I would suggest using some project management principles, as best you can. State the requirements, allow for some deviations as they happen, agree to it, then make sure they understand there is a change process. This is very important especially on fixed price contracts. Requirements, agreement, execute. Deviations should be documented and an impact given to the customer on the change.

If it is free, everyone tends to be less serious about changes. To your point, your time and effort has value. If it is an important change, then they will pay for it, or at least willing to negotiate something that you're not the only one getting hurt in the process. Skin in the game keeps everyone more honest.

Thomas W. Bethel, post: 430610, member: 4527 wrote: Two times in the past week we had long discussions with our restoration clients about the projects they were bringing in. We finished up the project and burned the CDs and DVDs and then they decided that they wanted some major revisions. I guess I am trying to figure out what is the best way to handle this??? I have a mini contact made up but the clients seem to not want to tell us what they really want until after the project is done and has been burned. This costs me time and money and kind of throws a monkey wrench into our work schedule.

Any ideas would be most welcome.

Personally, I'd be asking for more money. Its a great opportunity to extend services and make the client happier. Win win imho.

I spent 6 months of my life re mixing an ep for an obsessive client, and the label hasn't even put it out yet. That burned the last of my creative generosity for quite a while. They're wallets will determine how important the changes are to them. This is after any sort of 'courtesy work' has been done.

audiokid, post: 430615, member: 1 wrote: Personally, I'd be asking for more money. Its a great opportunity to extend services and make the client happier. Win win imho.

Clients around these parts seem to want a lot of things done for free . Never understood that ethos. I think it must be an Oberlin "thing"

If I take my car to the auto shop and the owner tells me it is going to cost more money than he estimated because he did not see some of the damage or something else is wrong then I have two choices I can tell the owner to "go ahead" or not. If I tell him to go ahead then I know I will have to pay more money. If I tell him no then I will have done only what he estimated. If I want additional work done on the car, that I never told him about, like a new battery or replacing a head light then I expect I will have to pay more money. It is the way I was brought up.

Around here clients seem to want to change their minds AFTER THE WORK HAS BEEN DONE with no consequences including monetary ones. In these two cases we had long discussions with the clients prior to doing the work. We asked them very direct questions and they told us what they wanted. We performed the service as requested and charged them accordingly. Then they come back and want some major revisions which they seem to expect to be done for free. Sometimes I just want to tell clients the Facts of Life in the "real" world.

Thomas W. Bethel, post: 430622, member: 4527 wrote: Around here clients seem to want to change their minds AFTER THE WORK HAS BEEN DONE with no consequences including monetary ones.

I'm assuming that the client was supplied with some kind of "proof" copy, even just partials, or that they were able to hear what the project sounded like, to get their initial approval before committing the project to a final master?

For example, if I send you an album to be mastered - as I am going to in the next week or so - and you supplied me with a proof copy that I found to be exactly what I wanted, and I approved and signed off on it and you render the master ... but then two weeks later, I change my mind about song #3, and decide that I want you to change something, I would expect to compensate you accordingly for those changes and additional work involved - regardless of whether they are minor or major changes - because I had already approved it originally.

kmetal, post: 430616, member: 37533 wrote: This is after any sort of 'courtesy work' has been done.

I've done my share of gratis work here and there, helping clients who are regulars, those who have been easy to work with and who have been loyal over the years. And I'm not one to charge for every little paperclip and envelope used.
I've even done the occasional freebie to get clients in for future and bigger paying projects. But... if a client approves and signs off on a project, and then comes back to me a month later and wants a free remix, it's probably not going to happen. They're going to get charged for it.

I'm a nice guy, I consider myself to be lenient and fair, but I'm also a professional... this is my job - and I'm good at what I do. I'm not going to allow myself to be taken advantage of.
Accordingly, if something goes wrong on my end, in my studio during a session, and it's something within my control or that is my responsibility, the clock gets stopped until I can get things operating correctly again. It's very rare that his happens, but if you're in this business long enough, it's bound to happen eventually. It's all a matter of what's right, what's fair. So, it goes both ways.

IMHO of course ;)

d.

I'll bend over backwards to help somebody, but beyond a certain point I'm just being a patsy.

