Justice-Stokley Hall is an artist out of Washington Heights. He's been featured on the site before and wanted to be our 2nd guest writer. Below he gives artists advice on being their own engineers. Hit me if you wanna be a guest writer.

Do It Yourself

By now every artist should know that the importance of a good mix separates your songs from the pack. Every one’s a rapper/emcee, producer or a singer these days but very rarely do you hear about that many engineers. Sure you can find an engineer in any recording studio but then you still have to go through the struggle of finding a good engineer. One that makes you (the artist) sound the way that you imagined. Some artist are lucky to find an engineer that gives them a sound of their own and also fits their recording budget while others may not be able to afford. Those who can’t afford or just haven’t found the mixing engineer they want can go the route of learning to engineer their selves.

Why not learn to engineer? Most artist declare in their songs that they can do anything right? If you believe in yourself as an artist then you should be willing to invest in your own home studio right? Who cares more about how your music sounds more than you do? The answer to the last question should be no one. So now that you’ve decided that you’re going to invest in your own home studio you may need to know that it’s not the cheapest thing in the world. For a basic setup assuming you already have a laptop/desktop includes: microphone, mic stand, pop filter, mic isolation (not necessary for everyone), decent pair of monitors (speakers), headphones, pro tools (or any other recording software like logic etc.) microphone preamp and tons of software plug-ins (assuming you don’t have space for too much hardware). Please do not try to go the cheap route when buying equipment because you’ll only be cheating yourself and working harder during your mix downs.

For rap vocals I would suggest a Rode NT1-A priced at $229 or for a rapper with a really deep voice try an Electro Voice RE20 for $429. For singers I’d suggest a Shure KSM 32 (my favorite mic) priced at $549 or the world famous Shure Sm7b (Michael Jackson recorded THRILLER with this mic…Google it) for $349. Microphone preamps I suggest are Focusrite ISA 1 for $499 or Groove tubes the brick priced at $400. When purchasing plug-ins you should buy them in packages so you get more for your money. Some packages I’d suggest you may want to invest in are URS everything EQ and Compressor package. This package includes my favorite compressor the URS 1975 compressor. This plug-in bundle is priced at $599(I got it for cheap). Another great bundle package is the Sonnox Oxford Elite bundle, which includes a gate, compressor, eq, inflator, reverb limiter and much more. This bundle is a bit more expensive at $1170 (I got it for cheap) but it’s worth it and way cheaper than buying each plug-in individually. A couple decent pair of monitors to mix with are the Yamahas HS50M priced at $199 each and also the KRK Rokit 5 priced at $150 each.

Once you have all this stuff you can learn to do things through trial and error for a while. Learn what everything is on your own at first then do like everyone else and look at YouTube tutorial videos (ha-ha). Other options include reading a few books such as “The Mixing engineer’s handbook” “Modern recording techniques” and “In the studio with Michael Jackson”. Or going on message boards like gearslutz.com where a lot of experienced engineers are willing to give advice. Honestly the best way to perfect your craft is through experimenting and making mistakes and adding this engineering skill can cultivate your creativity in your songs in a way you wouldn’t have ever imagined.

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