Pat,

The theory is to make those adjustments in context with the other tracks instead of "soloing" each individual track to make the adjustments so that you're making decisions for the vibe of the "whole" song.

Also a country, pop, rock, blues or jazz genre will have basic principles in common but there are subtle and sometimes not so subtle differences in how they are mixed. And of course each individual song has it's own signature.

From what I hear - sometimes "sparkle" is confused with "brightness" and all that treble tires my ears. I know what Kevin is talking about - I believe - it's that magic I call sheen which makes the mix both warm and sparkly. Pulling it off is the holy grail of mixing - especially for the home recording crowd.

Kevin,

Personally I think the basic mix has to be there and then it comes from the mastering. One thing the mastering plugs like ozone will do is show your mix faults loud and clear. I also have Final Mix which I find to be much brighter than Ozone. The T-Racks compresser I have is warmer. So there are differences in the overall sound of the plugs as well as the individual settings imo.

In the end tho I don't know how close a home studio can get to that pro record sheen and sparkle without investing serious wads of cash and trading ears with a mastering engineer. I think hardware beyond plugins is definately involved.

BTW, as the disclaimer, I'm a better mixer than I used to be and not where I wanna be - but I study this stuff every chance I get and continue to experiment to get better.

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