Once you’ve finished your recording, what now? You have all the right mixes finished and everything is in its place, but there is still work to be done before your CD will truly be finished. By knowing what needs to be done after all of the recording is finished, you’ll have a much easier time getting from recording to successfully finished product: your CD.

After the CD is finished recording, the first thing which needs to be done is to send a copy off to the copyright office. This will ensure that no one else can release your music as your own, as well as letting you have a written record of what you have done. Normally, what you’ll need to do is to fill out a copyright sheet for the copyright office and send that in along with your CD and a fee for the copyright. Your copyright will last a number of years before expiry; at which point you will need to re-register your copyright.

After doing this, there a number of ways which you can license and register your compositions. ASCAP and BMI are the best places to start. Both of these organizations act as a sort of head office for keeping track of compositions. If anyone else ever performs your compositions, these organizations will send you a performance fee for your compositions. If you have not yet finished your CD, you should nevertheless consider registering with ASCAP or BMI for musician’s rights and then send them copies of any music you record to keep a record of this.

Next, you should think about how royalties for the use of your music by others will be administered. If someone wants to use a piece which you have composed for a compilation album, for example, you’ll want royalties. There are businesses which take care of royalties and publishing licenses such as Harry Fox; doing this will let you get royalties for each sale of your work by someone else (such as a compilation album maker).

There are other licensing options to think of as well. If another band uses your composition, or your music is used on television or for a commercial, these people must pay you a royalty fee along with a mechanical licensing fee. You still hold the copyright to your music, but basically “rent” out the song to others for their use. ASCAP and BMI can usually track your composition’s appearances as long as you have registered your recordings with them and the person using your work goes through the proper channels to obtain permission to use your music.

Once this registration issue has been handled, you have some choices as to how to go forward with preparing your music for distribution. The growth of the internet as a marketplace and venue for entertainment means that you can approach sales of your music via physical CDs as well as digital distribution; e.g. – downloads.

Digital distribution offers the musician a lot of possibilities, such as websites like SnoCap, CDBaby and IODA. All of these take your music, convert them to MP3 format and distribute your work to websites and online jukeboxes which will make them available to the public. All you have to do to accomplish this is to register your CD or other recordings through this (there is a small fee) and the portal will do the rest of the work.

Whatever sort of music you are recording and no matter how you intend it to be used, experienced and enjoyed, you should always have the legalities of the recording process in mind. This will help you not only to sell your music, but to achieve wider distribution for your work.

If you’ve ever seen a group perform or you have performed with one, one of the things you may or may not realize is that everything has to blend. Nothing can make a performance worse than not having the music blend properly. Have you ever heard a performance where one voices takes out over the others when it shouldn’t, or where one instrument sticks out over the others like a sore thumb?

It’s the same thing when you record. If you record music, there are two places you need to have the proper balance. This is with the equalizers, also known as EQs, and with the physical recording. When you work in the studio, you need to be aware of both of these sound levels, as you’ll need to have them set properly for the proper sound.

Sound balance comes as a result of the mixing board. With the mixing board, you can balance the instruments so that they are set properly to each other and the volume of each does not stick out over the other; each instrument will sound natural as well. When you build this part of your mix, you’ll need to pay attention to the input into your computer and the output that you’ll hear through the monitors.

When you do this, of course, you’ll need to make sure that all of the instruments are equal. This means that every instrument’s volume should be about equal as compared to the others. If you start with the lowest level possible, you’ll have room to change the mix later as you need to. You shouldn’t have anyone peaking with his or her instrument during any part of the recording unless you plan to do this. When you do this, a sound check will help with both the input and output when you record.

Next, EQs (or equalizers) will help you get the right mix. You’ll be doing the mixing prior to the final mastering. At each step, you’ll need to make sure that your balance is good between high and low and that one sound does not dominate others.

You’ll need to follow a variety of standards to keep your EQs at certain levels. This is in part your personal preference and industry standards depend on the genre of music you record. However, the main thing to keep in mind is that one frequency should not dominate or be too loud versus others. The low ranges of instruments, in other words, should roughly match the high ranges of the instruments.

Similarly, you should blend your instruments together well except in places you want the bass, for example, to be dominant versus other tones. Similarly, if you want the piano or guitar to be dominant, you can increase the volume for that instrument. Otherwise, though, instrument levels should be about equal for all of them. You can do this through normalization, mastering and mixing, and can also put “envelopes” within the individual instruments. This means that certain parts of the song will be kept at a certain level, moved up to normal dynamic levels in another part, and so on.

To see if everything is working right, look at how the monitors sound. You should place monitors up high and on both sides of the room, then check and see how sound is bouncing back to you. The low range will tell you if the bass is too high and the high range will let you know if those instruments are too high, too. In this way, you can adjust as you need to until you have just the perfect levels.

Whatever genre of music you choose, balance the individual instruments and then the whole. With mixing and equalizers, your CD is going to come out better and will sound more professional, too. As you adjust according to preferences and then take a look at industry standards, too, this should give you what you need to keep everything in balance.

The blues is something which many people experience when they own a home studio or a small set-up for their recording studio. Recording includes those tiresome times when it is necessary to listen to the same things repeatedly whilst attempting to listen to the different levels and parts of the instruments several times and spending hours on end just trying to reach the finishing point.

Having the blues prevents hundreds of small bands from actually completing a CD, and taking ten years to release their next album. Recording can be a tedious task, with many frustrations attached to it which can cause the song, members of the band, or others from burning out.

