2024-MAR-01 Info: Check out Songwriting Competition 079 if you're into "Synthwave" music making.

MIX CHALLENGE - MC37 October 2017 - Winners announced

Join the Mix Challenge - recurrence: February until December
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Arthur Labus
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Joined: Fri Jun 16, 2017 19:54 CEST
Location: Aachen, Germany

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC37 October 2017 - Submissions until 21-10-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#41

Post by Arthur Labus »

Hello everybody, here's my go:

WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzToI ... zI3NC10YU0

MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzToI ... Vg1SDJyajg

Used Non-Linear Summer plugin (Waves / Neve settings) and Izotope Neutrino on every track

Main vocal: CA-2A (Cakewalk) compressor, Scheeps 73 EQ, CLA Unplugged for reverb
Backing vocals: CLA unplugged
Bass: CLA Bass
Acc guitar: CA-2A, SSL Channel, Acon Digital Multiply, L8R from BoZ Digital
Solo acc guitar: SSL Channel, TB Reverb, Eventide Stereo Room 2016

All electric guitars are DI tracks
Slide Guitar 1 : Guitar Gedgets (Super Phazor + Nigara Falls), Izotope Ozone Imager
Slide Guitar 2 : bx_rockrack V3 player, Hofa 4U+ Dynamic Tilt EQ, Izotope Ozone Imager
El Guitar Chorus 2: FA3, Izotope Ozone Imager
El Guitar picked: CLA Guitar
Piano: digitalfishphones endorphin compressor, Scheeps 73 EQ
Shakers &Tambourine : CLA Unplugged (reverb)

Master Bus: Non-Linear Summer (Neve console), CLA Mixdown, metering
No limiter on master bus. Round 3db headrom.

Thanks for the track and have a lot of fun judging ;)
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Mister Fox
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Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC37 October 2017 - Submissions until 21-10-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#42

Post by Mister Fox »

B4Lasers wrote:
Sat Oct 14, 2017 06:56 CEST
:)
Apparently, my response wasn't fast enough and you removed your question whether or not you "can re-submit" your entry" for the current challenge, because you forgot to add the Piano.


I wanted to give you a pass on this, since you're new. I'm usually fair towards new people (see "pitching" incident).

However, you were impatient (you didn't even contact me) and ignored the rules.
So I'm now issuing an official warning, which might result in a disqualification of your entry.


I'm not happy about this, but we have Rules and Guidelines for a reason.
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Mister Fox
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Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC37 October 2017 - Submissions until 21-10-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#43

Post by Mister Fox »

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 7 days left to submit your mix
B4Lasers

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC37 October 2017 - Submissions until 21-10-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#44

Post by B4Lasers »

Ahhh shucks I’m sorry mister fox I didn’t see a reply that day so I assumed it didn’t matter but hey fair is fair I did edit my post and add a version with the piano I have no reason to lie or cheat if i do get disqualified I tried my best and I’ll be here for the next competition to try again and honestly I didn’t even know there was another incident or that you were the admin :(
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Mister Fox
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Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC37 October 2017 - Submissions until 21-10-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#45

Post by Mister Fox »

You sent in your mix on Friday. On Saturday morning (for me) you realized "whoops, forgot the piano" and made your post. I saw it around 5pm via my mobile phone and wanted to respond later, since I was out and about (I'm here 24/7 after all). I came back at 9:30pm, and the post was edited with just a smiley. So I assumed "okay, you couldn't wait and edited the whole thing", the edit in the signature of the mix entry confirmed this.

I do make exceptions for new contestants - in fact, it is rare that I fully enforce rules and hand out disqualifications. I mainly want the people to have fun. But I have to be fair to all other participants as well, those that read the "Rule Book" and stick to it. The deadline is in 7 days, there was still plenty of time for a possible fix. But you were impatient.


Leave your production up as it is - let this month's "client" decide once the deadline is over.
But for the next time, if you mess up and realized it at a later date, there is no second chance. (see Rules & Guidelines :educate: )



Regarding "I didn't know that you were the admin":
Actually - kind of hard to overlook - I created pretty much every thread so far on this forum, and I'm the only person with a red-colored user name :gotidea:
FixInTheMix
Posts: 78
Joined: Sat May 20, 2017 20:13 CEST

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC37 October 2017 - Submissions until 21-10-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#46

Post by FixInTheMix »

Hey! glad to be part of this month challenge, first of all I want to thank formfish for providing such a beautiful and well crafted song :hail: , the arrengement is spot on! and the overall feel of the track is quite powerful. It was a pleasure to mix this.

Processing:

Acoustic guitar: (ReaEq) Low cut at 70hz, notch filter at 190hz, -2dB reduction on 800hz and 2dB boost at 2Khz with broad Q. (Classic compressor - Kjaerhus audio) Threshold at -18db, 2:1 ratio, soft knee, fast attack and release.

