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How much time do you spend on a song?


rhino

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I'm curious about how much time people spend when recording a song to make it the best it can be. This would included preproduction, choosing instruments/sounds, altering arrangements when needed, tracking, editing and mixing. (excluding mastering)

 

I often can spend 40-60 hours on one song. Is anyone spending that amount of time on their work?

 

I ask because I am being asked to give a quote for a song to be produced/recorded/edited/mixed to the BEST of my abilities, and I can always find additional ways to be creative with the mixing/production but I need to learn to limit myself for client work. My own stuff, I'll always produce until I feel it's done, but where should I be for a well produced/mixed paid project? I did a half-assed recording for the same artist a few weeks ago and he was blown away with the production even though he knew I wasn't happy with all the timing/pitch problems that I could have edited out. That was a 12 hour song and I could have easily made it a 20 hour project to get it to my standards. Is this a fair estimate for a per song basis.... 20hrs/song?

 

Also, I don't like doing quick recordings that are what they are type o' things. The minimum I'd spend on a song would be 4 hours tracking and 4 hours mixing... Is this something I should learn to get over to turn the quick buck, or do you think I should keep my standards where they are?

 

Thanks for any advice you may have. Sorry if this should've been posted in another forum.

 

R.

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Moved to the lounge. No problem tho.

 

I'd like to reply, but before I do... regarding the client you mentioned who was blown away with your production, I'd like to know what level they're at, because it does make a difference in what your approach should be. Is he a first-timer in the studio? Or is he a world-class & super famous recording artist? Or is he the lead singer in a band with one album under their belt and signed to a small label? (No names, please, just a measure of their experience).

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First off, thanks for moving it to a better suited place. I should have gone with my gut as that was my first thought for posting.

 

The artist was the singer from a band I was once in. We were in our early 20's at the time and played several shows with big name acts and recorded 2 mediocre CD's. He hasn't done much in the way of music but still plays small venues doing solo acoustic work, nothing serious though. It's been about 10 years since he's recorded, and has never seen my studio until he happened to come home to our hometown recently. The song I recorded was a impromtu freebie just for fun, which is why I didn't spend any time editing it. But he now wants to record some of his material that probably would never have been recorded, because he sees a dramatic difference in what we recorded in the previous studios, as a band.

 

Hopefully that helps.

 

R.

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OK cool. Thanks for providing the backstory! Yup, it helps to put perspective on things...

 

First off, I'll make the general statement that these days you can tweak anything to death. Literally. Between all the control we have over levels, pitch, fx, etc., it's entirely possible to kill the vibe by trying to perfect everything. Just because one can doesn't mean one should. And I mention this because you mentioned that you want everything to be "the best", and achieving what "best" is could run the gamut between "the pursuit of sonic perfection during every millisecond of the recording" to "just tightening up the timing of a few snare hits that bother you every time you hear them". So I'll ask you rhetorically, more food for thought than anything else... Where in that range of "best" do your standards fall?

 

I think the above has a bearing on your question of how much time you spend, because tweaking endlessly = time. And how much time you spend tweaking comes down to the type of client you're working for. Since this artist you're working with is a friend of yours, I think the situation can be a whole lot looser in terms of how much time you spend and how many suggestions you make in terms of achieving "the best". On the opposite end of the spectrum, say you were hired as an engineer to track a world-famous artist who comes to the studio with a producer. Assuming you don't know either of them, and your track record doesn't precede you, the amount of time you spend achieving "the best" would likely be cut down to near zero. Here you'd have to work within the protocol. Even if to your ears "the best" would be to fix a few of the singer's notes which to your standards were flat, you'd be taking a huge risk in ever mentioning it. Here, your standards don't count in this respect. Where your standards DO come into play is to capture the artist's performance with the right mic and the cleanest signal path without any "oops, um, let's do that again, my bad, I should have done (blah blah blah) before we did a take".

 

Assuming none of that is a problem, let's get back to those flat notes. They're bugging the crap out of you every time you give them playback. Still, it's up to the artist or the producer to say, "hey, could you auto tune the third word in the second verse", at which point you'd accommodate and wait for the next instruction. It would only be until such time as you've developed a trusting relationship with them that you could start chiming in with 2-cents here, 2-cents there.

