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Our New Venture – Mixing and
Production for Everyone: the mixingbox
I am finding this weeks article very difficult to write,
only because I am so excited that I find it hard to sit down
and focus for more than a few minutes at a time. This week,
I helped launch the mixingbox (www.themixingbox.com) here at audioMIDI.com
along with my partners Ed Goldfarb, Brian White and Chris
Wang. Although we are working hard to spread the word, so
that you will hopefully see us everywhere you look, I wanted
to share a little bit about what the mixingbox does and why
we created it.
My professional background has primarily been focused on
working in the software/hardware technology end of the music
industry. It is an industry that I love, as I am one of those
goofballs that gets up every morning to visit all the industry
hot-spots such as Harmony
Central,
Sonic State, etc.
as well as the manufacturer websites just hoping to catch
word of a
new release or update to make my day.
My personal background as a musician is a singer/songwriter
who enjoys making great music (at least great to me). My
involvement and interaction in the music industry is what
introduced me to the amazing talent of those who are bona-fide
professional musicians and engineers. However, without that
introduction I wouldn’t have never known where to even
begin finding people who could help me take my music to the
next level.
Companies such as Digidesign have done such an amazing job
at developing audio applications that we can use to write
and record our music using a computer. However, what still
remains is the great-divide between those of us making our
music using these applications, and the professionals who
produce, mix and master the amazing sounding tracks you hear
on the radio, download from iTunes or listen to on CD in
your car.
If you live in a big city such as Los Angeles, San Francisco,
New York, etc. you may be able to find a top-notch engineer
willing to take on your music, however, negotiating rates
and turnaround times can be frustrating, after all they are
generally busy folk, and for good reason – they are
good at what they do. Even from my own experience (and ongoing
sessions with my therapist), I know how intimidating it is
to approach these people even if you know who they are, as
feeling up to their level, breeds a fear of rejection that
feels like getting voted off of American Idol.
These are the barriers we seek to takedown. We want to change
the industry in a way that elevates the music of all people
creating it and makes getting professional production and
mixing easy for those who want it.
To quote from our own FAQ:
Mixing a song is an art just as songwriting
and performance are, and it takes experience to truly master.
Making the
drums slam and the bass thump, getting five guitar parts
not to clash with each other and making sure you can tell
what the singer is singing about takes years of experience
to get just right. It’s about making sure that all
the frequencies and levels create a clear balance and focus
for the song, while other effects such as reverb, delay,
modulation, etc. sit will in that mix and bring a dynamic
aspect to the song that is not distracting, but distinct – talk
about a tall order, but every song deserves it.
Definitely a Different Approach–Definitely
Accessible
Although we have some more surprises on the way, we have
four products in our initial product services offering:
- session
MIX COMPLETE is a bundle that includes session
MIX, vocal FIX and drum FIX enabling you to submit your
projects to us for professional
mixing complete with editing of drum and vocal tracks.
- session
MIX provides you with a professional mix of your
projects. By using a team of engineers, we are able to
match the right
engineers to the project.
- vocal
FIX affords you with the opportunity to have the
vocal tracks of your projects meticulously tweaked by
correcting intonation,
timing and harmony.
- drum
FIX affords
you with the opportunity to have the drum tracks
of your projects carefully tightened by correcting timing
and feel,
as well as enhancing the sound of the drum kit.
Not only will an entire team of professional
engineers take on your music (there
is no fear of rejection
here), but there
is no negotiation – you pay
a flat-rate for each song by purchasing
the product
services you want access
to, and
all projects are returned in about
two weeks.
So How Does It Work?
We wanted to make this as simple as possible,
but of course doing something as detailed and
important
as working on
your music, does require some logistical maneuvers.
Once you have purchased one of our product services
you complete a detailed questionnaire, we know
it takes about
15 minutes
to complete, however our goal is to help realize
your vision for your project, and the more we
know about you, your
artistic influences and your equipment, the better
we can do that.
We directly support Pro Tools HD/LE, Logic Pro/Express,
Nuendo/Cubase SX, Digital Performer, Live and
Reason, but you can use any
DAW application and export each track as individual
audio files for submission. This means that you
can create your
music and send us your project from your application
of choice. You can use either DigiDelivery to
send us your
project via
the Internet if you have a high-speed connection,
or burn a DVD-R/CD-R and drop it in the mail.
We then rebuild your project in Pro Tools HD
and get to work. Because we operate as a team,
we have
to standardize
on a
single working platform. We chose Pro Tools HD
because it is recognized as an industry standard,
and plus,
it's
what
our engineers use! Before we send you the complete
deliverable, you'll receive an MP3 file for evaluation.
If any revisions
are needed, we will work with you to fine–tune
the mix to your taste.
In the case of session MIX COMPLETE and session
MIX, included in your deliverable is the Pro
Tools Session
file that
contains the individual tracks, any stems and
even the plug-in settings
of the McDSP and SoundToys plug-ins that we use
to create your mix. Again, this is something
not typically
done in
our industry, a level of transparency that we
hope will help you learn how to improve your
own mixing
skills and
give
you some insight on what we are doing with your
music.
Examples and Grass-Roots
Although this week’s feature may sound a bit “salesy,” I
am sincerely speaking with passion and enthusiasm. If you
have a few minutes, visit the website (www.themixingbox.com)
and check out some of the examples of our work. Whether we
are right or wrong for you, I would love get your feedback,
as we are small enough to easily shape the company to meet
the needs of our end-users. If you think we are something
special worth sharing, please tell as many of your friends
and help spread the word – we can always
use more friends on MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/themixingbox).
Together
think we can make a difference, and look forward
to
working with everyone.
Pro Tools Tidbits
- Digidesign has released updates of
Pro Tools HD 7.2, HDpack 6.0 and MassivePack 5 to support
Intel-Based Macintosh
Computers.
- FXpansion has
released Orca,
a free plug-in synthesizer for all registered customers.
(RTAS)
- McDSP has
a great looking new website
- SoundToys is
giving away their third volume of Preset
Expanders,
this time for Pulsator.
If you have a Pro Tools related question that you would
like me to take a shot at answering or have any feedback,
please send it to scott@audioMIDI.com. I will do my best
to select the questions that seem to stump the most people.
As always, stay tuned to the audioMIDI.com eNews for the latest reviews and new product info.
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