Alejo Granados "Rumba Chonta"

[davemcg61]

This was a very different genre for me to attempt. I simply stuck to the basics, EQ, level balancing and panning. The setting would be a seashore kiosk. I could've made it louder, but with all the percussive peaks, I left it at -14.5 LUFS. What do you think?

[davemcg61]

I went back to this today, did some EQ tweaking, and thought I'd try tape saturation on the percussion and marimba tracks. It was more of an experiment, since I hadn't ever used tape saturation on drums and percussion, only on vocals. I guess I spent an hour just testing different amounts of saturation, soloed and in context with the rest of the song. Here's the result.

[Deliza]

Hi Dave, been listening to both mixes and first one is a relatively clear winner for me; shaker and hand percussion being given prominence enough over drums, while on the second mix you have more of the drumkit parts, plus more of that syncopated conga hit (kinda the ugly one) and less shaker, so in the end it's like almost every percussion part has similar weight, coming to breathlessness (is that a word?) and confusion. Second mix feels more finished and produced, but the first one is making me move. Also, second electric guitar is too low on the second mix. Maybe some of that tape treatment could help smooth out the congas of the first mix and help them to glue a little more, but without changing balances.

And bass sounds really great here in cansland (ATH-M50x, btw), while I seriously screwed up with it on mine. So I say yay, have a nice weekend!

[davemcg61]

Hi Dave, been listening to both mixes and first one is a relatively clear winner for me; shaker and hand percussion being given prominence enough over drums, while on the second mix you have more of the drumkit parts, plus more of that syncopated conga hit (kinda the ugly one) and less shaker, so in the end it's like almost every percussion part has similar weight, coming to breathlessness (is that a word?) and confusion. Second mix feels more finished and produced, but the first one is making me move. Also, second electric guitar is too low on the second mix. Maybe some of that tape treatment could help smooth out the congas of the first mix and help them to glue a little more, but without changing balances.

And bass sounds really great here in cansland (ATH-M50x, btw), while I seriously screwed up with it on mine. So I say yay, have a nice weekend!

Thanks for commenting and the details, Deliza. Some other folks I know said that the electric guitar in Rhumba style didn't seem to fit, which is why I lowered it. Now I have to wonder, did I save the first mix as an alternative that I can go back to and compare?