Instead of starting this post with my usual shocking one liner I decided to keep this one as simple as possible. An engineer is an artist’s best asset and should be their first priority. Whether you’re creating music over original tracks, cover songs, or even guest features your mix will either make or break you. It doesn’t matter how great your performance or lyrics are if the mix is of low quality. Before you reach out to a guy like me to produce your music you may want to consider finding your own “40” or at least someone with his main skillset, audio engineering.
Let’s be honest, finding a beat or an instrumental of some kind that creates a soundscape for your song is easy these days with so many outlets such as Airbit, SoundClick, SoundCloud, or even Beat Stars. The real issue most artist come across is who’s going to record them and mix their vocals. Most artists would rely on the producer for this but most aren’t educated on the fact producers mainly focus creating the idea, not polishing it. Sure, most of us can run a board of some kind or at least run everything in box and start mixing. The problem isn’t that we don’t have the tools, the problem is that most of us aren’t as knowledgeable on what to do if the performance was great but your vocals aren’t as present as they should be. Yes, we could throw on a compressor and turn the gain up but then everything sounds crushed and overbearing. An engineer who’s been trained, or has experience, can figure out a solution on getting the vocals and the beat to sound like they were made in harmony. These are the people you call when you have a deadline and you need your song that you recorded into garage band on a $30 dynamic mic to sound like you recorded it at Quad Studios. [Note: Almost no engineer on the planet, can make a vocal recorded on a $30 mic sound that good. So please, don’t try to actually do that. Cut them some slack.]
So why aren’t most artists looking for an engineer first instead of a producer? Is it the illusion that producers are a 2 in 1? Is it possible that artists feel like they could mix themselves? Or maybe its possible that artists just aren’t aware? I’m hoping this post will bring some attention on something that’s very needed. Engineers are sacred and should be treated as such as they can work wonders and make anything sound much better than what it actually is. They’re magicians, its their jobs.
Don’t forget both 40 and Dre, started as engineers as well. Ever asked yours if he/she makes beats?