If they have unrealistic expectations, you can't make that your problem. What's the worst that could happen, they'll take their non-paying 'business' elsewhere? Your auto shop metaphor is right on target. Any time I start de-valuing my own time, a trip to the auto-mechanic, doctor / dentist, or a visit from a contractor / electrician / plumber sets me straight. I don't have the specialized tools or expertise to change out a head gasket, or do anything but the crudest auto body work. I can choose to go to the cheapest shop, or the one with the best reputation for quality work (it's worth noting, that's NEVER the same guy).

Do you allow clients to attend a restoration session, or mastering session? I know it's a pain working on that kind of project by committee, so charge more if they want to sit there and kibitz. You might make more money and waste less time.

dvdhawk, post: 430643, member: 36047 wrote: I'll bend over backwards to help somebody, but beyond a certain point I'm just being a patsy.

If they have unrealistic expectations, you can't make that your problem. What's the worst that could happen, they'll take their non-paying 'business' elsewhere? Your auto shop metaphor is right on target. Any time I start de-valuing my own time, a trip to the auto-mechanic, doctor / dentist, or a visit from a contractor / electrician / plumber sets me straight. I don't have the specialized tools or expertise to change out a head gasket, or do anything but the crudest auto body work. I can choose to go to the cheapest shop, or the one with the best reputation for quality work (it's worth noting, that's NEVER the same guy).

Do you allow clients to attend a restoration session, or mastering session? I know it's a pain working on that kind of project by committee, so charge more if they want to sit there and kibitz. You might make more money and waste less time.

Mastering yes, Restoration no. But it is a good idea and it will let the client see how long it really takes to do some processes. A lot of people looking for restoration or media change (reel-to-reel, cassette or record to CD) have nary a clue as to how long it really takes and they don't understand why I can't just "put it into the computer and let the computer do the work". I have always wanted to ask them where the slot is for the reels or cassette or record go when I put them "into the computer" but have thought better of it. To do a proper job on restoration takes time, equipment and know how and I have to charge for my time and expertise and that is the hardest thing for people to understand. They think they are going to a copy shop and that I put their materials into a "copier" and out the other side comes the completed transfer. When you try and explain all the steps including cleaning of their materials to putting track markers on the CD their eyes glaze over and they go into la la land.

Good idea - thanks!

I know a guy who owes the studio for a 6 song mastering job. His justification 'I liked the mix/masters better you did, not the mastering engineer'. This, was about a couple weeks after the client 'approved' it. I got into a heated argument with him at is house in front of his family, explaining the ME did his work, whether or not you use his version for the album or not, does not effect the billing.

To be honest, it was the most worthless project I've ever done, creatively and monetarily. It made me re think my whole career. This guy still owes all of it even tho we set up a payment 'plan'.

You don't wanna think a guy you spent a few nights a weeks locked in a room for a year, would flake out over an amount of money that buys a couple used 421's....

This is what small claims court is all about. Some problem with that, it could affect customer relations with other clients. But really, people need to pay for what they agreed to pay. I think it is pretty simple.

It's not quite simple, when you consider the various demographics in my area... I think my biggest lesson is getting my paperwork and contracts together, and just being more frugal with my freebies, as my skills are developing. As someone who is solely dependent on gigs for food and living, this kind of hangup is detrimental.

Actually it is, and it was why I made that statement after small claims court.

You want to get paid, but the money isn't worth what you would lose in community good will. You are probably handling it the best way for the situation.

kmetal, post: 430656, member: 37533 wrote: I know a guy who owes the studio for a 6 song mastering job. His justification 'I liked the mix/masters better you did, not the mastering engineer'. This, was about a couple weeks after the client 'approved' it. I got into a heated argument with him at is house in front of his family, explaining the ME did his work, whether or not you use his version for the album or not, does not effect the billing.

Small claims court also holds the benefit of having documentation showing the circumstances around the lack of payment, which, if judgment is rendered against them, shows that the defendant ( ahem, cough, "deadbeat") was being unreasonable... although, people are going to say whatever they want, think whatever they want, and react however they want - regardless of whom is to truly blame, and you will probably have to deal with that kind of backlash at some point.

Then again, the guy who hasn't paid you what he agreed to pay you could already be spreading negative word of mouth comments.

