Mixing
Warm Tide ProTools Recording Studio
Mixing is the most important stage of creating a record, and most of the gear in a professional studio set-up is ultimately dedicated to this task. It doesn't matter how well you recorded your parts - without careful mixing the final product will sound poor.
Warm Tide provides professional audio mixing services in-house at our ProTools recording studio.
Warm Tide is dedicated to helping musicians of all levels, from unsigned acts and amateur musicians to professional bands, by making sure their records sound great at a price they can afford.
Our mixing rates are charged at an extremely low rate of £17.50 per hour.
What is mixing?
Mixing is the process in which you balance the individual recorded tracks to create a cohesive piece. This involves checking for peaking, phase cancellation and unwanted distortion, setting levels and applying compression, EQ, FX and panning to the individual tracks. The mixing stage is usually the most time-consuming process of audio recording and perhaps the most difficult stage too. Warm Tide uses ProTools, the industry standard for recording studio mixing.
What benefits come from having a professional mix?
Having your music professionally mixed can eliminate clips, noise, phase cancellation, unwanted distortion and masking that an inexperienced musician might not have noticed. It also creates a result which sounds great on all music systems, whether it's a car CD player or a top-of-the-range audio system.
Another major difference between a home mix and a professional one is the range of outboard/plug-in equipment at your disposal; a professional set-up will have dedicated professional hardware/software to add effects such as reverb, compression and delay, and whilst some home studio packages have fantastic effects, they still do not come close to the quality of a dedicated hardware unit or professional plug-in bundles.
How much does it cost?
Mixing is charged at a low hourly rate of £17.50. How long we spend on a song usually depends on how many tracks there are, the song's length and what effects you request us to use. It can take as little as 2 hours for a recording of one man and a guitar, but we usually like to spend at least 4 hours on a standard four-man rock song.
A full professional mix could take upwards of 8 hours, quite often up to 12 hours, and if we think the song requires this amount of time, we will advise you before committing to the work.
What do I need to do to get my songs mixed by Warm Tide?
Simply fill in this quote form or e-mail enquiries@warmtide.co.uk titled "Quotation request". Alternatively you can call Pete Dowsett on 075400 67375 . We will reply as soon as possible with our quote, including the approximate timescale and estimated total cost of the service. If you decide to go ahead with the service, we will invoice you for the estimated total cost of the service via PayPal or post if preferred. You will then need to send your CD/DVD in a protective envelope to:
Warm Tide Audio Limited
Unit A21
Little Heath Industrial Estate
Coventry
West Midlands
CV6 7NB
After mixing you will be invoiced if there is a remainder charge and the tracks will be sent back on a master DVD via recorded delivery.
How should I organise the CD/DVD?
If you have used ProTools to record the work, simply send us the ProTools project file including all source tracks on a DVD!
Otherwise, all tracks for each particular song should be placed on a CD/DVD in a folder corresponding to the track name. WAV files should be titled according to instrument, e.g. electricguitarsolo.wav. or snare.wav. All files should be consolidated to the length of the entire track with silence while the instrument is not active. Click here for a tutorial on how to do this.
Tip: Each track in a song will typically be 50MB, so a CD will only hold 1-2 songs. Use a DVD for greater capacity.
It is important to send us the files clean, with no effects applied. If you have some effects in mind for the track, please e-mail enquiries@warmtide.co.uk quoting your order number with as much detail as possible regarding type of effect, instrument and "minutes:seconds" reference of where you want the effect to appear.
Contact enquiries@warmtide.co.uk or call 075400 67375 to talk about your mixing requirements.