Cambridge-MT 'Flash Feedback' Sessions
Like many project-studio engineers, you’re worried that your mixes just don’t sound competitive enough. But is it your plug-in settings that are letting you down? Or are underlying recording and arrangement problems holding you back? Maybe you’re just too close to the project and there’s actually nothing wrong at all!
What you need is unbiased, expert feedback from a specialist in project-studio working methods.
Speak To The Specialist!
I’m Mike Senior, and over the past twelve years I’ve dissected more than 600 commercial record productions in my regular ‘The Mix Review’ blog. On top of that, I’ve critiqued thousands of project-studio mixes, both at live seminars around the world, and as part of large-scale mix competitions such as The Great 'Blood To Bone' Mixoff, the Cambridge-MT 'Colour Me Red' Mix Contest, and the Cambridge-MT 'You Know Better' Mix Contest. And if you’ve heard my remixes for Sound On Sound magazine’s Mix Rescue feature, you’ll know that I can help you deliver commercial mix results even in challenging small-studio environments.
So bring my expertise to bear on your work today with a face-to-face Flash Feedback Session. Hook up with me over Zoom as I critically listen to your work and provide personalised, practical advice in real time. You’ll be able to see and hear my DAW project as I analyse your mix and demonstrate processing tactics, and I’ll help you home in on the most important actions you can take to improve your results: whether that means repositioning mics, adjusting processing, tweaking arrangements, adding effects, reworking harmonies… whatever I think is most holding you back! If you wish, you can also share your DAW screen so that I can suggest workflow or parameter adjustments directly.
Conor Molloy: "Mike gets straight to the core analysis of the mix in order to help you improve. Even an hour of his feedback left me reflecting on, and experimenting with, my mixes for weeks afterwards. If you’re looking for extremely astute, detailed and highly effective feedback on your mixes in order to improve them and develop your skills, then Mike’s your man!"
Jon Crocombe: "Mike has undoubtedly helped me learn and improve far more quickly than I otherwise would have. His experienced ear has helped me identify the key issues with my mixes, while his general knowledge of music and arrangement has also improved pretty much every other area of my tracks!"
How It Works
In the first instance, get in touch to send me a WAV or AIFF file of your mix and arrange a mutually convenient session time. If you’ve used any mastering-style processing, it’s helpful to provide an unmastered file as well. Sessions take place over Zoom, the latest versions of which allow 192kbps stereo MP3-quality audio streaming, and you’re welcome to record the audio and video from the session for personal (ie. non-public) use. For higher-quality audio and avoidance of streaming glitches, I can also optionally record my audio and video for you locally (ie. before it’s transmitted via Zoom) as a high-quality H264 MP4 video file with embedded 24-bit PCM audio.
Pricing
The pricing for a one-hour Flash Feedback session is £95 (plus 19% VAT) per hour. For a high-res local video/audio recording of the session there is an additional £30 (plus 19% VAT) fee per session. Payments can be made via Paypal or UK/European bank transfer.
Rory S: "It’s like a weight has been lifted -- everything you said made complete sense and I’m working on implementing it now to great effect. It’s so amazing to finally get some direction in my tracks!"
Adam R: "From your books and podcasts and such, I had the background knowledge, but when you applied it to my specific recording it really connected some dots for me."
Julian W: "Great feedback session earlier Mike! Thanks as ever for your mentoring and input -- it’s invaluable. I’m learning as I go (all the gear, etc.), so having your guidance is a massive help."
Session Technicalities
ZOOM FOR VIDEO-CONFERENCING: Normally I prefer to video-conference via Zoom, through my own commercial account, and will provide an access link to that once we’ve agree a session time. Once you’re in the session I should be able to share my DAW screen with you, and also feed the DAW’s audio to you in stereo at around 192kbps MP3 resolution (in addition to the audio from my own voiceover mic). I would recommend using the Zoom app on a computer if you can, as some mobile devices may restrict the audio or video bandwidth. In order to avoid distracting acoustic feedback through the Zoom system, please either listen on headphones or else be careful to mute your microphone whenever you’re not speaking.
RECORDING THE SESSION: You are welcome to record any of the video and audio feeds from the session, although only for personal (ie. non-public) use. This can be done within Zoom itself, so just let me know if you want to do that and I we can set that going at the start of the session. As we all know, real-world internet streaming of any kind can occasionally drop out or suffer audio/video sync problems, so if that’s a concern for you, I can also record my own clean video and audio from the session locally (ie. before I transmit it to you via Zoom/Audiomovers) as a high-quality H264 MP4 video file with embedded 24-bit PCM audio. This will, however, incur an extra charge, as detailed above. Please let me know at the start of the session if you’d like me to record my audio and video locally in this way.
ALTERNATIVE VIDEO-CONFERERENCING OPTIONS: While I’m happy to accommodate other freely available PC-based video-conferencing systems (Skype, Whatsapp, etc), I can’t vouch for the audio quality on those platforms, so you may wish to budget for the optional local video recording in that case to ensure you can hear my audio demonstrations well enough.