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For the independent artist, sounding amazing isn't a luxury only available to hit artists anymore - it is a requirement. 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. Let's face it, there is no excuse for an artist to put out sub-par recordings. To many, audio engineers are still a mystery. To others, they are ‘evil' manipulators of sound, creating false, auto-tuned, drones out of unskilled artists. This, however, is far from fact. Every recording, no matter the genre, gets handled by a recording engineer, mixing engineer, and mastering engineer. The recording engineer uses a plethora 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 proper levels, panning, equalization, compression, and adds special effects where possible to complement the musician's vision. Lastly, the mastering engineer uses specialized equipment 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 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. Recorded music is more often used as promotional vessel for musicians. The real money 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 help the artist and buy tickets to their shows, purchase t-shirts, and follow and interact with the artist through social media. As the group 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 starts with a great song and convincing recording. The rise of DIY recording has led to more musicians releasing music than ever before. With a powerful PC, some microphones, a digital audio workstation, and a little knowledge, anyone can record 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 mix engineer will take your recordings to the next level and help you stand out from the masses. Listeners 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 strong as possible. Then and only then, go to the best studio you can afford to record your tracks. Connect with 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 mastering for that final polish. Once your recording is finished, you can get the music into multiple retailers and into the phones and computers of your listeners and fans. Scott Horton is the definition of today's modern mixing engineer/producer/songwriter. Scott has collaborated with countless artists and labels the world over 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 great sounding mixes which make impressions that count. Visit Scott at http://www.virtualmixengineer.com
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