Little Boat

[Bristol Posse]

I haven't recorded one of my little crappy, happy Brit pappy songs in a while. Been travelling a ton for work plus I've been focussing more on playing out. People seemed to like this one when I mixed it in with some covers in a coffee house set so I figured I'd have a crack at recording and arranging it.

I decided to make it using the K.I.S.S (keep it simple stoopid) principle:
So with that in mind I used no VSTi except drums because I don't have a real Kit. Everything else was real instruments Mic'd and each track was done in one pass (after a good deal of rehearsal). No punch ins and no comping tracks together to make a perfect "Frankentrack"
I tried to get as much of the EQ and in some case stereo field placement as possible from where I placed the mics and instruments

I limited myself to 24 tracks, if I needed more track space, I had to commit to a decision and bounce multiple parts down into a single track to make room for the new material

Come mix time I used one plugin (on multiple tracks) which was the waves SSL channel strip (EQ, Comp & Gate)
Reverb came from the space I was in
I also used 2 channels of hardware EQ(Speck ASC) and compression (ART Pro VLA)on the main vox and bass
I used a hardware bus compressor on the drums (Chameleon Labs 7720)
I summed through a DBox and the final mix passed through another bus comp (A second 7720) on the way back to reaper to record

I kind of like recording this way with much fewer options and more emphasis on tracking, it felt less like a tech job

Anyway enough of my babbling this is the mix
Little Boat

 

[chandlerhimself]

Sounds pretty good except for 2 things I noticed. It seems unbalanced. There seems to be a lot of stuff on the right side, but not the left. Maybe it's just me. Also the mix doesn't seem to be filling up the frequency space. All the instruments sound too small. The other thing I heard was a lack of punch. Maybe it's related to the instruments sounding small or maybe it's too much compression. Maybe that's what you're going for though. Anyway I thought it sounded good and fairly balanced. Nice song

 

[fat_fleet]

I personally didn't notice any leaning. Only thing I notice is maybe the whole mix could be a little brighter, but I'm probably fishing a little (if you will). Overall a much cleaner and uncluttered recording than I'm capable of. Quirky, fun song too. Definitely has a lot of personality.

 

[Bristol Posse]

Thanks for the listens and the feedback so far

There seems to be a lot of stuff on the right side, but not the left

that's an interesting comment, Actually there is a slight imbalance RMS wise in favor of the left channel, only a DB or so.
I don't really find myself drawn one way or the other in the stereo field. I'm not necessarily looking for a symetrical mix. The mono sounds are where they need to be and everything else is placed according to where I wanted it.
Maybe the perception of more on the right is because there is actually a tiny bit more space there than on the left

Only thing I notice is maybe the whole mix could be a little brighter

I always think that my vocals aren't bright enough. But I think that is because when I sing them, in my head i'm hearing some kind of hybrid all the vocal greats, rock god voice. Then when it's recorded and played back I realize "oh it's just me and I'm not quite the superstar I imagine and holy cow, my voice isn't very bright"
In the past I've ruined a bunch of songs adding exciters and lots of high shlef to the vox. Now I mostly leave alone and just accept it.

After a couple of days away from the mix though, I still thought the vox were a tiny bit lacking so I added about a dB of 16ish khz shelf
I also brought the vox verb up a fraction as they were just a hair too dry
Finally, I pulled the snare back a tiny bit, lengthening the reverb a fraction and dropping the level a hair. I felt it was a little too "Smacky" and "CLA"ish and not quite right for the song
I also cleaned up a couple of piano notes and a couple of other things that were, with fresh ears, just poking out a little

This is (I think) the final mix