Preparing and Delivering Your
Song Files to Us
Grateful mention: We thank
Audiobarn (2020) for making it easier for us to make the
process easier for you by providing us with the meat of this
guide.
Step One:
Prepare Your Audio Files
A) The first step is to make
all your tracks equal length; or make them all begin at
00:00:00. Ideally, for a 3 minute song, each individual track
of it needs to be 3 minutes long, even if what's recorded on
the track happens anywhere after the 1st minute, and lasts for
only 20 seconds. Frequently, you may make them so by importing
each track into a new DAW (digital audio workstation) session.
An hack to that method is to copy 1-2 seconds of blank audio
from any track, and paste it at the beginning of every track.
If you're using Cakewalk, or Sonar, press Ctrl+A to highlight
all tracks, then right click on the Track View, and select,
"Bounce to Clip(s)". That will connect the small clip with the
rest of the track, so they'll all playback in perfect
alignment.
B) Set your volume, so all of the tracks are no louder than
-10db.
C) Remove all effects on each track, particularly EQ, reverb
or compression. Uunless the effect(s) has special
significance, make sure all tracks have no active effects.
Step Two: Exporting Individual Tracks
A) Generally speaking, you may export from your DAW by
clicking “File” in the menu, and “Export”. To export
individual tracks as separate audio files, export them one at
a time.
B) (In your DAW's Preferences, set your bit-rate to 24bit,
your sampling rate 44100Hz (or 44.1kHz), and export ONLY in
.wav or .aiffF formats.
C) If you have a rough mix of how you’d like the song to sound
after our mix, your may therein include EQ, reverb and
compression; however, export the entire session as one file.
(It would be helpful if you'd also provide examples of
finished songs that also represent the way you'd like the
song, or any given part of the song to sound.)
Step Three: Delivering Your Files to Us
A) Having all of your individual tracks as separate audio
files, (24-bit, 441000Hz, and in WAV, or AIFF file format),
a(n optional) rough mix, and a reference track, compress all
tracks for each song into a .zip, .rar, or .7z file.
B) Upload them to DropBox, or to any other online file storage
and delivery service; or to your own server.
Voila; that's it!
Now, all that's left to do is to send us links to the
compressed file(s).
Step Four: What to Expect
Now that you’ve sent us links to your files, kick back and
relax while we work your song(s). After the first round of
mixing, If it doesn’t sound exactly how you want it to sound ,
let's us know what may be better, and we'll revised the mix
for you--(up to 2 free revisions).
For example, maybe there's
something between 1:20 and 1:55 that you don't like. If so,
then ask yourself what it is that don’t you like about it
that part of the mix? Be clear and concise; that way it will
be easier for us to nail it the second time around. Don't be
concerned about technical jargon, if you don't have an
handle on that; just be as clear and concise as possible
using your own words, and include a portion of another song
that represents what you're communicating to help us to
better hear, understand, and deliver your desired outcome.
Conclusion
If this is your first time preparing files for a mixing
engineer, we hope that this guide has helped to clarify how
you may be most efficient in, and that reviewing it has
relieved a lot the anxiety that may have arisen from
uncertainly about the process. Now, let's get your songs into
Badass Mode.
Reference
Author unknown. (2020). Mixing & Mastering Pt. II – How to
Prepare and Send Your Audio Tracks. Audiobarn. Retrieved from
https://audiobarn.ca/en/preparing-your-audio-files-for-mixing-and-mastering/