Three Big Factors You Will Face when Looking for Work in the Recording Industry

Having a hard time finding work in the Music Industry as a recording engineer? Well, there is three big reason why: the economy, technology and the Internet. These three factors have played a huge part in the loss of work for engineers, and here's why.

 

The Economy and the Recording Industry| 

Yes, a lot of people may think that the economy would not affect the music industry as much as it does, but in some cases it may be effected by the economy even more than most industries.Why? The music industry relies on people having extra money, now remind you I said, "extra money." When times are tough, people don't buy CD's or go to concerts; the band that spends $4000.00 a year to have their CD recoded can't afford it anymore. And as long as the economy is not doing good or even when it bounces back, if it's still at an unstable state or at least in a rescission state, the cycle will continue and it will be hard to find people who are willing to record their band or their self to make a CD that might only sell a few hundred or even a few thousand copies. 

The economy also effects record labels and production companies as well. If they don't have the money to sign on a new artist or band, than a band or an artist is not going to spend money on recordings such as a demo or a live performance in the interest of introducing them self to the music industry. This hurts engineers, if bands don't have the money to spend and companies are not looking to sign, than work is basically non-existent.

 

Technology and the Music Industry

Technology is great for the N.I.Y (do it yourself) people, but for a recording engineer it makes trying to get work very hard. Technology is making it capable to have a small home studio with big professional results at an extremely affordable price. This makes it much more lucrative for people to achieve professionalism in their own homes without hiring engineers. A studio that could have been put together 15 years ago for about $50,000.00 can now be put together in someone's garage or basement for just about $5,000 dollars, and believe or not it can sound just as good. Even worse, if you're just a solo musician or a really small band just looking to record yourselves, it can take even less money and even less space. Hand held recorders, computer software, compact MIDI keyboards, MP3's, flash drive etc. are just some of the products playing a part in taking the need of an educated, experienced engineer out of the recording process.

 

The Internet (Information World) in the Music Industry

Here is the third and final nail in the coffin for the independent recording engineer. If you have access to all of the equipment mentioned above and more and want to learn how to use it, the internet has unlimited resources to learn from. Although there are some things you just can't pick up from reading or watching videos, if you stick with your hobby long enough, you might just be able to be just as good as a professional without the need for schooling or an internship.
 

The Music Industry Changes

Just think about some of these factors when you go out looking for work. Understand it might not be you or your talent that hurts your chances of getting work, but it could be that the Music Industry is changing and recording engineers are suffering from it. My suggestion to everyone is to see how the industry is changing and change with it. Find out where and how other engineers are making there money in the industry and adjust your game plan.

Recording Engineer Advice: Use a Schedule to get the Most Out of Your Days

If you're a freelance audio recording engineer, chances are you do not have a clock to punch everyday. You probably don't have a certain time to work on what you need to and you're basically free to pick and choose when you work. This is one of the advantages to working for yourself, but it could also be something that could hurt your business.

It's easy to put things off and get to later or tomorrow, but in this type of business where time can be money and when your not motivated to get work or find clients your essentially losing money.

So, how do you get over this hump? The best thing you can do to stay motivated and on top of your work is to create a schedule. I create a schedule at night before bed, this helps me get right up in the morning and get right to work. But, creating one at the beginning or end of the week, like on Sunday, for the whole week ahead can work as well. I found that writing one for a whole week doesn't work for me because some days I would accomplish more or less than what was scheduled for the day and by time the end of the week comes my schedule would be all fouled up. So instead of fixing the schedule every day, I just write an all new list at the end of each night.

I also found that knowing that I had a schedule to get to every morning would actually get me up a little earlier. The motivation of crossing some things off my list and making some money makes me feel good and motivated. I found without a schedule I may not even bother heading right to work, I may fart around with some T.V., use the internet to search non-audio recording related topics, basically just wasting time until something pops in my head that has to be done.

Remember, time is money and having a schedule can keep you on top of doing things that can make you money.

The Best Way to Record and Mix Drums and Base in to a Song

Many professional will tell you many different ways to go about this. There tips and tricks of all kinds when it comes to what kind of music you are mixing. But through the years I found my self reverting back to one process that I have enjoyed and think that it helps me get the best results in the least amount of time.

First I mix all of my highs or non- base and drum tracks together. Then I mute those and I mix all of the drum tracks, once I am happy with the way the drums are mixed I then bring the rest of the tracks in except for the base and I mix them according to volume and do what ever small frequency changes that are needed. Next I turn off all tracks except the base and drums and mix accordingly.

The last step is to mix them all together. I find at this point, with all of my previous mixing there is not much mixing that has to be done. You should be pretty close to the sound you are looking for without the need to do to much more frequencies changes and what not.

