I had a couple listens to the song, and I think the other posters have identified both the strengths and weaknesses of the song.

I'm certainly not an expert, but I'll suggest that the key to mixing is clarity: making sure that the important stuff isn't buried. Here's an approach that you might consider.

First, turn the faders on all the tracks down to zero.

Choose a section to start with - usually the loudest is the trickiest, so you might start with that.

Pick the most important track. When in doubt, choose the vocals. Turn the volume up until it's at a good point.

Now, pick the next most important track. Again, bring the fader on that track up until it's loud enough. Since it's not as important as the prior track, make sure that it's quieter than the prior track(s).

That's the key idea: as wonderful as a particular track is, it should support the tracks above it. If it's ever competing, you need to fix it.

Now, listen though the section with the track you've added, and look for places where you can cut the instrument. It may be a lovely fingerpicked guitar, but in terms of the mix, perhaps having it only play at the spaces between the lyrics might make sense. So everywhere else, remove it.

As you add things, don't turn any track up - turn other tracks down, or where there are two things fighting, figure out which is most important, and turn down (or off) the less important track.

Continue to the next track, always asking the question: does this instrument really need to be playing during this section? Where can it be dropped and not make a difference?

Each added track should be less prominent than the prior.

Less is always more.

There's obviously a lot more to mixing than that, but that single idea of making sure that more important tracks never get masked will get you a lot closer to a clear mix.


-- David Cuny
My virtual singer development blog

Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?