Client Expectations (Turnaround Times)

[Suntower]

Hi,

I guess I'm yer garden variety self-produced 'artiste'. Many/most of you I are the 'engineers'. I've been trying to get an ongoing relationship happening with an ME and it's been tough and I'd like to get your suggestions. (Caution, this may sound a bit like a rant, but I really do want some constructive help. It's just a different world on the other side of the glass.)

[BACKGROUND]
(Sorry---try to keep it brief): I -was- a contract player for many years and simply showed up for sessions, plugged in, played the sheets and got paid. I definitely did -not- pay attention to all those cool looking Fairchild VUs and spinning Ampex reels. So the material I've created on my own over the past 7-8 years has had it's share of technical <ahem> 'issues' as I've learned a lot of things I should've been paying attention to way back when.

But of course the material has to be up to at least -some- quality standard so I'll take the work to various engineers to have them clean things up/perform some plastic surgery and create album masters.

[THE PROBLEM]
In a word? Turnaround...

I bring in a track for plastic surgery, or an album to be mastered. Or I deliver it to an 'on-line' service. And they do their thing and give me a ref disk. GREAT. Everybody's always super nice. But that's just the calm before the storm...

I get the ref disc, burn copies for my partner, my wife, etc. and listen to it and compare notes. By the next day, we almost always find at least ONE niggly. Call the studio. Hmm.... 'The first day we can get Sparky to look at it will be the 19th.' WTF? Happens -every- time. Doesn't matter -whose- 'fault' it is, they have other bookings/commitments/vacations/honeymoons/whatever. And the policy seems to be that, no matter how trivial the change, only 'Sparky' can make the change. And -any- change is billable for at least 1hr.

I've tried to learn from this, try to pre-book follow-up time for fixes or ask for a 'combo-price', but nobody will go for it. They -always- say, 'Hey, we have little slots here and there where we can squeeze in stuff like that. No problem.'

Well, it -is- a problem. I've never had a mastering session that didn't end up taking almost a month and gone at least 50% over the initial charge what with the back and forth. This is MADDENING. It always puts me in the position of having to choose to either:
a) Wait days/weeks to get the job done or
b) Accept the flaws and put out a less than optimal product.
Both cost me real money.

I've talked with other artists/bands and they report much the same thing--unless they're with a label that can apply serious pressure.

What I -want- is to be able to have the engineer available a day or two after the session for tiny fixes. Or to have a journeyman who can recall the session and be trusted to change a fade. And I don't want to have to pay a full hourly rate every time the guy tells his apprentice to burn another ref disc. (Hell, even my lawyer has a discount rate for tasks like that!) And I'd prefer to be able to pre-pay for this as part of a 'Prix Fixe' kind of deal rather than 'pay as you go' at the full rate---so long as I'm willing to guarantee a certain number of projects.

I know the obvious thing is to simply budget an extra month into every project, but jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez that seems ridiculous in this age when I can FTP a complete album over to the guy's studio in a couple of hours.

Any of you work like I'm suggesting or can recommend firms that do? Yeah, I know everyone is busy and the good engineers are always booked, but there must be some way to improve on this situation.

Your thoughts?

Thanks,

BTW: This is a great forum---and a great magazine.


---JC

[@?,*???&?]

I get the ref disc, burn copies for my partner, my wife, etc. and listen to it and compare notes. By the next day, we almost always find at least ONE niggly. Call the studio. Hmm.... 'The first day we can get Sparky to look at it will be the 19th.' WTF? Happens -every- time. Doesn't matter -whose- 'fault' it is, they have other bookings/commitments/vacations/honeymoons/whatever. And the policy seems to be that, no matter how trivial the change, only 'Sparky' can make the change. And -any- change is billable for at least 1hr.

Well, it -is- a problem. I've never had a mastering session that didn't end up taking almost a month and gone at least 50% over the initial charge what with the back and forth. This is MADDENING. It always puts me in the position of having to choose to either:
a) Wait days/weeks to get the job done or
b) Accept the flaws and put out a less than optimal product.
Both cost me real money.

Yup. Sounds like a major mastering house dilemma. Reason is, they master whole albums and that takes the bulk of their day. They can only master 1-2 records a day and on some days, when the schedule is light, they can do fixes on others.