And you can't let everyone get away with lack of payment, or you'll go broke.

I have to ask, Kyle... did the client end up with the final mastered disc in his possession before he paid the studio what he owed?

Personally, unless it's a good friend, or a client who has established good faith and credit with me over the years, I never release a final product to a client until the balance has been paid in full.

Too many horror stories to tell about people who do not want to pay AFTER the work is all done. For one of our projects last year we spent the entire afternoon with a client doing some video work, some graphics and some audio work. When we got done the client said he did not have the money with him to pay us and he was late for a meeting in town. He asked if he could take the materials and just send us a check when he got home. We had done work for this client before. I don't usually like to give materials that are not paid for to clients but I made an exception in this case. I should not have done so because it is now a year later and guess what - we have still not been paid. Just the other day a client came and we gave her the materials and then she said "oh gee did you want to be paid today?" and I replied that that was the arrangement. She wrote us a check and we were done. In another case from years ago a young person got some mastering done. He was happy with the mastering but about 6 weeks later he called me up and said his Grandmother, who was funding the project, did not like the mastering and wanted her money back. I asked how old his Grandmother was and he replied "90". I told him that if his Grandmother would come to the studio and tell me what she did not like about the mastering I would think about refunding the money. Never heard from him again although I did hear that he spent all his money and needed some more money to pay for the duplication and decided to try and get the money back from me. My favorite is the guy who showed up in a Saab 9000 Turbo for his mastering session. We spent hours doing his mastering and then he says that he does not have any money but if I will make him 100 CDs he will pay after selling all the CDs. He was very upset when I refused. Then he says the he is owned the master CD since it is HIS material and if I kept it I could be sued. I told him that I would put it into my CD shredder to take care of that problem.

Probably noe of my business but I asked him how he could be driving around in an expensive car and not have any money and he says "well it is my wife's car and I am unemployed and my wife does not like my music". He left without the mastered CD and I take it was not very pleased as he slammed the door on the way out of the studio.

Lots more but....

I never start a project with fixed price. I explain my Customer that they are in charge of deciding how much they are gonna pay by what time they take to record and mix.
I sometime cut the corners (a 15min here and there) but what I just don't want to hear is '' but last time you did it for free'' !!

But I can understand that restoration jobs are like recording a band. The operation is very obscure to the customers but I guess I would try to make them realise the amount of work by specifying the hours and detailed operation on the invoice. Let's say, 2hours for digital transfer, 5 hours of classification and Queuing. Mixdown 2 hours etc... And on each item, a price tag.. so when a Customer comes and force you to redo stuff, you can point out the amount that it represent. Then, you can negociate a price better..

pcrecord, post: 430671, member: 46460 wrote: I never start a project with fixed price. I explain my Customer that they are in charge of deciding how much they are gonna pay by what time they take to record and mix.
I sometime cut the corners (a 15min here and there) but what I just don't want to hear is '' but last time you did it for free'' !!

But I can understand that restoration jobs are like recording a band. The operation is very obscure to the customers but I guess I would try to make them realise the amount of work by specifying the hours and detailed operation on the invoice. Let's say, 2hours for digital transfer, 5 hours of classification and Queuing. Mixdown 2 hours etc... And on each item, a price tag.. so when a Customer comes and force you to redo stuff, you can point out the amount that it represent. Then, you can negociate a price better..

It does not work that well in restoration. A client called me up and asked how much to transfer a reel to reel tape to a CD. I asked him how long it was and he said it is on a 7" reel. He estimated 45 minutes. I told him that before I could give him an estimate I would need to look at and play the tape. He brought it over and it was MONO recorded in 4 directions on a 1/4 track recorder running at 1 7/8" per second AND it was on 1/2 mil tape so more than 8 hours of music. If I had told him my hourly rate for a 45 minute tape I would have had to eat 7 hours of time. The same thing with VHS cassettes that are recorded on ultra low speed and the client is thinking one hour when it could be 6 hours. Again I want to see and playback the tape or VHS before I give an estimate. The client "remembers" one thing and it is quite different when they bring in the materials.