 

Polar opposite situations, but I mention them to illustrate how the expectations and level of the client will have a bearing on how much input you have.

 

I'll tell you a lil' story and then I'll bow out.

 

The first time I got yelled at by a producer was when I went ahead and "perfected" something while he was out of the room. This is back in 1980-something or other. I was recording a bass line on a dance record, and to my ears the attack of the bass was flamming with the kick. Well, I didn't say anything because the whole time the producer was super happy with what I was doing. Also, he was in a rush to leave for a meeting, so there wasn't really any time to discuss things. After he left, I shifted the bass line back in time a few milliseconds to my satisfaction, to my standards.

 

The next day we resumed on the production, and the first thing he asked me to do was play back the track to see where we left off. I didn't get one bar in when he yelled, "Stop! What the hell happened to the bass line?" I told him I shifted it because it sounded out of time to me with the kick. He was soooo pissed off, and chewed me a new one. That's when I learned my lesson that when the client is happy, my standards no longer had anything to do with anything.

 

Now, at some point your experience and reputation will hopefully allow your standards to have a voice with people at the highest levels. Still, you have to take each situation for what it is. You might find that your standards and tastes will find acceptance more easily with, say, Beyonce than they would with Barbara Streisand. Judge each situation for what it is.

 

Over and Out,

 

Ski

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Totally appreciate the in depth response. I fully realize when there is a difference in playing the engineer and when I am producing. That has always been discussed up front, and people that have recorded with me always want me to "produce" them in the way I see fit. Kinda always been the reason people come to me.

 

My standards are pretty high, probably higher than my skill level is able to achieve, as I'm still learning and have lots to learn yet. But I am very judicial when I'm tweaking/mixing to avoid sucking the life out of the project, but I still am set on meeting my standards which always increase the more I learn.

 

The impromptu song I recorded was a cover song from a band that I had never heard of, nor had heard the song until we were done recording/mixing. I just had him do what I thought would suit the song, which of course, ended up turning out completely different from the original. I'm going to include a link to this recording so my standards/skills can be gauged to more accurately help with my original question. There are many aspects about what you will hear that aren't ideal, but it was a fun freebie dealie, so I just went with it as is.

 

1. The acoustic is recorded directly which I would never do typically.

2. Clicks, pops etc haven't been edited.

3. Vocal hasn't been touched editing-wise, other than a few volume automations

4. Timing is atrocious due to the singer not being able to play to a click

5. I haven't spent as much time tweaking each track (re:EQ, compression, fx etc) as I normally would.

 

Aside from those main issues, I'm not dissatisfied with the outcome, but I would insist on having those issues eradicated on a typical recording that I would do, unless I was being payed to be the engineer solely. This was about 12 hours from start to finish and doesn't include any mastering.

 

Here's the link:

http://snd.sc/qqHiTv

 

Have a listen to the whole thing, if possible.

 

R.

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I had a couple of clients who were both wanted songs to be mixed as we went along. The clients also had limited times they could get into the studio so the projects went on for months. The result was that by the end of both projects, several songs needed a bit of remixing to pull them together and make them sound like they belonged on the same CD. I pulled out all my diplomatic skills and explained to the first band what was happening and why it would good to do a bit more mixing on songs they thought were finished. They trusted my judgement and they went for it. The second act, however, was not so happy with this concept! I would say he was shocked in fact.

 

So the moral of the story was, for me, that knowing I'm going to have certain standards and I will hear things that a client might not immediately hear, I've made it a policy to explain the pros and cons of mixing as you go. The pros of course are things like instant recall and being able to get mixes out the door on an ongoing basis throughout the course of a project. The cons are the afformentioned. There might be engineers out there who can in fact mix songs months apart and have them be super consistent. I'm not one of them.

 

Another story about judgement calls..... I had a client who was both into experimentation (which would of course take more time and more editing) but also fairly concerned about the mounting cost of the project. So I started doing things like..... we'd finish a vocal take and comped it with some input from her. She still wasn't happy. She goes to the bathroom and I very quickly pitch correct her take. Now she's very happy. She didn't know what I did but she liked it. Some clients will appreciate that you are making things sound good in an invisible way, others will want to micro manage all your moves. You've got to know which kind you're working with and act accordingly. And the budget will affect the client's judgement about what is necessary work to be done in any case! Especially towards the end of a project.

