MIX CHALLENGE - MC049 November 2018 - Winners announced

[davemcisaac]

Mp3 - https://my.pcloud.com/publink/show?code ... nVgbyElJA7
Wav - https://my.pcloud.com/publink/show?code ... gX77XFWDP7
I referenced some Jeff Healy for a basic blues/rock sound without attempting to emulate that sound. I just wanted to make sure my mix could be played alongside that sound without being too disturbing. I also referenced the original mix for general direction.

I ran NLS Channels & Busses throughout.

I re-amped the guitars with Amplitube 3. I used bx console G for eq, Scheps 73 for drive, Tuco for comp, and Velo for leveling.

I copied the Bass & put NoAmp on one channel for some drive and left the original Bass dry. I used ReaEQ on both channels to blend, then bussed the two Bass channels through a little MaxxBass for some bottom and Tuco for leveling.

Snares were mixed through Scheps 73 for drive & mild shaping, smartEQ2 to clean up resonances, C6 for more shaping, & Tuco for punch.

Kick 1 was gated and both Kicks got ReaEQ for balancing. They were bussed through Firefly, ANIMATE for some bottom punch then MBandPass to sooth the low end.

OH, Hat & Room all got bx console G. OH & Room also got an instance of PSP FETpressor for a bit of smashing. I bussed then through ReaEQ to tame the harshness.

Lead Vox went through MAutoVolume & Tuco for leveling, smartEQ2 & C6 for tonal shaping, then Velo to make sure it always stayed on top.

I also used several instances of MSpectralDynamics side-chained to duck 1. Guitars with vocals, 2. Bass with Kick, and 3. Guitars with Vocals. It's an amazing plugin that can be used for all kinds of things!

Master channel had SSLComp for glue and bx hybrid V2 for low & hi pass filtering and stereo widening

[Jerze]

Hello all. I just finished mixing this so hopefully things are alright. I mixed this in Reaper was going for a Steve Ray vaughan vibe kind of thing. Thanks for posting the tracks to mix.

Files-
Mp3

Wave-

Mix Notes-
Kic- little eq,trans control for sustain add attack, TDR nova low end control

Snare-api 2500,api 550a,fab pro q2 for some notching and a little saturation

Oh-Kramer tape, ssl e channel, Api 550b

Rooms-ssl e channel, eq for notching and cutting

Drum Buss

Bass-- P&M Clarisonix api 2500 api 550b, REAeq cutting and boosting

GT-Amplitube3 Mark3 RT channel, and Orange Ad30 amps Reaeq Lt channel

Gt Buss- Api2500 more eqing

Vocals-Scheps omni channel, echoboy, decapitator Verb

If you have a question or suggestions let me know.
Thanks Jerze

[_spafles_]

Hi guys,

So here is my attempt to create a mix.

mp3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VWx5C4 ... 6bjDb/view
wav: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oP8yD8 ... JRPn8/view

What i have done to the tracks:

Kick1: eq: cutoff the very lows. al little boost at 71Hz and a dip at 267Hz
added LoAir plugin with a boost at 58Hz
Kick2: eq: cutoff the very lows. al little boost at 84Hz and a dip at 380Hz
gate: to lose the tail of the kick

Bussed these in a compressor. attack: 30ms release: 50ms and a ratio of 1.5

SnareTop: eq: boost at 10kHz, 1.5kHz and 400Hz
SnareBottom: eq: cutoff at 153Hz
gate: to lose the long ratlles
reversed polarity

Bussed these in a compressor. attack: 30ms release: 50ms and a ratio of 3

HiHat: eq: low shelf at 910Hz -14dB, boost at 12kHz
limiter: to get rid of the snare attack
OH's: eq: cutoff low frequencies, boost at 5 and 15kHZ
limiter: same reason as HH
Room: eq: cutoff very lows, boost at 1.5kHz
Bass: compressor: again 30ms attack. A release of 300ms and ratio 2
eq: boost at 100 and 400Hz
Phaser: just to make it a little bigger, no oscillation
Solo guitar: eq: boost at 3 and 5 kHz
Rythym guitar: eq: boost at 300Hz, 1.5 and 7 kHZ
compressor: attack 3ms release 1.2s ratio 4
At the end of the song i've alligned the last guitar strike to the kick.
Vocal: eq: cutoff 85Hz dip at 765Hz boost at 300Hz, 400Hz, 7 and 10kHz
ping pong delay: not noticable but makes the voice a bit wider
Parrallel compresion (2compressors) the first: attack 4ms release 50ms ratio 8
second: attack 0.1ms release 1.2s ratio 2
Room Reverb: 0.9s
Master: Boost highs 2-16KHZ average 5dB
Boost Lows 63-250HZ average 2dB
Reverb Small Room 0.5ms

Thanks a lot to the band for providing these tracks. Had a lot of fun mixing it!