It is also interesting in restoration when a client wants the restored material to sound better than what they have brought in. Case in point a very famous opera singer from Akron asked to have a 78 rpm record transferred. When she brought it over I swear she had been keeping it in a sandbox as there were no groves left on the record. We played the record over and over again hoping we could piece is all together afterwards. We spent hours getting it all spliced together and presented it to her as a CD and we gave her the bill which she paid for. A week later she calls me up and says "I am very disappointed in the job you did for me and I am going to tell all my friends not to use your services". I asked her what was wrong. She said "well you obviously do not know what you are doing. It is NOT in stereo and it does not sound like a CD" "It sounds like an old 78 record"

Grrrrrrrrrrr!!!

I think we probably all have similar client stories.

There's a church about 5 miles away from me that still owes me $80 for a cassette duplication job I did for them... back in '90. LOL

(it's important to mention here that this is a church who's congregation is made up of people with a median income of $80-100K.. this is not a "poor" church. Sunday mornings , you can see Lexus, Benz, BMW's parked in the lot.)

On the final conversation I had with them, which was with one of the church 'elders", it was suggested to me by this person that God was telling him that He wanted me to let the church off the hook for the balance due.

My reply was something similar to, "Well, Pastor... I'm a Christian myself (and I really am, btw), and it's funny you should mention that... because as a matter of fact, just last night, God reminded me that you owe me $80.

I ended up taking the church to small claims court, and judgement was filed against them. But... that still doesn't guarantee you'll get paid. You still have to collect.

You'd think you could trust a church... when in fact, since then, after talking with other studio owners who have had similar situations, that churches are some of the worst offenders when it comes to paying their service-related bills.

I won't even accept promissory notes from them. Deposit to start the job, with final balance paid-in-full to release the product.

I did a cassette transfer for a church pastor here in Oberlin. That was in 2005. I still have not been paid for it. I see him at social gatherings and on the street and he always says I haven't forgotten (and neither have I). It is for less than $50.00. I just did some other transfer work for the same church and got paid the next week. I don't know what the problem is getting paid. I used to do some other maintenance and install work for churches here in Oberlin. When I would present the bill they would always say "but this is for the Lord" and I would say I understand but he is not here and you are and you knew the cost going in so...I would like my payment. One day I got a call and one of the churches PA system was not working and could I come right over and "fix it" I said I could get there the next day but my night was already taken up with college work. The minister said "but we need you tonight and we always pay you for your services" I came the next day fixed the problem and presented them with a bill and the pastor, with a strait face, said "but this is for the Lord and I said "well I will unfix the amplifier and you can call someone else". They cut the check on the spot. I don't do any work for any churches any more. Go figure...

________________

UPDATE: He finally paid me after I sent his church a letter with "Past Due" stamp on the outside of the envelope. Some people just need some additional motivation.

one of the few times i had problems collecting was from a church. i did a remote at a church in Oakland CA right on San Pablo Ave .... those of you who know this is right in the middle of the West Oakland ghetto .... parked on the street with a van full of recording gear and a snake running into the church (a converted auto repair garage) ..... lots 'o fun! i do love the sound of a good gospel choir though. the rev (that's what i called him) played B3 and all his kids were in the band. there's nothing like it. those guys were great!

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://recording.or…"]Thomas W. Bethel[/]="http://recording.or…"]Thomas W. Bethel[/], I understand your story of the signer and what she said about the 78 record. Some human will never understand and won't even try to. Sizing those maybe hard but not having them has customers would be a blessing ;)

I got very few restoration projects and one of them was a recording which had nothing but noise on it.
Before I did anything I took a lot of time and effort to explain that it was impossible to create what wasn't there. The customer insisted with hope so I proposed to treat 1 min of the recording with all my tricks and send a few exemples of results and this for free. I was able to retreive a few words but not clear enough to understand the conversation. I took half an hour and the client left with a lot of explaination on how audio work and confidence that nothing could be done.

On another one, the restoration results were very poor but clean enough for the customer to bring in court. So, he accepted the results and paid with a smile.

