So here's my take on this tune. Comments encouraged. (I'll even take sarcastic remarks if they're sufficiently funny! 
)
This song posed a number of challenges the most difficult of which was that, as seems typical, everything is competing for the same sonic real estate and it was very hard to gete all the parts to fit together without stepping on each other. Tip: If you're a song writer, try to avoid writing accompanyment parts in the same scale range as your vocals or solo instruments. They'll get along a lot better that way. My biggest challenge was with the drums and the vocals. I don't know why but I just had the devil of a time getting a good drum sound and I'm still not sure I got that kick drum sounding the way it ought to.
Some of the things I did in this mix:
Spent about an hour in melodyne removing the most aggregious of the drifts off the vocal tracks. This was followed up with compression on both the individual tracks and then on the mix bus as well to try to get them all nice and orderly without sonic artifacts. Note that there are some pops on the vocal track that I couldn't manage to get rid of even though I tried hard to do so. It's not a fault with what I did. These were on the master tracks and I just couldn't manage to fix them acceptably. In the mix, you recally can't hear them unless you're listening very close so I think that's an acceptable outcome.
The bass was another challege. This player is using his fingers rather than a pick so that means a softer attack which I found hard to bring out through just EQ. I ultimately settled on using series compressors to help me out and I think that worked out well.
I took the multi-mics from the guitars (each of which was recorded with pedals, as you hear, one of which seems to have been a chorus pedal) and panned each hard left and right on EG1 and then did the opposite panning on EG2 (mic 2 left instead of mic 1). They worked well enough up the center but I think I like this sound a bit better and it also helps make a hole for the vocals to set in.
Reverb was no fun. This song needs reverb on the vocals but if you add more than just the tiniest amount of predelay it all goes to pot.
I did not apply any other effects to these tracks as they didn't seem to call for anything although I was thinking of a faint flanger at a couple of points (barely audible) before deciding against it.
There were a number of other more subtle changes I made such as ever so slightly shifting the timing of drum/AG/bass hits to keep from clobbering the vocal in a couple of spots. (A good bass player should always lag the kick drum by just a hair so he doesn't cover it up and a driving guitar line is often an even smaller shade just ahead of the beat to help pull it forward.)
Oh, FYI, "Broadway up to Craycroft" describes an intersection in Tucson, Arizona, a town I know well. I think I'm pretty sure I know what area this band hails from.
If you haven't figured it out, the song seems to be about a homeless couple living in that area that wasn't so at one time and probably made that way through some of Dan's problems. (Speaking of pot...)
)This song posed a number of challenges the most difficult of which was that, as seems typical, everything is competing for the same sonic real estate and it was very hard to gete all the parts to fit together without stepping on each other. Tip: If you're a song writer, try to avoid writing accompanyment parts in the same scale range as your vocals or solo instruments. They'll get along a lot better that way. My biggest challenge was with the drums and the vocals. I don't know why but I just had the devil of a time getting a good drum sound and I'm still not sure I got that kick drum sounding the way it ought to.
Some of the things I did in this mix:
Spent about an hour in melodyne removing the most aggregious of the drifts off the vocal tracks. This was followed up with compression on both the individual tracks and then on the mix bus as well to try to get them all nice and orderly without sonic artifacts. Note that there are some pops on the vocal track that I couldn't manage to get rid of even though I tried hard to do so. It's not a fault with what I did. These were on the master tracks and I just couldn't manage to fix them acceptably. In the mix, you recally can't hear them unless you're listening very close so I think that's an acceptable outcome.
The bass was another challege. This player is using his fingers rather than a pick so that means a softer attack which I found hard to bring out through just EQ. I ultimately settled on using series compressors to help me out and I think that worked out well.
I took the multi-mics from the guitars (each of which was recorded with pedals, as you hear, one of which seems to have been a chorus pedal) and panned each hard left and right on EG1 and then did the opposite panning on EG2 (mic 2 left instead of mic 1). They worked well enough up the center but I think I like this sound a bit better and it also helps make a hole for the vocals to set in.
Reverb was no fun. This song needs reverb on the vocals but if you add more than just the tiniest amount of predelay it all goes to pot.
I did not apply any other effects to these tracks as they didn't seem to call for anything although I was thinking of a faint flanger at a couple of points (barely audible) before deciding against it.
There were a number of other more subtle changes I made such as ever so slightly shifting the timing of drum/AG/bass hits to keep from clobbering the vocal in a couple of spots. (A good bass player should always lag the kick drum by just a hair so he doesn't cover it up and a driving guitar line is often an even smaller shade just ahead of the beat to help pull it forward.)
Oh, FYI, "Broadway up to Craycroft" describes an intersection in Tucson, Arizona, a town I know well. I think I'm pretty sure I know what area this band hails from.
If you haven't figured it out, the song seems to be about a homeless couple living in that area that wasn't so at one time and probably made that way through some of Dan's problems. (Speaking of pot...)
Old West Audio