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This blog post has been written by Major Mixing, one of Bridger's partners.
You know what they say about first impressions: your first impression of a person is usually correct; the first impression you make on people tends to stay in their minds. So we try hard to make a good first impression when we start a new job or meet important people.
The same is true with music. The impression the first few notes of your song make on a listener plays a critical role. Some songs command the attention from their opening bars, while others just seem ordinary.
Before listeners get as far as liking or disliking the lyrics or the melody, the singer’s voice or the arrangement, they will hear the song’s intro – and judge it on the basis of those first few bars. If the intro is qualitative, if it grabs their attention, they will probably listen to the song all the way through, and enjoy it. But if those opening notes fail to make a strong impression, the song will probably never get noticed.
This is where mixing and mastering engineers come in. These professionals work with sound, raising your music to industry-level quality, giving it irresistible appeal. It is through this mixing and mastering that songs achieve the sound quality they need in order to be competitive in today’s music industry – and that’s exactly what a service like Major Mixing offers.
When you have finished recording all the tracks for a new song, you might think your work is done and your song is ready, but you would be wrong. What you have at this stage is a multi-track, but you are still a long way from having a fully ready song.
The next thing that must be done is the mixing. A mixing engineer creates the finished song out of a set of tracks. He or she puts all the instruments and voices together in such a way that there is perfect coherence between them.
During the mixing process, the balance between the tracks is established, the instruments are placed in the stereo field, the effects are added, and the depth and width of the song are created. Mixing shapes the song – and it is crucial that this shaping is done professionally.
Mastering then brings the loudness and sound into conformity with industry standards and prepares the song for release.
So both mixing and mastering are necessary and very valuable steps in the production process of every song.
We live in a world where, in order to succeed, you have to make your product better than other people’s. It’s hard enough to do that when you have just two or three competitors, but being an artist in the music industry means competing with thousands of people, all producing comparable songs. To get your music heard, you need to be the best, and above all, your sound should be of impeccable quality.
Artists usually make great music producers. They can create a perfect arrangement, go to a hi-tech studio and make a high-quality recording. But sometimes they do not pay enough attention to the mixing and mastering. They may do this work themselves despite lacking the necessary experience and skills. Or they may hire a non-professional engineer and end up with mediocre mixing and mastering.
It’s hard enough to get a great song idea, compose catchy lyrics, and then do the recording right. And you might well think your work is complete once all this is done. You may believe that anyone, or yourself, can easily put the song together and then master it to the required loudness. But this is not how it works. Mixing and mastering engineers provide a service, in the same way as a doctor or a car mechanic. You wouldn’t go to an unprofessional doctor or, if you need to fix your car, you wouldn’t choose an inexperienced mechanic. You also wouldn’t replace parts in your car with low-quality ones. The same is true for mixing and mastering your songs; you need them to be the best.
In today’s wildly competitive music industry, mediocre mixing and mastering just won’t do. Thousands of songs are uploaded to the streaming platforms every day, and those who succeed always use the best mixing and mastering. That's why it is so crucial for artists to solicit the services of a company like Major Mixing.
Quality is crucial because even the least popular songs on the music market these days have top-quality sound, so you really can’t afford to risk putting out music with less than perfect sound mixing.
Professional mixing and mastering engineers will make the most of your track, and create the best possible version of your song. And the sound will be of the highest quality. This is the only way your music is going to make it into the big time.
By hiring a professional mix engineer, you hire an A-player, who will help you make your product better in many ways and give a big boost to your career.
How so? It’s simple. Let’s look at the experience a professional mixing engineer gains in the course of his work.
We’ll start by saying that an audio engineer is considered ‘experienced’ if they have been working in the industry for at least a decade. During this time, the engineer will have worked with hundreds – if not thousands – of artists, producers and labels, watching their growth and noting which strategies bring the most success, and which mistakes typically lead to failure.
They know what labels require from artists, as well as which kinds of deals bring them success, and which sabotage their careers.
The engineer also learns all the peculiarities of the various streaming platforms and listens to how their mixes sound on each one. They learn how to mix in such a way that your song will sound good on every device, from a professional set of speakers to consumer-level headphones.
On top of this, the mixing and mastering engineer learns by experience all the tendencies and trends within the different genres, and knows which types of sound are leading the way at any given time.
As you can see, they learn far more than just mixing and mastering – and that’s how they can be useful to you as a recording artist.
A professional mix engineer will not only mix and master your music. They can advise you on recording, arranging, and distributing it and help you in all aspects of your career, because they have seen hundreds of artists like you and thousands of releases like yours. They will tell you what to avoid and what to aim for.
Moreover, after listening to your song, a professional mixing engineer will give suggestions on how to improve it, or the way it is arranged or recorded, if necessary.
A professional mastering engineer is also another professional who will listen to your creation and help to make it better. They will notice what can be improved in the mixing if it still needs improvement, and correct further details during the mastering process.
Besides, if you work with experienced musicians and engineers, they can introduce you to other professionals – it’s part of networking. They can help you build your network, which can lead to partnerships, deals, interesting projects and so on.
So one of the best business decisions you can make as an artist is to find great professional mixing and mastering engineers for your songs, and build strong friendships with them. With more than 10 years of experience in the music industry, Major Mixing provides online professional mixing and mastering, with tailored offers for every artist. Visit their website to find the offer that matches your needs.
