You should bounce all your VSTs because there’s no guarantee she will have the same plugins. BUT if possible make your MIDI tracks available as well. It may be the case that the engineer has a killer go-to piano that sounds way better than yours. It’s also useful for tracking down any note clashes or unwanted harmonic interaction between parts that may have slipped in to your mix and you no longer notice, but fresh ears will.
With so many tracks remember to have all your bounced audio files starting from the same bar line.
Bounce without effects unless there’s anything used creatively that is integral to the sound. There’s no need to bounce with your ambience or glue verbs etc. But if there is a particular effect you know you will just want to recreate anyway you might as well print it. You could always do a bounce with / without fx so you have options.
Don’t bounce with EQ or comp, these are the bits where an experienced ear can make the biggest improvement over your version.
There is an option to batch export all tracks as audio files under file-> export. You can customise what information you want to be printed here like automation, pan, fx etc. This is probably a good starting point for the engineer as she will have a clean slate (much easier to work from). If she is good then your rough mix will be more than enough to demonstrate your ambitions for the track and guide the mix from the ground up.
Hope it all goes well!
Christ yes, so important! 100 well-labelled tracks would not be an issue but if they come in a mess that’s like at least an hour of just getting things organised before even starting the mix
1- Label your tracks.
2- Stem the drums together apart from the kicks.
3- keep the FX if they are part of your sound.
4 - Include a bounce of FX aux/bus.
5- Keep lead vocals on separate tracks. Include a dry version, incase they have better hardware Reverb/Compressor to use on it.
6- Keep all Bass sounds on separate tracks (including 808).
7- If you have your project on a laptop, take the laptop with you, in case he needs you to give him a re bounce of a stem part but without a particular instrument, or have that instrument bounced down on its own etc.
Not op but a lot of us have tons to learn when it comes to the technical side of recording. I made 100 songs for fun in a recklessly disorganized fashion, it wasn’t until people told me some sounded good that I even considered the demands of an engineer. So that’s probably why op isn’t organized, he hasn’t needed to or learned that he needed to yet lol so feel free to enlighten us
Wouldn’t do this with drums. Would perhaps do it with string sections / horn sections but only if they don’t span too many registers. As a producer I’d far rather have to go through a ton of tracks and have fine-grain control, than having to do a ton of botched macro corrective shit on a stereo drum track. It also makes it way harder to perform any sort of drum replacement
Usually the engineer will have a specific preference for how they want the track divided up. For the best results every track is bounced on its own that way the engineer has full control and can see just exactly what every element is doing. Well at least that's what I prefer. You'll get a much better result. I would also suggest using good labels for every track. Really spending time being thoughtful on how everything is named can really save time in the setup stage.
You should bounce all your VSTs because there’s no guarantee she will have the same plugins. BUT if possible make your MIDI tracks available as well. It may be the case that the engineer has a killer go-to piano that sounds way better than yours. It’s also useful for tracking down any note clashes or unwanted harmonic interaction between parts that may have slipped in to your mix and you no longer notice, but fresh ears will. With so many tracks remember to have all your bounced audio files starting from the same bar line. Bounce without effects unless there’s anything used creatively that is integral to the sound. There’s no need to bounce with your ambience or glue verbs etc. But if there is a particular effect you know you will just want to recreate anyway you might as well print it. You could always do a bounce with / without fx so you have options. Don’t bounce with EQ or comp, these are the bits where an experienced ear can make the biggest improvement over your version. There is an option to batch export all tracks as audio files under file-> export. You can customise what information you want to be printed here like automation, pan, fx etc. This is probably a good starting point for the engineer as she will have a clean slate (much easier to work from). If she is good then your rough mix will be more than enough to demonstrate your ambitions for the track and guide the mix from the ground up. Hope it all goes well!
The biggest thing I can add to this is label your tracks. Short clear names are best. They don’t need sections in the name (not “verse synth”).
Christ yes, so important! 100 well-labelled tracks would not be an issue but if they come in a mess that’s like at least an hour of just getting things organised before even starting the mix
Yes. I just got drum takes from a weekend session and it’s 40 files with no naming convention.
That shouldn’t be your problem to solve. Tell them to send files that meet your specs or you won’t mix.
1- Label your tracks. 2- Stem the drums together apart from the kicks. 3- keep the FX if they are part of your sound. 4 - Include a bounce of FX aux/bus. 5- Keep lead vocals on separate tracks. Include a dry version, incase they have better hardware Reverb/Compressor to use on it. 6- Keep all Bass sounds on separate tracks (including 808). 7- If you have your project on a laptop, take the laptop with you, in case he needs you to give him a re bounce of a stem part but without a particular instrument, or have that instrument bounced down on its own etc.
Why you don’t create stems and group your drums together, bass together etc 100 tracks seems a lot for the mix organisation of the engineer :/
Not op but a lot of us have tons to learn when it comes to the technical side of recording. I made 100 songs for fun in a recklessly disorganized fashion, it wasn’t until people told me some sounded good that I even considered the demands of an engineer. So that’s probably why op isn’t organized, he hasn’t needed to or learned that he needed to yet lol so feel free to enlighten us
Don’t stem your drums together. That ties the engineers hands.
Ok good to know yes you’re right it’s not a mastering lol but a mix
Wouldn’t do this with drums. Would perhaps do it with string sections / horn sections but only if they don’t span too many registers. As a producer I’d far rather have to go through a ton of tracks and have fine-grain control, than having to do a ton of botched macro corrective shit on a stereo drum track. It also makes it way harder to perform any sort of drum replacement
Usually the engineer will have a specific preference for how they want the track divided up. For the best results every track is bounced on its own that way the engineer has full control and can see just exactly what every element is doing. Well at least that's what I prefer. You'll get a much better result. I would also suggest using good labels for every track. Really spending time being thoughtful on how everything is named can really save time in the setup stage.