I think this works the best because it's usually the baseline that needs the least amount of work in terms of eq and effects. In-fact, most of the time the only thing I make changes for is the clash between the kick and the base. As long as the volume is where it's supposed to be, I find that the base needs very little work, thus making it easier to work with all of the other tracks first and then smooth in the base.

Guitar Tip: Record Different Microphones From Distances

When recording a guitar, why put all your eggs in one basket. If you can take three or more different microphones and set them in different places as such: one up nice and close about 1-5 inches away, another one about 3 to 5 feet away, one in the distance, maybe ten feet maybe further and others placed about depending on preference, this will give you a broad line of guitar tracks that can be useful to your mix down.

Now with a couple different sound sources, you can play around with them during mix down and use the best sounding source out of the bunch or mix them together until you get a combination that fits the sound your looking for.

Tip: Make sure that each separate track sounds perfect while playing by itself, worry about how they sound playing together later during mix down.

From course-to-verse from song-to-song, the options of having a different texture of sound from the same guitar without the need of leaving the control room to change things around can be extremely convenient for a recording engineer and producer.

Although this tip is pretty amateur, it can still be often forgotten when going though the motions, but if you have a guitarist and or a band that's not sure exactly how they want the guitar to sound throughout a track or an album, than this is a great way to give them a couple of track options with one record section.

Recording Engineering Tip: Protect Your Ears

I remember back when I was a youngster, the thought of things like race cars, a great sounding sound systems, gun shots, air planes, concerts etc. were all awesome and the louder the better. Ear plugs were not an option, listing to music or playing video games at normal listening levels were not an option.

But if you plan on working in music or any type of audio recording than you need to treat your ears like you want them to last for a while. It's bad enough as we get older are bodies get older and get tired, and your ears are no different.

Although you can't stop your ears from getting older you can help them last longer by avoiding unneeded punishment. Knowing your surroundings and using your common since should let you know if something is to loud for your open ears to listen to.

Even though it might seem like the manly thing to do, listen to things with out your ears protected at full volume, but as manly as it may seem, how manly is wearing a hearing aid for the last thrity years of your life.

My grandfather worked in a factory for 30 years, OSHA was not a factor and ear plugs were not required. My whole life my Grandfather has had to wear a hearing aid and respond to every question with, "ha, what, can you repeat yourself."

For each 3 dB (decibels) you increase the sound, you need to cut the time your ears are exposed to those loud sounds in half. Here's a chart to help you figure out if what you expose your ears to is to much.

85 dB	8 hrs
88 dB	4 hrs
91 dB	2 hrs
94 dB	1 hr
97 dB	30 min
100 dB	15 min
103 dB	8 min
106 dB	4 min
109 dB	2 min
111 dB	1 min
114 dB	30 sec
117 dB	15 sec
120 dB	8 sec
123 dB	4 sec
126 dB	2 sec
129 dB	1 sec

A db test is not too expensive and can be bought in many places about the Internet. But again, I would have to say that common since should tell you what is to loud for your ears. If you want to be recording music past the age of 60, then you need to be protecting your ears now. 

Preparing a Demo for the Music Industry

As a band or as a solo artist, eventually you have to start thinking about making a demo CD for A&R reps, producers, production companies, and record labels to help market, fund, and traffic your music. Getting someone in the music industry to take the time to listen to your demo is not an easy task. Most demos are tossed in the garbage before there are opened and if they are listened to, even if you only put three songs on the CD, most people in the music industry won't even bother listening to the whole thing. Don't take it personally; it's the music industry.

But, if you do have something special and you are ready to put together a demo CD in the attempt to get the attention of the music industry, there are somethings you need to know to be successful in this venture.

Put Together a Couple of Great Tracks: 
First you have to take some time and decide which songs are your best songs that will grab the attention of someone that might want to invest some time in you. Three to five songs is all you really need. And to improve your chances of having more then one song listened to you should set your demo CD up like this: take 30 seconds of each song and put those clips as your first three to five tracks, and then create another three to five tracks of the same songs at their original lengths and put them at the end of the CD. This will help when someone important listens to the CD, they will hear just a little preview of each song and they can quickly move on to the next one. When and if they do hear something they like, they can go to the track that contains the whole length of the song for more at their own leisure.

When putting together this CD, make sure that your artist name or the bands name is on the cover, each member of the bands name and responsibilities are labeled properly and each track is labeled properly.

Press Kit:
The ideal of a press kit is to essentially tell whoever picks up your CD to listen to it, who you and or your band are, what you accomplishments are, where you have performed, and any proof of a local, Internet, national and international fan base that you have acquired throughout time under the bands or artist name.

You may also want to have some live performances recorded at a venue you frequent or in the studio where you record. Yes, it would make more of impact to have a live performance at a venue, but you can still do some really cool stuff in a studio with a camera.

