35 People are Here

I got the mixes to where I thought they were solid on my own, but today I let my immediate family listen to them. It was also the first time I've heard the mixes on a commercial-grade stereo, which was very helpful. Mixing as I do on tiny 3" monitors or Sony MDR-7509HD headphones, judging the bass level and evenness is tough. Fortunately the bass sounded fine on a few of the songs, so I'm hoping I can just replicate those settings on the problematic ones. More a/b testing is required.

On first listen they didn't have many specific concerns about the mixes or the track sequencing, except to redo one vocal line and turn the trombone down, so I think I'm doing okay. I'm getting better at setting the vocal level but melody instruments are still tough for me (check how loud the violin is on this EP I mixed); I think it's that I hate to bury a part I've worked hard on. But as I tweak the mixes I find I'm thinking about them less as "band" recordings and more as voice and guitar recordings that happen to have other instruments to fill out the sound. Because I don't have a band, and when I perform these things I'll likely be doing them solo, so the mixes should be set up so that listeners can at least conceive of them that way.

I haven't actually given much thought to adapting them for performance yet. Instead I'm conceptualizing material for my next album, which may even be another notch softer than this one, and this one's already pretty AAA-friendly. I'd like to try recording the next one very simply, without a click, and with minimal instrumentation. I've learned all kinds of things on this last project all ready and I'm sure when I put it out I'll get all kinds of useful feedback as well. So the next one can only be better!