Dealing with customers is a real pain and challenge but it also can be rewarding. If you could have a way to explain without a doubt what are the limitations of your work. It would save you out of many situations. (a prepared speach or a brochure that you read with them or even a youtube video you can refer them to)

My main job is IT technician, I had a lot of hdd restoration to do, either from OS crashes, viruses or defective HDD. I always started my speach with the worst senario.
Ex : 'sorry, your hard drive has crashed and won't work anymore. Tools exist that could retreive some data but without any garanty. If you are willing to take a chance, here is the price : ....
This was my way of breaking expectations and if I'd succeed, I'd be a hero. If I wouldn't succeed, I would be the nice guy who tried. Not the jerk who promessed but didn't deliver.

I wish you luck of finding your own recipe to reduce your irritations and lost of incomes...

Geez I guess I should be happy this happens to me only once so far!! Certainly I thought nearly 2 years of time working together was a sort of handshake for the mastering work the studio did 'on the cuff'. I broke the policy of not letting the client get more than one session behind in payments, and not giving them the material unless the balance was cleared.

Lol his wife even cooked us dinner, and we had many off the clock listening sessions at his house to save studio time....

Not to get too off the topic, but I've seen pictures of some 'churches' that have more equipment and capability than a news network lol. I question their interpretations of the 'good word', but this is the first I hear of anyone talking about them not paying there bills.

Eye opening.

Kurt- dude if that was Oakland in the 80s that's one of the roughest places in the U.S. At the time! I've seen some great documentaries on the drug/gang scene out there from that time.

it was the 90's .... still pretty tough. a lot of guys would be too afraid to do it but i grew up in Oakland. i lived near the Fruitvale Station (like the movie).
in the end it turned out just fine. i wound up doing a lot of work for them. they started passing me around from choir to choir. the Rev had several fancy cars but i never could get him to pay his bills on time.

in the early 90's i worked for a dude who i helped build a studio for and then worked engineering for a couple of years. the room had an extensive midi set up and a top of the line sampler so as you can imagine we did a sh*t load of Hip Hop and Rap stuff. i can tell stories about that! like the gang banger in a wheel chair because he had been shot. lots of OG's and drug money went through that room. ahh the Bay Area ....

It is mind-boggling that clients think somehow you can transfer tape to your computer without doing it in realtime.

I've had people call asking if I had the equipment to transfer their VHS to DVD. The conversation usually continues like this:

Me: Yes I do have the equipment.
Them: How much do you charge?
Me: Believe me, you don't want to pay me by the hour to transfer your home movies, edit and clean them up, and then author a DVD with menus.
Them: Why not?
Me: It's EXTREMELY time consuming. How many hours of tape are we talking about?
Them: Not much, probably only 8-10 hours on a dozen, or so, tapes. They're not really marked.
Me: I'll tell you what I'll do… I have a great little Sony DVD recorder I'll let you have for an entire weekend Fri. - Mon. for $25 + the cost of the blanks discs.
Them: How long will it take me?
Me: By your own estimate 8-10 hours + an hour or two jockeying tapes around looking for footage trying to figure out what order they go in. + a few more hours if you want nice personalized menus.
Them: What?! Is there any way to do it faster? I don't want to sit there and watch 10+ hours of home movies.
Me: Yeah, me neither. There's no way around it, 10 hours of tape takes 10 hours to transfer.
Them: Watching 10 hours of videos would be SOOOO boring.
Me: Yes, very much so - and bear in mind those are YOUR precious memories. How would you like to watch 10 hours of MY home movies in one sitting? - (Trying to adjust tracking, color, contrast, black-levels, and marking chapter points whenever the scene changes - because you care about the quality of the work.)

Yup... I've faced the same thing with vinyl transfers..
I had a guy come in once who had a stack of old jazz albums; stuff that was mostly out of print, and he wanted them cleaned up and transferred to CD in a ay where each song would have its own index #.

I told him that we were talking about a huge studio bill to transfer each song on each album to a DAW, and then clean each song up, and then burn a disc where each song was properly indexed.

His question was... isn't there some machine that can just do this stuff? I told him that there was, but that the machine required an operator to tell it what to do, and there was no way in getting around the time it would take to transfer each song in real time. He told me that he had found another studio across town that had a way of doing all his albums ( 15 LP's) in two hours. I told him that if this was indeed true, that I would hand him over the keys to my studio. LOL

He came back about a week later, sheepishly admitting that he must have "misunderstood" what the other studio was telling him.

