The Secret to Sounding Like a Pro: Why Professional Mixing Matters

Transcript

Hi, I'm Ed from Mixing Hertz and in this video I want to talk to you about how you can get taken seriously as a musician. 

How you can be part of a professional music industry. And there's three main points to it. 

The first one is, it's pretty simple, but people just judge with their ears. Like, as soon as they hear your song, before you've even got into the lyrics, before you've spoken to them, anything like that, what are they hearing?

Are they hearing, like, you're a local band um that you're sort of starting out what are they hearing or are they hearing some something that just sounds absolutely amazing and sounds professional? 

Are they hearing that you don't care about your music that much and you've um you've you've sort of done done the best you can with it but not not really put your best foot forward? 

Or are they hearing, like, oh, my God, these guys, who are these guys? 

They just immediately think you sound pro. And that's a really, really good trick. 

That's a really good qualifier. And bands that do that really, really well start making waves that do it consistently. 

So I think the next point is it's really about sounding like you belong. If you're getting played on the radio, if it's BBC Introducing, Six Music or local radio, student radio, it doesn't really matter. If you're getting put on playlists on Spotify, the song before will most likely be a professionally mixed, mastered, well put together song, well put together track. 

And if you come in after that, let's say you're lucky enough to get that play, 

• Are you going to stand up? 

• Is it going to sound good? 

• Is it going to stand out?

• How are you going to stand out next to something like that?

So obviously as artists, we put all of our heart and soul into the music, the part writing and all of that. So why go through all of that effort and then not have it finished off to the point where it could just be a major label release? It just could be, be a hit, you know?

Why let something like the mixing and mastering process just scupper your chances at success, right? 

And that really leads on to point three because there are gatekeepers in the music industry and they do gate keep. 

They're getting sent lots and lots and lots of music and whether they're actively listening to submissions or whether they're just keeping an eye on BBC introducing as lots of labels do or if they're just going through playlists or you're just, whatever it is. If you, you can't tell them, oh yeah, we couldn't quite get this bit right in the mix or didn't like this bit and blah, blah, blah. Like, you don't get that opportunity. It just needs to stand out. It just needs to be pro, straight away. um and i think i'll just make this a quick video and just sum all that up. And this is a really important point, so don't, don't turn off the video just yet. But, bands that i've worked with consistently and have put in the effort and the hours, they make real progress. 

They develop relationships with BBC Introducing DJs and they plan their releases and they really, really go for it when they're trying to book shows. And they just make sure that every song that goes out could be played on Radio 1. And it works. You chip away and it works. Sure, it's the music industry, you need a load of luck, but like, if you want to get taken seriously, you've got to work at a professional level and you've got to become part of a professional community and you've got to have people in your corner who are going to push you in the right direction and help make what makes you special stand out to audiences, DJs, industry, live show promoters, booking agents, like all of those things. 

It all comes off the back of your music being heard and sounding really, really good. So if you want to know about how you can do that, there's a load of free resources on my website, mixinghertz.com. Hertz, like H-E-R-T-Z. And there's a couple of case studies of bands that I've worked with on there as well. And might find it helpful you might not but if you want to get taken seriously, take it seriously.