For the independent recording artist, sounding good isn't a luxury only available to big time artists anymore - it is a must. Music sales may have tapered, 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. Let's face it, there is no excuse for an artist to put out sub-par recordings. For some people, audio engineers are still conundrum. To others, they are ‘evil' manipulators of music, creating fake, auto-tuned, drones out of unskilled artists. This, however, is far from fact. Every record, no matter the type, gets handled by a recording engineer, mix engineer, and mastering engineer. The recording engineer utilizes many of microphones and technique to accurately capture and record the artist's performance as it happens in the recording studio. The mix engineer takes all of the separate audio tracks and crafts the music to sound correct and convey the song's emotion. He sets correct levels, panning, EQ, compression, and adds special effects where needed to complement the musician's vision. Lastly, the mastering engineer uses specialized tools and highly trained ears in an acoustically sound room to subtly polish and prepare the song for final release and ensure the sound plays back well on 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 artists and labels. The big dough currently is in converts, publishing, sync placements, and merchandise. 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 musician grows in popularity, their music may be chosen for sync placements in film and TV, which not only provides great exposure, it also pays quite well. To make it to this stage however, it all starts with a great song and quality recording. The rise of DIY recording has led to more bands releasing music than ever before. With a powerful laptop, some microphones, a DAW, and a little know-how, anyone can create and release music. One area where many musicians fall short is failing to recognize their weaknesses in mixing. An experienced engineer has the right tools, but most importantly the knowledge to make a recording reach its full potential. Though it can be difficult for an artist, letting go and trusting your mix 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 the proper time in pre-production, ensuring your song and arrangement are as solid as possible. Then and only then, book time in the best studio you can afford to record your tracks. Find a local or online mixing engineer within your budget whose work and personality you connect with, and tweak the mixdown until you're happy. Lastly, send the songs off to a mastering house for that final touch. 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 definition of the contemporary mixing engineer/producer/songwriter. Scott has mixed for a myriad of artists and labels 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 musicians with industry standard sounding mixes which make impressions that count. Come say hi to Scott at http://www.virtualmixengineer.com
Related Articles -
online mixing and mastering, mix engineer,
|