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Thanks Camillo Jr.,

 

I've always been an advocate of discussing the project and expectations thoroughly prior to starting, so I get an idea of what they're after regarding my input along the way, and I get a good idea as for direction they'd like to take the song in regarding the final product. Everyone's always been satisfied, but as I said earlier, I haven't yet encountered anyone that doesn't want my input. My skills lie with arrangement/production first then engineering. I know I'll eventually encounter what you've mentioned, it's just a matter of time, I'm sure.

 

I've recorded a girl that was completely against "seeing" me tune her voice, so we'd always do several takes of the part she was having difficulties with and I find ways to keep moving to avoid having her listen to her takes so I could make her believe that we had "the take" somewhere in there. Then....of course, the editing and pitch tools come out after she's gone, even with the best comp done. She'd come back and be blown away with what she'd recorded the previous day, not having ever felt confident that it would be that good. Did she know what I was up to? I'm sure she must have, she just didn't want to see it being done.

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I said I'd bow out after my last post but since you posted a link to a track I thought I'd have a listen and reply.

 

Here's the link:

http://snd.sc/qqHiTv

 

Have a listen to the whole thing, if possible.

 

R.

 

I listened until 2' 30" and then decided to write. I was almost going to stop listening at around 30 seconds because those BV's in the fade-in are atrocious, but I pressed on once I hear the first word of the lead vocal and was captivated for a while. Overall I thought the track had a great vibe. "Simple, fresh ingredients" as Gordon Ramsey would say. I loved the gong hit -- unexpected but very cool! The thing that kills this track, though, are those BV's. They go back and forth between being very much in tune and smooth (almost Beach Boys-like) to being downright painful to listen to. And that's why I stopped at 2' 30", because I couldn't take it any more. But the BV's aside, I found myself grooving in my chair, tapping my foot, and actually listening to the lyrics (which I almost never do) so you guys definitely have something there IMO. My best advice (not that you asked, but FWIW) would be to get some real BV's in there and you'll have a winner track. I could almost here the track starting off with that Beach Boys-ish vibe, but then later in the production bringing in the Sistas singing oohs and aahs.

 

"Everyone's a producer" LOL!

 

Best,

 

Ski

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Thanks for the listen. I was never after getting any of the tracking perfect, or making "quality of vocal' calls because it was never about that for me. It was more about having fun and playing around. (Remeber that the vocalist hasn't recorded in over 10 years). Then once he called a bass player in, I thought....Oh, he's taking this seriously, I should make an effort to make it at least not suck barring spending any time editing what was tracked.

 

This song was posted as a guide to what I did quickly without meeting MY standards, but still apparently meeting HIS....At the end of the day, after ~12hours of work on this standard of quality, is it fair to quote 20hrs/per song which would most likely reach my standards? Hopefully this would include getting the tracking done to the best of the clients abilities.

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Personally I think you'll need more than 20 hours per song. A lot of the fudge factor is going to have to do with the performance of the talent, whether you have to book in other talent, spend time re-doing parts, inspiration that leads to needing additional time, who knows... Bottom line? Music isn't predictable.

 

Really, it's the client who should be telling you how much time they want to book or how much they want to spend, not you. In a way, asking how much time it takes to record a song is like asking "how long is a piece of string".

 

Here's an approach you could take, considering that it's your friend, but also considering that (I'm assuming) you're running a business here:

 

Find out how many songs he wants to record, come up with your own assessment of how many hours it could take, and add 20% for contingency. Multiply that by your hourly rate. Call that figure "X". Then, based on that figure, decide what's the least amount you'd work for per hour. That's "Y". Divide X by Y and that's the max. number of hours you are willing to spend for the number of songs he wants to record. Anything else over that he pays full hourly rate for.

 

EXAMPLE: 5 songs, 20 hours each (your estimate). Add 20% contingency and that's 24 hours per song. And let's say your rate is $50/hr.

