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.

Using Adobe Audition multi-track software, you can assigned each of those drum samples its own specific track so that you can mix them better. For example, assign track 1 to kick drum sample, track 2 to snare drum sample and finally track 3 for hi hat drum sample.

So when the time comes for mixing, it will be very easy to apply EQ/Compression/effects to each of those drum sample tracks.

What if you asked the question, how do I create drum samples??? There are a lot of ways to do this and it depends on your drum sequencer/software. I am using hot stepper and you can read the procedure here for creating drum samples:

Create drum samples using Hotstepper and Adobe Audition

Producing drum samples in Adobe Audition using sequencer

The main objective of your drum sample is just to create one complete loop. You will have no problem once one loop has been loaded into the multi-track as shown in the screen shot above. You can easily use the Adobe audition clip duplication feature to replicate one loop to create many.

After clip duplication of the drum samples, you track will now looks like:

Except that the sound of the strings are of lower frequencies compared to standard electric guitar. One of the most important uses of baritone guitar is the production of rock and alternative music. One of my favorite bands like Staind uses baritone guitar, it is more appropriate in rock music because of its dark and moody sound. This means it will sound heavy.

Therefore it is important to mix baritone guitar correctly so that it is clearly distinguishable from standard pitched guitars. Below is a sample audio clip of the baritone guitar in clean mode:

You have noticed that the guitar sound at lower frequencies than what you can hear in ordinary guitars.

Credits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaJWVt64ohM

Now try listening this audio clip using distorted/riff baritone guitar:

To properly mix baritone guitar along with standard guitars, bass guitars and other instruments below is the important guide:

You need to cut standard guitar lower mid range frequencies to give way for baritone guitars:

Standard guitar/
Cut 150 Hz -6dB (high pass filter)
Cut 500 Hz Q=1.0 level= -3dB to -6dB
Cut 800Hz Q= 1.4 level = -3dB

Baritone guitar
Cut 4000Hz (low pass filter) -3dB
Cut 150Hz (high pass filter) = -6dB

That’s it; of course the bass guitar will occupy the lowest frequencies so baritone guitar and standard guitar are both cut to give way for bass guitars.Baritone guitars occupy lower mid range frequencies 200Hz to 1000Hz while the electric standard guitars occupy higher frequencies 4000Hz above.1000 to 3000 Hz will be prioritized for vocals.

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.

Beginners in recording and mixing are often acquainted with only one equalizer which is called “Graphics Equalizer”.

While this is still an equalizer, it provides almost no use to mixing audio recording sessions. It is because of the following aspects:

a. Graphic equalizer cannot provide control Q (in applying EQ settings to a particular range of frequencies).
b. Some graphic equalizers are NOT designed for mixing and just for hi-fi equipment monitoring purposes.

So it means that the accuracy of the graphics equalizer will be in question. Now how to use the parametric equalizer? Before we illustrate the details, let us provide a good working definition of parametric equalizer.

Parametric equalizer is an audio frequency filtering tool that can let the engineer control the amplitude of certain range of frequencies. This control of amplitude can be done by boosting or cutting.

Below is a picture of parametric equalizer:

Since graphic equalizer only lets the user adjust the amplitude, parametric equalizer allows the engineer not only controls the amplitude but to a certain of frequencies as well.

The usual naming conventions used in parametric equalizer are stating the audio settings in terms of dB, center frequency Q. So for example:

Guitar (Left-Rhythm) = 3 KHz, Cut 6dB Q=1.4

It means that the engineer is adjusting the guitar left rhythm audio wave at 3000Hz and cutting 6dB with Q=1.4. Q states how wide or narrow are the cut (or boost if it is a boosting settings). In audio mixing, the most common Q settings are the following:

Q=3.0 ~ Q=4.0 (very narrow cutting/boosting).
Q=1.4 (standard cutting or boosting)
Q=1.0 (medium wide cutting or boosting)
Q=0.7(very wide cutting or boosting)

It is recommended that in any mixing sessions, you should stick with the above Q settings as extreme use of Q can severely affect the audio recorded signals.

Common applications:
In Boosting, I use a wider Q such as 1.0, and smaller amplitude (Q=1.0, 2dB Boost, 3 KHz), commonly used in boosting vocals, guitars, etc in their resonant frequencies.

In Cutting, I use a narrow Q such as 1.4 or 2.0 with higher cutting dB (Q=3.0, -6dB, 400Hz) for example in removing the cardboard sound of the kick drums.

Summary: The above settings are rough but standard guide in using parametric equalizer. Feel free to experiment with your own audio recording software in shaping the sound you need (of course this is the main function of parametric equalizer).