Lingo

For those keeping track at home, today was a deceptively important day for my music career.

Suddenly my independent release is most likely not going to be independent, which is a very good thing for me. I officially got the last piece of this let's-get-Courtney-signed-to-a-major puzzle in my corner today (okay, I realize I just mixed a proverbial saying and a boxing metaphor, but it's my blog, so deal with it). I don't want to name drop because it's generally narcissistic, but it's kind of hard to explain otherwise... The sound engineer Mark Needham (Google him) is giving me a definite break on his mixing cost (getting him on the record is another story), and his manager called my dad today and talked about- VOLUNTEERED- shopping the record before it was even in hard copy. I believe the phrase "that's what we did with the Killers" was used. Since they've done pretty well, I feel I'm in good hands.

What does a sound engineer do exactly, you ask? Well, the producer lays down all the instrumentals and cuts it so all the best pieces run as one continuous track (makes it sound like you were brilliant on the first attempt). The sound engineer, or mixer, gives each instrumental or vocal track its volume levels, makes it dynamic. If you've ever listened to a song where you can't hear the vocals or any one thing is too loud, that's the mixer's fault. The last of the big three is the mastering, which basically polishes the whole thing and brings all the songs to the same volume for the record.

But back to the fun stuff- I have everyone in place as of today to put this record out on a major label. I'm on the launching pad- I'm so incredibly close to making this real. And today wasn't the day I got signed, or the day I sold 1,000,000 albums... but today was important.