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 went down, 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. Let's face it, 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 music, creating phony, auto-tuned, robots out of untalented artists. This, however, is far from fact. Every record, no matter the type, gets taken care of 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 mix engineer takes all of the separate music tracks and crafts the music to sound convincing 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 specialized 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 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 vessel for artists and labels. The real money currently is in live shows, publishing, sync placements, and merchandising. When a fan 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 band 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 well. To make it to this stage however, it all begins with a great 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 know-how, anyone can create and release music. One area where many artists fall short is failing to recognize their weaknesses in audio engineering. An experienced mixer has the right gear, 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 mix engineer will take your productions to the next level and help you stand out from the masses. 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 song and arrangement are as strong as possible. Then and only then, book time in the best studio you can afford to record your basic tracks. Connect with a local or online mixing engineer within your budget whose work and personality you like, and tweak the mixdown until you're satisfied. Lastly, send the songs off to a mastering house for that final touch. Once your production is finished, you can get the music into multiple venues and into the phones and computers of your listeners and fans. Scott Horton is the epitome of today's contemporary mixing engineer/producer/songwriter. He has worked with multitudes of artists 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, provides recording artists with great sounding mixes which make impressions that count. Get in touch with Scott at http://www.virtualmixengineer.com
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