[dobebon]

Here is my submission for this round. Great blues song with a fantastic reference mix!

WAV; https://www.dropbox.com/s/f5hwitipdimlz ... n.wav?dl=0
MP3; https://www.dropbox.com/s/1r67qj184383s ... n.mp3?dl=0

VTM on most tracks and BX console N, no drum replacement or reinforcement and no 2 buss processing

Drums: OH high pass around 230Hz, some general eq shaping with a cut at 400Hz and a boost around 2K
Blended the two kicks to a buss with eq cuts at 150Hz, 400Hz and 2K and aboost around 5K
Blended the top and bottom snare and sent to a buss, some eq shaping, boost at 2K. Used a transient shaper to tame some of the snare ringing
Hi-hat Highpass and eq cut around 6K
Parallel compression

Bass: EQ cut around 110Hz and 300Hz and boost at 4-5K. Low boost with Slate Earth.

Guitars: Highpassed the lead guitar a bit more than the rhythm guitar. Some automation on the lead guitar to centre the solo more. Small amount of volume automation. 2-3dB compression.

Vox: Optical compression and eq shaping. A large boost at 10K running into a de-esser.

All done ITB. Thanks Moe Joe for the great song to mix, very much reminds me of SRV.

[loupi]

Thanks a lot for providing these tracks to mix.
They took me back to the days (20 years ago) i worked in a little blues-bar in Belgium, where i had the fortune to witness steaming concerts on a weekly basis.
I went after that live-sound i remembered from those days and from the years i worked in bigger venues and on outdoor concerts as a (mainly) monitor-mixer.
So i guess the sound i went for can be discribed as bold, punchy, powerfull and with an emphasis on vibe and giving it 'real-life' depth.
This translated to following use of plugins in presonus studio one:

DRUMS:
kick: some standard eq with a little compression (ferricsTDS) and a little bark of dog for extra low end (40hz)
snare: had some trouble making it cut through, tried lots of things and finally left them 'au naturel' but send them to quite some parallel fx-channels (see below)
hh: used quite a lot of the hh mic, for the snare sound and as well to get the drive of the hh
oh: little compression to get some more vibe out of them (tdr kotelnikov)
room: quite a bit, with some eq
drumbus: sga1566, fairchild-like compression and slickHDR, parallel-comp: 1176-style comp with blackcat eq, and parallel sansamp-like gate/amp(axp-version) for more vibe/punch

BASS:
doubled up for more mids and both go to lowcut filter (50hz), shb-1 amp, a chorus, the fairchildlike comp and pultec-like eq

GIT:
doubled up both git's, panned L70/L11 R70/R11 with ferricsTD comp on different settings to get some movement within the pairs
bus: alexB's digitubex preampsim, fairchild-like comp, pulltec-like and gem550 eq's

VOCAL:
MJUCjr, fairchild-like comp, gem550
sent to sansamp with ozone imager set on wide

parallel FX:
slapdelay into ir-chamber (vox, git, snare)
DC1A2 comp set to extreme. everything goes through this except for bass (keeping things steady). important part of the overall sound/groove.
two bitcrush fx channels, one mono and a wide one, giving some edge to things (creating some depth)
and a pair (L/R) ir-room reverb (clean)

MASTERBUS:
charly (for 'je ne sais quoi' and volumecontrol)
TDR master EQ (cleaning some lowmids, ...)
acqua redeq for some small 80 and 8000 boosts and its sound (seems to tighten things up)
limiter6 (catching nothing, as asked for in the rules)

hope you enjoy!

https://www.dropbox.com/home?preview=MC ... pi.wav.wav

[Liquid]

Hi, this my first mix.
WAV https://soundcloud.com/soundman-9779134 ... ght-liquid
MP3 https://soundcloud.com/soundman-9779134 ... liquid-mix

[honeyhex]

Found out about this contest on Sunday, so obviously wasn't able to work on this as much as I would've liked. Hope it's alright regardless!

Wav: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19Ozs7B ... sp=sharing
MP3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OcZZlH ... sp=sharing

A couple of plugins that I use a lot are Roth-Air to bring out the top end of things and add air, as well as Voxengo's OldSkoolVerb, which I use on the guitars and the vocals. Also Voxengo TubeAmp is used a lot to add some warmth and round out the guitar and bass, and the TDR Kotelnikov compressor is used to tame some harsh peaks and help the drum buss and the guitar buss gel together. I did some gain automation on the bass and guitars to even out the levels before they were processed, and I used multi-band compression to help get rid of some ugly midrange frequencies and made the sounds more consistent.

A lot of surgical EQing went into the drums to remove ringing frequencies that I didn't like. I took the tom from the Overhead track and processed that on its own, as I filtered out most of the low end of the overhead track. Kick and snare tracks went into separate kick and snare busses, which then went into one kick+snare buss, which then went into the full drum buss. Guitars were bussed together, and guitars+bass were then bussed together.

