@Neil Foskey Thanks Neil. In a mentor call, my mentor found some intelligibility issues with the VOX and suggested I needed to drop back the bass and guitars and work on the microediting of the vocals. I did that and agree that maybe now the relationship with the vocals is such that I can trim them back a bit. Thanks for your ears! Much appreiciated.

@Matthew Zamorano Zamorano Thanks Matthew. See comments above. I think the other thing I want to bring out a bit better is the bass eighth note pedal tones in the verses--get a bit lost. Thanks for listening and commenting!

Take anything I have to say with a giant grain of salt because I'm only a year beyond the Mixing Intensive. But I've been exactly where you are. It gets easier. I think my biggest realization was not to be afraid of using a limiter or clipper in helping shave the peaks. If it's left too peaky, it will trigger the limiter used to achieve loudness in a way that hurts your whole mix. You can take the peak down a couple of dB without changing the sound appreciably. And you may remember McCloskey did some EQ to manage (add to) the energy of the kick. Mostly, I'd say, really think it through, and use your ears. Shape the attack for the sound you like; manage the peak with some dynamics processing, but remember to check that you don't lose all the life when you ultimately drive it through a limiter; bring the energy up with gain; don't forget to check the mid frequencies necessary for translation to smaller speakers.

@Tom Baldwin no offense taken at all! Perhaps the winds column should be “I’m done trying to beat this dead horse!“ Input is always good because it sensitizes me to future efforts. As I listen, especially to those Tom triplets compared to my inspiration, which was war on drugs I don’t live here anymore, I really was spread out. And I will never un hear that. I think the best that I can say is that I strive to give expression to my ideas in a way that I’m proud to present without great expectations. And if anybody likes the song and wants to reproduce it from this demo state, that would be fantastic. But I’m happy to move on to the next song. And hopefully the next song will be produced better than the one before it. Anyway, I do appreciate your comments.

@Kevin McCloskey Now that is an amazing revelation! I guess I can now stop feeling sorry for myself. :)

Thanks for the provocative post. I started late in life after I retired. I'd spend way more time at it if entirely up to me (and I didn't have to fight for time). I began by writing songs, then as i produced them I knew I needed to know how to mix and master them, so in true Reverse Engineer fashion, I'm back down to knowing how to better write the song in the first place. My problem is my spouse who thinks I'm fiddling around, doesn't have any curiosity to understand one iota of this, goes into spasms every time she sees me in headphones, has actually embarrassed me when on a mentor call and thwarted two others. I really hate that. Of course, the more I learn the higher the bar for myself becomes, but I think I'm about to actually finish the first mastered song that I will be really proud of, knowing I've done the best I can do at this stage of my learning. And an LP in the hopper behind that. But, this feeling that others see this as John Nash (of the Beautiful Mind) hallucinating in my bedroom is really depressing. I'm down with sharing with any of you like minded people! Thanks all. ;)