Hi, time for my version. Apologies for the playing and the lack of instructions but some of that was deliberate.
The first lesson learned, I would suggest, is that it is far easier to mix yourself then somebody else. Unless we are really lucky most of the mixing we'll do is for ourselves or for bands/performers we know. If you branch out and approach your local studios to mix for free any work you get may be worse than my recordings.
I'd like to explain how I approached mixing this track in particular. First off I had a vague idea of how everything would fit together when I recorded the individual tracks. I knew that the bass playing was awful in parts and that the second guitar lines didn't work very well either. I left them in because it was an exercise in mixing and I wanted to see what people would do with them.
If I was mixing for somebody else I would have imported all the tracks into my DAW and listened to the full song raw. I'd have identified musically what I liked and what I didn't and worked to bring those parts I liked out and mask those I didn't.
As I'd recorded myself I didn't really need to do that so I moved to the next stage. I mixed the drums and bass together. I didn't like what I heard so decided to put them lower in the mix. This meant that the rhythm was pushed forward by the guitar. I mixed all three tracks together to produce the hybrid you hear on my mix. I liked the tambourine so that became another rhythmic instrument. The bass sneaks out now and again, which was ok.
I liked the riff and treated it as a chorus in a song, the bits in between were the verses. I found that because of my limitations as a guitar player it was boring over the 2 and half minutes. That may have been because I'd worked on the track a lot but I doubt it. I used the crowd noise as a way of breaking up the music and adding a bit more interest to the track. That's all it was there for, like a spice you can add to a meal, or not, as you see fit.
My mix isn't as bright but that's down to my personal taste.
I liked what habiTat did to the instruments. The bass and second guitar sounded really good, unfortunately you could also hear my playing really well. Not a good thing.
I thought Ramshackles transformed my bass playing and the drum and bass fitted better together. It had a nice bass heavy feel, which I like. I could also live with what Ramshackles did to the second lead line.
If anyone has any questions or comments on my mix please ask.
Thank you all for taking part.
diadem
