For the independent recording artist, sounding amazing isn't a rarity only available to well-funded 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. Let's face it, there is no excuse for an artist to release poor recordings. For some people, audio engineers are still an enigma. To others, they are ‘evil' manipulators of music, creating phony, auto-tuned, machines out of untalented artists. This, however, is far from fact. Every record, no matter the genre, gets taken care of by a tracking engineer, mix engineer, and mastering engineer. The recording engineer uses many 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 correct and convey the song's emotion. He sets the right levels, panning, EQ, compression, and adds creative effects where needed to complement the artist's vision. Lastly, the mastering engineer uses specialized gear and highly trained ears in an acoustically accurate room to subtly polish and prepare the production for final release and ensure the sound translates to 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 vessel for musicians. The real money these days is in converts, publishing, film and TV placements, and merchandise. When a listener connects with an artist's music, they'll listen to their records, tweet, 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 group through social media. As the artist 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 quality recording. The rise of do-it-yourself recording has led to more bands releasing music than ever before. With a powerful PC, some microphones, 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 mixing. An experienced engineer has the right tools, but most importantly the knowledge to make a production reach its full potential. Though it can be difficult for an artist, letting go and trusting your 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 a good amount of time in pre-production, ensuring your composition and arrangement are as strong as possible. Then and only then, go to 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 connect with, and tweak the mix until you're satisfied. Finally, send the songs off to the mastering engineer for that final polish. Once your record 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 modern mixing engineer/producer/songwriter. Scott has mixed for an endless number of recording artists 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 great sounding mixes which make impressions that count. Get in touch with Scott at http://www.virtualmixengineer.com
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