MIXING

DEMO VS PRODUCTION

The original demo for every song that gets people interested in it usually has a certain feeling or vibe that is very expressive.  Unfortunately, artists usually try to make their demo “better” but in doing so will lose the original appeal or even worse, the song.  While you need to keep your client (the artist) happy and give them the work (and all of the sounds) that they have hired you to do, sometimes you may find the true feelings of the song lies buried underneath a pile of extra sounds and instruments.

In addition, sometimes you will be asked to play “chase the demo” in an attempt to recapture the original feeling but using new over-produced tracks.  I have had people tell me to use the same reverb settings in an attempt to get the new tracks to feel like the original demo, even though the feeling of the new tracks had nothing to do with the original “vibe” of the demo.  This is a frustrating situation, because with the exception of really understanding what was important in the original demo and trying to use whatever new tracks have a similar feeling is all you can possibly do.