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All The Gin Is Gone (A Bit Analog)
#1
Exceptionally nice recordings that were a pleasure to work with. The arrangement and playing was great.

Listening to a number of other mixes there were a wide variety of wonderful takes on it. One gave a big band feel, almost orchestral. Others worked with the stereo field in interesting ways - including old school approaches of piano all to one side and horns to the other to mirror a typical stage setup and the mixing approaches of yesteryear.

The approach here aimed toward a medium sized club setting, though my preference would have been to go even smaller. The limitation, I felt, was the stereo field and room tone in the overheads, though I suppose that could have been pulled to a more centered sound stage. The hat and toms were panned to subjectively match the overheads field, as recorded. The piano was placed to the right. The horns were spread in front, trombone (left), trumpet (center), sax (right). I moved the trombone and sax a bit more centered for their solos. The non-musical clicks in spots on the mic'ed bass track were reduced with automated eq. Otherwise, there is, generally, a bit of compression here and eq there.

Comments, criticisms very much appreciated.


.mp3    MaurizioPagnuttiSextet_AllTheGinIsGone_Full AF - Master Buss.mp3 --  (Download: 8.71 MB)


A Bit Analog
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#2
Hi, I'm the guy who did the "old school" mix Smile. I like how you EQed the wind instruments and the overall levelling. The stereo field sounds a bit strange to my ear, larger than life drums basically enveloping the other instruments. I don't know, I guess it's also a taste thing. I'm missing focus on the individual drum instruments though. Also, to me, the sound field placement is kind of "flat" e.g. the hihat lives in the same place as the ride cymbal, all drum instruments kind of do. I must admit, with the given recordings, it's difficult to achieve but if you listen to my mix, you can hear that I - almost - managed to get a left/right and high/low sound field for the drums (the bass drums sits too high)

The piano sounds a bit distant to me (EQ and level thing). What I struggled with was the way it was recorded. I found that the separate low and high keys stereo tracks have some strange phase issues, unless you pan them hard left and right (but still then in mono...)

The bass and bass drum are hindering each other a bit, both sound a bit "wooly" and it seems there is some frequency masking, missing some low end definition/tightness.

Who am I to say this is good and that is bad. However, with this kind of Jazz music I feel/think the old school stereo field approach is the most logical one. If anything, I found your mix one of the best in this thread!
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#3
Great mix! Everything is clear and the tone is excellent. The only thing it's missing for my taste is a little bit of reverb to blend. The dryness is noticeable at points like when the horns solo lines cut out, it makes the instruments feel a little too separated. On Mike's podcast it mentioned these tracks were recorded in isolation so they really don't have any natural room reverb. Matter of taste of course, but your balance is so good I think it'd be even better with some blending to give more of an impression of these musicians all playing in the same room. Thanks for posting!

Dave
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#4
Hi great mix!!
Love the balance and the tone of horn section.
I think piano still needs some work(personally i would slightly reduce the lower midrange and add bit of click around 5kHz)
Anyway it's a good solid mix
Cheers!!!
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