AbletonesBigBand_SongOfIndia

[warakl]

Thanks for listening - share your thoughts

[Vosk0z]

I'm sure somewhere in that ensemble there's a guitar which i can't hear on my system
Some other instrument (i currently don't remember which one) is kinda distant from the group. For my taste it's ok. But i got the feeling you didn't do it on purpose.
All in all it's nice, good vibe, neat groove.

[azwayne]

The guitar is purely rhythm and disposable. It is doing basically a double of the right hand on the piano so no loss there if you can't make it stand out.

I'd go back in this and look at the blend of the instruments a bit. We're hearing the first parts just well but the second parts (the lower nots of the chords) aren't coming through so well. Try, for example, taking the saxophones, looping one section of them, and just see if you can get them to balance against themselves. My perspective is that you should almost hear the second part more prominently than the first part because the first part, being higher, is going to come through without a whole lot of effort on your part. Once you've got these balanced in one section, set up some autiomation using that as a baseline. Then go through the tune bit by bit and make sure they are staying in balance, adjusting with the automation as needed. Finally, feed them through a group fader so you can control them as a unit. (Though as you gain more experience, you will eventually discover that there are pitfalls to be avoided there as well.)

One thing to watch out for regarding balance in this tune is that first trumpet. He was very prominent in the spill to the various mics and that made him hard to massage and properly layer into place, especially if you choose to use the room mics. The more you add, the more you start to undo the corrections you made by adjusting the Trumpet #1 mic.

Also be careful that you don't bury the muted trombone. It's actually an important part. While it should be subdued, it should still be distinct and certainly should not disappear. (Looking at this group's website, I gather that that's actually the conductor, btw, so his ego wouldn't take well to that.)

I think there is also a bit too much of the drum kit. Two things regarding the foundation that I had problems with on this were the fact that the kick drum just sounded ruddy awful and the bass player's technique did not lend itself well to a clear, even recording so there was some adjustment to be made to him. Fortunately, I was able to fix the bass player mostly with compression and a bit of blending of the DI vs mic.

Personally, I love this tune. It's not particularly complicated, musically, but it sure is a pleasure to listen to and there is certainly room for creativity. (Check out the low fidelity mix one of the folks here posted not too long ago! It's a really interesting idea.) It does require a bit of a musical ear in order to get it to settle down and start to feel good, though. It's not a bad one for tuning the ear on. There are a fair number of issues with the basic tracks that require a little thought and a lot of trial and error to figure out. Don't worry if you can't figure out how to handle the room mics. No one else here has settled on what should be done with them either.