For the independent recording artist, sounding great isn't a luxury only available to big time artists anymore - it is a must. Music sales may have went down, but that doesn't mean that recorded music is on its way out. Far from it. More music is being consumed on more devices by more fans than ever before in history! Artists 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 release sub-par recordings. To many, audio engineers are still a mystery. To others, they are ‘evil' manipulators of sound, creating false, auto-tuned, machines out of terrible artists. This, however, is far from the truth. Every record, no matter the type, gets taken care of 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 mix engineer takes all of the separate music tracks and crafts the music to sound convincing and convey the song's emotion. He sets correct levels, panning, equalization, compression, and adds special effects where needed to complement the musician's vision. Lastly, the mastering engineer uses special equipment and highly trained ears in an acoustically accurate room to subtly polish and prepare the production for final release and ensure the sound 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. Recorded music is more often used as promotional tool for musicians. The real money 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, comment, and share the music with their friends. The fans want to support the artist and buy tickets to their concerts, purchase apparel, and follow and interact with the band through social media. As the artist grows in popularity, their music may be chosen for sync placements in movies and TV, which not only provides great exposure, it also pays very well. To make it to this stage however, it all starts with a great song and polished recording. The rise of DIY recording has led to more artists releasing music than ever before. With a powerful PC, some microphones, a digital audio workstation, and a little knowledge, anyone can record and release music. One area where many artists fall short is failing to recognize their weaknesses in mixing. An experienced mixer has the right gear, but most importantly the knowledge to make a production reach its full potential. Though it can be hard for an artist, letting go and trusting your engineer 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 composition and arrangement are as solid as possible. Then and only then, get into the best studio you can afford to record your basic tracks. Connect with a local or online mix engineer within your budget whose work and personality you gel with, and tweak the mixdown until you're happy. Lastly, send the songs off to the mastering engineer for that final touch. Once your production is complete, you can get the music into multiple retailers and into the ears of your listeners and fans. Scott Horton is the epitome of today's modern mixing engineer/producer/songwriter. Scott has collaborated with an endless number of 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 spectacular sounding mixes which make impressions that count. Visit Scott at http://www.virtualmixengineer.com
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