I think a lot of this boils down to the insecurities of the performer. I hear this all the time in songs that people post too. The vocals and/or the lead instrument are mixed too low primarily because the person doesn't have enough confidence in their singing/playing to put themselves right out front and 'in your face' like the pro's do. Listen to a Sinatra or Bird recording. The vocal and sax alone are mixed louder than the whole band. Adding a lot of other tracks and processing the vocal with harmonies covers up a lot of sins.

It's scary to simply sing by yourself with some reverb and that's it with a simple accompaniment. I've fallen prey to that as well when I get called to do some solo piano stuff. This just happened a month ago on a big band gig for an 80th birthday party. I was paid an extra $75 to show up an hour early to do some solo piano Real Book standards prior to the band starting. This meant I'm playing for all the other players that are coming in and setting up as well as the audience. Just the audience alone doesn't bother me, I've done it before but playing solo while the band members are coming in caused me some distress bacause a few of them are total Hollywood studio pros who've worked with some of the best pianists in LA and I'm pretty good but I'm not in that class. No one is breaking my door down to book me for a film score session. It was hard to put out of my mind the thought that my playing probably sounds simple and even amateurish compared to the people they've recorded with. I know the truth is they don't care, a couple of the guys even said I sounded good but still....yeah, that's my insecurities there.

It would have been a whole lot easier for me to use my Korg arranger keyboard and play with the styles but it was booked as solo piano and it was an older crowd and I knew that's what they wanted.

A couple of times I felt like a bug on a plate.

Bob

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