The Changing Music Industry, Lowering Of Budgets And Online Mastering Studios.

The music industry is in a state of flux at the moment and it has always been an exciting industry to work within. Music is a passion for which a whole range of professions have sprang up, there are the musicians themselves, producers, engineers, A+R people (Artist and repertoire), vocal trainers, instrument teachers, record labels, online distribution and sales sites, promotional companies, radio stations, the station pluggers and media companies all have their part to play in an ever changing and adapting industry. One thing that seems to have globally affected all of the industry is the dwindling budgets across all sectors. This means that companies involved have had to re-asess their options and find cost effective means of promoting artists effectively and yet still turning a profit, afterall it is a business despite all the creativity, talent and hard work put into the musical productions and artists.

Along with the cutting of budgets the recording industry has seen a lot of changes with the advent of portable and ever more cost effective recording systems, now a musician can have a small recording system capable of big results at home and assuming the time and effort is put into learning how all this works and the techniques behind good sound great music can be made. This has probably impacted small sized music recording studios to some degree and has made it a little tougher to operate along with all of the audio colleges churning out 100's of would be trainee sound engineers. So many people are doing it for themselves and starting small studios with just their college experience. This is fine for a beginner engineer to make recordings and get some much need practice in mixing but there does appear to be some engineers who are obviously inexperienced posing as mastering engineers. Mastering is not a place for beginners, it is where crucial final decisions are made to audio and there is no space for guessing or learning on the job. (unless by the side of an experienced mastering engineer).

When you choose your online mastering studio you should ideally be looking for an engineer who has considerable audio engineering experience and someone who takes ther work seriously and has the equipment to do the job properly. There are some online mastering studios that offer good rates and there are savngs to be made. However if the rate being offered is unusually very low $15.00 etc. it might be too good to be true. (This is often coupled with a distinct lack of photo's of studio, photo's of equipment or credentials of the audio engineer and recent clients list) It makes you wonder if these places are using little bookshelf speakers to make critical final decisions, far from ideal. So when you choose your online mastering studio do so with care and look into it carefully, this way the industry will soon lose the people who are not offering true online mastering services.