Rapper Russ was recently on Everyday Struggle and he was asked about why he started mixing and mastering his own songs and he said that it was because audio engineers would take 2 weeks to mix and master his songs when he could do it himself within a few hours or a day.
This is true, if you know what you’re doing.
If you know how to change your car’s oil, it’ll take less than 15 minutes, if you have no clue, let’s just say it’ll take a few days.
But assuming you know what you’re doing, it doesn’t take two weeks to mix and master a song (we mix and master within 3 days).
However, it depends on how busy the audio engineer you’re working with is as if you’re working with the top audio engineers they’re booked solid and are going to charge thousands per song (Russ alluded that he was working with these kinds of audio engineers originally).
Russ was pretty on point during the interview and addressed this by saying that, “no it doesn’t take 2 weeks to mix and master a song, it takes 3-4 hours of whenever you can slot me in those 2 weeks”.
Again this is true. So what’s my beef with Russ?
The Pitfalls of the Do-It-Yourself Mentality
I do get the Do-It-Yourself mentality and recommend artists learn to mix and master their own stuff so they can at least get an idea of what goes into it but I don’t think that mixing and mastering your own stuff is a good long term strategy which I spell out in this post: Are You Still Mixing and Mastering Your Own Stuff? The Hero Myth Debunked (I’m obviously biased in this regard).
However I think the obvious question I’d ask Russ is do you actually think your songs are mixed and mastered at the same level as if a “professional audio engineer” did them?
Russ likes to say he’s mixed and mastered all 300 of his songs over the course of his 5 years in the game, in that same time I’ve personally mixed and mastered over 4000 songs.
It goes without saying, but me and other audio engineers like myself have way more experience.
And yes I’m equating more experience with being better, which is true most of the time.
I’ve listened to a few Russ songs and the mixing and mastering isn’t terrible, it’s passable and I’m sure he’d say “it’s good enough” because of the tens of millions of streams he’s racked up not to mention the Gold plaque he just got for his debut album.
Is Russ Song Quality Good?
But here’s the rub: nobody is putting the sound quality of a Russ song on par with a Kanye song.
Kanye’s had the top audio engineers provide 75 different mixes for his songs!
Shoot nobody is putting Russ’s sonics on the same level as Drake, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Logic, Big Sean, Migos, and Young Thug (artists who all have their own dedicated audio engineering teams).
In my humble opinion, the mixing and mastering on a Russ song is slightly better than the unsigned Soundcloud rapper that mixes his songs himself (which isn’t saying much).
Moreover, Russ by recording, producing, mixing and mastering all his stuff is going to be way to biased and too close to his music to objectively hear it (i.e. he’s giving himself the worst case of demoitis).
A good audio engineer whose found his zen and not to mention knows how to rest his ears will address these biases.
Russ Has a Great Mentality
Russ has a great mentality for getting on, but it’s nothing new, Ryan Lewis & Macklemore pretty much did the same thing, and a case could be made that Russ is really this era’s lower production quality Macklemore (Russ likes to brag that he produced all his songs which is also not a sustainable strategy).
It’s a great and endearing story that Russ thinks he himself can compete with teams of audio engineers, producers and writers.
It feels almost like some Kanye-ish? But Kanye does the exact opposite, he employees the best audio engineers, producers and writers to make his vision come to life.
By continuing to do everything himself, Russ is hustling backwards.
Related Posts:
- 3 Reasons Drake Is The Gold Standard in Mixing and Mastering
- 5 Things Kanye West’s Ye Teaches Every Rapper
- How to Get Vocals Like Drake
i was almost on board but you turned this into an anti-russ post rather than a fact based article. why are you mad?
Seriously. They are so butthurt that Russ is more successful without needing people like them.
People under estimate the mix and master. It makes all the difference to make your record pop. His levels always sound flat. Period.
Well it sounds flat enough to make him a millionaire 😉 and a signed artist with contract made from his terms and also 400 milion listeners on the song he made when he was doing his own master so the opion you have is unvalid. For you maybe its flat but clearly his songs pop for 400 milion people i would let that talk for itself. Obviously it makes a difference If you have other engineers doing your stuff. But to do it on your own your showing mad skills and money making creds to not depend on Others and get that cash to yourself. Period.