No Secrets!

That’s what trust is all about isn’t it? Here at K-Sound, we do not try to hold on to anything we do here as some precious secret, so as to keep ourselves competitive or to try and gain some kind of advantage over anyone else.

Some people who have developed their skills in any area, not just music are reluctant to give anything away. You probably know someone like that already. They are great at what they do, but if you ask them how they achieved a certain thing or how they manage to do something that you admire, they get very cagey and try to get out of giving you a definitive answer.

Why? They are scared, of course. Scared that they may no longer have the edge and may be surpassed and no longer be the "top dog". This is nonsense because no matter who you are, there is always somebody, somewhere who is better than you and they are so through their own talents and ingenuity, not from stealing anything from you!

So what does this have to do with K-Sound? Well I can tell you that the secret to our providing you with a great result, be it a mix, a master or recording some killer guitar tracks for you is not any voodoo that we do and keep a secret.

K-Sound Consultation and Tuition via Skype

The real key to a great result is your music and your recording. If you send a song to be mixed and the recording quality or the musical performance is very poor… or both (yikes!) then there are no secret tricks under the sun that we can do to make it sound like a killer record and we don’t want people to pay good money only to be disappointed because they expected a professional mixing and mastering service to magically make it perfect.

We can do a lot to improve it, yes, but there is a limit of course. So now you know the secret, you have a responsibility to work on your recordings and raise the bar of quality. Quality of sound and performance, quality of songwriting and structure, quality of production, which includes pre-production and making sure everyone is rehearsed and clear about what they are to play to make your record stand up against the competition.

Of course, we are well equipped to help you with that if you need it. No secrets here, we are happy to consult you and advise you where you may need some assistance with your record or if you are new to recording and are keen to do a good job of it.

Whatever it is that you need help with, wherever you find you have a weakness in the recording process, we can help you with the knowledge, experience and advice you need to get you back on top.

A 100% Bespoke, Personal Service

K-Sound is now offering a tuition service, tailored exactly to your specific requirements and interests. After having seen the benefit to our clients who wish to improve their own recordings.

Several people who we have been conversing with, explain that they wish to improve their recording skills, so their music is of the level of quality that better justifies the investment in a quality mix and master, like the one that K-Sound offers. People are happy to spend money on professional work if they are confident that the difference it makes is a big one and I’m really happy to say that the people who have contacted me personally, who are interested in using K-Sound services are switched on and savvy individuals!

They understand that a quality result starts with a quality source and they have asked me how they can create better source material for me to work on in order to create a better end result. I have had some great interactions with people already and have decided to offer the K-Sound recording consultation and tuition service.

What this will comprise of is a series of Skype video calls, in which you will receive tuition and advice about the specific areas of your recording and the specific details you are concerned about. It is a tailor made course of tutorials, but conducted more like an informal conversation. I’m still working out all the other details, like extras that can be included and other follow-on benefits, like return-customer deals etc.

Please check the Consultation page for details of the service and remember that what gets covered in these tutorials is your choice!

A Great Mix Starts with Great Audio Tracks

Mixing is regarded by many as some kind of dark art. A lot of recording musicians love the recording process and hearing their work captured to tape or disk, but don’t care for the mixing process. This is largely because of the attention to detail and time consuming nature of the process. It’s not an easy job to do and it’s even less easy to do it really well!

Complete Pre-Mix Processing – Special Deal

On the other hand, it’s not always easy to hand over your precious music for someone else to mix as a mix engineer’s time costs money and well, we don’t always find it easy to let go and trust somebody else to do it do we, unless that somebody happens to be a world-famous producer or mix engineer!

But the truth is that the mix is only the half of it. What that means is that the way the tracks are recorded – the tonal quality, the fidelity, the arrangement, the structure and the performance – largely determines how the final mix will sound and how much work is required to get it to sound finished.

What puts a lot of people off the mixing part of a self produced record is often the amount of work required to make it sound the way you want it to, so of course the better the recorded tracks are and, often overlooked, the quality of editing and post processing of the recorded tracks, the easier the mix task becomes and your final mix will have a chance to take shape more quickly and easily.

Part of the mixing process here at K-Sound is determining if your recorded tracks, sent to be mixed require any processing and if so, what kind and how much of it. This is the preparation for the final mix and is very important to a great sounding record. Of course, if you had your recorded tracks pre-prepared to be mix ready, you would probably be more confident in mixing your own material.

The audio-processing services at K-Sound are designed for just that. Included in the full mix service along with mastering, they are also available as a standalone service. We prepare your tracks for a final mix by applying a choice of different sonic character treatment, rendering audio from your programmed MIDI files using high quality virtual instruments and samples and make all of the tracks of your songs gel well together prior to mixing.

This is akin to having had your tracks recorded in the best possible way in the first place and sounding great together, even before you start mixing it properly. For some clients this is the best way for them to hand over a chunk of the work to somebody who has the expertise, experience and patience, whilst maintaining control over their final mix.

It can make a really big difference to the end result, especially when we are currently offering great deal on a complete pre-mix, audio file makeover – an interesting and unique service.

Why Customers Come Back

Here at K-Sound, we offer a policy of a preferential rate for all returning clients, but this is not just some kind of bait to reel in customers without much care for whether they return or not. It’s also not an attempt at a selling point, but as the guy who does the work here at our humble, but perfectly formed online studio I think it revolves around a very important factor of providing a service, especially a creative one like ours.

Satisfied Customers

Recently I was blessed with a customer who was so happy with the work I had done for him that I was touched by the amazing feedback he gave me and I’m sure that if and when he is in need of the same kind of service again (this was a mastering job), he’ll be in touch with K-Sound. This really cool chap informed me that I had gone the extra mile in providing a quality end-result that he was very happy with and I suddenly realized what the magic ingredient in creating satisfied customers is.

Obviously a client will return to you for more business if he or she is happy with the work you did for them before, maybe happy isn’t enough these days, but more than happy – expectations exceeded and I realize that for me as a service provider, there is something that makes it very easy for me to exceed customers’ expectations and create a loyal customer. That ingredient is my own engagement with the work. The more into it I am, the better the result is going to be – of course. In short, if I’m given an album to master or mix (or both) and I really like the music then I’m going to do a better job. I’ll be honest about that!

When Work Feels Like Play

The aforementioned mastering client who was very happy provided me with such an example of music. I really liked it. It was well written, performed, recorded and just well executed and the songs stuck in my head (in a good way) after I’d finished working on them. I believe that if it was just some music that didn’t really excite me much then the result may have been different. I don’t mean the quality would suffer, no. My policy is to rise above my musical tastes and provide high quality right across the board, but there would be something missing.

A connection with the music. If I get a mixing or mastering job that excites me then the whole relationship between me and the client grows into more of a partnership than just a business-client one. It’s just natural and I believe that is the only time that clients are likely to return. So clients are only likely to return when they’re "Blown away" by the service and they’re only likely to be blown away if I’m blown away by their music. There’s a kind of synergy to it.

Deals for Returning Customers

So that is why I proudly display on this website that returning customers always get special deals because I know that the only likely returning clients will be the one’s that I loved working for the first time. I do want to make clear though that this doesn’t mean I can’t get into a particular genre of music and that’s the end of it. I think there is excellent work and awful work in all genres of music. I can appreciate talent when I hear it, even if it’s in a genre that I don’t care for, so what type of music you make isn’t the issue. I guess it’s more about whether the music makes me feel something.

So far 2012 has provided me with only work involving music that does make me feel something – something good of course. Let’s hope that continues.