We'll talk about it all tonight (Sano mix)

[The_Metallurgist]

...I certainly wouldn't disagree about it being a bit on the bright side, often I reach the end of my mixes and on reflection the tone can be overly bright/dark etc, but the task of rebalancing the entire mix makes me usually settle for what I've got. But it something I defiantly become more aware of lately.

hi there,
Pauli's observations fall short of the mark regarding brightness, with respect. if you can't hear it (and feel it too, like i can), i strongly recommend doing some referencing against "qualified quality" CD material, and get your eyes to help your ears by using some spectral graphics. the gloc is the worst offender here; personally, i'd have fed it a touch of distortion to suit and cut some space for it, as pitching it up has turned it into a laser. the point i think you've missed, is that it's character comes from lower down in the spectrum. by pitching it, you take this opportunity away and it turns into fatigue - major fatigue....perhaps the quality of the tracking hasn't helped you here, can't say.

....but the HMF and HF's are stressful throughout the mix.

if you are a long-time musician or someone who's been involved in music, but hasn't used hearing protection when exposed to loudness (what's loud? and what about duration of exposure?), i'd recommend you get your hearing professionally checked as a matter of routine. please don't rely on home tests as the results are meaningless - the field of acoustics is complicated, eh? once we lose our hearing, we lose our mixing. this is a head's up for everyone, because listening to many mixes in the forum, fatiguing mixes are overly common (including Mike's!). for some, it will be the constraints of cheap monitoring and poor room acoustics, but for others the reality can be more serious. long term hearing issues are actually becoming a political concern (at least in the UK because of the deafness epidemic and future projected statistics which are really gloomy as more of us use headphones and ear buds). those of us who come from an industrial background, will have been educated in the risks - third party Factory Inspectors do spot checks to make sure the staff are taking care of themselves and of each other - it's a Legal duty. but not in the world of music which is unregulated in this regard. i watched some Glastonbury footage the other day (UK open air concert), and it was obvious the audience had all been supplied with ear plugs! for the younger ones there's hope, for the older ones it may already be too late.

he's right about the congestion, in my view. it's often the case in low-mid congested mixes that people look for the mid range and highs to get the tonal balance back and find some clarity? i suspect this is what's happened here. i once put a LPF on the stereo buss (36dB/oct at least), and took it slowly down through the mix and was frankly amazed at how much bass resides in the 500Hz region alone! going lower into the low-mid range will change your perspective forever and should cause you to re-think fundamental frequencies and what to do with them.

i'm not a lover of 20 foot wide pianos unless the genre is off the beaten track. one might argue that it's a subjective opinion, but i'd disagree of course if something doesn't sound natural (or within context), it's a distraction. but one's mother-in-law wouldn't notice, or would she? anyway, have a go perhaps at feeding a mono piano into a high quality stereo reverb; i think the outcome would be quite pleasant and...natural. there is a "but", however. if the piano wasn't tracked properly in stereo (few ever are), there will likely be some serious phase issues which will change the character of the piano for the worse. but anyone listening to your mix over AM radio or in the shopping center, will hear the issues anyway when the stereo is mixed down to mono. quality starts with the recordings.

while tone/spectral balance can be tweaked at the mastering stage to some extent, i'd encourage you to fix tonal issues in the mix. but it goes without saying that if we can't do it in the mix, then we won't have the skills during mastering. if you struggle with tone during mixing, try loading a reference track into the project and keep refreshing your ears with it now and again, because our hearing can go off on a serious tangent VERY quickly; 10 seconds can do it! it will help keep you rooted - i should listen to my own advice more often!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8-) DON'T USE A LOSSY-BASED sample for reasons which should be obvious.

i've not mixed this myself, but listening to other posts suggests it's got some interesting challenges. anyway, hope i've offered something which might help your mixing in future, and other forum participants too, for that matter

coffee time over, catch you laters
Dave