A little Texas Music for ya..

 
It's got the twang! Nice pedal steel too. The mix sounds like it's coming out of the radio over here. I enjoyed this!
 
Have a rockin' good weekend ; )
 
Cheers,
 

Thanks for the critiques. Walt, it has been a few months since I mixed this and I am several hundred miles from my studio.  This mix is set up like virtually all of my mixes. Each channel has Slate VC and Slate VTR. The main mix buss has Slate VBC/VTR. All guitars were recorded direct thru a Pro Tools Eleven Rack. The bass is going thru a ADL 600 Stereo Pre. Keys also recorded thru the ADL. One vocal mic was a U87.  The drums are Slate. The only additional compression in the initial mix was a UAD LA2 and UAD VOG on the bass.  The stereo mix down was thru a UAD Massive Passive EQ and a concrete limiter.  At mix down I use four sets of tools. My ears, Ozone Inspector, Span, and the TT Dynamic Range monitoring tool to measure dynamic  range.
I mix down using ATM50's, NS10s, and a calibrated JBL LSR system.
This was mastered using Ozone 5.  For reference mixes I use several different sources in the same genre and visually and sonically compare them.  I try to follow the Dynamic Range guidelines that have been established by the TT DR folks.  Having read your comments, I will certainly revisit this, but truthfully, this sounds like much of the Texas Red Dirt genre mixes. ;)

Nice playing on this Steve.  Overly compressed yes but that is really easy to fix if you want to.  I would like to hear the lead vocal come up in energy to match the instrumentation.  All good.
 
Rimshot
 

Guys, just fyi   http://www.pleasurizemusic.com/  I will go back and recheck this mix when I get home.  I believe that this was mixed to the DR12 standard.  I joined this foundation some time  ago and have been using the TT DR meter on every mix since that time. It changed my use of compression significantly so that I began using less compression.  It is very interesting to throw this tool across a commercial mix and see just how compressed they can be.  I will be heading back to Houston tomorrow after this little road trip. I will pull this mix up and see what I did.  Thanks for the input!

WOW!! "Guys, just fy! Makes me want to reply for sure!!

http://www.stevestallingsmusic.com/audio/Time_Off_Dr14_16_bit_wav_hifi.m3u   ( A complete remix)
 
Hmm, When I got back to my studio this evening, I opened up the mix in question. The mix was nothing at all like I recalled above. I had just purchased UBK "Kush" and SPL Vitalizer and had used liberal doses of both. I did not even have the TT DR meter across the final mix so I don't know what I was thinking. Perhaps seduced by the "Fletcher Munson" curve.       Regardless, I spent about two hours remixing this. It is set up now as I initially thought with some differences in the master buss now. I did not use Ozone 5. Each individual tack starts with a slate virtual channel and ends with a Slate Virtual Tape set on 16 track. The only compression on the tracks is on the bass. It is a UAD LA2. The tracks are 10 or so tracks of Slate Drums mixed to a stereo track with no additional tweaking at all. Mono bass, 2 rhythm guitar tracks, 2 lead guitar tracks, one steel track, one vocal track, one keys track. The master buss was Slate Channel buss, Manley Massive Passive, Slate Virtual Compressor (gray) on the "glue " preset, Slate Virtual Tape on 1/2 inch, Ozone Insight, TT DR tool. This mix complies with the DR14 standard. The prior mix was actually closer to a DR9-10, so yes... certainly more compressed. I also did some EQ tweak on the keys to reduce smear.
 
So, thanks for the comments and discourse. I appreciate and enjoy it.

Steve, I don't think you understood my post at all. It was the just fy that was in question, as it didn't seem to work out well for me and seemed directed to those that had given you there honest critique and for doing so this was you response and so I didn't want to response because you might throw a hammer at me and hit me in the head if my critique was anything but positive. Do you understand where I was coming from now?
 
With that said,  I liked a lot of the first mix and some of it was more compressed than others like, but I use compression on just about all of my work and sometimes even a bit to much, but I like it. One this new version it is somewhat better, but the drums now sound back further than the first mix and there is still the sound of compression on the very tail at the end and so there is still a lot of compression going on. You did bring the vocals up some, but I have to agree with Rimshot about their energy level vs the music energy level, it seems like you are holding back on them and not letting them flow out with seriousness and true grit. Understand, I not a great singer at all, but when I do sing I let it all go from the soul. It's a really good song you have here going but if you willing to sing it over again with the same energy of the instrumentation, then I think it will be even much better that what you have so far done. Hope this is constructive critique and not taken in a negative light. It's just my own opinion and hope it's worth something.
 
Peace and Blessings, John

Dynamic Range.  I at this point am going back to square one.  I thought I understood this stuff fairly well but even after removing virtually all compression from a mix, it still is "too compressed".  Obviously, I must be doing something wrong somewhere.  This has actually prompted me to, at age 62, with over 30 years of recording experience, to enroll in Berklee online. I am one week in and it is pretty rudimentary at this point. Hopefully, I will be able to figure out the problem and where I am failing.  thanks, steve

Walt, I am taking "Introduction to Music Production".  Professor is Loudin Stearns.  This is a course thru "Coursera" which is a portal for free college courses.  This is free! I enrolled almost a week late but  will finally be caught up tonight. You can get a certificate of completion if you pay $39 and meet the course requirements. This is part of the MOOC's  (massive open online courses)   I certainly could not pay $1200 either.
 
www.coursera.org

Walt, it cost nothing and all it takes is enrolling. If you wanted to see the lecture schedule, I bet you could still enroll.  Yes, it has been pretty basic review so far.  Line level, spectrograms, terms, human hearing,  gain staging, audio signals, mic types, etc.  This week is pretty much basic DAW functions.  I will make of it what I can. The  extra out of class assignments are more interesting.  Take care.

As someone who works in a tech field, I understand the deep technical nature of the sound engineering that goes in to a properly produced song. However, I don't think I'll ever spend the time to get the technical education to do it the way it's supposed to be done. I enjoy the tech aspect? But I also like to fly by the seat of my pants with respect to it. That yields inconsistent results, but sometimes they're pretty good? And I like to use the tools God gave me (the ears) and experience listening to things by others, and by me. Tools, talent and experience should yield good results regardless of training.