Hello everyone, I’m currently completing my first album and trying to determine how to find a good audio engineer.

I don’t want to skimp on this essential part of the process, so I’m wondering where are good places to look to find someone?

I’ve looked at some local music studios, but a lot of the sample work I’ve heard are missing something. The album I’m doing is a rap album, and alot of the sample mixes I’ve heard them do on other artists sound like the vocals aren’t sitting in the mix. They sound too present and digital.

I was looking at some recent albums from artists I like (Kendrick (MMATBS), JID (TFS), Denzel Curry (Walkin), etc and the sound there is what I’m aiming for to some degree. The vocals feel more natural and blended in with the instrumental versus alot of the mixes I’ve been finding from local studios to be too distinct from the beat and feeling too “digital” if that makes sense.

Any advice on where and how to look?