In todays era of music an increased amount of artist are deciding to choose the do it yourself (DIY) route of creating music. The advancement of technology has made the process of creating music easier than ever. With the ability to produce, record, mix, master and release music all from the comfort of your bedroom, artist are choosing to do this rather than work with an engineer at a studio. As little as 10-15-20 years ago if you wanted to an artist you had to go to a studio if you wanted to record your vocals. You had to know a producer if you wanted to get beats, instrumentals and tracks for your songs. (there was no YouTube and there were no online stores to purchase beats) You had to know and/or work with a professional audio engineer to record and mix your songs. You would have to find a professional studio, book your time and spend a couple hundred dollars for a single recording session (one which lasted usually 2-4 hours, if you were a signed artist, or had the money to do so, these sessions would usually last 6-8-10 or more hours) to record (in most cases) one song. There was a reason why a decade or two ago there wasn’t as many artists releasing music as there are today. It simply wasn’t an easy process and you had to have the financial means to do so. If this was the case, how did we get to the point in music of where we are now? Why are so many artists choosing to take the DIY approach, rather than working with professional audio engineers in professional music studios? Maybe most importantly, which process is better, working with the DIY method, (even if you don’t fully understand the proper process to recording and mixing) or the professional method of working with a professional engineer at a professional studio? (or at least working with a professional engineer in a home studio)
Let’s start with the first question, how did we get to this DIY era. As technology advanced, the equipment needed to produce, record and mixing songs became more accessible and cheaper to buy. Nowadays, ever person has a laptop. (and most people have a MacBook of some sort) For sake of this article I am going to assume that you have a Mac because lets face it unless you have a specific reason to have a PC laptop or computer you are going to generally have a Mac. When you purchase a Mac the computer comes with a free version of a program call GarageBand. This program allows you to produce music, (using the free sample instrument sounds that come with the program, you can buy more but it is not needed) record audio, (which you can do directly into the laptop through the laptop’s built in microphone, even though this audio isn’t the greatest it does still work to some extent) and mix your song. (using the free plugins that come with the program) With all of this available to an artist simply by purchasing a laptop why would I spend hundreds of dollars to go to a studio, work with someone I don’t know, who doesn’t know me or my music and hope I get the product I want? In a financial sense you are right, but in a logical and musical sense you are completely wrong. (but I will get to that later in this article) Now, lets say that you want to produce a better quality sound for you music, because after using just what comes with the laptop you realize that it doesn’t sound all that great. First, I will congratulate you on at least understanding that quality of music is important. Second, I will congratulate you on recognizing that you need more than the absolute bare minimum to become an artist. But now what do you need and where do you get it? Because I have talked about this in previous articles, (the process of recording) I won’t go into to much detail, and simply tell you that you can purchase the necessary equipment to record (an interface, a mic, a stand, a popfilter) online at a multitude of stores for anywhere between $50-200 for the cheap basic option of what you need to get the job done. Now again, this may not produce the best quality sound, but it will get the job done as far as the recording process goes. With these cheaper options, as a young kid just starting out in the music industry, I could see why they would choose this route rather than spending hundreds of dollars (especially if they have to ask their parents for that money) to go to a studio. If these cheap options are so easily accessible and if these same cheap options make it easy to create music why would any artist (excluding the major artists signed with major labels) choose to spend a ton of money for studios and engineers when they don’t know if they will ever get a return on this money?
The simple answer to this is, quality. Working with a professional audio engineer will give you the professional sounding quality you hear in commercially released music today. (granted that is fully going to depend on the engineer you are working with, and their abilities, but in most cases even if the engineer is a beginner they have a better understanding of sound than the artist) The engineer’s sole purpose is to create the best sonic quality possible through the recording and post production processes. Any engineer (especially a good one) will be able to guide the artist in how to produce the best vocal performance for the song. How to make the vocals sound top notch through the process of recording and then the process of mixing and mastering. They will be able to use a variety of plugins to sonically change and keep the integrity of the vocals at the same time. On top of all of that, the engineer will able to create a balance between the vocals and the instruments so the listener won’t be overburdened by one aspect over the other, thus being able to hear everything clearly and get the full sonic experience. If you listen to the music being released today you can clearly hear the difference between a song that is professionally done, and one that is done through the DIY method. Think of it this way, the top artists (and yes I know the huge budgets behind these artists makes a difference) like Drake, Kendrick, Migos and so on sound amazing. Where as your friend who recorded in his basement by himself doesn’t sonically compare to those artists, what is being played on the radio, or even the new artists being played on Spotify playlists.
