For consideration, "I'm Alright" Angels In Amplifiers

[davemcg61]

I went back to reference tracks - Santana "Hold On", "Winning" and "Smooth". I gotta say, the Santana tracks have considerably more bass guitar than this mix. Make that an -12dB cut at 240Hz, to get more snap and less "box". Also, I added duplicate bass drum and snare tracks, and panned the electric guitar during lead breaks to center. There are big changes in the drum bus compression too. I think the drum bus compressor was wrong in the first mix. To keep the levels under control in the first pass, the entire mix was about 4db softer, and I had to try and get some of that back at mastering. At the end, I used Native Instruments Solid Bus Compressor when mastering, instead of the stock Logic Platinum Digital compressor (the reason Mix 4 has a Master "B"). It's got a much bigger sound now, nearing the Santana reference tracks.