For the independent recording artist, sounding great isn't a luxury only available to hit 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 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 a mystery. To others, they are ‘evil' manipulators of sound, creating phony, auto-tuned, machines out of untalented artists. This, however, is far from fact. Every record, no matter the genre, gets handled by a tracking 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 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 possible to enhance the musician's vision. Lastly, the mastering engineer uses special gear and highly trained ears in an acoustically accurate room to subtly polish and prepare the music for final release and ensure the music 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. Recordings are more often used as promotional tool for artists and labels. The big dough currently is in live shows, publishing, sync 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 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 well. To make it to this stage however, it all starts with a great song and convincing recording. The rise of DIY recording has led to more bands releasing music than ever before. With a powerful laptop, some mics, a DAW, 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 mixer has the right equipment, but most importantly the skills to make a recording reach its full potential. Though it can be hard for an artist, letting go and trusting your engineer will take your productions 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 a good amount of time in pre-production, ensuring your song and arrangement are as strong as possible. Then and only then, go to the best studio you can afford to record your basic tracks. Connect with a local or online mix engineer within your budget whose work and personality you connect with, and tweak the mixdown until you're satisfied. 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 stores and into the ears of your listeners and fans. Scott Horton is the epitome of the cutting-edge mixing engineer/producer/songwriter. Scott has mixed for multitudes of 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, provides artists and record labels with spectacular sounding mixes which make impressions that count. Get in touch with Scott at http://www.virtualmixengineer.com
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