When you decide to record a CD, you never want to stop before it is finished. You will go on to do greater and better things once you have achieved a level of satisfaction, which will help to influence those around you to do exactly the same. There are several perspectives that allow for the benefits of completing a CD to be a part of what you are doing. You will eventually achieve the end result when you stick with the process, learn what you need to do, and work forward, which will also allow you to be more creative with your music productivity.

If you do happen to begin to feel down about your recording, then keep in mind your end goal. Visualize yourself at the end of the road and how it will affect other people. Think of the achievements that you will meet when you reach the end of your CD. Many people do not have the will power for this, nor the desire or capacity. When doing this, you will already be ahead of the game.

Even more importantly, never stop thinking about your fans or potential fans as to what their thoughts would be, and as to how your CD will influence them. Doors will be opened when you complete your CD and release it into the public. This will help you to make connections in a positive way and to do what you need to do in order to share your creativity with others. This part of the process is very effective, whether it be one person or fifty million, which will certainly make you set a date for your next CD.

Finishing a CD is not your only goal, even though this will bring rewards. It is however, also the process of being able to listen to your pieces of music in different ways and to manipulate the sounds from an engineering point of view, rather than just a performance point of view.

It is important, when recording a CD, to keep the different perspectives in mind. Whilst the entire process may be a tedious and difficult task, you will reap more benefits when you enjoy the process, as well as further your career as a recording producer and engineer, as well as being a good musician who can share your creativity with others.

So you have reached the stage where you are all done recording your piece and you are ready to start mixing everything together. However, there is one thing bothering you, and that is the fact that before you can start with the mixing there is just one small hiccup right bang in the middle of your piece. This does not mean you have to start all over again, or at worse, abandon your song altogether. All it needs is the appropriate tools to get the recording just right.

What you need is software. Software for use in recording is always designed taking the human element into account. What this actually means is that you can play your instrument in the way you know best and then with the use of such software you can create the sound you really want to hear afterwards. You may well want to be perfect while you are recording but you have to accept that this does not always happen and on these occasions it is necessary for you to put the whole thing back together using the right tools.

One of the most beneficial software tools available are punch ins. With these, you can flag up a particular area which you think needs redoing and you can go back a number of seconds and then replay. You then move into the area needing attention and record over what is already there. You can carry on playing afterwards and gradually fade out putting everything back as it should be.

Using this method you need to ensure that you can put all the sound waves next to each other. Some of the punch in programs will divide slightly upon commencement so giving yourself sufficient time to prepare for the punch in will help you to create a smooth tie and everything will come together just as it should.

When you have all of the instrumentation as you want it you can then begin to put in the right sounds. This is what is referred to as the pre-mixing stage and it is used to achieve the right effects and resonance within your particular instrument. This procedure often makes a difference to the volume as well as to the way in which your instrument mixes with other instruments so it needs to be perfected before moving on to the next stage of mixing. .

The normalization process always starts the pre-mixing stage and this makes the frequencies go up or down. This simply involves taking the setting of the waves and ensuring it peaks at both ends. If your volume is set as it should be you will see that everything normalizes around the same peaks and this allows you to mix the sounds together more easily.

When this is done, you can set the sound you desire for your finished instrumentation by the use of reverb options, such as flange, fades and many others. This will add a little flair and originality to your piece. When you do this, make sure you think about what will sound best with your instrument and bear in mind how it will change the overall sounds of your song. When the right sounds are being heard, this is the time to preset and doing this will save you time when you are ready to start the mixing process.

When your check list for the pre-mixing is all done and the sound you hear is just right, you are ready to go ahead with the mixing of the instruments.

The innovations that have been brought about since the advent of digital music recording have changed much in the recording industry. One of these big changes is that it is easier than ever for musicians to record themselves rather than go into a studio. If you are looking to record on your own, you can set up a home studio and start working towards putting together a CD. What follows is some of the “must have” equipment to get started with a home studio.

A computer and software - There’s a lot of different software out there for the purposes of recording. Regardless of which software package you pick to use in your home studio, you will need something. You’ll find that this will become the center of your home studio. You’ll need a relatively powerful computer with a lot of RAM and a large hard drive so that you can easily store and work with your recordings.

Foam – Soundproofing is important. The echo which can occur in some rooms can ruin your recordings. Using soundproofing foam will deaden the sound in this room, which depending on size and shape may only need to be partially soundproofed to provide you with the echo dampening you need for your home studio.

A mixer – You’ll need this to get the sound from the instruments and voices to your computer. You’ll need a mixer with enough channels to handle everything you want to record all at once (it is a good idea to get a mixer with a few more channels than you think you will need).

Pre-amps – These will give your instruments much better sound than can be achieved by running them directly into the mixing board. You can set the sounds of instruments individually using pre-amps, offering you much more control over your recording.

Monitors – While some prefer headphones for this purpose, you may want to consider some high quality full range monitors; these will let you hear the full dynamic range of your recording during the mixing phase, if you do opt for headphones instead of monitors, be sure to use headphones specifically designed for the purpose.

Microphones – You’ll want high end microphones for recording which will capture the full range of voice and other sounds recorded in the room. For voice recording you’ll want a pop filter – this prevents hard consonants from overloading your recording.

Compression – This can be done either by a separate compression unit or after recording, but shouldn’t be neglected. Compression allows you to limit the peaks and valleys of sounds and match these peaks between different tracks.

Using this basic setup will allow you to create good sounding recordings from the get go. You can add in other equipment as you go on, or take out equipment you find yourself not using, but the equipment listed above will get you off to a good start with your home studio.