The last ten years have been an amazing time to be involved in music creation, production, and performance. The power has been shifting out of the hands of the corporate advertisers, record companies, radio and television networks, and artists have the ability to create, advertise, and distribute untainted original work in a way that was never possible before.
This has been a liberating time for the art of music, expression, and originality, and we are fortunate to be a part of the opportunity that it presents. Advancing technology and its falling prices has enabled artists the ability to record and produce their own music, and then find new online distribution models to gain fans around the world. The challenge now however, is that since everyone has access to these same tools –how does one get noticed?
As I see it, there are a few common elements necessary for you to find success with your music. Firstly you need to have a good product. Now keep in mind that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and what your Mom and Dad may call noise may be selling 7 Million records on the other side of the world. I’m going to assume you already have your songwriting down, so let’s focus on the other success elements.
This next step is the crucial one if you are recording and producing your own material. You need to ensure that someone with a good pair of ears mixes, and /or masters your project. While you may have developed great skills as a recording engineer or mixer using your favorite piece of software to record the songs – the one thing that you lack when working on your own material is that outside perspective – a fresh set of ears. How many times have you listened to a bands self-produced project, and the mixes sound like they are lacking something? They sound dull or amateurish, and unable to stand up against professionally produced material. So what can you do with these songs to give them that professional sound? You need to find someone to work on mixing and /or mastering them that possesses the following attributes:
· A good set of ears (forgive me for how many times I will repeat this point – it is crucial)
· High quality outboard gear and a large selection of high quality plug-ins. What do I mean by high quality? Stuff that sounds good. You can use entry level gear and plugs-ins, or you can use top of the line vintage gear and software emulations – both have a time and a place – how can one tell the difference? A good set of ears! Yes, I’m afraid we’re back here again!
· Someone with some distance from your tunes. Again, a fresh perspective will reveal many nuances in your music that need pulling out, or tucking in. Nuances that are usually missed without this fresh perspective.
· Someone who will give it to you straight. You want to find someone that is willing to make decisions that are the best ones for your songs, and this may entail being straight with you, even when it may not be what you want to hear. This will also require an attribute of being open to feedback on your part, and tact and diplomacy on theirs.
· Finally, it should be someone you can trust. Just as I would not hand off my 12 month old son to just anyone, you should not want to work with anyone on a project of yours unless they are in it for the right reasons. They should be excited to work on your material because they “get” your music, believe in it, and believe that their collaboration with you, can help bring out the best in it.
There are also a few attributes that we would assume to be important, but aren’t actually so. For example, many musicians try to find someone to work with that has worked with similar sounding artists, or from within the same genre. While this may seem like a good idea do you really want your hard work to end up sounding like another band?
Another habit I see common in bands is having an expectation of how the thing should sound. Let’s take a step back a second to discuss the creative process. Where does creativity come from? Where do your songs come from? While we may think it comes from our mind, true creativity comes from a place that few of us truly understand. I remember as a kid when I would sit for hours trying to learn a guitar lick, or similarly achieve a high score on a video game – that the harder I tried; the harder it got and the more I would screw up. By contrast, the times when things occurred effortlessly – the high score or the perfect take of the guitar lick was when I was “In the zone”. So what is this “in the zone” then, and how do we use it to our advantage in the recording process? It’s some very simple and ancient Zen wisdom – allow everything to be as it is. When we can allow everything to be as it is, we tap into the creative forces of this world – and allow our art to take on the life it was supposed to, rather than the life we had intended for it. I therefore recommended letting go of any expectations as to how your song should sound when it is finished. Focus on how it sounds right now, allow it to be as it is, and watch as creativity transforms it into that which it is destined to be. It’s okay to use a couple of cd’s to reset your, or your mixer / mastering engineer’s ears – but try not to re-create those cd’s. Give your music what it deserves – the space to find its own original sound.
This brings us to the final element of making your music successful – Luck. This is one element we have very little control over. This has been, and will always continue to be a factor in making your music successful. The way in which we get noticed and discovered has, and will continue to change, but luck will always be a factor. I do believe however, that taking care of the first two elements will have a correlated effect on this third one. You need to do everything you can, to get your music sounding its best, so that when it finds its way into the right hands – it is not disregarded.
So how can you go about finding someone to work on your mixes or mastering, taking all of the above into account? Firstly you can try trading mixing / mastering projects with other artists. Form alliances with other bands and musicians who are self-recording; and offer to mix / master each other’s work. To make this worthwhile however, do make sure that they have each of the five attributes we discussed earlier. Remember:
1. Ears 2. Gear and ears 3. Perspective 4. Straight-shooter 5. Trustable.
You can also post a message on Craigslist, Gearslutz, or any other forum dedicated to music and music technology. There are often people on there, often new to the field – that would jump at the chance to mix your work down for a modest fee, or possibly even for free. Perhaps you might even be able to arrange a similar trading type arrangement – you mix mine and I’ll mix yours. Again, keep the five attributes in mind.
If you can’t find someone who meets the criteria using the above methods, or you try it and it doesn’t work out, you can also look into finding a professional to work on your tunes. It doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact when you find someone that meets all of the criteria laid-out in this article, they tend to work very quickly and efficiently, so your investment should be minimal and money well spent. With current technology, you are no longer limited to working with studios in your local area and can take your pick from Mixing and Mastering Engineers from all over the world. For example, clients working with me are able to upload there music files to my ftp site, where I can begin working on them within minutes of receipt. Once mixed or mastered, I can then upload the songs to the same ftp site for them to retrieve.
The landscape has changed, and will continue to change in the field of music production. One could say that change is pretty much the only constant in life. We therefore have to be flexible enough to change along with it, so that we can flourish in whatever environment we find ourselves. After all – trees have been doing it for many thousands of years – just look at the way they adjust to the changing conditions of their environment.
When I overheard Heather Mae in a yoga studio last year explaining to the yoga teacher how she was searching for a recording studio I felt compelled to speak up. I’m so glad that I did. The album has only been out for a little over two months and has already received fantastic reviews from the press including this one from The Washington Post.
For those of you dying to hear a sneak peek of the new 
It’s the oldest trick in the mixing book, and any of you that record have probably done it at one time or another. You burn a mix CD or MP3 and then run around to all the music systems you can find – in the car, the kitchen boombox, the home theater system in the living room. This is a really important step and well worth the effort. Once your mix sounds great in the studio, we need to be sure it sounds great on all systems – not just on a $1000 pair of studio monitors.
