True Story

The names in this story are changed. Otherwise, it is a true story.

I had a client, Dave, who recorded his whole album in my home studio. He was very happy with the quality of the recording and mixing, so after the album was done, he came back to record a song that he was working on with another artist, Robert. The whole time that Robert was in my studio, he kept making small comments, implying that because it was a home studio, the quality of the music would not be good. My studio is not flashy and when it comes to looks, it doesn't have much in common with a professional studio, so I ignored the comments. I assumed that when Robert heard the end result, he'd realize that appearance isn't everything. I wasn't really feeling Robert's condascending attitude, but other than that, the session went well. Robert had to leave before I mixed the song, so he didn't hear the final version that day, but I mixed it and gave a copy to Dave. As usual, Dave was very happy with the result.

Fast forward several months. I ran into Robert and he told me that he finally got to hear the mixed version of the song. He loved it and was very impressed by the mixing. He said that the second version he heard was much better than the first. Second version? First? After the conversation, I realized that I didn't remember if I had done two versions or if I'd given Dave a rough version of the song before giving him a final mix. Maybe he'd had someone else mix the song after me and the second version that Robert was praising wasn't even the one I did! I didn't want to take credit that didn't belong to me, so I went to Dave and asked him if the mix Robert had heard was the one that I had done.

Dave told me that not only was it the same mix that I had done, it was identical to the "first version" that Robert said he didn't like. Apparently, I did mix the song the same day we recorded it. Soon after that, Dave gave Robert a copy of it. Robert listened to it and told Dave to send it to him when he had it mixed in a real studio. Months later, Robert told Dave he was still waiting to get a copy of that song. Dave sent Robert the exact same file. Robert loved it.