Check List #1: Is your mix final? Has it already been approved by the concerned artists and recording producers?

Purpose: If you create a mixdown, the final approval is done by the artist and the recording producers. You need to make sure that there is no other request for changes from them in the mix, it is because once the material will reach the mastering studio, there is no turning back. If you turn back, you need to do a separate mixdown again with the artist/producer requested changes that can take time and destroy your schedule.

Check List #2: You SHOULD mix down to highest audio resolution as possible.

Purpose: You need to create a very high quality mix, isn’t it? If you mixdown to low resolution such as 16 bit 44.1Khz (by applying dithering for example), you are destroying your mix.

Do not apply any dithering during mixdown. Leave that to the mastering engineer. Also if your audio mixing software/DAW is capable of mixdown at 24bit 96Khz (common in most professional studios), then use it. After all that high resolution will be VERY favorable to the mastering engineers when they do the mastering work of the track.

The minimum bit depth should be 24 bits (you should never mixdown to 16 bits, ever!). The sampling frequency can be 44.1Khz, 88.2Khz or 96Khz. Using 192Khz is not recommended and neither it is beneficial in contributing to the sound quality. But again, 24 bit, 96Khz or 24 bit, 44.1Khz are the standards.

Check List #3: The maximum amplitude of any wave in your mixdown audio tracks SHOULD not exceed above -3dB.

Purpose: By allowing or setting a maximum amplitude of -3dB, you are giving the mastering engineer a lot of headroom, which is very important. Remember that by doing this, a lot of headroom can mean less distortions after the audio mastering job and better sounding track.

You can use your audio mixing software to measure the maximum audio amplitude of the mixdown track. Bear in mind that maximum audio amplitude is DIFFERENT from average audio sound level (SPL).

It is because maximum amplitude is the maximum recorded peak of the mixdown signal. See screenshot below:

Check List #4: Never , ever compressed your mixdown in an attempt to make it LOUD and at the request of your clients.

Purpose: By compressing to make it loud in an attempt to praise clients or it is a client request, you are destroying your mix which is IMPOSSIBLE for mastering engineer to repair and restore its dynamics in natural way.

Educate your clients that it is the mastering engineer job to make it VERY loud. If they need to hear what is sounds if it is loud, simply turn the volume controls (of your studio console) to maximum without altering or applying any compression to the wave.

Source: Jeremy D. Silverman

Below are the conditions when you “really” need to have a record producer:

1.) If you desperately need a high quality recordings of your single. This assumes you write the song. Only a record producer can “professionally” transform your completely written song into professional recordings. This single may be used for promotional purposes such as demo submission or to radio, etc.

2.) If you drastically need to release an independent recording album which will compete with major label artist or other good independent recording label artists; then you surely need to hire a recording producer to supervise the recording sessions, create artistic sonic vision of the album and to produce a complete master CD.

What if you really need a record producer as your need falls in either two of the above conditions? Now, hiring a record producer is not an easy task because you need a “perfect” man to do the job which should pass in all these qualifications:

1.) Attitude – this is the most important. Treat music producer like your Dad, what attitudes do you like from your Dad. It is the same attitude requirement you require from your music producer. You need someone who is: supportive, honest, creative, strong and someone that has the potential to love and believe in your musical abilities.

2.) Experience and mastery in your selected genre – this is the second most important; you might asked the potential candidate about his or her previous experience and completed recording projects. Try to listen to it and make sure that it was your selected genre. Of course, you should not be hiring a producer who has a ton of experience in producing rock records and you need them to produce a hip hop records. It is important that you like his/her work. If not, there is no point of hiring that producer.

3.) Price – the third most important. Of course, you should hire a record producer that can offer the price you can afford. I suggest cutting the cost by hiring a producer that owns his/her own studio. This means that he/she will not be renting a studio which could be costly for both of you.

It is good that you will plan in advance in how you are able to pay the record producer back. One good suggestion is to offer him a share of the ownership in the sound recording or song copyrights. So instead of having only you as the songwriter of the song, you can add the music producer as one of the authors (of course the producer is contributing to the song). In this case, you will not be paying anything to the record producer other than the future music royalties which your music can earn if it will be commercially released successfully.

4.) Proximity to your location – of course, it would be nice that both of you are living in the same location and close to it’s other. The farther the producer to you, it will be harder for him/her to communicate with you as well as it will be costly to supervise the recording projects since either both of you will travel just to get the recording done.

a. You are planning to cover a song which is written by someone else but it is not released (or not popular).
b. You are planning to record a song which is written by your artist.
c. You’re planning to re-record a popular song written by a popular writer.

Let’s examine what music rights are exploited:

a. Mechanical rights – this is right to reproduce the song in the physical medium such as CD, Video Tape, cassette tape, etc. If you exploited this right, you need to contact the music publisher of the song and asked for mechanical license.

b. Printed sheet rights – this is the right to reproduce the lyrics of the song.

Those are the only two possible rights exploited when you are going to record a song. The “printed sheet” rights assumes you are going to include the song lyrics your production. However this can be skipped in most cases.

If you are record producer, you are in-charge of producing the album that includes songs owned and NOT owned by your artist.

For songs owned by your artist; you simply need a written mechanical license from your artist. For the payment it needs to be arranged and there is no standard rule.

In US, the mechanical royalty rates are around 9.1 cents per song (http://www.songwriteruniverse.com/mechanical.html ). If the artist is writing the whole 10 songs in the album, the mechanical royalty due is 91 cents or 0.91 US dollar. If there are about 1,000,000 albums to be reproduced, the total amount of royalty due is:

0.91 US dollar x 1,000,000 = 910,000 US dollars.

The question is: Are you as a record producer going to pay that amount of royalty? The answer is NO. In fact, the recording label (not the record producer) will be the one to pay for that royalty amount.

