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For the independent artist, sounding good isn't a rarity 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 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 release sub-par recordings. For some people, audio engineers are still mysterious. To others, they are ‘evil' manipulators of sound, creating fake, auto-tuned, machines out of unskilled artists. This, however, is far from the truth. Every record, no matter the type, gets touched 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 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, equalization, compression, and adds creative effects where possible to enhance the artist's vision. Finally, the mastering engineer uses specialized gear and highly trained ears in an acoustically sound room to subtly polish and prepare the track 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 tool for artists. The real money these days is in converts, publishing, film and TV placements, and merchandise. When a fan connects with an artist'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 band through social media. As the band grows in popularity, their music may be chosen for sync placements in movies and TV, which not only provides great exposure, it also pays very well. To make it to this stage however, it all begins 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 laptop, some microphones, a digital audio workstation, and a little know-how, anyone can create and release music. One area where many musicians fall short is failing to recognize their weaknesses in audio engineering. An experienced engineer 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 recordings 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 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. Connect with a local or online mixing engineer within your budget whose work and personality you gel with, and tweak the mix until you're satisfied. Finally, send the songs off to mastering for that final touch. Once your recording is completed, you can get the music into multiple retailers and into the phones and computers of your listeners and fans. Scott Horton is the epitome of the modern mixing engineer/producer/songwriter. Scott has collaborated with countless artists and labels 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 industry standard sounding mixes which make impressions that count. Come say hi to Scott at http://www.virtualmixengineer.com
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