advice/ ears / mixdown / mastering - $ available

Looking to collaborate with somebody on a Mixcraft project? This the place! Please be mindful of others' privacy and be careful what you post in the public thread.

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freightgod
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Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 5:18 am

advice/ ears / mixdown / mastering - $ available

Post by freightgod »

My hearing isn't the best anymore, fine for recording and rough mixes, but I certainly don't trust it for final mixing and mastering.

I'm working on about 14 original songs for a July 20 2015 cd release. My 50th birthday! I don't perform, this is a vanity project, although I will probably use the result as a songwriting demo to shop around.

I would call my style Bing Crosby meets Paul McCartney, I guess. Here's a few songs I've tossed up on Soundcloud. They won't be public forever, but I'm hoping you guys will give them a listen. Most were done in Mixcraft (6, now 7). Some are still works in progress.

15-20 years ago I recorded with what I think was then the first hard disk based 4 track recorder, the Akai DR4. I still have the original backup DAT's and digital mixes, but not the original machine, unfortunately, although I can get one on ebay and might. I will probably re-record my older stuff, though, I like my voice better now, in a way. But maybe not. Depends on opinions of some of the mixes. Way overdid the reverb as kids will do, and I know I have a tendency to put my vocal too up front.

Blew a good part of my hearing blasting a 0 db test tone from the Akai into my cans. Um, more than once :roll: I don't trust my hearing for final mixdown and definitely will be farming out the mastering. Would like to find someone to do or assist with both, preferably within Mixcraft for ease of project sharing. This will probably take a good deal of back and forth and file sharing over several months as I haven't even begun recording some songs which I plan on including.

LOVE ACOUSTICA forums and mods, have found this a very friendly place. Unfortunately the collab section seems awfully quiet. Hence the $$$ sign.

My loving, patient wife has allowed me a $xxxx budget for the whole project. I figure I'll have about $xxx to spend on mix and master...I doubt that will buy a pro's time, but hey, I'm not snooty about who I hire or work with! If someone can show me they can handle the job, it's amateur hour all the way.

I'm wide open to advice and would love to talk either here or privately about collaborating on this project, if anyone thinks they would have fun working in this style.

Thanks for listening!

https://soundcloud.com/unknownartist-14
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outteh
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Location: San Antonio, TX

Re: advice/ ears / mixdown / mastering - $ available

Post by outteh »

I hear a little James Taylor in there. Some nice work on the songs, great arrangements. Sound quality is not too bad, I,m sure your still working on these. Not sure what your looking for but if you want to post the Mixcraft project to Dropbox or similar sharing site, I'd give a shot at mix and master if for nothing but the chance to see what I could do. Might be some others out there with the time to work on a song or two. :D
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freightgod
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Re: advice/ ears / mixdown / mastering - $ available

Post by freightgod »

Thanks Tom, I will do that. I'd love to hear a different take on a mix just to see what the difference can be. I like the balance on you stuff on Soundcloud.

Most of my stuff uses vst's and effects from within Mixcraft, what isn't native is almost always freeware. Wonder how to handle that, if I should include the actual vst's I used in a project folder or freeze the tracks. As far as effects, I think I should leave that up to the collaborator(s), but I can see the problem of going back and forth with a mixdown project even within Mixcraft if everyone's got proprietary plugins. Hmmmm, hadn't really thought about that. Any thoughts?

Anybody had any experience with this particular problem? I guess I could just stay all within Mixcraft, but I find a big value in freeware vst's and plugins. Something to think seriously about, I guess.
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outteh
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Re: advice/ ears / mixdown / mastering - $ available

Post by outteh »

We have run a few other collaboration projects in the past and it can get out of hand very quickly. If you have used freeware, then a link to where to get it would be helpful. Providing the already treated wav file would work, but doesn't leave much flexibility for further track processing. Now if the effort is to just blend and master, the treated wav files should be ok, 44100, 24 bit . Hopefully some others might chime in here! :wink:
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AHornsby
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Re: advice/ ears / mixdown / mastering - $ available

Post by AHornsby »

Chiming in! I can help do one... or two. I don't subscribe to Dropbox though.
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freightgod
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Re: advice/ ears / mixdown / mastering - $ available

Post by freightgod »

Cool guys, I'm going to have to do some serious thinking about this stuff, thought I had but now I realize I'm not sure what direction to take. :roll: I promise to get back to you after I think a process through...
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freightgod
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Re: advice/ ears / mixdown / mastering - $ available

Post by freightgod »

Surprise, this is on hold for a while! While I start a new collab project.
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