All I Know: 80s Mix

[jeffd42]

I did notice that their was some muddiness in the low mids around 200-400 Hz... It really is a mix that you can't mix to be clean or conventionally dynamic (this is 80's synth pop after all)

Your comment was spot on. I put the mix up today on the Bose 2+1 system in the lounge (this being frowned upon at midnight, when I posted). For all its faults, the Bose highlights issues in the low-mids. I made two corrections: (1) to cut the 3rd-5th harmonics of the kick further; and, (2) dropped the baseline 2db, bringing it up more selectively in a few sections.

On the dynamics: 80s guitar synth pop was mixed for FM radio. The stations used (typically several) multi-band compander/phase-rotator/general-screwing-around-with-the-signal boxes. Mix and mastering engineers had to be creative as to what would make it through to the listener. Lots of techniques now found across all genres invented then -- the main one being how much complexity was added to the arrangements, due to higher track counts (vs. the more static mixes of the 70s).

I am told the loudness wars kicked of in earnest in the 1950s with 45s. It seems we've just managed to made it less musical with digital brick-wall limiters. (And then tried to make brickwall limiters sound less brickwallish. Go figure!)

Thanks again for your comments. I'll have a listen to your mix later today.