The record producer is only hired to produce the recordings, even the artist is hired by the label to perform. Your job as a record producer is to make sure the mechanical license is executed by the label and you have a “go” permission to record the song.

Another popular question: If the artist is not financed by a major recording label, and they are the ones financing their own records but hire you as the producer, do you still need mechanical license?

There is no need to secure mechanical license because they themselves (the artist) are financing the recording session and selling the album, UNLESS you as a record producer hire the artist to perform, use their songs and sell the records under your own business name (such as an independent record label).

Finally, many producers might ask: “What is Harry Fox agency, and how will they going to help to secure permissions to record a song?” The correct answer is that, you have to double check that the music publisher of the song is affiliated with Harry Fox agency. If not, you cannot get any help from them.

Harry Fox agency represents music publishers in issuing mechanical license. You can read more about Harry Fox here: http://www.harryfox.com/songfile/faq.html

Even though as a record producer , you have to be good technically (dealing with sound and recording equipments); you also have to good in administering legal documents such as licenses because in the real world job, you have to deal with these.

It is a bit complex matter that needs some preparation, in fact failure to observe certain required processes can prevent you getting airplays or at worst you will never earn a single penny from your promotions.

Below are the important processes which every independent recording producer or artists should observed in order to broadcast or promote their music online and earn some money:

First things first:

Step 1: Register your work in the government copyright office. IF you are promoting your music in the US, you can register it in the US Copyright office. You can do it online here: http://www.copyright.gov/eco/

The most important thing if you own works, the song (lyrics and melodies) as well as the recording is to file both PA and SR forms. PA is for the copyright of the song while form SR is for the recording. If you find it expensive and would like to save money in the process, you can register it both using form SR.

Step 2: After the copyright office confirms that they received your work. You can register with performing right societies; so that you can receive performance royalty of your work. If you are US based, you can register with either of these big 3 societies: ASCAP, BMI or SESAC.

Step 3: OK once you are a member with any one of the mentioned societies; you need to register all of your songs/work (of course those songs that you need to broadcast or promote in the airplay) with the performing right society database. This will help them to monitor those performances of your songs and pay your money.

Step 4: After song registration, you also need to register your work with Nielsen Broadcast Data systems. The main purpose of this registration is for this system to capture performances of your work which are used by various radio stations.

In other words, Nielsen broadcast data systems makes it possible for them to track which radio stations are playing your work. Click here to read more about Nielsen BDS.

To register, send an email to: clientservices@bdsonline.com and then use the subject “Virtual encode”, and then in the body of the mail include the following required information:

a. Your full name
b. Company name or your label name (if you do not have a label use your; use your full name)
c. Contact number (cellular phone number is fine as long as you include the country code).
d. Primary email address that you are using

Nielsen BDS representative will then send you additional procedures to upload your work online.

Step 5: Once your work has been successfully encoded, you can then proceed with actually submitting your songs to radio stations. In online radio, you can submit it to Jango.com, which will expose your songs to a lot of listeners looking for fresh or established artists.

Offline promotions especially commercial FM radio stations maybe a bit harder because you will need a radio promoter to actually have your work submitted in the hands of those radio stations.

Then you might see music videos of artists playing in the bands along with their instruments that might take place in a recording studio. Then you might ask again, does the song might be recorded in that studio? A lot of fascinating questions, even I before didn’t have a single idea of the entire music production process.

Below are the steps and processes of music production:

Step 1: The moment the artist recording label (like Universal Records, Sony BMG, etc) decided to start an album recording project. The recording label assigns a record producer to the artist. In some cases, the artist will be the one to select a record producer but this is subject to recording label approval.

Step 2: The recording producer along with what has been agreed with the artist and recording label will finally decided on what type of sound they are planning to achieve. Some rough ideas on songs to be included on the album might be discussed in this stage (if the artist has some rough demos before).

Step 3: The recording producer drafts the recording plan and activities and quotes the budget. The recording label will be the one to entirely finance the recording of the album songs.

Step 4: The recording producer with the coordination of artist and recording label will shop for songs and contact music publishers they know or even songwriters they have partnered with. They will decide the final song lists to be included in the album along with the possible singles (hit songs).

Step 5: The recording producer starts the recording session with the artist.

The recording producer is responsible of the song arrangement, instruments to be added to song, sound and style of the music. And then the recording producer will be the one to rent a studio, hire an engineer, hire additional musicians and booked additional vocalists to complete the recording. The budget used is provided by recording label.

Step 6: Once everything is recorded, the mixing session starts. The recording producer hires a mixing engineer appropriate for the sound of the album.

Step7: Once the mix has been finalized, the recording label and artist will approve it. Once approved, the mastering session will start.

Step8: The mastering session prepares all tracks for commercial production and replication. In this stage the recording producer hires a mastering engineer. The song artist and recording label should also approve the master. The product of the mastering stage is the master CD ready for replication (that adheres to CD red book standard: http://www.a1cds.co.uk/master.htm ). The recording producer work is now complete and he/she will provide the CD to the recording label.

Step9: The recording label will finalize the album art design, marketing plan and replication.

Step10: Singles or hit songs from the album (selected tracks) will be provided to the radio stations for massive airplay as part of album marketing. Music videos are also released to music video channels.

And the artist will start visiting radio stations, TV stations or even perform concerts as part of the promotion.

Step11: Listeners like us can now start to listen the songs aired on the radio. The music production process has been completed.