After experimenting with a few effects and edits, I decided to keep the mix close to its original arrangement. It best reflected my memory of that morning in upstate New York, where sounds blended naturally rather than perfectly. The footsteps were softened by socks, the rain and wind shifted in volume, the dog’s dreaming got surprisingly loud, and the cat’s bell could only be heard occasionally. This version feels closest to how I remember that morning.
The main change in this version was cutting one of the forest rain tracks earlier, which made the loop more natural and less noticeable. Overall, I felt this approach best captured the balance of nature and home life that I wanted the piece to convey.
Love that focus on memory and authenticity!
For me it sounds like you totally captured the feeling of that morning by not trying to clean it up too much. The fact that you kept the sounds “blended naturally rather than perfectly” and left in things like the softened footsteps, shifting wind, and the loud dreaming dog is what makes it real and relatable. I really like it!
Sounds good, sometimes the sounds don’t need to be fiddled with to have a good mix. The original recordings for these sounds are all high quality, so they mix well together, good choices. The overall track volume is very low, I would try adding a compressor to the mix track with a bit of gain so that the overall volume is closer to the -12 range, right now it’s mostly around -24 or lower, which means it will be pretty quiet relative to other audio sources.