For the independent artist, sounding amazing isn't a luxury only available to major label artists anymore - it is a necessity. Music sales may have wanted, but that doesn't mean that recorded music is going away any time soon. Far from it. More music is being consumed on more devices by more fans than ever before in history! Musicians are making their music available on internet and satellite radio, online music streaming services such as Pandora, Spotify, Rdio, Deezer, and YouTube, selling on direct-to-fan sites such as CD Baby, Bandcamp, and ReverbNation, and still pushing sales through 'traditional' online retailers such as iTunes and Amazon MP3. Simply put, there is no excuse for an artist to put out poor recordings.
For some people, audio engineers are still mysterious. To others, they are 'evil' manipulators of music, creating fake, auto-tuned, drones out of terrible artists. This, however, is far from fact. Every record, no matter the type, gets touched by a recording engineer, mixing engineer, and mastering engineer. The recording engineer uses many of microphones and technique to accurately capture and record the artist's performance as it occurs in the recording studio. The mixing engineer takes all of the separate audio tracks and crafts the music to sound convincing and convey the song's emotion. He sets correct levels, panning, equalization, compression, and adds creative effects where needed to enhance the artist's vision. Lastly, the mastering engineer uses unique equipment and highly trained ears in an acoustically sound room to subtly polish and prepare the track for final release and ensure the recording translates to a variety of speakers. "While many audio techniques can enhance the final production, we engineers are not magicians and can't replace a poor performance or terrible recording," says Scott of Virtual Mix Engineer.
Recordings are more often used as promotional tool for musicians. The most income these days is in touring, publishing, sync placements, and merchandising. When a fan connects with an artist's music, they'll listen to their records, tweet, and share the music with their friends. The fans want to help the artist and buy tickets to their shows, purchase apparel, and follow and interact with the band through social media. As the band grows in popularity, their music may be chosen for sync placements in movies and TV, which not only provides great exposure, it also pays quite well. To make it to this stage however, it all begins with well written song and polished recording.
The rise of DIY recording has led to more artists releasing music than ever before. With a powerful laptop, some mics, a digital audio workstation, and a little know-how, anyone can create and release music. One area where many artists fall short is failing to recognize their weaknesses in mixing. An experienced mixer has the right tools, but most importantly the skills to make a recording reach its full potential. Though it can be hard for an artist, letting go and trusting your mixer will take your recordings to the next level and help you stand out from the crowd. Fans are instantly attracted to a well-written and performed song that sounds like a hit.
Spend a good amount of time in pre-production, ensuring your song and arrangement are as strong as possible. Then and only then, go to the best studio you can afford to lay down your tracks. Find a local or online mix engineer within your budget whose work and personality you like, and tweak the mix until you're satisfied. Lastly, send the songs off to a mastering house for that final polish. Once your record is complete, you can get the music into multiple stores and into the ears of your listeners and fans.
Scott Horton is the epitome of the cutting-edge mixing engineer/producer/songwriter. Scott has worked with countless recording artists the world over in all musical genres ranging from Pop, Pop-Rock, Hip-Hop,RnB, Urban and more. His online mixing and mastering service, Virtual Mix Engineer, delivers recording artists with industry standard sounding mixes which make impressions that count. Visit Scott at http://www.virtualmixengineer.com
Orignal From: Why Artists Can't Live Without a Good Mixing Engineer
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