In the end, I ended up transferring his LP's, in real time, direct to a CD recorder, no restoration, and no index #'s. The project still ended up costing him around $500. He must have really loved those albums. Some of them were terrible, but there were a few gems in there, most notably was a Mary McPartland album from 1969, on a small label that had probably gone defunct since... it featured a couple of then unknown guest musicians.... who went by the names of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. ;)

I had that conversation about transfering audio tapes and vinyls a few times.
One of them insisted so much that I finaly found a mp3 version online and burned him that no charged!

pcrecord, post: 430676, member: 46460 wrote: [[url=http://[/URL]="http://recording.or…"]Thomas W. Bethel[/]="http://recording.or…"]Thomas W. Bethel[/], I understand your story of the signer and what she said about the 78 record. Some human will never understand and won't even try to. Sizing those maybe hard but not having them has customers would be a blessing ;)

I got very few restoration projects and one of them was a recording which had nothing but noise on it.
Before I did anything I took a lot of time and effort to explain that it was impossible to create what wasn't there. The customer insisted with hope so I proposed to treat 1 min of the recording with all my tricks and send a few exemples of results and this for free. I was able to retreive a few words but not clear enough to understand the conversation. I took half an hour and the client left with a lot of explaination on how audio work and confidence that nothing could be done.

On another one, the restoration results were very poor but clean enough for the customer to bring in court. So, he accepted the results and paid with a smile.

Dealing with customers is a real pain and challenge but it also can be rewarding. If you could have a way to explain without a doubt what are the limitations of your work. It would save you out of many situations. (a prepared speach or a brochure that you read with them or even a youtube video you can refer them to)

My main job is IT technician, I had a lot of hdd restoration to do, either from OS crashes, viruses or defective HDD. I always started my speach with the worst senario.
Ex : 'sorry, your hard drive has crashed and won't work anymore. Tools exist that could retreive some data but without any garanty. If you are willing to take a chance, here is the price : ....
This was my way of breaking expectations and if I'd succeed, I'd be a hero. If I wouldn't succeed, I would be the nice guy who tried. Not the jerk who promessed but didn't deliver.

I wish you luck of finding your own recipe to reduce your irritations and lost of incomes...

I hear you. Someones expectations versus reality. I really try my best to tell someone what is possible after I have listened to what they want restored and before I start. Some people listen to what I have to say others nod their head but are not really hearing what I have to say. I did a restoration for a very nice professor from a college in Southern Ohio. It was of a bunch of 78 records that he had collected and wanted to put out a CD of the result It was a GREAT project and he was fully involved. There were a few 78s that were just in really terrible shape and we were able to contact the Stanford Archives and the Rogers and Hammerstein Archives and find better copies of the records. It was a monumental project and the professor was very grateful. Later he wanted me to do another project off cassettes. The cassettes had not been stored well and the tape was deteriorated to the point where I was afraid we would not be able to transfer them. I was doing some research on the internet and came across an article that said if you freeze the cassette (instead of baking them) they could be played - and they were right. So I again pleased my client. The successes are really great and make me feel good. The ones that go from bad to worse are the ones that keep me up at night.

I really try and go the extra mile for my restoration and mastering clients but...sometimes I am not able to provide what the client has in their "minds eye"

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

Thomas W. Bethel, post: 430700, member: 4527 wrote: So I again pleased my client. The successes are really great and make me feel good.

What you are describing and what I have experienced aren't even close - as with your situation above, your project was far more involved than anything I've ever done when it comes to transfer and/or restoration.

When you start talking about contacting National Archives to get better quality copies of recordings, that's quite a bit more than anything I've ever had to do for a client.

My hat's off to you, Thomas... and not just for being willing and able to go those extra miles for your clients, but also, somewhere in there is a whole other barrage of kudos for you, because you are rescuing and restoring history... and that's very commendable, because if someone doesn't do this, much of that recording history will eventually just disappear, and in my opinion, that would be a shame.

d.

Thanks,,,that is one of the reasons I got into restoration in the first place was to "preserve" our recorded history.

Love the stories. I did 12 hrs worth of court depositions on an environmental case, transferring them from cassette to cd. All in real time. Then, bounce down in PT 7 in real time. $80. Which at the time I was okay with any money, but I surely found a new level of respect for that area of the field.

