Kevin Walsh

Thanks for your feedback, Tom. I always struggle with bass eq and tone and getting the levels right. Good feedback on the snare, but I'm unsure of how I vary the samples. I know I can run a humanize function on the MIDI note velocities, but that's not quite what you're talking about, is it? As for guitar, gotta love S-Gear, right? By the way, some of the clean tones are from the XLR out of a Fender Mustang GTX 100 I picked up a while ago. I'm pretty amazed at how good this thing sounds DI.

Thanks, Kurt!

Thanks, Wookie, I hear that as well. I appreciate it!

I'll give your idea a try, Nigel. I was considering that as well, thanks, I appreciate your advice.

Thanks for listening, gary!

Here's one I'm working on, your feedback is very much appreciated! Thanks in advance for your help. PS: Wow, I'm amazed at all the new songs pouring in to the forum! I'm way behind on my listening. Update 1: I added another snare track with different drum and a bit of reverb and blended it in with the original. I re-worked the bass a bit. Tamed the solo in the center a bit, not too much I hope. I also re-did the ending with a bit of a different arrangement. Thanks for your help, folks!

Thanks for jumping in on the update. I hate to resurrect posts that have had their run, but gary did great work that I wanted to expose. He's right though, the MP3 I posted doesn't do the mix job he did a lot of justice. I'm still very appreciative of his taking my stuff under his wing and I learned quite a bit from him as he worked through the various decisions involved.

gary is referring to my reference track for the tone I was after, "It's Good to be King", from Tom Petty's Wildflowers album. Needless to say, I didn't get there. I felt the drums were a bit of a drag on my original mix, so on my final mix I bounce the drum track to a wave file and nudged it ahead a bit so that the drums were hitting a tiny bit earlier than when lined up on the grid. I felt like that little change did a lot for the feel. But a real drummer would certainly have been better!

Added garybrun's mix, please feel free to comment. Thank you @garybrun !

I wonder if you have not set the midi track's output to the drum synth you are using?

Really lovely piece. The warmth of the pianos is incredible and wonderfully soothing. Composition is masterful. This one goes on the play list.

I agree, it keeps you interested even though it's relatively static. Very nice sounds and echoes, high quality stuff. Enjoyed it, thanks!

Very nice! Shades of Dave Matthews to my cauliflower ears. Sounds really good to me on my ancient KRK Rokit5's . I really like the vocal style here, delicate and a little vulnerable, very effective for the song. I think this is my favorite of your songs.

That's a first for me, a throat-singing song, awesome! The sounds are great in the mix is wonderful. I enjoyed it, thanks for posting.

If kit mic's are an option you might consider microphone parts' T12. It's a lovely thing and it clocks in under $400 (or it used to) or thereabouts. You just have to put it together.

Very lovely song. Your vocal work is just astounding, but it would all be for naught without the bones of a great song, and that's what you have here. Well done indeed.

Wow, great sound with a fantastic talent. The clarity is really something, nice work!

Agree with the Peter Gabriel comment. Lovely melody and arrangement. Everything's nice and clear, particularly the vocals which sound great. To my ear the vocals might be pulled back a bit to let the blend with the instruments but it works the way you have it too. This is good stuff!

Great take on a classic tune! Loved the glockenspiel.

Wow, an incredibly imaginative song Steve. The sound is pristine and the playing is spectacular, I enjoyed it a lot. I also listened to some of your other songs and you're a real hidden gem. Im going to have to your stuff a serious listen.

Thank you for taking the time to listen Nigel, I appreciate it.

Thanks very much for checking back in!

Yes, I figured that was the objective of your mix, and if I was catering to a youth market or if indeed I had any prayer whatsoever of selling any music at all I'd probably follow your advice. Your advice is always spot-on and your production sensibilities remain an influence for me. In the end I think one of the (very) few advantages of playing, writing and recording music in your 60's after all the dreams of hitting the road in a van with your band are long over is the absolute freedom to be self-indulgent. ?

Thanks jack, I was doing just that as you posted. I've used the suggestions above and also adjusted the drum track to be a little more ahead, sounded like it was dragging or got micro-shifted when I was doing stuff. I also took a page out of George Martin's playbook and sped the thing up by a few bpm.

Thanks for giving it a listen, I agree with you, it does sound a little flat and a little dull. To be honest, it's pretty hard for me to tell because of hearing loss in the upper frequencies, but your suggestion is in-line with the ideas from steve@baselines.com so we seem to be developing a consensus here.