For the independent recording artist, sounding great isn't a luxury only available to major label artists anymore - it is essential. Music sales may have went down, 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! 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 release sub-par recordings. For some people, audio engineers are still conundrum. To others, they are ‘evil' manipulators of sound, creating false, auto-tuned, drones out of terrible artists. This, however, is far from the truth. Every record, no matter the genre, 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 happens in the recording studio. The mix engineer takes all of the separate audio tracks and crafts the music to sound convincing and convey the song's emotion. He sets the right levels, panning, equalization, compression, and adds special effects where needed to complement the musician's vision. Finally, the mastering engineer uses special gear and highly trained ears in an acoustically accurate room to subtly polish and prepare the production for final release and ensure the music plays back well on 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. The most income currently is in touring, publishing, sync placements, and merchandise. When a fan connects with a band'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 band through social media. As the musician 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 do-it-yourself recording has led to more musicians releasing music than ever before. With a powerful laptop, some microphones, a digital audio workstation, and a little knowledge, anyone can create and release music. One area where many artists fall short is failing to recognize their weaknesses in mixing. An experienced engineer has the right equipment, but most importantly the knowledge to make a recording reach its full potential. Though it can be difficult 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. 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 song and arrangement are as strong as possible. Then and only then, book time in the best studio you can afford to record your tracks. Hire a local or online mix 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 polish. Once your record is complete, you can get the music into multiple stores and into the phones and computers of your listeners and fans. Scott Horton is the ultimate example of the cutting-edge mixing engineer/producer/songwriter. He has collaborated with multitudes of music groups 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 musicians with spectacular sounding mixes which make impressions that count. Get in touch with Scott at http://www.virtualmixengineer.com
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