I did restoration work for years. Everything from art work to the Vinyl. The material I got was original Spiderman records, old aluminum war messages, never heard before stuff etc that came in incredible packaging from around the world. My company was Big Tree Multimedia , thus where i got the name bigtree. ;)
It was really fun and well paying. I did that as I started RO in the late 90's here. While big studio's were downsizing analog consoles and disbelieving Pro Tools was the new thing... , I was restoring , learning about noise removal and Photoshop lol. I loved it!!
I got paid before anything left my studio. Those were good days!
I stopped when everyone could burn a CD.
I'm looking for the new craze... anyone know what it could be? My gut is saying its less to do with music and more to do with sound and colour. Like what Bricasti is all about. And how audio can be extracted (coded) from amplifying recorded movement. Spectral Audio per-say.

Multichannel audio playback I belive is the future, as well as home studio acoustical treatments. I'm getting a bit more into the entertainment aspect of sound, instead of focusing on technical production. At least lately. I'll let ya know what my crystal ball says tomm! Lol

kmetal, post: 430730, member: 37533 wrote: Multichannel audio playback I believe is the future

Hey... more please!?

I was referring to 'immersive' sound and height channels. My personal belief is that until the surrounds/height channels are wireless, which Bose and some others are starting to do, surround sound is still not mainstream. I love my very very consumer oriented surround setup.

I think the ability to remote mix/process is in the cusp to. Basically the worlds of 'live' and 'studio' and 'theater' are all slowly coalescing into 'HUGE!!' Sounds lol.

It is a goal of mine to have my first international Client by 2020.

kmetal, post: 430737, member: 37533 wrote: I was referring to 'immersive' sound and height channels. My personal belief is that until the surrounds/height channels are wireless, which Bose and some others are starting to do, surround sound is still not mainstream. I love my very very consumer oriented surround setup.

I think the ability to remote mix/process is in the cusp to. Basically the worlds of 'live' and 'studio' and 'theater' are all slowly coalescing into 'HUGE!!' Sounds lol.

It is a goal of mine to have my first international Client by 2020.

Ever since I purchased a DVD-A and SACD system for my stereo, this is what I had envisioned. I never delved into it too deep since distribution is rather difficult.

That being said, what format do you use to create the down mix?

dvdhawk, post: 430643, member: 36047 wrote:

Do you allow clients to attend a restoration session, or mastering session? I know it's a pain working on that kind of project by committee, so charge more if they want to sit there and kibitz. You might make more money and waste less time.

I had a client attend a restoration session on Friday. It was for some cassettes she wanted put on a CD. To put it mildly she was amazed at how much tome and work goes into a "simple" (her words) transfer and restoration. i did the whole think in front of her from cleaning and demagnetizing the cassette deck to rewinding and fast forwarding all the cassettes before transferring them to the computer. She turned to me after we were done and said "I had no idea how this was done or how long it takes to do all of this". She paid her bill with a smile for a "job well done" This is the first time I have done this and for her was a "eye opening experience". Good suggestion. Thanks!

These moments are indeed shining - but unfortunately, they are also all too rare.

It's great that your client was able to be present for the session, and in being there, and being able to witness that which you actually do, she got an inside look at what it often takes to get a quality product.

You gave her an education, and if nothing else, there's now one less person wandering around out there who assumes that this kind of work shouldn't take any longer than 15 minutes. ;)

That's great Thomas! I'm glad it worked out for you (at least this time). You have a satisfied customer who got educated along the way. Unfortunately, the majority of people will still think that some magic technology exists, and all you have to do for professional results is 1) turn the machine on and 2) count the money.

A lifelong friend is a brilliant graphic designer, whose business is almost entirely repeat customers. He says some of his most loyal customers over the years are people who had hired him once or twice, then got the notion they could do it themselves. They try to layout their own catalog or brochure once, and quickly realize how much talent, time, and technology it takes to get the kind of results he gets. And in this day and age, doing professional graphic design is very much like doing professional recording. The computer puts so much capability within reach of just about anyone, but you cannot buy the innate creative talent this guy has.

Hats off to you Thomas for going the extra mile to do high-quality restoration, and (as has been said) preserving these pieces of history with the talent, time, and technology you bring to bear.

