For the independent musician, sounding good isn't a rarity only available to big time artists anymore - it is a requirement. Music sales may have tapered, 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 put out poor recordings. For many, audio engineers are still a mystery. To others, they are ‘evil' manipulators of music, creating phony, auto-tuned, machines out of unskilled artists. This, however, is far from the truth. Every record, no matter the type, gets handled by a tracking engineer, mix engineer, and mastering engineer. The recording engineer utilizes a plethora of microphones and technique to accurately capture and record the artist's performance as it happens in the recording studio. The mixing engineer takes all of the separate music tracks and crafts the music to sound great and convey the song's emotion. He sets correct levels, panning, equalization, compression, and adds special effects where needed to enhance the musician's vision. Lastly, the mastering engineer uses special equipment and highly trained ears in an acoustically sound room to subtly polish and prepare the song for final release and ensure the music translates to a variety of playback systems. "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 vessel for artists and labels. The real money these days is in converts, publishing, sync placements, and merchandise. When a fan connects with an artist's music, they'll listen to their music, tweet, and share the music with their friends. The fans want to support the artist and buy tickets to their shows, purchase apparel, and follow and interact with the group through social media. As the group 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 a great song and convincing recording. The rise of DIY recording has led to more bands releasing music than ever before. With a powerful laptop, some microphones, a digital audio workstation, and a little know-how, anyone can create and distribute music. One area where many artists fall short is failing to recognize their weaknesses in audio engineering. 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 productions 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 the proper time in pre-production, ensuring your composition and arrangement are as strong as possible. Then and only then, book time in the best studio you can afford to lay down your 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 satisfied. Finally, send the songs off to a mastering house for that final polish. Once your recording is finished, you can get the music into multiple venues and into the ears of your listeners and fans. Scott Horton is the epitome of the cutting-edge mixing engineer/producer/songwriter. He has collaborated with multitudes of 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 spectacular sounding mixes which make impressions that count. Visit Scott at http://www.virtualmixengineer.com
Related Articles -
mix master online, mix beats, mix engineer, vocal mixing, mix and master,
|