In this press kit you also want to include a bio, make sure to include what are the ambitions and intent of your and or your band.

Make Contact:
Take some time and network with people who are involved in the music industry; ask questions and make connections. The ideal here is to find places you can send your demo CD to that is worth your while. My first demo CD I sent out, I made the mistake of sending it out to every place that was or maybe wasn't excepting demos, and to this day I wonder just how many demos I sent out that never made it out of the package before finding its way to the trash can. I'm going to assume out of probably 150 demos I sent out, only about 2 percent of them made it into a CD player, that's a lot of wasted time.

The best way to avoid wasting your time sending out demos to places or people that won't listen is to make your music solicited. Sounds tough right? It's not, a lot of bigger record companies do not except non-solicited music, but all you have to do is talk to someone and get them to agree to listen to your music, and then you can send it to the address of which they give you and label it "Attention: corresponding name" and now you're solicited. This will help you and the company or person you send it to. A three minute phone call will give you an exact address to send your demo to, so it won't end up in the wrong hands and then tossed in the garbage. And if they are not excepting demos, just save yourself some time and energy by not sending it somewhere for no reason.

Get Some Representation:
Let's say you have exhausted all of your connections and the Internet is a well ran dry of possibilities. You can always look to hire professionals to help you get your music in the hands of the right people. Yes, it can be expensive, yes it can seem like they're doing nothing more than what you can do, but the difference is that they probably have connections that you would never be able to get your hands on, that's their job. The question you have to ask yourself or your band is, will it be worth the money? There will be a risk, let's face it, no one wants to think that they aren't good enough and no one should have to. But in this case, if you or your band still needs more practice and more experience, you should wait on spending the money on professional help until you and or your band can utilize it in the most efficient way.

You have to look at like this, if you are paying someone to help you and they know that your not ready for this type of move yet, that person you'll paying will not tell you because they want your money. Even worse, they will not give you or your band the time and the effort you are paying for, basically, because it won't be in their best interest for their career to promote your music to other professionals when they know it's not ready to be promoted.

But if you feel you are ready and you have an awesome press kit, bio and demo, and you're ready for the big boys but your connection just aren't powerful enough to get your music noticed, this could be money well spent.

Keep in Touch:
Let's say you have made some contacts and you have some people who are willing to give your music a listen. There is nothing wrong with a follow-up phone call. Let's say you sent your music and the person or company has received it but has not taken the time to listen to it yet. This phone call could light the fire under someone to open the CD and give it some time, especially if you come off as someone who might just call ever week until someone does listen to it. You may also help yourself by calling if someone has listened to the CD and is on the fence about it. A phone call could show them the ambition that they want to see from an artist and might sway them in the right direction about what they want to do about the situation in general.

A Couple Last Things You Can Do:
This is not a must, but it will help you look more professional: Get your music copyrighted. This won't only make you look more professional but will also protect your music when your sending it out to different places.

You can also help yourself and your band by using art work in the form of a label or a symbol that can be recognizable with the band or you as an artist. Again, this is not a must, but anything that can help market your name is just one more thing to add to your press kit and can help your chances of success.

One last thing that should be noted, this is a process, making it big overnight will be like hitting the lotto. So unless you're feeling that lucky, get ready for the long hall.

Two Important Tips for Mastering Your Music

Tip One
One question that is often asked when it comes to mastering, “should I master my own music?"

The answer is NO.

I know a lot of people either do their own mastering or want to just because they go out and get some fancy mastering program. But the truth is not even some of the best engineers in the world master the music they have recorded. The reason why is because you will spend so much time sitting their listening to the music while you mix, it that your ears will eventually start hearing what they want to hear. This makes it extremely hard to make those very small much needed adjustments. If you give it to someone else to master ( lets hope it’s a professional ) they will be hearing it for the first time, this means they will have a totally different prospective on what they are hearing. Frequency can be funky, especially if your just moving them a couple Khz to distinguish separation between two instruments. So why not let a fresh set of ears make these distinguishes.

Tip Two
If you don’t yet know what plug-ins you need to use such as: limiter/compression, eq etc. I suggest you don’t do it. Take it to a professional and stand in while he works; learn, read a book, take a class, but if you don't know what you're doing than you're better off not doing anything.  If you insist on taking on this project, the first thing you need to do is take a long break from the music. Doesn’t mater how good you are at mastering, take a day or two to let your mind and your ears reset. The second thing you need to do is make sure you use your monitor speakers. Headphones can be used and can be good to reference what your monitors are doing, but for the most part you need to complete the mastering project with your monitors. One last thing, before you try to master any thing it’s, important to make sure you are completely familiar with the software/hardware you are using. This tip does not just go for mastering, but for every part of making music. What is the since of having an expensive music program if you only know how to use half of it's functions.