I've got a nice collection of little gems, that for legal reasons I really daren't do anything with. I really wish I had the courage to release a few onto the net, but I'm not that brave!

dvdhawk, post: 430877, member: 36047 wrote: And in this day and age, doing professional graphic design is very much like doing professional recording. The computer puts so much capability within reach of just about anyone, but you cannot buy the innate creative talent this guy has.

That's the sound bite, right there. ;)

All of these professional multi-media programs - for as wonderful and powerful as they are - are still just tools ...

It doesn't matter if they are DAW's, Graphics Design, or Video and Film Editing... No matter how powerful or intuitive they are, they still require someone with talent, creativity, skills, knowledge, and experience in their given field - and with the program as well - to use those tools to their optimum.

Put it this way...You could provide me with the highest quality, absolute best construction tools ever made, but that certainly doesn't mean that I am the guy who should be putting an addition on your house. ;)

I had a client that was sure she was hearing other people talking about her behind her back. She brought over cassettes and a stick recorder that she said had the people's voices on them. I transferred the material to the computer. I couldn't hear anything except the breeze though the open window and random "house sounds" I would play the transfer off the computer and she would tell me that "can't you hear it it is right there" She would also tell me what the people were saying about her and who was saying it. I tried everything I could think of to make the "voices" clearer but I never heard what she heard. She paid for the session and left. Two weeks later she calls me up and says she has another tape with the voices clearly on it but at a low level. We schedule an appointment and again the same thing. No audible voices but in this one you could hear children playing down the block. This went on for two other sessions. When she called for the fifth session I told her that I really could not help her and gave her the names of some forensic audio people in the area. I never heard from her again.

I also got a call late a night from a local person. he said he needed 10 90 minute cassette tapes copied and needed them by 8 am the next morning for a court case. His one stipulation was that I could not listen to any of the tapes. I told him my fee for staying up all night to do the copies (2X my normal rate) and he said, "like everyone else you don't want to help me and are trying to rip me off". I told him that I could have done this during the day for my normal rate but staying up all night had its cost. He got very aggravated on the phone and called me some names and called into question my legitimacy of my professional credentials. Then he asked if I could recommend another person "who CAN help me and who WILL NOT RIP ME OFF" I said no and hung up the phone. Later that night he calls, after midnight, after I had gone to bed, and pleads with me to do this project and said he was willing to pay my price. I said no and hung up. It was too late and I never would have been able to finish the job in time and knowing this person I never would have gotten paid. Sometimes it just not about the money it is about your sanity.

I also had a client who was "hearing voices"; and who had set up a cassette recorder - if I recall it was a boom box, I think - to record her bedroom at night, which is where and when she "heard" these "voices".

I listened intently, heard absolutely nothing ( other than her occasional snoring and shifting around in her sleep) and I told her there was nothing there to hear. She whipped out the biggest wad of cash I'd ever seen - all in 20's, 50's and 100's - and offered me all of it to " please do everything you can to bring the voices out".

There had to have been two thousand dollars in that handful of cash she was offering me... sigh...

I told her that I could not help her, but that perhaps the local police department had equipment that I didn't - I hated to send her there, because I just knew they were gonna put her into the psych ward - but she was acting very strange, and at one point, she fell down in the hallway outside of my control room...yet, she didn't appear to be drugged or inebriated... and based on my own history with pharmaceuticals, ( both legal and illicit), I consider myself to be a fairly good judge of whether someone is high or not.. LOL..

But, I also needed to get her out of there as fast as possible, before I ended up having a lawsuit on my hands. We were the only two people there - it was early in the morning, before the studio was open and I had forgotten to lock the door behind me after I let myself in... I was in my office checking the answering machine when I heard the front door open - I thought it was maybe UPS or FedEx... but then she appeared at my office door...

Based on her behavior, she could have not only physically injured herself on my property and turned into an insurance claim, but ... she was also way out there mentally, and she could have easily accused me of doing something improper.
As I said, my knee jerk reaction was to just get her out of the studio as quickly as possible.

I won't lie, that one shook me up a little bit for a few days, thinking about the the possible "could have's"... It was pretty creepy. :confused: