In the modern world, music plays one of the most important roles in human life, and as scientists have proved, it has a beneficial effect on the human body, and with the invention of sound recording, music turns into a commodity that can be purchased or sold. Therefore, every year the number of musicians increases literally, exponentially. Audio mixing and mastering refers to the most important stages that can fundamentally change a song or album in a positive or negative way. Usually, these processes are handled by specialists who work in this field and fully understand what novice musicians want to hear at the exit. However, can an artist independently learn the process of mixing, or in order for his songs to be popular, he needs to contact music services?
In order to answer this question, first of all it should be noted that it is the artist who plays an important role in the creation of his songs or album. Audio mixing and mastering, drawing covers for tracks and albums, designing clips, paying attention to possible shortcomings will not do without the artist himself, who is the main character in the history of creating an ideal product that is being prepared for the music market.
Musical culture is a set of musical values, distribution and comparison of them. Audio mixing and mastering is exactly the stage that musicians should pay attention to the most. It is worth noting that earlier musicians did not just send demo versions of their tracks to specialists, completely shifting all the work and responsibility to them, not participating in the process, but sat and worked with them to control the process and immediately eliminate possible problems or shortcomings. Michael Jackson, Freddie Mercury, the «Queen» band, and to list the performers who were involved in the process can be listed for a long time.
But will a novice artist still be able to do mixing, completely abandoning the help of masters for mixing? In principle, the answer to this question is: yes, he can. There are cases when the masters of audio recording and mastering are happy to meet the musicians and help them with the basic concepts and responsibilities when working with music. If the artist himself is interested in learning, it gives him pleasure and he understands the principle of all technologies and what he needs to do. They can mix their tracks on their own, but whether they need it is another question. Do all artists independently draw covers for their tracks and albums, produce their own clips and mix?
In fact, it all depends on the desire of the artist himself and the manifestation of independence in his tracks, clips and covers. For some media people, these processes bring great pleasure, as they reveal their potential and thereby try to be closer to their audience. The famous singer Billie Eilish, for example, together with her brother are engaged in mixing, correcting flaws, adding effects, showing her creative side, on which the features of the sound and the concept of each of her tracks depend.
But you should not look up to artists who are engaged in music on their own, trusting only themselves for one rather important reason, and this is time. It will take much more time to draw covers, come up with various clips and engage in audio mixing and mastering than you can imagine! Especially if an artist is at the initial stage of his creative path, he simply will not be able to cope with all this without resorting to the help of professionals (possibly after trying DIY tools such as iZotope Ozone and the likes). And also, we must not forget that it is necessary to work with a mastering engineer. After all, when assembling an album, they remove extraneous sounds, arrange tracks, create smooth fades and natural pauses. In addition, they balance the frequency spectrum and the level of various tracks in order for the tracks to sound as a whole, and this is not as simple as it sounds at first glance.
Therefore, approaching the logical conclusion, we can say that working on audio mixing, a novice musician can learn, improve and at the final stage, get a good enough version of his future track, but in order to bring the sound aspects to the most attractive state to the listener, do not forget about contacting a mastering engineer!