irishfolker said:
I hope you don't mind me popping in here with a related question. I'll be doing a project along similar lines, but also with some unaccompanied vocal and possibly a few with some more instruments involved. Should similarly instrumented songs on the same CD be mixed in a similar fashion (voice vs guitar placement, effects, that sort of thing)? Would mixing things up from song to song decrease the comfort level of the listener?
That can go either way, IMHO.
If the style and arrangment of the individual sounds are rather close to begin with, and/or if you are looking for a continuity of sound across an entire album; e.g if you want the album to sound like "An Evening With Joe Artist with special guest Jane Vocalist", then keeping the soundstage fairly regular across the songs could be what's called for.
If, OTOH, the CD is more like a collection of individual songs with a rather distinct character (even if the instruemnts are the same), and you are looking more to get each song to shine to it's highest polish (e.g. "The Best of Joe Artist"), then keeping the mix arrangements the same could be stiffling the individual songs. In such a case, let each song dictate the mix; listen to each song and it's parts and decide how best you can play to it's strengths in the mix.
It's like a diamond cutter; he doesn't go in to work and decide "I feel like making rose cuts only today." He instead has to examine each raw chunk of diamond individually and make his own best artistic judgement what kind of cut will make that particular stone glow the best.
You have to decide whether your CD is going to be more like a theme piece, a performance recording, or a collection of individual hits. This will affect not only how you mix the songs, but (hopefully) how you track them as well. That's where you get to play producer.
HTH,
G.
