at least to a co-producing role, hoping that the eng. will sort out his/her 5 tracks of clashing guitars and choose the best bits, i.e., producing it. Am I wrong? Of course, if then the engineer is called upon a kind of co-producing role, he is never going to get it right, unless as I wrote, s/he strips the song down and makes it sound like a TOP 10 records. In this case we are looking at 4 days work, not hours. And how much would you charge for that??

This is a great point, are we talking a pure mix of what's provided or a much more hands on approach making creative decisions changing stuff about.

I was personally just looking for a pure mix to just bring it together, add some clarity to it via EQ etc I really wasn't asking for anything more and the engineer certainly made no attempt to otherwise.

[muzines]

This is actually what I experienced and I suppose not previously knowing how all this works I can now manage expectations. The guy seemed to do very little to it, I having no experience left the track dry and thought he would add some verbs and then EQ / compress etc using experience.

So did you communicate this, or did you just give the track to him as it was and let him get on with it?

If the latter, then likely the guy is listening to the rough mix as provided, and has taken that as the direction you wanted - in error in this case.

If you had said, for instance, "Ok, don't treat this as my best version of what I want, it's just raw and I've haven't added reverb and stuff, so make it sexy.." you might have had a different outcome.

I'm not sure I can blame to guy for listening to the rough mix and making the assumption that's where you wanted it to do - nor can I the length of time it takes. If you want it quicker, you could go to someone less in demand who would have less work on - they'd probably be able to turn it around quicker.

You might have to chalk this up as a learning experience, I'm afraid. Depending on how open the mixer is, I'd probably go back and explain the situation, why you were disappointed with the result and the reasons that it happened, how you aren't saying it's his fault or anything, just you didn't communicate what you wanted - and he might do another pass that's more in the ballpark, perhaps...

[Watchmaker]

Actually a great experience. Learn from it!

[Hazer]

This is actually what I experienced and I suppose not previously knowing how all this works I can now manage expectations. The guy seemed to do very little to it, I having no experience left the track dry and thought he would add some verbs and then EQ / compress etc using experience.

So did you communicate this, or did you just give the track to him as it was and let him get on with it?

If the latter, then likely the guy is listening to the rough mix as provided, and has taken that as the direction you wanted - in error in this case.

If you had said, for instance, "Ok, don't treat this as my best version of what I want, it's just raw and I've haven't added reverb and stuff, so make it sexy.." you might have had a different outcome.

I'm not sure I can blame to guy for listening to the rough mix and making the assumption that's where you wanted it to do - nor can I the length of time it takes. If you want it quicker, you could go to someone less in demand who would have less work on - they'd probably be able to turn it around quicker.

You might have to chalk this up as a learning experience, I'm afraid. Depending on how open the mixer is, I'd probably go back and explain the situation, why you were disappointed with the result and the reasons that it happened, how you aren't saying it's his fault or anything, just you didn't communicate what you wanted - and he might do another pass that's more in the ballpark, perhaps...

You know you are right, I did not communicate I kind of expected 'experienced guy, he will hear it and do his magic', and it did not happen straight away. But it really is a good learning experience and it will prevent any mishaps in the future!

[Hazer]

Actually a great experience. Learn from it!

Absolutely, and you know what over this time period some lyrics / vocals popped into my head as well for this track so it's a blessing in disguise

[Matt Houghton]

Depends on the material and your/their expectations.

I'd say it's optimistic. Possible, given good material, conventional instrumentation and song structure, and a good engineer who knows their go-to tools and who probably has a suitable template project for the style of music and instrumentation.

But you're talking the bare minimum time there. If you're after anything more than a basic balance, pan, compression, EQ and reverb job, I'd expect it to take at little longer. For some material a lot longer.

It shouldn't take days of work, though, even if you spread the mixing work out over days. As others have hinted, there's a reason our Mix Rescues have the 'Rescue' but in the name!

To me, the important questions here are:

Has the engineer heard your tracks?
Does the engineer understand your expectations?
Have you heard plenty of their work?
If so, do you like what they do?
Are you paying for the job, or paying for by the hour? (ie can costs creep up?)
Are any revisions covered in the fee (again, can costs creep up?)

[Sam Inglis]

If speed is really of the essence you could always hire Billy Decker... he claims to mix a track in 45 minutes!