Pedaling Prince Mix: Street Noise - You Are The One

[Pedaling Prince]

Good job cleaning but some of the levels need a bit of work.
The overall sounds good I just feel your levels are all over the place.

Not sure what you mean by that, but if you mean that the overall level of the song varies widely that was my intention. While the tracks did have significant problems with high frequency rolloff, noise and, in many cases, extremely weak signals, the consistency of their levels seemed fine, representing the original dynamics of the instruments well. To preserve those dynamics, I chose not to automate the levels, preserving the natural ebb and flow of level among the instruments as they were actually played. The final recording, therefore, might seem significantly quieter than most recordings made today. It has a 16 dB dynamic range; the average commercial recording today usually has DR no more than 12, below 10 in most cases.

Still, I'm always willing to experiment. So:

The piano is far too loud and so is the acoustic in places and the bongo drums
also sound out of the mix when they come in.

I took all of that down by a couple of decibels. Actually, you're probably right about the piano; I love the sound of the piano in this mix and I did turn it up about 2 dB higher than I had it in my rough mix. Maybe I overdid it.

Sorry if I sound a bit harsh on your mix its just how I feel about it.

No worries. Suggestions are what I'm looking for. I have no problem with criticism so long as the critic doesn't have the attitude of, "I'm right and you're wrong." Audio engineering is as much an art form as a technical discipline; there is no way to make any recording universally appealing to everyone, no matter how good you are.

Also I think the vox are way too low also.

Oh yeah. Brought them up a little, too.

Interestingly, dynamic range dropped from 16 to 15 dB after I made these changes so this mix should seem a touch louder than the first one.

So what do you think of my changes here?

Acoustic sounds great, well done there.

Thank you. Considering what I had to work with I'm rather proud that I managed to get it to sound as good as it does.