Mix Challenge

(This time I won't go into details like how much eqing the vocals needed or which plugins were used on what instrument, rather I'll describe what was done on the tracks.)

For starters, I tried to incorporate a lot of Isa's references into my mix, hoping it would sound good, and I think it does! For example the plucky bass, although I think it gets buried at times by how I mixed it, it's really rather plucky! Also that piano, wow I have no idea how to really make it sound like the reference Isa provided but I think I got a similar vibe out of it!

Anyway, onto the tracks:

Drums and percussion: Not a lot of tweaking there, great samples and elements. Mostly just panning and volume balancing and a smidge of eq and compression on the kick and snare (also some volume automation). On one of the shakers I added a little delay to create a different groove, more latin inspired, helps fill in the space between. Guiro was panning automated.

Bass: just a lot of eq and compression, also divided it into three parts, a DI low end heavily compressed bass, a DI midrange bass with some distortion (also heavily compressed), all blended with the original track that was put through a bass amp sim. Also really liked the idea from the original mix of there being some reverb in the intro so I basically tried to emulate that with a spring reverb.

Guitars: nothin special, let's move on, lol, just some eq comp, a delay here and there, a little volume automation here, there, everywhere lol

Piano: ahh, a lot of eq, saturation, and a lo-fi effect with the free Cymatics Origin plugin also a little panning around with MAutoPan

Trompetas! Surprised me with how wet with reverb they already were so they got a touch of transient enhancing, some eq and saturation, and volume automation! In the end I also enhanced the width of their high end

Marimba: was first balanced amongst the tracks then eq, comp/limiting, saturation, added a delay plugin to enhance the space between, gave it a little tremolo like effect I think...

Vocals, vocals, vocals... ahhhh, so much was done... jk! Not really all that much was done I think, some general eq and then compression with LALA by AnalogObsession, de-essing (ok, prolly a lot of it, but I think it still sounds pretty ok, not lispy at all!), also used Waves Silk Vocal to even it out a bit more, like Soothe 2 would do, but I'm too cheap for Soothe 2 lol.
What else, what else... Ah! Yes. Seeing as I use that Brauerize template, my vocal was treated with several (emulated) vintage compressors (and a distressor, but he's also probably vintage by now lol), all of which I automated for different tastes in the verses and choruses, not a lot of compression either, mostly just for their color.

Vocal fx: ah, well, just some slapback delay, plate verb, hall verb, some delay swells here and there, and a repeat delay on the looong words in the choruses, not really much, hope I made good use of them all lol!

Well, if there's one thing my mix has a lot of it's AUTOMATION! A ton of volume and panning automation was done on almost all tracks to really help propel the song forward and I hope I've managed to do that.