Acoustic guitar solo: (ReaEq) Low cut at 125hz, -3.7dB at 250hz, -4.6 dB at 800hz narrow Q, 2dB boost at 2Khz broad Q, notch filter at 255hz for resonant frecuency at the lower E string and -6dB at 200 hz with narrow Q. (ReaComp) Attack 12ms, release 70ms, Ratio 6:1, 4dB knee, threshold at -34 dB.

Electric guitar slide: I filtered the high frecuencies of the original track and filtered the low frecuencies of the DI version so I could pan them separately, I used Boogex (Voxengo) for the guitar cabinet on the DI track and added some chorus to it with Azurite (Distortique)

Electric guitar picked: (ReaEq) Low cut at 177hz and -3dB at 438hz. (ReaComp) attack 3ms, release 100ms, ratio 2:1, threshold at -28dB.

Electric guitar chorus: (ReaEq) low cut at 160hz and -4dB at 800hz.

Piano: (ReaEq) low cut at 98hz and -5dB at 280hz. (SL543 - SmackLabs) compressor reducing between 4dB and 6dB at loudest peaks, fast attack, medium release.

Bass: (ReaEq) -6dB at 256hz, notch filter at 358hz, notch filter at 730hz and high cut at 2Khz. (MKII Bass professor) I honestly dont understand much of how this works but I know its compressing a lot and adding some saturation, I just played with the parameters a bit and made it sound huge.

Vocals: (ReaEq) low cut at 90hz, -2dB at 460 hz. (ReaComp) attack 10ms, release 50ms, ratio 3:1, knee at 1.5dB, threshold at -27dB.

Backing vocals: For each channel (ReaComp) fastest attack 0ms, release 65ms, ratio of 3:1, knee at 3dB, threshold at -21dB. (ReaEq) low cut at 118hz, -4dB at 260hz, -7dB at 9.6Khz. Grouped the tracks into 2 busses, one for the female vocals and one for the male ones and added Ferric TDS (Variety of Sound) to glue them a bit more and add some warmth.

Shaker 1 and 2: (ReaEq) low cut at 2.8Khz. (ReaComp) attack 24ms, release 44ms, ratio of 4:1, knee at 3dB, threshold at -68dB. I edited the trakcs to be moore in time as I felt that It kinda went off too much at some points.

Tambourine: (ReaEq) low cut at 1.4Khz, notch filter at 2.4Khz, notch filter at 6.8Khz, notch filter at 8.5Khz, notch filter at 15.4Khz. this track had a lot of nasty resonances. (ReaComp) attack 3ms, release 260ms, ratio of 1.5:1, knee at 3dB, threshold at -31dB.
I grouped the shakers and tambourine tracks to a bus and added ReaVerbate: Dry at 0dB, Wet at -10.5dB, room size at 98, dampening 80, stereo width flipped, initial delay 10ms, highpass at 965hz.

Reverb and delay sends:

I made a reverb send for the main vocals, another one for the background vocals and another for the guitar trakcs. I also made a specific delay send for the electric guitar picked track.

Main vocals Reverb: (ReaComp on the way in to make the reverb less dynamic) attack 3ms, release 100ms, ratio 9:1, threshold at -52dB. (OldSkoolVerb - Voxengo) I love this reverb plugin because it has a mode editor feature that lets you tweak parameters that change how the reverb reacts to the input thus giving you the option of creating different reverb types (plates, spring, hall. etc).
Ramp type log up, Op count 21, Vol ramp 2.5, dly ramp 3.27, len ramp 2.02, cross gain -22.4. Pre delay 20.2ms, space 60, time 3700ms, width 40, damp low 50hz, damp high 3.57Khz,

Background vocals reverb: (OldSkoolVerb) OP count 41, vol ramp -2.7, delay ramp 4.54, len ramp 2.83, cross gain -30.4dB. pre delay 10ms, space 33, time 8000ms, width 50, damp low 44hz, damp high none. (ReaEq) -10dB low shelf at 246hz sharp Q, -10dB high shelf at 5.6Khz.

Guitar reverb: (epicVerb - Variety of Sound) pre delay 24ms. time 3000ms. (ReaEq) low cut at 113hz, -4.6dB at 219hz narrow Q, -3dB at 620hz +5.6 boost at 2.5Khz broad Q, -10dB high shelf at 6.3Khz.

Electric guitar picked delay: (MjRotoDelay) tempo sync on, ts echoes 6, ts beats 6, mod depth 17ms, mod rate 0.04hz, lfo shape fake sine, lfo cutoff 18hz, wet rotation 30.42deg, feedback gain -11dB, feedback center freq 3251hz, feedback Q 0.026, feedback rotation -90 deg.

