Of course. I understand and agree completely, and it has been very useful to read the various perspectives on this thread. The same applies to artists asking for mixing revisions that require loading up sessions recalling desk settings and so on. People need to understand about other people's processes and to be respectful of their time.

My own little anecdote was more about trying to illustrate that to me the general response to client requests seems most reasonable when one takes a case by case approach rather than being militantly strict about being paid for every minute. The guiding principle seems to me to be more important than strict observance, because at some point we all go out of our way to help each other, perhaps at our own expense.

I wonder out of all of the clients that folks have that ask for multiple tweaks and separate masters of separate mixes after the fact, what proportion are people being knowingly cheeky or even disrespectful of an engineers time vs people who simply don't fully appreciate how it takes time to do these 'little extras'? I imagine plenty of folks have yet to venture into a forum sub section on mastering to find out.

Yeah, I don't think the majority are being 'cheeky' and I never take offence when I am asked to remaster a new mix, just as I hope my clients don't take offence when I charge for it.

This, however, is a further argument for charging for such recalls, imo: I always explain why I am charging and, as far as I'm aware, clients tend to accept it. Occasionally I will still have all the settings in place on the equipment when the client sends a new mix: those are the situations where I am most likely to let it fly.

What percent of post mastering mix revisions can be traced directly to the client not carefully listening all the way through the actual bounced WAV file before sending to the ME?

A pretty high percent IME.

It would take 5 minutes that no one seems to have.

I make prominent in my standard client info that they should listen to the files because there is a fee for mastering revised mixes. So they know up front what to expect. Still, almost no one takes those 5 minutes.

And in some cases I waive the fee...

I think you are correct and a lot of it comes from not taking the time to really listen to their mixes before they send them off for mastering. It also has to do with them listening to their mixes after they are mastered and finding problems they did not know existed. Sometimes a client will listen with his engineer or friend and they will point out some "problems" and the mastering client wants to get this perfect before it goes to the web or gets made into CDs. So back they come.

A lot of tracking/mixing studios don't have really good monitoring setups and so the client may go somewhere else to listen to the mastered material on a system they are not familiar with.

I just got through doing an album with a client who was great to work with and his materials were perfect. I got them all mastered and then the client took them to a friends house and the guy put on headphones and said there were "noises" in the silence at the start and end of the track. Since I reduce the tops and tails to "digital zero" I was somewhat amazed. I listened with my Benchmark DAC-1 and a pair of AT M-60 headphones and could not hear what he was talking about. The client said he "fixed" the problem and I was pleased that he was able to do that but to my ears there was nothing. Maybe his friend has super hearing or had clocking problems he was unaware of.

Sometimes a client gets re-excited about the project after it is mastered and starts finding a lot of small problems with the mix or levels and decides to change some things to make the album "even better" and just assumes that the mastering engineer will be only too happy to redo the mastering for no charge.

Communication is the key to solving most mastering "problems" and a good heart to heart discussion with the client is probably the first thing on the agenda when they want to "redo everything".

Good topic!

I have one repeat client whose ME insists on no bus limiting. This ME also has a bit of a heavy hand. This results in, essentially, the mastering process remixing the mix in ways that are usually predictable enough that I can point out the trouble spots to the client before they actually happen. Fortunately, this client seems to think that re-mixing and re-mastering are not only tolerable and affordable, but maybe even enjoyable. He's a bit of a "process" guy. Okay, whatever.

Oh I'm sure 99.9999% of folks just don't realize what they're actually asking for, I don't think people are being disrespectful at all.

I put a specific bit in my FAQ about this but apparently no one reads it.

I had way, way, way more revised mixes last year than years past. Anyone else?

My favorite is when the revised mix is like 3db louder/quieter than the original. Fortunately gainstaging isn't important in mastering, no big deal.

Hoping I can get on the beta team for the new DMG Time Machine. Coulda used that thing last week.

Definitely felt that way. Lockdown anxiety?

I hear you. It's with no small amount of shame I own up to making that error once. If I let myself make the same mistake in future I might have to insist on paying the mastering engineer as an act of penance....

Same here. I don't think it's lockdown anxiety, though. It seems to be a steady increasing trend over the last several years. More and more mix revisions until it drove me to start this thread in Nov 2018, and the increase has continued through 2019 and 2020. I wonder how high it will get.

I've been forced to change my scheduling practices to leave room for it.

I think the lockdown may be contributing to it by increasing the amount of self-mixing, which definitely seems to be correlated. Hopefully it will taper off when things return to "normal".