I used some NY compression on the guitars (using the RoughRider compressor plugin to squash them on a separate buss and add them back in), and also used some pretty fast delay, 85ms, on each guitar track, flipping the sides so that the Left Guitar was delayed on the right channel and the Right Guitar was delayed on the left channel.

Overall nothing too complex going on. It's a good song, and it was fun to work on. I'd of course answer any more specific questions if there are any.

[auxander]

Hello!

mp3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1s0SoP ... 4UADc282a-
wav: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1X6AxI ... wkQNFoSewv

Bass: dbx-160, C1 comp, V76-pre, EQ
Guitar 1: EQ, C1 comp, V76-pre, panning, send to room verb
Guitar 2: EQ, C1 comp, V76-pre, panning, send to room verb

Kick: Gate, Phase correction, C1 comp, V76-pre, EQ, L2
SnareBot: SSLComp, EQ, V76-Pre
SnareTop: Gate, Precision Comp, V76-pre, EQ-1A, EQ, L2
Snare Group: EQ-1A, send to room verb
HiHat: EQ, dbx-160, panning
OH: EQ, V76-pre
Room: V76-pre, C1 comp, EQ
Drum Group: CLA_2A, EQ-1A, V76-pre

Vocal: Deesser, EQ, CLA-2A, EQ-1A, C1 comp, Dynamics EQ, send to room verb

Thanks for listening!

[HerbFelho]

Hey again,

gotta be in for this one, nothing but the blues!
Thanks for providing the tracks, great to hear there are such great blues bands in turkey!

As ever I mixed this in Studio One 4, my vision has been a fat and analog sounding mix, pretty dry with not much reverb, more kind of room ambience. Most of the ambience on my mix is "Uhe"´s Protoverb by the way, which I really love, and it´s free... a bit cpu heavy though...
The only other reverb plugin is PSP´s Springbox spring reverb, that I use more and more on any kind of tracks, often in mono, gives a cool kind of vibe and colour that cannot be achieved with all that other clean sounding reverbs. Don´t understand why so many mixes here have long, clean reverbs in them, really? It´s blues!

One of the biggest question´s for me was how to pan this, really, vocal in the center of course, lead guitar seems to be played by the singer, so I had to keep that close to the middle as well (10% right). 2nd guitar panned to the right, and at first, to balance that I wanted to pan the drums left! Always wanted to try that one day in a mix but I just couldn´t make the drums sound as I wanted, so I put them close to the middle (10% left) for a compromise. 2nd guitar´s spring reverb panned to the left to fill the gap... Bass is center.
To pan the drums a little bit though makes it sound more interesting and alive and fits the style really well in my opinion.
Btw, I really think LCR is bullshit, never understood why so many engineers hang on to that only because they had no other possibility 50 years ago...

To keep that shorter I will provide the exact settings if somebody´s asking of course. I want to name only a few of the important plugins I used, which are:
- Oeksound Soothe and Spiff (not cheap, but I can´t live without them anymore, would trade all that nonsense analog emulating shit for that...)
- At the same time I have to say the Black Rooster Stuff (thanks for that donation!) sounds really good, the Magnetite Tape has been used a lot in this mix.
- Some Waves plugins are always on like the CLA stuff, RBass (this time on vocals!), Kramer Tape for slap..
- oh, and all panning has been done with the new BOZ Panner, love that, probably won´t go back to "normal" panning, I do a lot of mixing and listening on headphones, and there it´s a night and day difference. And since it´s completely mono compatible it should work well on speakers also.
- EQ and compression work is mostly done by FabFilter and stock plugins.
- Bass split at 150 Hz, lower part clean and compressed, higher part treated with stock Amp simulation.

Good luck to all!

WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1s4u5S ... nY7uhsrDZr
MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Or5D1 ... Bg3iVdYSnr

[Ellrozza]

Hi, this is my fist mix challenge submission. I hope I am doing this correctly.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/cqgxm17vxms1 ... d-3Ra?dl=0

I wanted to keep this mix simple using eq, compression and reverb from Slate digital Vmr and verbsuite. The only exception was the use of an amp simulator on one of the guitars.

Notes:

Kick - EQ'd out some low mids and highs. Very slow compression.

Snare - EQ'd out some low mids and and high mids narrow Q. Very slow compression

OH - Q'd out some low mids and and high mids narrow Q

Hats - High passed very high

Room - cut lows and highs

Bass - cut lowmids/mids, added some light compression

Guiatr 1 - added an amp simulator, boosted lows. very subtle cut high mids

Guitar 2 - Low cut and high cut

Vocals - Heavily compressed with 1176 style compressor. small Low mid and hi mid cuts

Thanks!