Blaming the equipment

Well, does it? The mix, master wasn't the issue here. At the time I'd overcompensated due to awareness of my lack of experience and wouldn't let it go until it at least competed or beat other tracks in my playlist. That was a mistake, in hindsight I'd rather the song be decent as opposed to technically correct. It's almost like I was so focussed on the production that I forgot about the songs themselves.

I know my experience is probably opposite to most, many have better songs but struggle with the mixing side. Although over the years I've seen people cyclically go round in a loop of equipment hoping that it'll make enough difference to fix the performance and arrangement (I was one of them) which it never will. What makes this even more odd is years later when I was doing on location or field engineering I used all sorts of crap and if I didn't do a good job with said equipment I wouldn't have been paid. So no, having an SM58 direct to interface isn't much of an issue in the grand scheme.

I realised later that I very much suit 251 or C800 style mic's and yes, my word the Core 59's, Shelford's, racks of 500's, modern plugins and high end condensers make my life considerably easier and I've developed a style to my mixes decades on. That's cool but it's a benefit not a necessity..