Just to chime in, the notes were great and helpful. I tried the time align, felt it didn't improve things. I think what I can hear is some sort of phase mismatch between the xy and close Mic's. So I can see where time aligning would be tried. I tried it for every track, also tried phase rotation of every track. Nothing really did anything that jumped out at me and and said "I'm fixed", except for flipping the phase on one of the close Mic's and not using the other close mic.the XY are perfectly fine as-is and they would be easy to just solo and leave up. So I thought xY and one close mic was best. But that's no fun, we are learning to challenge ourselves here and I wanted each mic to give a voice. That's why I then listened to each close mic and chose one to be winds and the other to be strings, and tried to pan them to sort of match place in what the xy room might be. Total guesses.
Filtered each, strings a little more low end, winds a little more highs, blend those into the XY.
The other thing that I try never to do (similar to how I feel about time align which is nearly always ugliest option imo) I did here: tons of narrow EQs all boosting and fishing for pronounced frequencies, then ducking them. Basically I guess this is needed for modal rooms or comb filtering, but I know some in the pop auto tune crowd do this stuff no matter what which is simply annoying to me. I did all these tricks for first few years but then I realized, and honestly, whatever benefit is giving is also sucking the soul away. Only in very rare occasions where I run out of options do I try it anymore.
And one important thing to understand: analog can fix bad sounds. No EQ needed, just run it through the right piece of gear and it will clip it, (make things able to be mixed louder/less limiting needed) compress, even fix the modal resonances, and add a little harmonic life (distortion). A lot of home guys won't ever believe it, but that's the biggest reason IMO the pros have that sound that is so elusive. That and tons more tracks and automation and talent. Without analog though you can waste years getting everything else perfectly right but won't ever get what they get in 3 hours, because well yeah they have the tools and teamwork. Even if the mixing engineers and producer doesn't ever use analog, you can pretty much be assured the mastering engineer isn't some guy down the street.. but instead has many hits tons of gear and uses analog constantly, many times a day.
Filtered each, strings a little more low end, winds a little more highs, blend those into the XY.
The other thing that I try never to do (similar to how I feel about time align which is nearly always ugliest option imo) I did here: tons of narrow EQs all boosting and fishing for pronounced frequencies, then ducking them. Basically I guess this is needed for modal rooms or comb filtering, but I know some in the pop auto tune crowd do this stuff no matter what which is simply annoying to me. I did all these tricks for first few years but then I realized, and honestly, whatever benefit is giving is also sucking the soul away. Only in very rare occasions where I run out of options do I try it anymore.
And one important thing to understand: analog can fix bad sounds. No EQ needed, just run it through the right piece of gear and it will clip it, (make things able to be mixed louder/less limiting needed) compress, even fix the modal resonances, and add a little harmonic life (distortion). A lot of home guys won't ever believe it, but that's the biggest reason IMO the pros have that sound that is so elusive. That and tons more tracks and automation and talent. Without analog though you can waste years getting everything else perfectly right but won't ever get what they get in 3 hours, because well yeah they have the tools and teamwork. Even if the mixing engineers and producer doesn't ever use analog, you can pretty much be assured the mastering engineer isn't some guy down the street.. but instead has many hits tons of gear and uses analog constantly, many times a day.