can y'all check these mixes of mine?

First link is 404.

Second link critique: A bit muddy, the kick and bass interact in a way that makes one or the other jump out too much at certain times. I think the wurly/rhodes needs to be more airy and spread in the mix. Seems like the main body of all the instruments fall down the middle and get congested. Toms need to be up in the mix or have more top end. Hats need a narrow cut somewhere in that clank region. Piano needs more top end as it gets lost in the mix a lot.

That's just my initial impressions. Overall things just get lost under the sax when I think they could all have more clarity without being overpowering.

Bass is too muddy, and over powers the mix, even on the cheap lacking-low-end headphones here at work.

The organ could be stronger.

The drum components sound generally good, but that's just it... it doesn't sound like a kit. I would try to get more of a "room sound" going for the kit, and also bring the toms in a bit -- they are too wide for my taste.

Overall, the mix doesn't gel.

I think the mix sounded very good in the video. I particularly loved the soft sparkle of the cymbals. In fact, it's very close to what I consider to be the holy grail of overhead sound for contemporary jazz. It might be tempting to bring out the synth/organ ..and even more, the guitar - but honestly, I was not impressed (or confused) by some of the voicings they were playing at times. Where I would normally expect to hear cleaner altered/lydb7 substitutions or voicings in 4ths, etc. I heard mud. More politely - I thought the levels were well-considered. To be fair, getting a keyboard player and guitarist to comp changes together musically requires the best of players. Maybe the bottom end - both Kick and Bass could have been pushed a bit, but I'm writing this hours after listening to the video.

My taste on the mixes:

Mix one:

Get that Kick drum under control, sounds too boomy for my taste, cut with a sharp Q factor between 200-300 Hz.
Lower the level smooth the transient...
Overall the snare drum has no height, no room, for my taste the drums need a drum room and you may put an FX verb on the snare?
I would could out some 100 Hz on the snare to free the space in the low end for low end instruments.

The whole thing does not sounds like tracked in a room I also would try the 7H reverb.
I miss tons of ERs.

Overall listen to some Fourpaly records from the 80s that should be your reference.

Mix two sounds very harsh in the top end special on the HH tsss tsss...NG to my ears.
I like the sanre way better than in mix one.
Also the saxphone has some saturation thing going on that makes it hard to listen to???
The sax could be more 3D to my taste, use some delays to get some width and some reverb for depth.

No Automatin, doubt that it will work for every song, every song needs some special treatmeant.
A Ballad is something diffrent from an up tempo song etc....


My 2 cents Cheers.

I didn't know that the video wasn't one of the mixes in the links, so I didn't listen to it.

I think the video mix is much more like what I was imagining when I suggested my changes. It's much more clear and rich with the instruments being very distinct.

Cool, I'll have a go at it.

When I got started in this business I was 17, I'm 33 now, but back then I got hired a lot by local churches, choirs and concert venues to record and mix their big events and such. Your post kinda took me back in a nostalgic moment for a second there.

One thing that you might want to give some thought to is whether that's how it would sound sitting 10 rows back. It seems like everything is just slammed in my face and there's not a lot of dynamic movement. One way to create that with a recording like you have is with a basic hall that you would feed the each mic'd head/instrument into to get it having some depth, that'll let you pull back the faders on the spots/direct ins. Then, because the sax is carrying the melody I would feed that into the same room, and put a plate behind it, something like a 2.5s rolled up to about 400hz and slowly slide that up until the sax starts to feel like it's special. Doing all that will allow you to pull back some compression and the spot faders a bit.

Another thing I would do is if you can use a transient designer on his kick to bring out the sustain a bit it'll sound more natural. Those guys love to throw pillows and God knows what else in there, so using a TD will get those drums ringing a little which again will allow you to pull things back so your mix has more dynamic movement.

I normally don't do critiques, but it brought back a lot of nostalgia.

-Jerome

Well, you can't expect everywhere to be Oceanway, but there's no rule book saying that you can't make it sound that way.

My point was to create yourself a realistic structure to pipe instruments into and then give the melody maker (horns) a little plate tucked back just to add another layer of depth.

svart did ya get a chance to put a mix together?

Awesome as usual. The first thing I notice is I want to hear a lot more bottom on the bass.

no x-noise? your mix has some seriously loud buzzing happening. the bass track had a lot of buzz, if I remember. I had to x-noise it along with my sax channel.

The mix in the video is great. The two dropbox both have some noticeable issues. Not sure in technical terms how to address them all. I have a pretty good idea how I'd tackle it, so I may try mixing your files. Oh, and that Metric Halo Channel Strip has some pretty serious issues.

Andy from Cytomic said the following about it:

"The Metric Halo CS3 EQ does look like exactly the noise of a 32-bit float DF1 biquad, if green means around -60 to -70 dB then I'm very confident this is the cause. Regardless of if I'm exactly right or not you really do have to ask yourself if you want low frequency rumble added to your mix every time you do a high pass filter to remove low frequency rumble!"

I've done the tests myself and it does add low rumble after subtracting low rumble. Pro Tools' EQ3 or whatever it's called does the same thing. It could be problematic for you. There's gotta be an inexpensive channel strip that's just as good or better. Bx_Console is kinda pricey, but maybe you could try something from Hornet, Stillwell, or Sknote. Waves sells a lot of stuff for $29 these days too. Gear/Software definitely does matter, despite the mantra some people preach about only needing stock plugins. You really only used the Metric Halo and X-Noise? I'll 2nd the Seventh Heaven recommendation. The regular one is great and not expensive. Seventh Heaven for me is the only ITB reverb I'll use. Just kills anything else when I load up another reverb for comparison. The pro version is worthwhile, especially since they added the non-linear algos. You may also want to try a tape plugin, like Hornet Tape or McDsp Analog Channel. Waves NLS can also do a lot for making a mix cohesive. I'm also starting to take a liking to Sknote Disto. You could also try resampling the files to 88 or 96 in Audacity and mixing at a higher sample rate if you're mixing at 44/48. Audacity's SRC is among the best nowadays, just set it to the highest quality and use the dither.