For the independent musician, sounding good isn't a luxury only available to well-funded artists anymore - it is a necessity. 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. Let's face it, there is no excuse for an artist to put out poor recordings. For many, audio engineers are still mysterious. To others, they are ‘evil' manipulators of sound, creating false, auto-tuned, machines out of unskilled artists. This, however, is far from fact. Every recording, no matter the genre, 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 happens in the recording studio. The mix engineer takes all of the separate audio 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 possible to enhance the artist's vision. Lastly, the mastering engineer uses special 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 real money these days is in touring, publishing, film and TV placements, and merchandise. When a listener connects with a band's music, they'll listen to their records, comment, and share the music with their friends. The fans want to help 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 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 bands releasing music than ever before. With a powerful computer, some mics, 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 engineer has the right tools, but most importantly the skills to make a production reach its full potential. Though it can be hard for an artist, letting go and trusting your mixer will take your productions to the next level and help you stand out from the masses. Listeners 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 solid 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 gel with, and tweak the mix until you're satisfied. Lastly, send the songs off to a mastering house for that final polish. Once your production is finished, you can get the music into multiple venues and into the ears of your listeners and fans. Scott Horton is the ultimate example of the modern mixing engineer/producer/songwriter. Scott has collaborated with a myriad 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 artists and record labels with spectacular sounding mixes which make impressions that count. Come say hi to Scott at http://www.virtualmixengineer.com
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