We get sent a lot of mixes from home/project studios. The bands/producer/mix engineers all of believe that they are ready for mastering and sutable as a demo or commrical release . Of these less than 5% are ready for mastering and another 5% need a small amount of work to get them to standard. So that means that more than 90% fall short of the standard of a professional mix. Most have significant balance issues, some have editing/timing/tuing issues, some suffer from inappropriate use of effects/dynamics, some suffer from over processing and a build up of digital hash, some have unwanted distortion and clipping, some are just poorly mixed and/or recorded.
As a mastering studio we usually try and help guide these home/project studios so that they can correct and improve their mixes. Some producers/bands objectively reflect on the issues and their abilities and take the probably hard decision to get someone else to mix the audio as they lack the time/skills/knowledge/equipment. Some ask us if we can mix their track, and that's something that we usually decline to do. Instead we suggest a professional recording/mixing engineer that is within their budget* . The pro engineer then remixes and returns the track for mastering and normally there is sufficient improvement for the project to go to mastering.
Some times we never receive a remix from the band/producer and we presume that they decided to pursue their project elsewhere. Sometimes we come across the mix again again by accident andthis is the story of one.
Some time back we were sent a mix by a project studio that they wanted to commercially release. The mix and the performance lacked sufficient quality in our opinion and we spent some time suggesting to them how to improve their project. We never heard anything until this week. My daughter was watching 'Blue Peter' (a BBC children's show) and the presenters went to interview a band whose first single had just entered the UK Top 40. You guessed it, it was the same band and the single was from that same project. Now it's hard to tell from a TV broadcast but from what I heard when they played the single many/all of the issues that we raised were still there.
My daughter said that she thought the recording was 'amateurish' and couldn't understand why people were buying it. It's charted so some people obviously are buying it. I doubt that we'll ever receive anything from this Top 40 band in the future.
* Home recording/project studios usually have a limited budget and we do try to take this in to account when we recommend a remix. We normally try to walk them through a remix first as this is the cheapest option but if they need to use a different engineer then we refer them to one suitable for their budget. With a lot of bands with smallish budgets we often refer thm to an engineer called Graham Waller (www.grahamwaller.com). Graham's a professional engineer and teaches music technology - he's not some kid 'mixing' tracks in his bedroom. He specialises in rock and indie but has sufficient experience to mix other genres to a professional standard.
We've worked with Graham for a number of years now and have a good idea of his skills and knowledge. What we like about Graham is that he's objective and reflects on his work so he continually looks for ways to improve his work. He's also a nice guy and easy to communicate and work with. Anyone who's recording/mixing on a tight budget should check him out.