This blog is part 12 in an ongoing series. If you missed it, jump back to part 11.

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The next day passed without anything arriving to my inbox. On Sunday morning, October 26th, I was working away at my computer when it came through. 

It was labeled incorrectly. It was also labeled as a master. 

I found this odd also. 

For starters I know I had told them the correct title of the song and maybe that seems like a minor oversight to you, but to me it shows a pretty clear lack of attention to detail and it borders on disrespectful if it’s not a genuine error. 

If you think I’m being unreasonable, this guy was also supposed to be responsible for promoting this single upon its completion and sending it out to distributors, so for him to get the title wrong did not give me good faith that he’d handle the distribution correctly. 

Additionally, the labeling of it being a master. 

I made a point at the beginning of this blog series to note that there are multiple roles within the music production pipeline. Some people blur some of these lines especially with how technology has progressed and with so many working from home studios, but one of my major personal pet peeves is the misunderstanding of mixing versus mastering and how that transpires in a professional studio. 

Mastering is a skill set separate from mixing. 

Producers, Engineers, Mixers, Mastering Engineers can all be the same person but they are often not and this is generally considered a best practice. 

There’s no right or wrong way to produce music, but when you’re producing professional quality singles or albums, there is a certain standard of care and skill that does go into that. Having multiple ears on the project can help with that.

That’s not to say a rough and unpolished track can’t become a hit single, but it is generally not what someone means when they are looking for a professional mix. 

There are nuances here that I don’t want to get hung up on, but I think it’s important to iterate. 

Where was I?

Right. Mastering is a skill set separate from mixing. 

I was expecting a mix. Generally a mix comes before a master. This is because mixing is a skill set separate from mastering. 

You will often touch and re-touch a mix multiple times before it’s ready for mastering. 

Rarely will you add further production without showing and artist when you’re in the mixing stage. This is because mixing is a skill set separate from record-engineering and production. 

Record-engineering is a skill set separate from mixing and production. 

Not all music producers are engineers and not all engineers are music producers. 

Not all record-engineers are mixers and not all mixers are producers. 

Anyways, so if this is a master mix the producer is assuming I’m not going to have any further notes on the mix (big mistake), and he’s gone ahead and jumped the gun. It’s also less likely he’s wholly qualified to deliver a professional master given *everything I’ve told you* and the abruptness of this mix/master process. 

It’s probably a faux-master, which is something I’ve talked about often before. A faux-master usually just like adjusts the master level to a CD or radio-level and sort of disregards all the other steps a tried and true mastering engineer might utilize to achieve a professional finished product. 

Like, yea, I can totally whip a track up in Ozone 11 and press a few buttons and call it “mastered” and I wouldn’t exactly be wrong, but if I handed that same track off to Noah Mintz or Joah Carvalho, you’ll hear a significant difference.

All that aside, I paused for a moment when I opened the e-mail. 

Do I want to listen to this right now or is it going to ruin my day? It seemed unlikely that it would make my day better. 

I was planning on taking a walk in the woods, so it seemed best to just rip the band aid and listen to the mix now so that if necessary, I could cool off about it on my walk. 

Okay, let’s not be a baby about it. 

I put my headphones on which are the same ones I use when I work on my own home set-up so that I knew exactly what I was hearing. They’re the sound source I am most comfortable with and that’s another best practice tip for ya; The best monitors are not the highest priced or the best reviewed, they are the ones you are most familiar with and trust. 

I hit play. 

And I didn’t even get half way through before I stopped the first time. 

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was like this guy didn’t even really mix the track at all. 

Which is to say it did not sound professional, it didn’t even sound like it was trying to masquerade as professional. 

It sounded like a demo, and a pretty bad one by my measure. I can say with confidence it sounds worse than anything I have produced in my own home studio on my own little Apollo. 

Not only did the production not do the song justice and it was a far far cry from where it started, but I feel like you can tell that there was so little love put into this. And that sucks because I love this song – it deserves better.

I wasn’t sure who to be more annoyed at in the moment. The producer for completely offering the most hack job production service I’d ever experienced, or myself for allowing it to go on as long as it did. 

I took a breath and listened again, thinking maybe I was judging too harshly. 

Nope, still sucks. Sucks a lot. Worst I’ve heard in a long time. Who did this guy work with again? Damn.

I took a bit of time to decide if I was going to write an e-mail now and send it right away or if I’d let myself sit for a day.

