The_Metallurgist mixes Enda Reillys Cur An Long Ag Seol

[pauli]

Maybe you have concentrated too much just to eliminate the negative things, and in the process forgot to make the positive things shine.

That's a good way to put it, and I agree... though he did basically admit to this in his post in his comments on resonance control.

Prefix to my comments: the harshness is the main issue in the raw tracks for me... you did right to eliminate it. No criticisms there.

I might be wrong as I often am... but my gut tells me this mix could benefit from some sort of delicate high end enhancement to "recover" from the attacks on harshness early in the mixing phase.

So in the interest of furthering discussion... I have a few main ideas. All of course are "in the box" because I prefer the flexibility.

You mentioned an HF exciter on one of my threads... might not be a bad idea in parallel. Problem I see with this approach though is that the fiddle might go all nails on a chalkboard if it's applied broadly enough to sound natural.

First thing that always comes to my mind is distortion... that MIGHT work but in acoustic music... well. The consequences could be as problematic in a different way, but I think the music really could benefit from thicker harmonics north of the mids. Obviously this'd have to be in parallel also with lots of low cut, and care would have to be taken to make sure it wasn't affecting the decay of the affected instruments. Or influencing the phase in a bad way. I think a tape-saturation type distortion would be best for this tactic.

Final idea... what about easing off the standard EQ high shelving cuts a biton the mando and guitar and enhancing them with a dynamic EQ high shelving cut? Keep the attack time long enough to allow the the strings a momentary bit of brightness so they don't sound as dull, but without the excess HF stuff carrying into the sustains and delivering fatigue?