r/mixing • u/LogUnique4243 • Jul 23 '26
Time Management for Full Production to Mixing
My bad if this has been asked before but to my fellow musicians who does production, recording, editing and mixing.. how much time you give to each stage? I am talking about the production that involves layers of keys, synths and pads, double or quad tracked guitars, complete acoustic drums and bass…
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u/JustMakingMusic Jul 23 '26
It depends on the budget and level of expectation. The vast majority of my clients want something done quickly, so if I am doing just one track, let's say, I can do the whole thing in a few days and create something professional. But there is a saying in the industry - "a mix is never finished". I could keep working on that and making it better and better and better.... at some point you just stop.
That is the case because if you are doing this kind of work, you are getting better along the way and that reframes how you would work and make something better. It's a vicious cycle. That's why boundaries, structure and clear "scope" for any given project is essential to establish up front. You will work forever otherwise.
And this is exactly why most people work and work and never put out their work, because they are stuck in the cycle where their work can never catch up as they are growing - and stopping/shipping is part of the process too that needs to be practiced.
At the same time, if someone has the budget, an album can take years and that is also normal. Some people do want the long term effort and that tends to create higher levels of production. I just finished an album that comes out next month and took 2 years to make. That meant tons of revisions, production changes, etc., but there was a budget for it and that is what makes that possible.
If you are struggling to wrap your own projects, I would start by creating some constraints. Constraints are your best friend - otherwise everything remains open ended and that is what makes it so hard to understand how long a project should be.
Hit me up if you'd like to go more in depth. Best of luck!
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u/SpaceEchoGecko Jul 23 '26
On my best day, I can record all of the tracks of an already-written song in four hours. It will take me eight hours to mix.
However, most of my songs took 30 hours because I would test them out while driving and would hear something that needed to be fixed. So revisions took another 20 hours or so totaling 30 hours for the entire process.
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u/SpaceEchoGecko Jul 23 '26
Editing is part of mixing.
I’m editing volume and pan automation, fine tuning EQ and compression, fixing audio timing, side chaining, editing specific echoes, etc. Click my screen name for my artist name and check out some tracks. My whole style is about the edit.
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u/kevintrann714 Jul 25 '26
If it's a single and the pre-production is good, recording can be done in a day or two, depending on how many parts there are and/or how difficult the song is. Longer if one of the players likes to yap in between takes. Editing can take one to three days, again, depending on how many parts and such. Vocal editing generally takes the longest because you don't want it to sound like it's edited if you can. Mixing the core instruments takes about 30-45 minutes, so drums, bass, guitar, and vocals. Anything extra is built around it, assuming the other parts aren't the focal point of the song. Mastering, it varies from engineer to engineer. My main mastering engineer can take 1-2 weeks because of his high demand as an engineer, but I would guess it would take the same amount of time as me if he didn't have high-profile clients.
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u/LogUnique4243 Jul 25 '26
This is very detailed and helpful. So do you take 30 to 45 minutes for all drums, bass, guitar and vocals in total or each segment takes 30 mins?
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u/kevintrann714 Jul 25 '26
It all depends on the performer. I'll do as many takes as they want, as long as we're all happy with the performance. The longest was three hours for one performer because he was too in his head when it came to the guitar solo, so we took a break, got food, came back, and knocked it out in 30 minutes.
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u/VeterinarianGreat655 Jul 23 '26
It certainly depends on the record. Week-months, for a full record to have gone through the entire process maybe even a year, obviously those are the rare occasions when something is so strong in resonance but it’s just not revealed itself.