Hi gearspace community!

Some Context...
I have a single (1) track ready to be mixed, and am working on my other tracks. I have never mixed before, but I made sure to do a great recording (at home) of my acoustic guitar, trumpet, vocals, bass and drums.

* I'm able to pay $300-400, which is what I understand to be an above-average rate for a single song.

Local Mixing Engineers

I've found a number of reputable studios in Oakland/San Francisco, all of whom will let me sit in on the session:
* Tiny Telephone - Booked weeks out, only does whole day rates ($750), which doesn't make sense for me given I only have one song ready.
* Hyde Street Studios - $110/hr, 3 hrs minimum
* Skyline Studios - $65/hr, 2-3 hrs estimate

In addition, I've found some individual mixing engineers around the area that offer their services for around $250/song, though I think they will mix at home.


My question(s):
as a new singer-songwriter artist, should I hire a local mixing engineer, or someone from SoundBetter.com?
* Given the local engineers would happily have me around when they mix, I was hoping to learn as much as I can from the mixing session, of course without disturbing the artistic process of mixing. Does this mean I should simply hire a local engineer?
* However, SoundBetter.com seems to have grammy award winning engineers for my price range, whereas I do not think the local options offer that level of expertise for my price range....

--
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Hire someone who's work you like.

A few quick comments:

- a basic mix of a low track count song might only take a few hours; most people allow a day, sometimes a day plus revisions. Especially if there's any tidying up needing doing to make it as amazing as possible.

- don't hire "a studio" - hire an engineer.

- most people working on a song rate don't necessarily want people with them - that's the point, you work when it's convenient to you, and having someone with you will slow you down, so most people would want to go hourly at that point.

- US$400 is on the ok-spectrum - I wouldn't call it "above average".

- if someone says they're "grammy winning" they're probably not you can find the name of anyone who's actually been "grammy nominated" or won on grammys.com - most people aren't there. A lot of the time at best they had a bit part on a record that won a grammy somewhere...it doesn't mean much (and that's speaking as someone who genuinely IS grammy nominated! I recorded a vocal on a nominated record..my "engineering" is not the thing that got them nominated!). So don't read too much into that - no-one who actually won the engineering grammy is working for $400/song on Soundbetter.

- that said - if you can find someone on there who's got proper credits on songs you like - why not go with them?

- there's "official" resources for credits like Jaxsta.com - which only has verified credits. So try looking up a song you like, see who mixed it, see if they're available. I'd go that direction above just going to a local studio.

Does that help or confuse further?

I hope no one else feels the need to chime in as Monkey has addressed this question adroitly.

you need to find a mix engineer you like and trust who is willing to work within your budget, the best thing you can do is make sure the track is incredibly well labelled, organised and edited, I can't tell you how many projects I've worked on that aren't like this, it saves so much time for the mix engineer, I know it's a modern thing as well but don't expect the mix engineer to make your mix loud, that's not what the job is, I'd allocate some more money just for a mastering engineer, it will almost always sound better when you get somebody different to do the mastering.

Yes but most "modern" mix engineers will mix with a limiter in place, and send a limited ref mix.

Otherwise you don't know if your mix CAN be made loud!

I can't afford to mix a song for less than $1000 each. That's just the reality of having a studio and assistants. But on the other hand, never before in my lifetime could an independent artist have found Grammy-winning engineers willing to mix for that little.. So I guess there's that.

I don't generally go lower than that either..I don't have any assistants though (and I generally end up adding production/editing within that cost for lower-experience clients too).