Thanks for the comments, Brent. Knife, I'll be finding time to listen to yours soon.

More info about me & my mix: I've been playing keys and singing in a band at church for some years now, and got into doing the live sound for us & some other groups. Our expert sound guy donated his DA7 when he upgraded his home studio a couple years back. The DA7 is how I originally discovered DA7.com a few years back, and re-discovered it / now audiotalkback recently.

For my day job, I'm a software engineer. Over time I've owned various midi sequencing programs and digital audio stuff, and my home studio's equipment list really upgraded when Behringer blew out the DDX3216, followed by a blowout on the emu1212. And I got a good deal on a pair of used SM58s when the same guy who gave us the DA7 upgraded his live rig to Betas.

However, I've collected all this stuff really meaning to do something with it, but asside from one Midi sequence I created and recorded into a PC soundcard years ago, the only recording I've done was on one day this past summer, 3 songs by the 3 piece band my son's in -- and they're 7th graders. If you start by lowering your standards appropriately, they don't sound *too* bad. :-)

As far as my mix goes, though: I recently bought a MacBook. So I thought I'd see what I could do in Garage Band; both the Mac and GB are new for me. Importing the tracks was a B*tch because the prorgram kept getting weird and locking up on each import; I ended up with the import/save/quit/restart/import next approach to finally get it done. But once everything was in there, there wasn't any further problems.

The acoustic guitar I compressed slightly, and left it with no effects. But the meat of the track sounded a bit empty, so I dup'd one channel of the guitar, delayed it by a bit (dragged the track to the right) and fed that through a chorus preset of some kind.

I added some reverb to the electric gutiar because I wanted to place it further back in the space. I was really pleased with the way that turned out. I did a bit of the same to the piano. That went ok, but what happened to the lead guitar was cooler.

I noticed there was some junk, between phrases, on the lead vocal track at around 2:48. So I figured out how to draw a volume automation curve.

That's about it besides tweaks to EQ here & there, and adusting the "master track" parameters.

Sibilance seems to be my achillies heel lately, both here and in live sound (another guy at church pointed some out to me recently). Perhaps partly because in mixing for church bands, the directors I've dealt with are pretty admant that the words being sung are heard and understood by the listeners, so consonants need to get through. Pointers on how to deal with it, both with only the tools in a DA7 (eq/comp/etc.) and with a full blown locker of outboard equipment / computer plugins, would be quite welcomed by me!

DAMN! sorry this is so long!

Swahl. There is a way to do de-essing with a DA-7 and no other processing. But for all the gymnastics it takes setting it up... it's better just to insert a hardware de-esser in a channel send/return.

Plugins... only familiar with what there is here and there's one supplied with Pro Tools software. One that came with Waves Diamond bundle. The Waves stuff is a little more flexible than the stock PT plugin. Either can just be used as an insert on the channel {s} that need de-essing.

But you can also do frequency dependent compression {which is what a de-esser is anyway} via a compressor's side chain input. This goes for hardware or plugin compressors.... hardware as long as the compressor has a side chain input. Either/or requires multing the vocal. One as the straight {or passed/heard} signal. One not heard, to feed the side chain of the compressor that's inserted on the straight vocal channel. The idea is, to hit the compressor's side chain with the frequency band you want to compress. There's some hit/miss here but if the secondary/multed vocal triggering the side chain, is eq'd with a big, narrow Q boost between 4k and 12k, that compresses the primary vocal track... But only when those frequencies are present. Like on S's, T's etc. It'll always be a little different from singer to singer, and gender as far as what works. Same thing for plosives... but there the secondary vocal will need a much lower frequency to trigger the side chain.
I'm probably hypersensitive and too familiar from editing the heck out of Justin's tune. But there's a popping P on the third line {word "hope"} that's really bad. It can go by un-noticed because it almost sounds like a kick drum hit. This one can just be snipped out of the vocal track without any of the above.

How are you de-essing with the 7? No sidechain that I can see.

I didn't say there was a sidechain in the DA-7 Joe. But you can create a sidechain of sorts.

Mult a vocal track in the DA-7. One channel has to be used as the main signal that's ultimately passed onto the L/R bus. The other for the EQ source to compress the main vocal.

Take both vocal channels out of the L/R bus. Assign the EQ source vocal to bus 1. The main vocal to bus 2.
Then enable the compressor across the bus pair and be sure the bus pair and compressor is set for "stereo" operation.

Take bus 1 out of the L/R bus {so the EQ or control track stops there}... make sure bus 2 "is" assigned to the L/R bus. Then set the compressor threshold on the bus pair, just above where it starts to compress.

Go back to the main input channel that's assigned to bus 1.
Enable the EQ and with a semi-narrow Q, boost 4, 6, 8k or whatever. Now... when the threshold of the compressor at the bus pair is exceeded with the EQ boost, it will de-ess the vocal assigned to bus 2.
Again... considerable gymnastics but works in a pinch.

interesting trick .. never thought of that.