Sell Your Music Part 1: A Good Mix

Before selling your music, you need to make sure that you have a good product to sell. In other words, although you may think you have the next Number 1 hit sitting on that cassette tape that you and your cousin recorded in the garage, the sound quality and the mix itself may kill any chance of having anyone but a few close friends and your mom appreciating your hard work.

Let's assume that you already know how to create music and that you have already developed your style. Now for some brief technical considerations.


1. THE MIX

Depending on your style of music, you are going to need to make sure that your mix emphasizes the strongest musical elements of your music. If your guitar player can't play, but he is your best friend, limit or quiet his influence in the final mix. If you are recording in the laundry room, don't record while mom is finishing that last load.

If you are trying to be the next pop diva or rock star, the vocals are going to have to outshine any instrumentals (except during solos or key moments in the music). Good vocal recording requires a quiet acoustic environment and good mics. USB mics might work for i-chat, but they will kill your vocals with the hiss, the pops, background noise, computer hum, etc., they record.

2. SOUND QUALITY

Sounds you want to avoid:

POP: The sound of the letter "P" in a mic. A cheap way to deal with this? Take a coat hanger and make a circle out of it. Get some hose and cover the loop. Congrats, you have made your own Pop Filter.



HISS: Any recording on cassette tape will have that terrible "HISS" running through it. You can cut this out through EQ-ing out any of the highest frequencies on your mixer, using the hiss filters in your audio programs, using noise filters, etc. or by recording digitally.

HUM: Your computer and equipment has a 60 cycle HUM that often ends up being recorded in home studios. A few ways to avoid this? Check to see if your equipment is noisy. If it is, repair or replace it. Record in a separate room from the equipment (yep, I have been in bands where we had the vocalist in the bathroom for recordings), cover the computer temporarily with a towel (another cheap fix), or fix in post with the Hum Removal functions. You can also test the EQ, by lowering sounds at 60, then experimenting from there. Remember, if you lower any frequency, it lowers the sound across the board for that frequency.

ROOM NOISE: While carpets on the wall, foam, etc. will cut back on noise, most likely the room will have its own unique "silence". Record the room by itself. Some programs will analyze the noise for you and allow you to remove the noise in post using the analysis. If not, play with the noise filters and EQ (yep, I use a lot of EQ), and see how you can reduce or eliminate room noise without affecting the final track.

Note: For movies, many times the silence is recorded and then actually ADDED to the final movie score to make the dialog sound as if it is actually in the room.

CLIPPING AND CLICKING: That can only mean one thing - DISTORTION. And, although distortion is an awesome effect, it is not awesome when it affects the overall sound quality. A good way to avoid unwanted distortion (definitely the sign of an amateur), is to make sure that in digital you never hit the volume RED zone, and in analog that you rarely hit the volume RED zone (some percussion hits in analog need to hit the red for the right "feel". Because of the way that digital works, instead of just distorting the sound, it actually chops off the sound waves, leaving an annoying click behind.



There is more to come. Check out the New Music Resource later this month for the next segment of "How to Sell Your Music".