Need help on evaluating a mix

[rpjazzguitar]

Ginga | SoundClick

That's a link to my Soundclick page.

The first tune is 27Oct Ceus Azuis 315.

I'm trying to mix it using bad ears and questionable equipment.

It sounds okay to me. My main questions are:

1. Are the relative volumes of the instruments in the ballpark? Note especially the bass and the higher pitches of the percussion instruments, of which there are many.

2. Is the panning okay, especially in the percussion only section at the end?

Thanks in advance for any help you might offer!

[ragman1]

Lead's too soft, gets drowned by the rhythm. I thought at first it was an introduction and something else was going to take over, but no. Nice tune, though.

I'm surprised you didn't think this too, to be honest.

[rpjazzguitar]

Lead's too soft, gets drowned by the rhythm. I thought at first it was an introduction and something else was going to take over, but no. Nice tune, though.

I'm surprised you didn't think this too, to be honest.

Thanks!

I think I'm hearing midrange much better than either lows or highs due to hearing impairment. A lot of the percussion is pretty high in pitch. OTOH, this is a style that tends to sound good with a lot of percussion.

I'll try it with the lead louder, though.

[ragman1]

Of course the rhythm's extremely important but the instrumentation is more so, it gives it life. Listen to any You tube on it.

I liked what you were doing and I hope it's rescuable!

[fep]

Nice tune and sweet vibe.

I'd lower the volume of the shaker a little bit and the triangle a bit more than that.

On the triangle I'd use a high shelf somewhere around 10k and lower by a couple db to take some of the harshness out.

I'd try to experiment with the bass and the low drum/percussion, looking for more more note definition (Jaco had a lot of mids, listen to that, but not nearly as much here), maybe a little bump somewhere in the upper mids and a high pass filter sliding it to the right to taste (on each of those tracks).

I'd try some overall slight compression and a bit of reverb in the master track to glue things together a bit.
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I took your track and added a little bit of compression and reverb. Also I did this to the eq, mostly increasing the mids. (see images) This eq setting would change if you were to eq the individual tracks of the low instruments as I discussed above. My wav file with those changes, click Box

[rpjazzguitar]

Nice tune and sweet vibe.

I'd lower the volume of the shaker a little bit and the triangle a bit more than that.

On the triangle I'd use a high shelf somewhere around 10k and lower by a couple db to take some of the harshness out.

I'd try to experiment with the bass and the low drum/percussion, looking for more more note definition (Jaco had a lot of mids, listen to that, but not nearly as much here), maybe a little bump somewhere in the upper mids and a high pass filter sliding it to the right to taste (on each of those tracks).

I'd try some overall slight compression and a bit of reverb in the master track to glue things together a bit.
_________________________________

I took your track and added a little bit of compression and reverb. Also I did this to the eq, mostly increasing the mids. (see images) This eq setting would change if you were to eq the individual tracks of the low instruments as I discussed above. My wav file with those changes, click Box

Frank, that was above and beyond. Your mix sounds great. I've incorporated the EQ ideas. I don't have the same reverb, but I added some that seems similar.

Please let me know any time there is something I can offer in return.

BTW, one problem with the bass is that it's not a live player. So, no articulation. There are two tracks in there that I generated with Musescore, bass and toms. The live percussionist probably gave me so much that I'll delete the toms. Also, that track that sounds like a cuica (barking dog) was an error and the percussionist suggested that I delete it. In fact, it was pandeiro processed in some unknown fashion by accident. I like the bark, but there is also a 16th note tapping sound in the same track that can't be deleted -- so the track will end up out.

[fep]

Frank, that was above and beyond. Your mix sounds great. I've incorporated the EQ ideas. I don't have the same reverb, but I added some that seems similar.

Please let me know any time there is something I can offer in return.

BTW, one problem with the bass is that it's not a live player. So, no articulation. There are two tracks in there that I generated with Musescore, bass and toms. The live percussionist probably gave me so much that I'll delete the toms. Also, that track that sounds like a cuica (barking dog) was an error and the percussionist suggested that I delete it. In fact, it was pandeiro processed in some unknown fashion by accident. I like the bark, but there is also a 16th note tapping sound in the same track that can't be deleted -- so the track will end up out.

I'm glad that could be some help.

Re: the reverb. I used that one as it is so easy to use, I just adjusted the level with the Dry/Wet slider. Normally in my final mix I use the reverb that comes with Reaper, the one that uses impulse response files.
The Acon Reverb is also nice to use while tracking if you want to hear reverb while monitoring, that reverb doesn't use much pc resources (the Reverb with impulse files on my PC glitches out a bit when tracking).

The Acon Reverb is free and I found it from Produce Like a Pro who is the mixing/recording guy I follow on youtube.