Frequently Asked Questions

Mixing is the process of blending all the individual tracks of a song—such as vocals, guitars, drums, and synths—into a cohesive, balanced, and polished final version. A mixing engineer adjusts volume levels, panning (left-right positioning), and EQ (equalization) to ensure clarity and separation between instruments. Additionally compression might be needed to even out the dynamics of a performance, or simply to add colour to the sound.

Mixing also involves applying effects like reverb, delay and saturation to enhance the overall sound and create depth and space in the track. The goal is to make sure every element sits well in the mix, so the song sounds great on any listening system, from headphones to car speakers and professional sound systems.

Mixing is a crucial step in music production, taking a raw recording and turning it into a professional, radio-ready track before the final stage: mastering.

My studio is in Budapest (Soroksári út 158/C)

Yes, of course! In this case I leave the recording to you or your local audio engineer. In many cases I only join the production process at the mixing stage with my clients. I always check recording quality before starting the mixing stage, because everything comes down to the recorded audio and its quality!

Most of my clients come from an alternative / indie rock background but I also work with a lot of singer-songwriters.

You are more than welcome to come and record with me! I have no fancy analogue gear, because technology has allowed us to create amazing records with modern equipment.
If you're looking for someone with a console and a bunch of expensive hardware, I'm not your guy. I'm the cheaper and more efficient option without all the costs that come with said gear haha (I do have fantastic, professional and still quite expensive stuff in the studio, don't worry).

Yes! I'm lucky enough to have some great musicians in my circle of friends, but with most instruments I can help you as well.

Going back a couple of questions: if this stuff matters to you, I might not be your man. I believe whatever hardware/software you use should serve you, your music and your workflow. It shouldn't matter what specific piece of gear you use. Trust me, no listener is going to say "well that vocal wasn't recorded through a Neve 1073 preamp, so this song sucks".
That being said I work in Cubase, so if you do too, it can be something to take advantage of (some of my clients send me their own, complete projects and I just take the reins from there)!

- WAVs only
- Use 48 kHz sample rate and 24 bit depth. If not possible, use 44.1 kHz at 24 bit depth.
- Export your tracks instrument by instrument (Guitar 1, Guitar 2, Synth 1, Synth 2, Bass, Bass distorted, Kick, Snare, Tom 1, Tom 2, OH L, OH R, etc.)
- If possible, please export dry + wet tracks. If you nail an effect like reverb on a vocal, I don't want to reinvent the wheel. You like it this way. That's what matters. If I can't work with it, I'll let you know and we'll figure something out.

- Every track should be the whole project's length even if an instrument is not playing the whole time.

- Make sure nothing is clipping! I have a couple of magic tools but better fix it at the source rather than "fixing it in the mix"

- Zip them in a folder and name them properly. BEST way of doing this:
FOLDER NAME: SONG TITLE_TEMPO
FILE NAMES: INSTRUMENT (this is literally all I need)
I know which artist you are, you don't need file names like: SUM_41_THE_HELL_SONG_184BPM_G#MINOR_20040610_FINAL_DERYCK'S_GUITAR_1_VERSE_1_DIST_L
- Send them over any way that works for you

Your favourite answer incoming: that depends.

For a mix, if everything I need is sent over properly, it might take a week or two depending on my capacity at that moment. I always discuss these things project by project.

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For a master it's a couple of days.

It also depends on revisions but let's talk about that in a separate answer.

Yes!

My motto is that I work until the artist is 100% happy with the final product.

It's a complicated topic, given that music is an art form and as such it's subjective.
I do have a limit of 3 free rounds of revisions. Any more than that should not be necessary. At that point the artists are usually contradicting themselves and we're going around in circles.
It takes quite some time to open a project, switch something back the way it was, export the whole song, import it into a separate mastering project, export again, upload it to the cloud and send it over to the artist, only for them to come back with a request to undo that small action. Anyway, you get it.

Listen to the song on a couple of devices you know well! Ask your bandmates if all of you are happy (or unhappy) with each aspect, and come back to me with however long of list you want! I'll do them to the dot! But please think it through.
I'll do my best to respect your time,  and in return I ask the same of you.

You absolutely should! It helps me out a lot to know what you have in your mind regarding the final product. A record can be mixed 1000 different ways. If you want the drums to sound like in St. Anger, please let me know. If you'd like them to sound jazzy and kind of in the background... You see how much can change just from a single comment on ONE instrument?

