All The Gin Is Gone - Olli H

[dcp10200]

THanks, good points.
I'm testing quite heavily delays in this mix. That might cause the "being blurred together". (Delays have probably nothing to do with McBride. His recordings were just check point for the sound and balance of instruments.) But for some reason I like to have distance to horns, ie. i like to hear them from distance and singing in space. So these dry horns were a testbed for me, I tried to create pulsing room sound, where room participates in the groove.

I used very little compression. ALthough I always do quite loud mixes, still I'm using quite conservative amounts of compression (2-4 dB), at least I think so.

Could you please specify some spots in this song where things should duck down more? I know very little jazz and it quite often sounds like hasty speed competition to me

I would try automating the drums down in the solo sections with the horns and piano and during the drum fills towards the end automate the drums up louder to make them stand out more.

As for mixing Jazz, I find it in an odd way like mixing Death Metal and Grindcore ambiance wise. Death Metal and Grindcore are both genres that really are known for being very dry sounding, most of this comes from the speed and ferociousness of the music and the fact that any big ambiance is going to muddy up the drums and guitars and just kill the mix (Also alot of these bands couldn't afford to record in awesome studios and were rather DIY). Jazz, specifically stuff from the 50's and 60's, featured lots of fast, rhyhmically complex soloing and playing. With jazz of this style I fins using a short reverb that emulates more of a room sound brought up enough to add some air and a little bit of space works best. I'm more of a Rock and Metal mixer myself but what I find helps is mixing in the reverse of what you would do for rock. Focus more on the bass, piano, and horns, the drums are more or less the background instrument in Jazz (Unless you're talking Gene Kruppa and Buddy Rich ) but do have a solo from time to time.

Hope this helps, and cheers,
Dcp