Okay, so here's my take on this neat little tune. I guess I put in about 16 hours here. Should have been less but last night was spent almost entirely tweaking the bass and the back and forth of "too intense there not enough note there" sort of stuff so that wasted 3-4 hours. 
For the record (since it's not noted anywhere), the official tempo is 126, give or take half a point.
Problems with this mix:
1) This is an ensemble recording. That can be great for getting a good vibe from the band but awful for spill since space is limited in any studio and you can't separate the group too much or the vibe disappears.
2) The drum room mics are basically useless because the right channel has a lot of the vocal in it, probably from either a small room or poor placement of the vocalist (not being conscious of trying to find the mic's null).
3) There's a really neat sounding mic they put out in the hallway but I chose to not use it because the ambience didn't seem to quite fit the room sound we already had from the studio itself.
4) The vocals were not properly recorded and there are also at least two bad punches I heard and one punch 10 or 15 bars from the end where she even changed style a bit. It also seems as though there were no pop filters used at all. That meant having to automate down plosives and sibilance ahead of compressors and other FX processors. As well, one of the backing vocalists had some really bad breathing habbits that also had to be automated away. Tip: for a female or higher male vocalist, don't be afraid to use the bass rolloff on the mic itself, if there is one. It can really give you an edge dealing with plossives and if there's nothing down there anyway, what does it hurt?
5) The guitar player could have used some more volume on his amp. The signal recorded was somewhat small and his very light playing meant definition wasn't quite what it should have been. That made it hard to get it to stand out without being overpowering. Careful compression is the order of the day there to adjust the attack and sustain. A transient shaper is also useful.
6) With just drums, a stereo piano, vocalists (which, here, can't be spread too wide), and a bass, it is a challenge to put width in this mix.
Oh, and the typical problem of hihat bleed on the drum mics. There was enough of it in the overheads that I wasn't able to really control it with the close mic itself so mainly used it for positioning. Fortunately, the drums were mostly pretty well played except for some inconsistancy in the kick so this was not really an issue.
On the other hand, the piano sound was great. I know it was a synthesizer but it was quite well balanced, without too much ring or too much bass. I did have to go through and try to gently notch frequency bands one instrument to the next to help them all come through but it was easy to do becaus eeverything in this tune cooperates with those efforts. You don't have instruments occuying the same spectrum saying, "screw you. I'm not budging," to the mix engineer.
I tackled the width problem with a little Haas delay on the guitar and judicious use of reverb and delays. It's not as wide as I would like it but at least it's basically comfortable. I also felt a little help from drumagog was useful on that kick. I didn't touch the snare but there's a case to be made for that too.
Anyway, have a listen and tell me where I suck.
For the record (since it's not noted anywhere), the official tempo is 126, give or take half a point.
Problems with this mix:
1) This is an ensemble recording. That can be great for getting a good vibe from the band but awful for spill since space is limited in any studio and you can't separate the group too much or the vibe disappears.
2) The drum room mics are basically useless because the right channel has a lot of the vocal in it, probably from either a small room or poor placement of the vocalist (not being conscious of trying to find the mic's null).
3) There's a really neat sounding mic they put out in the hallway but I chose to not use it because the ambience didn't seem to quite fit the room sound we already had from the studio itself.
4) The vocals were not properly recorded and there are also at least two bad punches I heard and one punch 10 or 15 bars from the end where she even changed style a bit. It also seems as though there were no pop filters used at all. That meant having to automate down plosives and sibilance ahead of compressors and other FX processors. As well, one of the backing vocalists had some really bad breathing habbits that also had to be automated away. Tip: for a female or higher male vocalist, don't be afraid to use the bass rolloff on the mic itself, if there is one. It can really give you an edge dealing with plossives and if there's nothing down there anyway, what does it hurt?
5) The guitar player could have used some more volume on his amp. The signal recorded was somewhat small and his very light playing meant definition wasn't quite what it should have been. That made it hard to get it to stand out without being overpowering. Careful compression is the order of the day there to adjust the attack and sustain. A transient shaper is also useful.
6) With just drums, a stereo piano, vocalists (which, here, can't be spread too wide), and a bass, it is a challenge to put width in this mix.
Oh, and the typical problem of hihat bleed on the drum mics. There was enough of it in the overheads that I wasn't able to really control it with the close mic itself so mainly used it for positioning. Fortunately, the drums were mostly pretty well played except for some inconsistancy in the kick so this was not really an issue.
On the other hand, the piano sound was great. I know it was a synthesizer but it was quite well balanced, without too much ring or too much bass. I did have to go through and try to gently notch frequency bands one instrument to the next to help them all come through but it was easy to do becaus eeverything in this tune cooperates with those efforts. You don't have instruments occuying the same spectrum saying, "screw you. I'm not budging," to the mix engineer.
I tackled the width problem with a little Haas delay on the guitar and judicious use of reverb and delays. It's not as wide as I would like it but at least it's basically comfortable. I also felt a little help from drumagog was useful on that kick. I didn't touch the snare but there's a case to be made for that too.
Anyway, have a listen and tell me where I suck.
Old West Audio