I better listen to it in the studio but my first thought is that it is a bit thick in the low mid area (between 125hz-300hz) but I might be wrong since I'm using earbuds right now ;)

I love this stuff!

Dirty Steve, post: 426929, member: 48785 wrote: I'm also wondering what genre you would put this under

The banjo puts it into a modern folk genre to me. (y)

Dirty Steve, post: 426929, member: 48785 wrote: compression and overall level

Its hard to not comment on the mix, the overall sound is great.
My first 30 sec, the vocals are a bit back too far. Next time, to put the Vox more up front try reducing the reverb a bit on the main vocal .
I would put reverb on a group bus and blend the background vocals with the same amount of reverb now and the main with less, but both sharing the same 2-bus reverb effect. . Can you do that?
Add a bit of upper mids to them as well. then it would be close for mastering. Which is when you could add more overall treble to the whole mix which is what pcrecord was getting at?

Sounds good to me :)

This is a cool track.

Keeping in mind that anytime you present your work for a room full of musicians, writers, engineers and producers that you are likely to get a wide array of opinion and suggestion... LOL ;)

The panning seems far too wide to me. You've got banjo hard left, and - I think it might be an accordion (?) hard right, and to me, it's distracting, because it's not a "natural" sense of space... it's not how you would hear it if the band was playing live.

I would echo Chris's ( audiokid ) suggestion regarding the vocals, I'd like to hear them more upfront, with less verb... using a bus / aux for the reverb would help it to blend better.

I'm not sure I'd add much more presence to the vocal, it seems to be kinda teetering on being a bit too much in the 2-4k "pain" region as it is now... you might be able to pull back some of the lower mids, as PC mentioned, but personally, I wouldn't add any high end.

What mic and preamp did you use for vocals? For just a second there, when I first heard the vocals come in, I thought I heard similarities to either a dynamic mic, or maybe even a ribbon mic, with EQ hyped a bit in the 2k to 5k region...

d.

DonnyThompson, post: 426973, member: 46114 wrote: I'm not sure I'd add much more presence to the vocal, it seems to be kinda teetering on being a bit too much in the 2-4k "pain" region as it is now... you might be able to pull back some of the lower mids, as PC mentioned, but personally, I wouldn't add any high end.

Here's the fun part when we engineers hammer it out. :love::love::love:

If he pulled out the lower mids anywhere in this mix (too early at this point), the track would become weak and that would only exaggerate the upper end which would then become a domino effect of more reducing to a point thie mix would grow dull and less dynamic. The common fix would be to reach for more compression, eqing etc and so it goes... killing a good song because the gear lacks luster and better focus.( well executed space)
The tracking is misleading and is what it is. The carrot ends up being the classic reach to pull out lowermids in the mix and bring in the guns, followed by compressors ( pain killers) to hold back the pain,.
At this point, the lower mids are perfect there. The area that appears harsh is part of the gear/tracking/capture process (have to hear past that) which has nothing to do with the mix and therefore, don't even go there .

I do hear the phasy vox and some problematic mixing at this point, but it wouldn't be in the lower mids. This is my 30 sec listen test... ;)

:)

Very well mixed and mastered here, super present sound with a satisfying fullness, never harsh nor muddy, lovely balance and blend of instruments and voices, superb really. Nice full bass, crisp picking, clear accordion, excellent panning, clear vocals.
Artistically this is very creative too, a kind of quirky country song or something - I'm not a great expert on country music but this sounds snappy and clever, full of verve and flippy style, rhythmically piquant, arranged with just the right balance of space and bustle. Great characterful vocals, just the right mixture of smoothness and earthy immediacy.

Awesome thank you all so much. This is one I did maybe 6-7 years ago and I've been wondering if I should do a remix or just redo the master. I've just never been sure how close or far off I am. I think I will take a stab at it and post just for contrast, but you guys have helped confirm some things I've been unsure about.

DonnyThompson, post: 426973, member: 46114 wrote: What mic and preamp did you use for vocals?

I have a Rode NT1 on her and a Beyer 88 on him. If I remember right they were recorded simultaneously.

audiokid, post: 426983, member: 1 wrote: If he pulled out the lower mids anywhere in this mix (too early at this point), the track would become weak and that would only exaggerate the upper end

Totally agree I feel the lows are good just wondering if the highs are too harsh. Apparently I'm at least in the neighborhood.

audiokid, post: 426960, member: 1 wrote: I would put reverb on a group bus and blend the background vocals with the same amount of reverb now and the main with less, but both sharing the same 2-bus reverb effect

This is more akin to what I do now and probably one of the main things I would change. I find if there's too much verb on a part nowadays it's more of an artist call and I try to talk them down off the ledge as much as possible but when we did this I was still figuring out how to do that.

DonnyThompson, post: 426973, member: 46114 wrote: The panning seems far too wide to me.

This is a can of worms I've been coping with and it may be wiser to start a new thread so I'll save it for that.

DonnyThompson, post: 426973, member: 46114 wrote: Keeping in mind that anytime you present your work for a room full of musicians, writers, engineers and producers that you are likely to get a wide array of opinion and suggestion.

Absolutely and that's what I'm looking for. I need a gang of people like that who are NOT my friends to be sure you are not just telling me what I want to hear. I need cold hard unfiltered opinions from folks driven by the same passions I am. I respect all of your opinions and I love hearing them but at the end of the day I'll make my own calls regarding all the subjective artistic stuff. You are helping me clear up issues I've had for a while and frankly I can't really get that anywhere else so thank you again so much!

Dirty Steve, post: 426929, member: 48785 wrote: I'm also wondering what genre you would put this under? They're really a Country group but not by today's standards. Alt-Country? Classic Country? Is that even a thing? I'm a little fuzzy on this.

"Americana." Done.

Actually, you could call it several different things depending on the audience. If it's a country venue then you're alt country. If it's a folk venue then you're Americana/folk. Etc.

[MEDIA=soundcloud]mojosounds2/call-it-quits-2

So I did go out and dig up the old tracks. Fortunately my archiving skills have been pretty good. For the most part I left it the same, I just pulled in the panning a little bit and reworked the vocals so they're more dry and up front but still have a nice verb-y tone to them. I must say I do like it better.
I don't want to dwell on this too long, but I'll probably do one or two more passes and then move on. Once again would like your input.

Here's the first one for comparison:
[MEDIA=soundcloud]mojosounds2/lets-call-it-quits

Thanks again to you all!