Your observation is accurate. 'One pass mastering' is the independent record norm. The hourly they will charge is accurate too. Set-up and duplication time is real time with master material- even if it's only one song, they have to re-run the entire sequence to CDR.

My question to you is what is your deadline? Do you have to get this to the replication plant by a certain date? Does the promotional campaign heavily rely on you having this part by such and such a date or are you just being impatient?

Get over the impatient thing. Producers and engineers are paid to be patient.

If you don't have big money, let go of tweaks. It's just a record. Wait 6 months and you won't hear what bothered you to begin with.

[thethingwiththestuff]

i'm confused, at some points you seem to be talking about mastering and other mixing. which is the problem?

i've never had a budget mastering session go over 2 days. with changes. and almost every mastering engineer i've talked to or read up on will do a second pass for free...

[Suntower]

i'm confused, at some points you seem to be talking about mastering and other mixing. which is the problem?

I guess, -both-. In either context I'm talking about where the engineer gets me 90+ % of the way there on the first pass and then, after I review things, I get, IMHO, double-dinged: 1. I have to pay for even the slightest tweak and 2. It takes ages to get the aforementioned tweak done.

i've never had a budget mastering session go over 2 days. with changes. and almost every mastering engineer i've talked to or read up on will do a second pass for free...

Wow. I've only had a 'free second pass' once. Where -are- these people of which you speak and upon which planet do they exist.

Thanks,

---JC

[A-Barr]

Maybe you could get a simple audio program to tweak fades and such?

[Suntower]

It's not impatience. OK, maybe it is... impatience at getting my mortgage payment over to Countrywide on time.

First, I negotiate discounts on replication based on ganging together teeny little projects into something more substantial.

Second, I try to get my fans to pre-order records---they like being a part of the process and I like having some sort of front money. But it's unfair to them (and looks awful) if I have to keep pushing back delivery.

For example, on my latest 'masterpiece', neither the ME or I caught a problem in the source WAV --- in this case Nuendo didn't properly render the file (a couple of drum hits didn't fire.) It's a small thing, but it sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. Within 4 hrs, I FTP over a corrected source WAV. All the guy has to do is call up the same exact session (total time 90 seconds), load in the file (30 seconds), generate a new WAV file and FTP it back for my review. That's about 10 minutes---even taking time for a swig of coffee. -I- get billed for generating a whole new ref disc and 1 hr. time AND I have to wait 10 days because the apprentice/tech isn't allowed to do that stuff.

Maddening, I tell ya. There's -gotta- be a better way.

---JC

My question to you is what is your deadline? Do you have to get this to the replication plant by a certain date? Does the promotional campaign heavily rely on you having this part by such and such a date or are you just being impatient?

Get over the impatient thing. Producers and engineers are paid to be patient.

If you don't have big money, let go of tweaks. It's just a record. Wait 6 months and you won't hear what bothered you to begin with.

[clintsteele]

perhaps you would be happier working with a mastering engineer in person as opposed to sending your material away. Its a good learning experience and allows you to give a final thumbs up at the end of the session. generally speaking doing business face to face with your ME might prevent some of the problems you mentioned.

[Suntower]

Ya know... I tried exactly this approach for my last few projects. The first one went better than in the past. But then I've noticed that with each subsequent project, the turnarounds grow longer and longer... I keep coming back to the idea that when it's about the dough-re-mi it's 'all business', but when it comes to the turnaround it's 'Hey... we're musicians, baby.'

I guess what gets up my nose is that I think it should be a bit more give and take. ie. if I'm paying for every little tweak, then the turnarounds should be quick. If the tweaks were being done gratis, I'd have lower expectations re: turnaround.