In today’s music especially, the engineer is arguably the most important person in the music creation process. Without an engineer, the artists everyone knows and loves wouldn’t sound anywhere close to what they sound like. If it wasn’t for the engineers artists like (and these are just examples as these are great artists and phenomenal at what they do, but due to the effects of their tracks and vocals is why I am making this statement and using them as examples) The Weeknd, Travis Scott, Migos, and any other artist or group that uses a heavy amount of Auto-Tune and effects on their voice and in their tracks would not have the sound you love them and their songs for. For the most part artists don’t know how to get these types of sounds, they just know what the sound is they are looking for. If they can explain it properly great, but in most cases they can’t and it is up to the engineer to intemperate what they want and make it happen.
The artist is responsible for writing and preforming the song to the best of their ability. To use their vocal and instrumental talents to create an emotional response from the audience through their performance. It is the job and responsibility of the engineer to take those performances and make them sonically beautiful. If you hear some artists speak about the creation process when they are in the studio, (this is more so in regard to the newer generation of artists and newer artists who may not have a lot of experience working in professional studios) they have no idea what the engineer is doing after they have recorded their vocals. Most of them say, “There are a lot of buttons and knobs, but I have no idea what any of them do.” They don’t know how to explain properly the sound they want, they just know what that sound is. Now, I will give the artists a little bit of a pass here because they did not go to audio school, it was never their dream or aspirations to become an engineer or learn how to work a studio board, they wanted to become an artist, they know how to write lyrics, sing songs and captivate an audience. This is fine, but if you are reliant on the engineer to create the sound you have as an artist because you are using an extraordinary amount of processing on your vocals (for one reason or another) than you, one can’t take the engineer for granted, and two should at least know how to communicate clearly with the engineer about what you want. If you have ever seen the social media meme comedy videos of when the artists are in the studio (these are sketches not real artists) standing behind berating the engineer, these are based off of true stories and events. I can’t tell you how many times I have had an artist scream at me because they want their performance and vocals to sound exactly like Trippie Red or Lil Uzi but haven’t given the vocal performance to do so, and/or can’t articulate that properly. Due to this, they start acting like an adolescent child who is not getting their way, or like a small child getting upset because they are trying to get something but don’t have the language skills to tell their parents what it they want, so you have to sit their and guess and hope you get the answer right. Being an engineer is incredibility frustrating and is a thankless job. (even to the point Spotify has now published all the credits of the songs released on their platform, the writer, the singer, the producer, the label, but sill has no credit for the engineer who recorded and/or mixed the song)
After all that I have mentioned above, let’s answer the overarching question of this article, what is the importance of an engineer, and why as an artist should you use an engineer instead of trying to do it yourself? First, you should use an engineer because the studio where the engineer works (even if it their home studio) generally will have better equipment then what you have, and will be treated to acoustically sound better than you standing in a corner in your bedroom. Second, because the engineer will have upgraded programs that give more flexibility when recording and mixing your songs. These professional audio programs are made for producing, recording and mixing music, and as the engineer, they know the ins and outs of these programs so they can manipulate them in ways you as the artist don’t fully know or understand how to do. Third, the engineer is a professional. That means that they will be able to guide you as the artist to get the best performance possible. You by yourself in your bedroom doesn’t necessarily know what sounds good and what doesn’t. The engineer does. You don’t necessarily know how to make your songs sound the proper way they need to in order to be released on streaming platforms. The engineer does. Lastly, you don’t necessarily know how to get your songs and vocals to sound like your favorite artist. The engineer does. (or they should and if they don’t they know the processing needed to get as close as they can)
Any major successful artist will tell you how important an engineer is to their creation process. So much so, that most top artists have one single personal engineer they work with exclusively, and if that engineer isn’t available then the artist isn’t recording that day. You ever wonder why in certain tracks you hear the artist say someones name during the intro before they start rapping or singing. Kendrick Lamar says, “Turn me up Ali.” Joe Budden says, “Parks on the boards.” Meek Mill says, “Turn me up Cruz.” Drake mentions 40 all the time. Jay-Z mentions Guru. This is not a mistake, these artists have worked with these same engineers for years, and in some cases decades because they only trust them to work with and work on their vocals and songs. The engineer is extremely important to an artists song quality. You can always tell when a song has been mixed or not mixed. (compare most artists first mixtapes to their first albums, you can hear a clear difference) You can always tell when a song has been recorded properly or not. You can always tell when a song has been mastered or not. The average everyday listener may not always know or understand the difference, they may just be able to say that something is off, or that something doesn’t sound quite right. But for anyone in the music industry, and that means the people you are trying to get to listen to your music so you can sign that major record deal, are always able to tell the difference in good and bad quality. In some cases like J. Cole or Trey Songs, you might have an understanding through years of experience that you can be your own engineer, but even artists like this still have an engineer present to assist them, and they always send their songs to a mixing and mastering engineer for the post production before the song is released.
Be nice to the engineers, without them your songs won’t sound the same. The engineer can be the difference between your song getting noticed or not based off how it sounds compared to other songs. The engineer is your friend and your lifeline in the studio, don’t take them for granted.
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