Online Mixing

[JonathonHolder]

What do you guys think of this site (http://www.doctormix.co.uk)? It's run by a studio in London, offering to mix you track and send it back over the net.

I'm recording in the near future in my drummers studio, and should be able to get down some fairly tight parts. Only prob is, I know very little about mixing and production, and I'm not convinced the drummer is a great producer either. (He has some experience of production, but he's primarily a drummer). So it could be quite attractive to get a couple of tracks professionally mixed and polished.

Does this site look like the real deal to you? It's £74 per track, I bet they'd do a bit cheaper though. My only issue would be that with the example mixes, it almost sound like the before track has been compressed or something to exaggerate the improvement. I don't really know enough about production to be able to tell though.

Would be good to get an opinion off some one who knows what they're talking about.

Jon

[Lazz]

£74 per track, I bet they'd do a bit cheaper though.

Betcha they wouldn’t .

Why would they bother?

And why would you expect them to ?

£74 is less than standard cost of one hour studio time in London.

Sounds like they do a good job so it sounds to me like that could be a good deal.

Only way to tell for sure – as Steve suggests – is to suck it and see.

Especially when their service is so cheap.

Steve’s other suspicions don’t present themselves to me as a big deal.

Mixing and mastering in the same house is quite normal (and essential) practice in the current studio world.

And there’s really no reason at all to think they don’t use professional industry standard tools to do their job, either. They offer to send you a mixed and mastered MP3 across the internet. Not a ‘production master’. And certainly not at that price. The production master is where we expect ISRC to be encoded on the Q track. And where there is any legitimate expectation for a studio to do that job, the reciprocal legitimate expectation is usually for you, the client, to provide them with the necessary numbers.

I don’t envisage any of that happening here – or needing to happen – so, no problem.

Their client list sure looks encouraging – why not give ‘em a whirl ?

And let us here all know about the results.

I wonder what Prometheus has to say about it.

Where is he when he’s needed ?

Probably mixing and mastering.

[JonathonHolder]

I saw their ad on gumtree, hence why I assumed they would probably do a discount. I find that most people enjoy a little bit of haggling, half the time people will make you an offer just for asking. (Works on the high street as well by the way).

I just had a little google, and it seems there are quite a few sites offering this kind of service. None of them seem to offer red book mastering, but really I'm just looking for a nice polished sound.

I'll see how the tracks come out after I've had them recorded, if I think they need improving I'll give it a go. £74 quite a bit of money to me, my income is just from a bit of teaching, and my music related expenditure is massive at the moment (given that I'm playing with session musicians). It could be worth a punt though.

[Lazz]

I assumed they would probably do a discount.

Thanks for the high-street tip. <insert pretend shocked and stunned emoticon here> I haven't paid retail for ages. Most times, though, that's been due to having something of interest to offer in return. Like regular trade, for example. Or hard cash. Even, at the most basic, at least scoring more than one unit. My concern is that to nickel & dime over single track prices like these may too easily encourage a reciprocal willingness to skimp on quality of service. Maybe that's just me - but if a total stranger expects to chip me on my rate when I'm offering them a deal anyway then, even though circumstances may encourage me to take the business, they sure wouldn't have my fullest attention. And I would hence be more concerned about what I risked ending up with if these guys did prove so ready to haggle.

Maybe I'm missing something essential about red-book standards but I only apply 'em to production masters, myself.

(Production master = format delivered to manufacturer.)

Can't see the relevance outside of that function.

Maybe smueske knows more ....

Hey Steve !!

Is the Q track encoded with MP3s ?

Would MP3 work as acceptable format for production masters ?

[Lazz]

I don't see where they say MP3 format. In fact, I don't see where the format is even mentioned, it just says "email link" and the option of a "CD by post".

Oh - there you are.

I didn't check all those details on site, Steve - I just made a huge assumption that leapt through notions of mix, master, over the internet, price, market-niche, process.... and just automatically came up with MP3 format. My poor brain automatically refused to compute this business model with huge files and FTP. It didn't make sense that way. Maybe it should have.

If someone wants to get a CD processed after they've gone through the "Mixing and Mastering" here, they'll still have to take it somewhere and get it formatted for duplication.

Exactly.

But what else would we reasonably expect ?

And we can argue all day about dedicated mastering studios versus "catch-all" studios.

No we couldn't - waste of time - our experience is just different, that's all.

Mine contains none of the direct hands-on desk stuff that yours does.

I am consumer of those professional services, however.

[JonathonHolder]

Ah, so smueske is saying that if they had professional equipment, red book mastering would be available. So that implies they're not using the correct professional equipment. Hmmm

[dc2daylight]

Okay, perhaps I'm still not being clear. What I mean is mastering software is almost always redbook compatible, which means that (and I'm just guessing) that they're not mastering with commercial mastering software. They're probably mastering directly inside Protools. That's why, to me, I think it should say "sweetening" -- it's probably some post-mix EQ and loudness maximizing. That's all I meant. I didn't mean to suggest that it wouldn't sound good -- frankly, I have no idea since I've never worked with them. I'm just offering things that to me are red flags. But again, with a price that low, it can't hurt to try one track and see what happens. I can't see how they can offer a price that low unless they are either short on business or are farming the work out less-experienced engineers for a cut of the money or whatever. Again, it doesn't mean that the business isn't above board.

Good luck with this and let us know how it turns out.

Lazz, I'd never recommend mastering from MP3s. Even at the highest sampling rate, you're still losing a lot of the low-end data -- somewhere around 80 - 90% because of the compression. I must admit that I'm a little biased because I hate MP3s. They're all right for listening to casually, but if you want clarity and depth they just don't compare. Someday, I'm hoping that the industry moves to using Flac files, which are lossless compressed audio -- much, much better.

I'm amazed at the low, low cost and pricing by the song. Mixing and mastering (in ProTools) is a service I offer to the community at a substantial discount off my rate card prices, but it is an hourly cost after an estimate upon hearing the material. I don't see how mixing and mastering ANYTHING more complex than 2 elements would take less than 4 hours which for 74 pounds per song is less than 20 per hour. Not really professional wages.

MP3's....

Our audio society is becoming very polarized with initial tracking at 96K or higher and 24 bits, then the public wants to transfer it to an ipod with a bit rate of 128. MP3's are definitely not suitable for masters.

My only haggling story in this regard is offering to evaluate a recording and giving an opinion led to the "client" sending me the raw tracks and asking me to mix them -- 4 songs -- and he only had $30 in his budget. I gave him the opinion I had promised and told him I really couldn't be of any further help. (HELP!! )

[Nightwolf]

My only haggling story in this regard is offering to evaluate a recording and giving an opinion led to the "client" sending me the raw tracks and asking me to mix them -- 4 songs -- and he only had $30 in his budget. I gave him the opinion I had promised and told him I really couldn't be of any further help. (HELP!! )

And I'm his friggin Son to0, the nerve

I jest of course:P

[Nightwolf]

seriously, the first thing I thought is "how can you bid a price without even knowing whaat yer dealing with?"

[Donna]

Firearms instruction?

I would not have expected even an opinion for 30 bucks, M. Farrow, knowing that!

[dc2daylight]

Firearms instruction?

I would not have expected even an opinion for 30 bucks, M. Farrow, knowing that!

The opinion, which I gladly gave, was free.

[Nightwolf]

Firearms instruction?

I would not have expected even an opinion for 30 bucks, M. Farrow, knowing that!

so, he shoulda popped a cap in his ass?