Fine mix for a fine song

[hanibal005]

Hybrid mixed this one because I felt like this song would benefit from analogue summing/mix decisions. No crazy compressed guitars or mexican polka bass. No reverb. No automation necessary because the musicians did it themselves. Enjoy.

[hanibal005]

Any suggestions?

[pauli]

I think your levels are great for the most part, and you're right that the performances are excellent. For me what's lacking is clarity... in my monitors many of the performance details are either being masked by frequency information from other instruments or the sonic balance of the entire ensemble is gelling into something somewhat formless. It almost feels like it needs more high end or "air," but in my experience that almost always means there's too much going on in the low mids. When you're Bruce Swedien and you can get a dozen musicians into a beautiful studio with a selection of 150 mics, skilled performances like these often need very little in the way of EQ and compression, but this is an overdubbed production so I'd suggest rethinking your approach.

Just a few suggestions based on my personal opinion... The guitar needs to be highpassed maybe as high as 300 if you want the cellos low end contribution to be heard, and it's also conflicting with the bass quite severely from 100 to 300, which is making the low end feel lumpy, and if you pay attention to the kick, you'll notice you're hearing more of its transient than anything else because the more audible low mids are overwhelming the tone produced by the drum. Try muting everything but the guitar, kick, and bass... highpass the guitar like I mentioned, and wiggle around a 3db peaking cut in the low mid area on the bass until the kick drum sounds fuller... and try the same technique somewhere between 300 and 500 on the kick to see if the bass guitar starts agreeing with it a little better, and maybe your low mids will breathe a little better. When you get that working, I imagine your other mix decisions won't change much, but it'll feel better formed, at least to my ears A famous engineer once suggested that if you get the low mids working, everything else will mix itself!