Music Recording, Editing, Mixing and Mastering: How Do You Know If You're Good Enough to Do It Yourself?

In my last blog post - "DIY Music Recording and Production:  It Doesn't Have to Be All or Nothing!" - I offered some tips on how to decide what parts of the music production process you can/should handle yourself and for what parts you should look to a specialist for help.  Those parts included tracking, editing, mixing and mastering.

The advice was all based on a self-assessment and whether you felt your skills were up to snuff on those parts.  But, sometimes it can be hard to do a truly objective self-assessment.

For example, for mixing, I wrote that you need skills such as EQ'ing instruments and voices, smoothing out musical passages using compression, and knowing how to use automation properly, among other things.  But, how do you know if you're actually good enough at those things?

Well, here's an approach you can take.

Let's say that you're planning on releasing a 10-song album.  You recently got a DAW like Pro Tools and have learned how to navigate around it.  You are considering handling all of the production yourself.

You record a song.  You mix it.  It sounds good to your ears.  Maybe even better than you thought it would sound.

But, major label artists pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to record, mix and master their music.  It can't be this easy, right?  Is there something that could be better about the sound of your album if you paid professionals to work on it?

Well, there's one way to find out.

Consider taking that song you've recorded and mixed yourself.  See if you can find a recording and/or mastering studio to mix it and/or master it.

You'll pay their rate.  But, it will only be for one song, so it's not like you'll be paying a fortune or committing to having your entire album done.  And the results will tell you a valuable story.

You will likely arrive at one of the following conclusions:

• You have done just as good - or even better - of a job as the professional, so you can save yourself a ton of money by going DIY
• You realize that a specialist can do a better job, but not so much better that it's worth spending the extra money
• You realize that a specialist can do a better job, and it's worth investing the money to end up with a better result

Regardless of the outcome of this experiment, if you're truly interested in ensuring that you have a respectable recording of your music available to release, having one song mixed and/or mastered as a "test" is usually money well-spent.

Before and After Music Group is happy to do one-off mixes and mastering, whether or not there is a potential for more songs to be mixed/mastered.  Our rates are some of the most affordable, helping you not to invest too much in something that could end up being a "test."  Of course, we think our work could end up being so impressive you have all of your music mixed and/or mastered by us!

So, feel free to contact us to discuss the ideas you have for your music recording project.  We'd be happy to share our thoughts on how you can get the most out of your DIY approach, while bringing in a professional where necessary to enhance it.  You can reach us at beforeandaftermusicgroup@gmail.com or 412-600-8241.

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