akor mix

[akor]

my mix)

[WavolutionLab]

really cool mix too

[Mike Senior]

It sounds like you've made a lot of good decisions here, but I think you've used the scratch vocal track for your mix. The overdub was much stronger I thought -- I only included the scratch with the multitracks so that you can do any little patches if you wanted.

The solos could be ridden up a bit more -- the trombone solo in particular sounds a bit burried at times. The saxes also seem to dominate unduly in the balance at times, so some rides would have made sense too. The Ride cymbal seems rather too far forward in the depth perspective to me too, although that's less a question of fader moves as it is mix processing.

[akor]

Thank you! I'll try to fix my mix tailored to your comments!
p.s. Sorry for my english)

[Mike Senior]

Just a few more thoughts on listening again on the studio speakers... A very 'present' rendition this, and mostly very sensibly balanced for the most part. You've kept things very dry, which feels a bit too stark to me, and compromises the blend as a result. The overheads in particular feel too upfront, for instance, and the saxes feel more upfront at 2:15 than the trombone solo. This isn't a multitrack which I feel you can really just take as it is. It was recorded in the way it was so that there's be some control at mixdown over the ensemble, but that does mean that it does require a bit of 'reassembly from flatpack'. It's not that I'm demanding that everyone make their mixes as wet as mine, but even with this kind of upfront needs to cohere into a believable ensemble I reckon.

The one reverb I really can hear is that on the lead vocal, but it feels a bit stuck on, because it strongly suggests an acoustic that's at odds with that of the band as a whole, so it doesn't really do its job of blending her overdub in with the band. It can take a while to find a suitable reverb patch in this kind of application, so you do need to give it enough time -- I think I went through about 40 convolution impulse responses before I found on that seemed to do the job on a subjective level when I was tackling this mix, and that's not unusual.

[PS. Also, thanks for all your contributions to this Discussion Zone so far. It's great to have people like you putting out mixes and feedback to help future students in the long run.]