Rough mix

[Alison]

Here is a new mix...

Sounds much better. The louder vocal goes better with the strings now.

The vocal still sounds less present/bright than the strings. I'd try the some EQ tweaks (with a parametric EQ plugin) to increase the clarity:

- first (and counter-intuitively), try to find and cut frequencies in the vocal track's low-mid range that are masking any clearer, higher frequencies
- next, apply gentle, wide boosts to the best-sounding upper frequencies in the vocal track

(See also: https://music.tutsplus.com/tutorials/a- ... -cms-25184)

...wondering if I tend to favor my left ear (my weakest!)...

...The backing still leans to the left but is less of an issue with your more present vocal...

I think the left-leaningness of this mix is that you've got the track with the "bass line" panned to the left. I'd try putting that track in the center of your mix. You can probably leave the other parts panned as they are now, but might need to tweak them a little after moving the bass part. Often, bass (with kick and snare if you have them), and the lead part (usu. a vocal), are all panned to the center.

Hmm, I double and triple checked to make sure I had the bassline in the center. . . it was visually. I'll have to check it again!

Eq is something that I am trying hard to understand. . . a work in progress. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll do some playing around with it! Some percussion instruments are on my "wish list!"

[JD01]

I am just beginning to understand the theory behind compression and reverb. . .

Re: Reverb.

Greg explained it to me like this:
Imagine you're standing at one end of rectangular room and your "band" are laid out in the room in front of you.
The more reverb you have the further back away from you in the room everything sounds.
So, combining reverb with L/R panning you can start to position all the elements of your band out in your "virtual room". Reverb is almost like you're panning things backward and forward in distance from yourself.

Its not quite as simple as that but I found that was a really good way of imagining it and it helped me get used to using reverb on my recordings.

You're obviously mainly recording acoustic instruments so you'll end up having a certain amount of room reverb anyway depending on how you mic things.

[rayc]

Besides the sharpness of the stereo image, bass instruments were traditionally, (can it be tradition dating back to the late 60s), centered as that made it easier to cut the master disk and allow a record to play without the needle jumping out of the track etc. - along with RIAA EQ that is.
It's not an issue for digital and tape forms but many of us have had our ears trained by listening.
Hearing loss - means cross referencing with you vol meters, (you can download VSTS that'll give you bigger/better ones), a little more to be sure. There are also some stereo image plug ins that will show where the sounds are.