Automation:

In general what i did was to automate the panning so the mix would start in mono, open up a little bit on the verse, and finally be super wide on the chorus. The piano for example begins in mono, I turned the width of the track to 0 and opened up to 100 at the chorus.
There is alot of volume automation too on the piano as I found that the dynamics of it changed a lot during the song, also on the main vocals and on the electric guitar picked track.

Finally I added Classic Master Limiter (Hjaerhus audio) to the master track with a 9dB gain as I mixed the song at really low volume and I was peaking between -11dB and -9dB at the loudest parts. At this setting the limiter is only working as a gain booster and isn´t compressing the signal.

Here are the links

WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/v33a491942b2d ... x.wav?dl=0
MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pkpamgv801gux ... x.mp3?dl=0

I hope you like this! cheers and good luck to everyone :phones: .
B4Lasers

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC37 October 2017 - Submissions until 21-10-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#47

Post by B4Lasers »

Thank you for the second chance I am sorry guys
kevin gobin

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC37 October 2017 - Submissions until 21-10-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#48

Post by kevin gobin »

Welcome B4Lasers, we all make mistakes!
davemcisaac
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Location: Pocatello, Idaho USA
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Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC37 October 2017 - Submissions until 21-10-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#49

Post by davemcisaac »

First of all, thanks to Felix for such a nice song to mix!

I mix in Reaper. All tracks have Britson Channel & BX Console G, and all busses have Britson Buss.

Master bus has bx_hybrid V2 for gentle shaping & mono-ing the bass below 150 Hz, PSP Vintage Warmer 2 for "glue", and Boost for mild compression and tone.

I split the Lead Vox for Verses & Choruses to process differently. The Chorus lead vox was just a bit brighter & hotter and I used a slightly longer delay & more feedback (All delays are EchoBoy Jr). I used TuCo by Sonimus for vocal leveling, MSpectralDynamics for de-essing and de-harshing & Ozone Imager for widening. And MTurboReverb with Sidechain Compressor for the reverb send.

Basically the same for the BG Vocals - sans Ozone Imager.

I used Ozone Imager to give the Bass some depth with the bx_hybrid V2 to mono the bottom. I carved out some of the boxiness and added a bit of distortion & compression with the bx_console G.

I used the ReaXcomp to tame the Shakers & Tamborine by clamping down on the high frequencies.

I widened the Ac Guit with Ozone Imager & a little bit of send to Voxengo Stereo Touch (see Screen Shots to see how I set up my sends & bussing). I did no widening on the AGuitarSolo - Just heavier on the Reverb send (Acon Digital Verberate - Large gothic cathedral)

I used a ping-pong delay on both the EGuitarPicked & EGuitarSlide (heavier on the slide)along with sending all 3 EGuits to Verberate.

As far as panning - the only panning was on the BV Vocals & the Electric Guits (Chorus & Picked). Everything else is just M/S processing to give me the width. I used Halcyon to brighten up the sides with a bit of distortion above 1000 kHz on the Instrument & Vocal busses.

Screen Shots - https://mega.nz/#F!gP5WCAYa!o6nxN-v3XuRAMN6MUPI4hw

Mp3 - https://mega.nz/#!RfxmyCYR!al4AjvtTvblE ... BbwGojqJ0U
Wav - https://mega.nz/#!RCRmWZrA!Kja21TVNWFlR ... zR8rgCOnZQ
Coiled_Ear

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC37 October 2017 - Submissions until 21-10-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#50

Post by Coiled_Ear »

Great song! But I tought that such "roomy" atmosphere doesn't really fit to ballad about the meaning of life, time and space)
So...I started with my prize plugin Acon Defilter (such a great thing! especially with emphasize curve...) that help me find room "artifacts" and remove it from vocals and guitars.
Then I continued with returns. Today is five ones - room for main guitar panned to right (guitar to left) for imitation of the double track, sidechaining hall for vocal (VintageVerb), delay EchoBoy for piano in the solo moment and others for the Elguitars (halls).
Used correction curves with Fabfilter Pro-q2 and adding the midrange by Softupe Pultech. Compressors - Fabfilter Pro-c2 and Klanghelm MJUC (first mode). Also Klanghelm SDRR saturator on some tracks.
Automated the gate (Fabfilter PRO-G) on the piano in chorus to reduce the lowend sustain.
Little of the Soundtoys Microshift on main vocal. Also reduce in the MID by Fabfilter Pro-q2 on the back vocals 600hz.
Automated Waves S1 the assymetry parameter for the piano in the big solo part of 4 instruments after 1st chorus that give me pan whole stereo piano to right.
Ableton Live 9 as always...
So...here is result.
Also my suggestion...posting your control equipment. I'm very interesting about what monitoring guys used)

WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/stwoibwz82g6i ... r.wav?dl=0
MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fd796zethsufu ... r.mp3?dl=0
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