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For the independent recording artist, sounding amazing isn't a rarity only available to major label artists anymore - it is a requirement. Music sales may have wanted, 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 sub-par recordings. For some people, audio engineers are still conundrum. To others, they are ‘evil' manipulators of sound, creating fake, auto-tuned, drones out of untalented artists. This, however, is far from fact. Every recording, no matter the type, gets taken care of by a tracking engineer, mixing engineer, and mastering engineer. The recording engineer uses a plethora 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 music tracks and crafts the music to sound correct and convey the song's emotion. He sets proper levels, panning, EQ, compression, and adds creative effects where possible to enhance the artist's vision. Finally, the mastering engineer uses special tools and highly trained ears in an acoustically sound room to subtly polish and prepare the track for final release and ensure the recording 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 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 music, tweet, 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 artist 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 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 musicians releasing music than ever before. With a powerful PC, some microphones, a digital audio workstation, 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 mixer has the right tools, but most importantly the knowledge to make a recording reach its full potential. Though it can be hard 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. Listeners 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 solid as possible. Then and only then, get into the best studio you can afford to record 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 happy. Finally, send the songs off to the mastering engineer for that final polish. Once your recording 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 today's cutting-edge mixing engineer/producer/songwriter. Scott has worked with a myriad of artists and labels from around the world 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 superb sounding mixes which make impressions that count. Visit Scott at http://www.virtualmixengineer.com
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