Philosophical Dispatch Question

[coxnvox]

Essentially, here's what I've been pondering...(I know you've been dying to know!)I have a decent home studio and a few very talented, semi-pro musician friends whom I hire to do drums/guitars on my demos. When a listing comes from dispatch, it seems that it's generally a 3-4 day turnaround, max. Even with nothing else going on, if I want to create something from scratch to fit a listing, that means I have to write, re-write, track, edit, mix, and master a song in a very short time frame. Is it even realistic to think that I can produce the pro sound they're looking for in a such a limited time frame? Even if everyone's available at the exact right time, that still leaves me with a mix which I can't even let sit for a day to referesh my ears before I master it. And I don't see how I could send it off to be mastered and still meet most of the deadlines.So, those of you who've had success with dispatch songs (I guess instrumentals, too, but I'm mostly thinking songs with words), how have you been able to do it? Did you already have stuff that matched what they were looking for? What's the key?Thanks and a good day to all,kerry cox

[sgs4u]

Quote:Essentially, here's what I've been pondering...(I know you've been dying to know!)I have a decent home studio and a few very talented, semi-pro musician friends whom I hire to do drums/guitars on my demos. When a listing comes from dispatch, it seems that it's generally a 3-4 day turnaround, max. Even with nothing else going on, if I want to create something from scratch to fit a listing, that means I have to write, re-write, track, edit, mix, and master a song in a very short time frame. Is it even realistic to think that I can produce the pro sound they're looking for in a such a limited time frame? Even if everyone's available at the exact right time, that still leaves me with a mix which I can't even let sit for a day to referesh my ears before I master it. And I don't see how I could send it off to be mastered and still meet most of the deadlines.So, those of you who've had success with dispatch songs (I guess instrumentals, too, but I'm mostly thinking songs with words), how have you been able to do it? Did you already have stuff that matched what they were looking for? What's the key?Thanks and a good day to all,kerry coxWhen I submit to dispatch, it's usually stuff I have already on my hard drive. Luckily, I have gotten a couple of forwards so far, thru dispatch.If you want to start from scratch, for a dispatch, you're gonna need to believe you can get it all done. Believe in yourself (say it again, with feeling) You just won't get any sleep for that 2 days. You probably won't have time to send stuff to get mastered, so you might want to spend some time on that learning curve as well. No big problem, right? I use the dispatch listings to keep me focused, every once in a while I try to start from scratch(I work alone). I hardly ever get anything complete in time, but there's always so much talk about being able to move quickly in the corporate world of making music, I like testing myself.Here's a thread with some decent dispatch info - http://taxi.proboards27.com/index.cgi?b ... 98843steve

[chrisbee]

Kerry - I've had great success with dispatch stuff. but I think it works for me because, 1) I look for dispatches to show up that fit what I already have in the can, and/or 2), I write and produce things that I don't need to hire other players for, so I can make the deadlines with something new on occasion.Since you hire other players to fill out your tunes, you might want to build up your catalog a bit before joining Dispatch. Either that or get BFD drums and replace the drummer!! Half kidding! Good luck, bro!cb