For the independent artist, sounding great 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. Let’s face it, 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 music, creating false, auto-tuned, machines out of terrible artists. This, however, is far from the truth. Every record, no matter the type, gets taken care of by a tracking 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 occurs in the recording studio. The mixing engineer takes all of the separate audio tracks and crafts the music to sound great and convey the song’s emotion. He sets proper levels, panning, EQ, compression, and adds creative effects where possible to complement the musician’s vision. Lastly, the mastering engineer uses unique gear and highly trained ears in an acoustically accurate room to subtly polish and prepare the track for final release and ensure the recording translates to 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 listener connects with an artist’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 shows, purchase apparel, and follow and interact with the artist 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 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 PC, some microphones, a digital audio workstation, and a little know-how, 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 tools, 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 mix 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 song and arrangement are as solid as possible. Then and only then, book time in the best studio you can afford to record your basic tracks. Connect with a local or online mixing 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 mastering 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.