---JC

perhaps you would be happier working with a mastering engineer in person as opposed to sending your material away. Its a good learning experience and allows you to give a final thumbs up at the end of the session. generally speaking doing business face to face with your ME might prevent some of the problems you mentioned.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

Wow. I've only had a 'free second pass' once. Where -are- these people of which you speak and upon which planet do they exist.

right here. i do tweaks for mastering clients for free all the time. almost always the sonics are fine and they just want the segues/transitions tweaked a little bit. takes all of a couple minutes. there's been a couple occasions where people have wanted more extensive tweaks and/or wanted to send different mixes, and for that i do charge, but i dunno, it's not a big deal....i want people to be happy with their records, and i just wanna make enough money to keep the lights on...

as for the time...well yeah, i would be frustrated too with the situations you describe. but just for an ME's point of view, we do have lives too...sorta. i mean if you said "MSE i wanna change this this and this" i'd say "no problem, but i'm going out tonight and leaving town tomorrow for the weekend, and i have sessions booked monday and tuesday, so it's gonna be a week before i can do it."

and it could just as likely be that i wouldn't have anything going on and could do the fixes for you right away and ftp 'em back in seconds flat...it just depends.

[carlsaff]

All revisions here are free. I don't like playing the blame game. It isn't always the ME's fault that a project goes 2 or 3 or more passes, and it isn't always the client's fault either. Really, with so many decisions coming down to taste, it can't really be anyone's "fault," per se (save technical glitches or other obvious errors). So I eliminated that worry from the process. Very happy about this decision. I'm flat rate, so clients know what they're paying up front, and it puts good pressure on me to get things right the first time. But, I'd much rather do free revisions and have the client walk away happy than send them on their way grumbling. Word of mouth is everything.

(NOTE: Fortunately, most jobs are first pass approvals!)

[thethingwiththestuff]

.....carl saff, for instance! i'm about to send two projects to him soon... alan douches has also done a second pass for me. to date, MSE has not mastered a record for me, but if he did, i'd tell him to tighten those damn transitions, and i ain't paying a dime more. "tighten those damn transitions," i'd say, and he'd be all "certainly! on the house." "indeed," would be my reply.

but i digress.

like i said, you need to differentiate between mixing engineers or mastering engineers. no, i wouldn't really expect many mixing guys to continue tweaking without charging. but in mastering, especially for unattended sessions, it's the norm.

[roscoenyc]

perhaps you would be happier working with a mastering engineer in person as opposed to sending your material away. Its a good learning experience and allows you to give a final thumbs up at the end of the session. generally speaking doing business face to face with your ME might prevent some of the problems you mentioned.

Attending mastering is key.

How many 'tweaks' do you usually end up needing after mastering? If its more than a couple things maybe you should find another mastering guy or attend mastering.

Attending mastering will make you a better mixer. It will also help you learn what can and can't be done in mastering.

[Suntower]

Attending mastering is key.

How many 'tweaks' do you usually end up needing after mastering? If its more than a couple things maybe you should find another mastering guy or attend mastering.

Attending mastering will make you a better mixer. It will also help you learn what can and can't be done in mastering.

I actually -have- attended the last 3 sessions. In each case there were only 1 or 2 tweaks. But getting those tweaks done has been like pulling teeth. The most painful part of the session is that embarassing silence when, just before I walk out with my shiny new ref disc I ask... 'So... if I notice a change or two, how long until you could look at it?'.

---JC

[roscoenyc]

Attending mastering is key.

How many 'tweaks' do you usually end up needing after mastering? If its more than a couple things maybe you should find another mastering guy or attend mastering.

Attending mastering will make you a better mixer. It will also help you learn what can and can't be done in mastering.

I actually -have- attended the last 3 sessions. In each case there were only 1 or 2 tweaks. But getting those tweaks done has been like pulling teeth. The most painful part of the session is that embarassing silence when, just before I walk out with my shiny new ref disc I ask... 'So... if I notice a change or two, how long until you could look at it?'.

---JC

You gotta have the "tweak talk" with the guy before you even book the session. Find out what their policy is ahead of time and hold 'em to it.

Get your clients/band rounded up to hear the stuff as soon as possible.
Make arrangements ahead of time to either approve the master so parts can be made or get the tweaks in. A pro mastering joint should leave your project on one of their main drives for a couple of days. If it is taking you longer than a day or two to approve the master or request tweaks you may be part of the problem.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

to date, MSE has not mastered a record for me, but if he did, i'd tell him to tighten those damn transitions, and i'd happily pay whatever he asks, because he's the best. "tighten those damn transitions," i'd say, and he'd be all "certainly! $35 per transition." "here's a check" would be my reply.

and then we'd break out the retractable coke mirror.