Another day without the time for a proper post so I'll write about what I'm actually doing.

I've been commissioned to 'record, mix and master' a hip hop song for about $120 in the space of one day (thankfully 'extended' to two).

This has been a classic example of how people just don't get the work involved in being a paid artists, and just assume that we either get exactly what's in the mind of the client to the exact fraction of accuracy, or we're an unartistic failure.

The story

It started off as a favour, hence why I was doing it for such a low price and it might open some doors if successful.

On wechat, I was given the contact, and we discussed and I made the disclaimer: As long as you know, I'm not familiar with this software and given the very small time constraints, you aren't going to get the best results.

He was fine with that so we moved on, I figured it was just casual stuff.

Then he said he can't attend, but he gave me his boss's contact, to whom I gave the same disclaimer, and he was ok with that. So around 1pm I set off.

Unfortunately my taxi driver got totally lost and it cost me Y140 (I'm going with Yuan currenecy from now on).

The day before, my cat broke his leg by being a dumbass which cost me about Y1,000, so I'm already in the negative in terms of pay since the pay for this job was exactly Y1,000.

Anyway I arrived and entered the studio, and they have an OSX computer with a windows keyboard that didn't work u nless you left it right over the left side away from the mouse, a mouse that was clearly low on battery or something and just kept conking out, and a bunch of people who had no idea what they were doing other than filling up space.

I don't speak good enough Chinese, nor do I know the actual song I'm working with, so I couldn't give directions to the singer so it was only natural that I sit out the recording part (essentially just pressing record and stop over and over amidst their discussions) and let them do all the talking.

So turning up was already a total waste of my time but it was cool hanging out. 4 hours later the client spoke to the one who hired me asking why I wasn't doing anything, so they clarified due to time constraints I'll be taking the tracks home to mix and master.

To be clear, mastering is not something you typically do to a single track. The very point of mastering is that you make an album or EP sound together with balanced levels etc. Mastering a single track is basically mixing so I don't know why they wanted that but whatever.

So they emailed the files. About 200 files. Every single take that the singer did wrong, right, different, and just tossed it at me to deal with.

I'm guessing it was my job to sift through every one, imagine what the lyrics were in Chinese and put them in the right order in the right rhythm and in the right place of the track just like that.

Thankfully the rapper guy who actually wrote the song for the client met me in a cafe to discuss details the best he could but some things couldn't be fixed yet. For example, the main vocal track had backing vocals at points throughout it; 2 or 3 other voices in a single track that I'm supposed to magically extract and mix separately?

The main beats were mixed down so loudly that their peaks were reaching past their limit, making it impossible to master even if I wanted.

Then came the instructions in a word document in bad English. Things like 'Make the singer more outstanding with effects here'

What does that mean?? It's not my song, they will get angry if I take any creative step, yet they give me such vague instructions as 'make the bridge singing voice more like EDM'. What part of EDM? You want the same effects, you want it harmonized, or just generally heavy whispery vocals? Because if so, you got the wrong singer.

Anyway I took it upon myself to do what I could so far, but the rapper guy has apparently fallen asleep so we can't discuss the issues and I can't send anything for approval and direction.

It's now 9pm which as far as I know is past the deadline, but nobody has said anything (As I type, the rapper says 'shit I just woke up').

All for Y1,000!

It wasn't pretty watching their project in the studio either. It had already long started by the time I arrived and they had dozens of tracks all named 'audio 1, audio 14, audio 27'. Then they'd get lost all the time trying to find particular tracks.

Nobody used a click track, so timing was just something I'd have to fix manually apparently.

They kept messing up the outputs etc so sound would suddenly stop working for no reason and spend 10 minutes figuring it out or opening a new project and copying everything over! It was like watching n00bs at University all over again!

Even so

I'm expected to, as the last message put it 'finish quickly and perfectly', despite my disclaimers saying the impossibility of that, and the lack of communication and efficiency going on.

The fact is, it's going to all land on me at the end. If it ends in failure it's all my fault and I'll never be hired again. And that's what artists around the world have to deal with, you know?

Previous movie soundtracks I had to do suffered the same difficulties, even Hans Zimmer has to deal with it. When hired to write for interstellar, Chris Nolan told him something like 'write me a song that shows a happy family, but in a world that's dying' and 'Forget everything you've learnt over the years, and write me music after that'.

These aren't whimsical suggestions, these are the kinds of demands you get from directors. I can imagine Nolan like 'Huh, this sounds familiar to that one track I heard of yours years ago, you didn't forget it at all!'.

Sigh.

Tortured artists, eh?