The never ending album (rate) project

[Lavahead]

Jeff, the problem is we all interpret things differently. Let's just leave it at that or we will go back and forth forever.

But real quick, during one of those shitty sessions I was telling you about, the BAND (those guys who really know whats going on with the mix), kept telling me guitars up, guitars up. The guitars were so loud they hurt my ears, and destroyed my drum mix. They actually called me up a week later to remix, they thought the guitars were too loud after listening for a week. No shit, I could have saved them some money and let them know how shitty it sounded then. But, I did as the client wanted. Just like me telling the mechanic, no, don't put that there, put it over here, its my car not yours.

IMHO, who better to mix than a mix engineer?

kylethompson: Thank you for your compliment. And you are right, I AM GLAD that I havent been doing THAT rap session for 7 months.

If I had been you'd probably have received my suicide note by now.

But you still learned some cool things, right? Some of those songs sound really good..like with the compression thing and all that.

Every session puts another notch on your belt. Unlike the topic of this thread, thank god it's hourly.

[scarygroover]

EXACTLY! thank god it's hourly. I didn't want this to seem like i was bitching about having to do what the band wants. In fact, I often learn from others by trying what seems out of the ordinary. the whole point i was making is, FLAT RATES FOR A WHOLE ALBUM SUCK! From the engineer's point of view that is. Yeah I know, from now on i will clearly define the lines, however, this was my first session on my new system and i needed a guinea pig. By the way I made the changes they asked last night and they are really happy with it. Now I just have 8 more to mix! AAAARGGHHH!

[Lavahead]

I feel your pain.

BUT, the good news is you have had a paying client, and so far they are happy. You made money off them, and they have friends, and their friends may be in bands that need to record.

This annoying experience could turn out to be a good form of networking for you.

Now you know for the future to say "My rate is "x" per hour".

[greatmagnet]

All of this could have been avoided if you had simply used Dubley.

[scarygroover]

haha! nice one. Yeah well we did double everything almost. the bad string player we tripled! so even Tripley didn't help.

[beauarts]

You're kinda screwed but nevertheless I'd talk to them. Tell them the project is getting way over than what was originally thought. Ask them how long they thought this was supposed to take. Try to come to some agreement about a limited amount of remaining time or days available and a flat hourly rate after this. Say that a flat rate does not mean unlimited experimentation and no decision making on their part.

My experience so far has been that you lose friends, clients and goodwill when you have these arrangements. If you give a discount, make it for an hourly rate or a day rate(specify just how long a day is). Don't be owed anything. This is the audio equivalent of good fences make good neighbors.