If you want, I can send you the stems, of course!

Again, a fantastic answer but trust me, this is actually for both of our interest: it depends.

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Let's say I come up with a fixed price for all projects.
Then let's imagine I have two bands coming in.

On of them is a five piece pop-rock band with additional instruments like horns and strings. I record them one by one. We record drums, then move onto bass, then four layers of guitars (we record basically one note at a time, because the song proves to be a more difficult than what the guitarist can play real-time), any miscellaneous instruments, then special fxs, then finally vocals. Three layers behind our lead. We spend 8 hours just tracking. Then I have to edit everything and maybe the band wasn't very well prepared so it takes a bit of time. After that I start mixing all the different instruments together and they change section by section. Different tone in every verse and so on and so forth. The singer might have had a bad day and I need to use some manual tuning to fix the performance. Oh, and it's a 7-minute song.

The other band is a trio. They already programmed the drums, so it sounds fantastic and is on the grid. That's what they are after so no judging from me.
We record the bass and guitar simultaneously, plugging straight into my interface. They nail it on the first take. Oh and they don't have vocals because this song is an instrumental.
Each track sounds like it should on the final mix, they came well prepared.

In the first scenario I spend a whole day recording and then 2 more days editing and mixing. I have to charge accordingly. Now if I worked with a fixed fee for each project.
In the second case we were in and out of the studio in less than 6 hours, with recording, mixing and mastering. Should I charge the same for the second band? Does it seem fair that people help me by being well prepared, knowing their parts, and they still have to pay the same as others who waste both of our times by coming in unprepared, not knowing lyrics, with unwritten songs or parts?

TL;DR
I charge hourly for recording, where artists who come in prepared pay less.
I charge a flat fee for mixing and mastering but it depends on the project. I won't charge the same for mixing your solo acoustic song as an orchestra with 150 tracks. Nor should you expect me to.

I ask for 50% of the project fee up front. I only take the rest when I have delivered the final files after mastering.

This is something I've been doing lately and honestly it helps me a bunch!

I'll usually work on a song, set it up, edit and mix it, send it out for listening, then in some cases the artist comes in and we do revisions together. It's much easier and faster than going back and forth with small adjustments where they might be needed.
So yeah! You're more than welcome! :)

I can help you with producing or arranging your song as well! This is a different pricing category of course as it usually takes up a lot of time.

There's a portfolio player on my website where you can check out some of the songs I've worked on in the past.

I sure do and sometimes it's fun and sometimes it's not fun but it is included in the price so you won't be charged extra after the fact.

Yes, it is possible and it is the case many times. Please make sure they are recorded properly though. I will reject projects where the tracks are not up to a certain standard.

Analogue mixing involves using outside gear (preamps, compressors, EQs, consoles, etc.). It can be amazing. And also quite expensive. I don't use any external hardware, so I work, as they say "in the box". I do however use some top of the line software to make sure your song sounds really cool haha

Nope.

Absolutely! Via email or phone. Whichever works for you. I also need to know what you're looking for and how I can help you as best as I can with your vision.

Another important question. If I'm mixing AND mastering the song then you'll be getting pre-masters all along the way (in mp3 format, until you get the final files in wav).
 

Since I work in the box and I'm in charge of the song from beginning to end, I'll be doing some broad strokes on the overall sound while working on the mix.
Again: why wouldn't I? Saying "oh mastering will make it sound better, so I will settle for not-so-great right now" makes no sense to me.

In this case you'll be hearing the "final" version of the song. That means if you approve the mix/master, we're done! You'll then get the final wav files via Google Drive.

The format is mostly WAV, 48 kHz and 24 bit depth. If you'd like to burn your music on CD, then 44.100 Hz is also included. Basically anything you want, but if not specified, you'll get the basic format (which is accepted on most streaming platforms).

I mentioned before that you have 3 round of revisions.
After that each revision and extra work costs an extra hourly rate of 5.000 HUF
So fear not. Your first 3 rounds of revisions can be 3 pages long each (although I hope it won't come to that, that's a completely different problem haha).
But after approving the final versions, I need to have these boundaries in place.
 

I do keep backups for a year. Please make sure you have everything you need downloaded and stored on your hard drives or cloud storage.

Extra exports and printing stems after the final delivery has been made also come with an extra hourly fee of 5.000 HUF. Please make sure you ask for every version you'd like before closing the project.