Thank you Steve. The production this is just a matter of deciding what I wanted to be when I grow up, and I pretty much abandoned outboard gear and started mixing on the computer using a control surface so I didn't have to give up my precious sliders yet mix digitally.

I will play with the reverb and experiment with your suggestion.

The dry spell was a combination of things and as those things went away one by one it got better. I'm not out of the woods completely yet but I can see the sun shining through the branches.

When I listen to my stuff, something i do is listen to the same file through phones, laptop speakers, desktop speakers, desktop with subwoofer, the 6 speaker surround in the living room, the nearfield monitors in the studio, and the car. I am always shocked to hear how the exact same file sounds so different, and I try to find a balance point where I can fix it on the weak ones without hurting the strong ones, so try it NOT through phones and see if it sounds different.

I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.

1. How much did you make in 2023?
2. Send it to us.