Jazz mixing advice?

[jazzysteve02]

Hey everybody! I'm wondering if you guys can help me out with some advice on how to improve my mix on these jazz tunes I just submitted. The screener rejected the tracks, checking the box for "recording". I'm admittedly pretty inexperienced with mixing, so any tips/advice you have are welcome! Thankswww.taxi.com/mccarvelTracks: "Dark Alley Sally" and "Hopeless Hero Blues"

[steveyeager]

to me every thing sounds right up the middlethere's no space between the instrumentsyou need some judicious panningbass up the middledrums next to himpiano leftsax right

[ideascapes]

Steve,I listened to Dark Alley Sally. The sax sounds really nice. The piano is a little distant in the mix. The bass sounds solid. The drums could be more present (the ride is pretty forward later on).Hope this helps.Vince

[eokamura]

Yeah, more stereo imaging would help a lot. Especially the drums. Piano needs something to give it more punch but i know nothing about recording piano, sorry. eo.

[slotter]

Hey Jazz Steve, sounds pretty good to me. Depends on the kind of Jazz they were after. You have a pretty classic Jazz sound there, but nowdays most people think of Diana Krall when they think of Jazz... super produced clean sound, close miking etc.However, what I would say is, like the other guys said... seperate the instruments a bit. Check out old Jazz records, sometimes they have drums panned hard left or hard right etc...Also, in "Dark Alley Sally" I'm sure I heard the sax reverb drop out at the end of the track. The sax has a lot of reverb (maybe a bit too much) and then at some point towards the end it sounds extremely dry. Maybe check that out... It could be me hallucinating though... I've just spent 5 days in the studio and my ears may be playing trippy tricks on me!good luckDave

[ernstinen]

Oct 20, 2009, 3:43am, slotter wrote:Also, in "Dark Alley Sally" I'm sure I heard the sax reverb drop out at the end of the track.Yup, around 3:05 after the drum break the reverb cuts out.This is obviously a 'live' recording, and the aforementioned panning ideas would sure help --- that is, if this is a multi-track recording! If it's one mic in a room, there's not a whole lot you can do with the mix, except maybe run it through a stereo processor.Also, if that's the case, you can add some highs above 12khz to open up the drums more so you can hear the brushes better.Nice playing!Ern