The importance of mixing engineer for musicians. For the independent musician, sounding great isn't a rarity only available to hit artists anymore - it is a necessity. 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! 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 many, audio engineers are still mysterious. To others, they are ‘evil' manipulators of sound, creating fake, auto-tuned, robots out of untalented artists. This, however, is far from the truth. Every recording, no matter the genre, gets taken care of by a recording engineer, mixing engineer, and mastering engineer. The recording engineer uses many 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 music tracks and crafts the music to sound great and convey the song's emotion. He sets correct levels, panning, EQ, compression, and adds creative effects where possible to complement the artist's vision. Finally, the mastering engineer uses special gear and highly trained ears in an acoustically sound room to subtly polish and prepare the song for final release and ensure the recording 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 musicians. The big dough currently is in touring, publishing, film and TV placements, and merchandise. When a listener 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 concerts, purchase t-shirts, and follow and interact with the group 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 quite well. To make it to this stage however, it all begins with well written song and polished 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 knowledge, anyone can create and release music. One area where many artists fall short is failing to recognize their weaknesses in mixing. An experienced mixer has the right gear, 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 mix engineer will take your productions to the next level and help you stand out from the crowd. Listeners 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, go to the best studio you can afford to lay down your tracks. Hire a local or online mixing engineer within your budget whose work and personality you gel with, and tweak the mixdown until you're happy. Lastly, send the songs off to the mastering engineer for that final touch. Once your production is completed, you can get the music into multiple outlets and into the phones and computers of your listeners and fans.