Fuck it, let’s rip this band aid, too. I know how I feel about this experience and there is absolutely no sense in trying to sugar coat it now, he already has my money after all, and this production cannot be saved. 

If you follow me on Threads, you might recall this post: 

And yes, that really is how I started the e-mail. 

You could say I am a little tired of being polite and patient and understanding of other peoples shortcomings and allowing those to completely waste my time, energy and faith in things that I actually really love and have a great appreciation for. 

If you approach me with an offer to work with me, take payment, and then deliver a product or service that falls dramatically short of where we started, I’m not sure the onus is on me to continue to be kind about it. 

I felt swindled by the entire experience and I needed to let the guy know that. Bridges be damned.

The e-mail goes on to express a lot of the things I’ve already said to you in this blog series.

He didn’t seem to care about the project. I could do better work at my home studio myself. This took entirely too long to end up with this result. That I hoped he didn’t treat all his clients projects this way because it feels like a racket. That I felt he underpaid for session work which is a shame given his position in the industry. That this entire experience has been a very expensive lesson and a complete waste of my time. And that I under no circumstance give him permission to release it.

I signed it, “With disappointment and regret,” and a link to my cover of Title and Registration – which sounds great, if I may say so.

Could I have been kinder in the e-mail? Maybe. But would you have been after being strung along the way I was for months?

There are some people that produce records for the love of it and there are those that do it to make a buck. Musicians by nature are dreamers and this makes them easier than some to manipulate. Make no mistake, my eyes were wide open from the first day. I had no real expectation of this leading anywhere, but I allowed myself to be open to the possability of a great collaboration and still got burned for it.

If I had taken this project to Orange Lounge or Metalworks or Mushroom or Noble Street or Jukasa or Rattlebox – it would not have resulted this way. Those teams understand professional work. They would not have rushed through the sessions, calling each one earlier than the time alloted. When you’re in a pro studio and you have extra time – you use it. They would not have shown disinterest in the project even if they were disinterested in the project. They would have taken the time to ensure we were capturing good sounds, that the artists had a solid headphone mix, that the space was comfortable and that anyone else working on the project was respectful and attentive. When the artist says they’re not happy with a take and want to re-record something, you don’t argue about it – you just let them try it. This producer failed on all of those.

I hit send.

A short time later I already had a response and it was pretty clear I touched a nerve.

It came through with multiple lines bolded and underlined for emphasis. Things I was wrong about and how happy generally his clients are.

And it came through with no accountability for his part in how this all played out, just excuses and questioning why I didn’t do or say more.

Here are some excerpts:

“I wish you’d have been more vocal and clear on what you wanted so that I could have delivered it to you how you wanted it! I, on the other hand, LOVE the way the song sounds and I’m sure it’s sync and radio worthy. But, music is subjective, right? And beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

Yes, music is subjective. But if the artist that wrote and performed the song hates the recording, that’s really the only time it’s not subjective.

“Also, I know what the title is, Something In The Way. I Prefer, “Something In The Way You Look Today”.

Cool. I don’t, though.

“Lastly, your session playing isn’t the best.”

Appreciate your comments. Wish you would’ve said so when you were busy parading your phone around, videotaping me to display on the internet during it all so I could have tried harder, I guess.

In our brief back and forth, he explained he’d like to extend the offer to revise the mix to my liking, but I told him I did not believe what was recorded was of the quality required to achieve what I was looking for.

In his last message, he told me to think about it.

So I did over the last few weeks while I wrote all this out and then agian this morning as I prepared this part of the series.

Ultimately, the sum of everything showed me that this producer was never interested or invested in my song or this project, nor was he able to provide the type of studio experience I thought someone of this caliber would deliver.

If I continued with the project and the release of this single, what would it be to achieve? To put a song out that has this producers name attached to the credit? To be able to say, “this guy worked with Michael Jackson and Britney Spears and also me?” Because maybe that would give this little song a fighting chance in this insane industry that more and more by the day seems to be just 3 guys in a trenchcoat? Who cares about any of that if you know the process to get it out into the world was full of disappointment at just about every turn and if you know that you yourself, alone in your own bedroom, would have done it far greater justice.

I never got into music for any sort of fame, fortune or acolades. I did it because I love songs and I wanted to produce great records.

I do that already without this guy.

So I guess I spent 7 months and over $4000 to be able to tell you that you can, too.

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Some final thoughts tomorrow and things to consider before you jump into your next music collaboration. Thanks for stickin’ it out with me.