For the independent recording artist, sounding amazing isn't a luxury only available to big time artists anymore - it is a necessity. Music sales may have diminished, 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 listeners than ever before in history! Musicians 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 put out sub-par recordings. For some people, audio engineers are still an enigma. To others, they are ‘evil' manipulators of music, creating phony, auto-tuned, drones out of untalented artists. This, however, is far from fact. Every record, no matter the type, gets taken care of by a tracking 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 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 correct levels, panning, EQ, compression, and adds creative effects where possible to enhance the musician's vision. Lastly, the mastering engineer uses unique tools and highly trained ears in an acoustically accurate room to subtly polish and prepare the music for final release and ensure the music 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 most income currently is in converts, publishing, sync placements, and merchandising. When a listener connects with a band's music, they'll listen to their music, tweet, and share the music with their friends. The fans want to help the artist and buy tickets to their shows, purchase t-shirts, and follow and interact with the group 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 starts with a great song and convincing recording. The rise of DIY recording has led to more artists releasing music than ever before. With a powerful computer, some microphones, a DAW, and a little know-how, anyone can record and distribute music. One area where many musicians fall short is failing to recognize their weaknesses in audio engineering. An experienced engineer has the right equipment, 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 engineer will take your recordings to the next level and help you stand out from the others. Fans 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, book time in 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 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 ears of your listeners and fans. Scott Horton is the definition of today's cutting-edge mixing engineer/producer/songwriter. Scott has collaborated with an endless number 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 recording artists with spectacular sounding mixes which make impressions that count. Come say hi to Scott at http://www.virtualmixengineer.com
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