 

120 hours times 4 songs @ 50/hr = $6000

 

Now let's imagine that things start running overtime and you're willing to put more hours in to the point where you're only earning $40/hr. That's your low-end cap. OK, so...

 

$6000/40 = 150. Divided by 5 songs and you get 30 hours per song.

 

Now, of course, you don't start out by saying that you're willing to put in 30 hours per song. You go with 24 hours per song quote. But you have the safety factor built in that if things do run over that you won't be working too much on-the-cheap, up to 30 hours per song.

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First off, Ski, everybody knows that a piece of string is 2.3 feet. Every other length is represented in units of "full scale." Such as, "Hey I need a piece of string that is 1.4ftfs," where the math would equate to 1.4 x 2.3 = 3.22, therefore a 3.22' string would be required. But I digress...

 

Anyhoo, I liked the approach you described. Makes good sense to me. I agree that the client should be telling me what they want, but let's face it, sometimes they have no clue what they want, other than the perception of a quality recording. That can be across a wide range too.

 

I guess some of my hang-up is that I am new to this and want to create a portfolio, so I want MY standards met to allow me to do this. I can quote based of your suggestion for that type of scenario and then dumb it down from there if it's not feasible for the client, I guess.

 

Thanks for the help!

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Man, seriously, I wish more people left songs alone the way you did on this one (which sounds great btw.) My biggest problem with music today, and the thing I myself used to struggle with, is when we try to get EVERY LITTLE THING to be "perfect." (Sucks the life right out of a song IMO.) I can't stand melodyne or autotuned vocals. When did it become a crime to sing a note slightly flat? (Neil Young anyone?) And God forbid a kick drum is slightly ahead of a bass note. (What ever will we do!) I say let a song breathe. Let it have life. I'd rather listen to a song with great feel and energy that was recorded poorly than to a perfectly edited, constipated one.

 

Honestly, from what I hear in your song, you have very nice recording and mixing skills. Just use your gut and try not to over analyze every little piece. I can name a hundred classic songs that have "little flaws" in them. I say it gives them personality... Though that's just my opinion really. :D

 

HAve a good one.

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First off, Ski, everybody knows that a piece of string is 2.3 feet.

You're right! I wasn't aware that I knew it... but ... I do! :)

 

 

and want to create a portfolio

I would consider putting in my own time to the project to insure that my work looks favourable to the eyes of future clients. Write off the time spent as a promotion expense.

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The Law of diminishing returns should clearly dictate that you be really good at your craft and do it really fast, otherwise you start to lose money.

 

Let's say you charge $50 an hour and it takes you 2 weeks to complete a mix (8 hrs a day). So you charge $4,000. Let's say Jackson can do the mix in 1 day @ $500.

 

Your client is aware of you and Jackson and has heard examples from both of you. Judging you both to be equal in talent with the end product, the choice has to be with the lower price.

 

So If you and Jackson both charge $500 per song, Jackson will mix it in one day and make $62.50 per hour and move on to the next project. You, on the other hand would take 2 weeks and make $6.25 an hour and be evicted from your home cuz you can't pay the bills.

 

Hopefully, no one will know the difference between you and a real mixing engineer and hire you for a slightly lower price.

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Man, seriously, I wish more people left songs alone the way you did on this one (which sounds great btw.) My biggest problem with music today, and the thing I myself used to struggle with, is when we try to get EVERY LITTLE THING to be "perfect." (Sucks the life right out of a song IMO.) I can't stand melodyne or autotuned vocals. When did it become a crime to sing a note slightly flat? (Neil Young anyone?) And God forbid a kick drum is slightly ahead of a bass note. (What ever will we do!) I say let a song breathe. Let it have life. I'd rather listen to a song with great feel and energy that was recorded poorly than to a perfectly edited, constipated one.

 

Honestly, from what I hear in your song, you have very nice recording and mixing skills. Just use your gut and try not to over analyze every little piece. I can name a hundred classic songs that have "little flaws" in them. I say it gives them personality... Though that's just my opinion really. :D

 

HAve a good one.

 

That is great for people who like 'live' music.

 

Unfortunately, all of the lousy songs that hit the charts ARE practically flawless in terms of production. The proverbial turds are being polished and sold.

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