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For the independent recording artist, sounding great isn't a rarity only available to well-funded artists anymore - it is a must. Music sales may have diminished, 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 listeners 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 poor recordings. For some people, audio engineers are still a mystery. To others, they are ‘evil' manipulators of sound, creating fake, auto-tuned, machines out of unskilled artists. This, however, is far from the truth. Every record, no matter the genre, gets handled by a recording engineer, mixing 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 occurs 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 the right levels, panning, EQ, compression, and adds special effects where possible to complement the artist's vision. Lastly, the mastering engineer uses unique tools and highly trained ears in an acoustically sound room to subtly polish and prepare the production 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. Recordings are more often used as promotional tool for musicians. The most income currently is in touring, publishing, sync placements, and merchandise. When a fan connects with a band's music, they'll listen to their music, comment, and share the music with their friends. The fans want to support the artist and buy tickets to their shows, purchase t-shirts, and follow and interact with the artist through social media. As the band 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 begins 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 mics, a digital audio workstation, and a little knowledge, anyone can create and distribute music. One area where many musicians fall short is failing to recognize their weaknesses in audio engineering. An experienced mixer 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 recordings to the next level and help you stand out from the others. 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 composition 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 mixing 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 production is finished, you can get the music into multiple sites and into the phones and computers of your listeners and fans. Scott Horton is the epitome of the contemporary mixing engineer/producer/songwriter. Scott has collaborated with multitudes of artists and labels world-wide 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 industry standard sounding mixes which make impressions that count. Get in touch with Scott at http://www.virtualmixengineer.com
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