MIX CHALLENGE - MC078 July 2021 - Winners announced

[EchoOread]

Thanks for the music. I enjoyed mixing it. Hope you like the mix. Thanks.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SJEK5j ... sp=sharing

OH- Add some top end to bring hats up, HP pass to get the bottom end of the OH out of the kick's way. Duplicated L OH to get just the hats to support the top end of the drum set even more.

Kick+Bass- Just EQ, compression.

Guitars- Saturation, EQ slightly differently to help the ears distinguish them apart, pan to get width.

Percs- Just EQ and compress, some delay, panned

Vocal- EQ, compression, distortion

Piano- distortion, EQ mostly HP, delay

Snare- R-bass, EQ, compression

Brass-EQ HP boosted @ 1.7k where I thought they live, hard panned, delay

[AndyM]

Here's my take on your song. Thanks for putting it up for us.

https://signalflowau-my.sharepoint.com/ ... Q?e=4JGRYo


Parallel Compression on the Drum Buss as well as kick and snare.

Toms duplicated and gated from OH to get definition in the fills

Used Rear Buss Parallel Compression with Tape Saturbation EQ and Light Glue Compression on Mixbuss

Room Reverb and overdrive on the Organ

2 compressors on a Rap Buss with some Sparkle with Chorus and short reverb
Impro Rap Track heavily compressed with radio eq

Lead Chr Vox thicked with delays reverb and compression and parallel compression

Aphex Exciter on the Brass section to cut through with reverb

Stereo Ping Pong delay and reverb and Scheps Omni saturation

[pabloAT]

Dear all,
Please find below my contribution for MC078. Many thanks to the song provider for this interesting song to mix and to Mr. Fox for keeping this game on track.
All the best to participants,
Cheers,
Pablo

[Dropbox's link to MC078]

DAW = Cubase 11.0.30
Integrated LUFS = -18.2
True Peak = -2.82 dB
File Format: WAV, 44kHz, 24bit

Preliminary work : cleaning-up, raw balance, panning/stereo spreading, HPF on all tracks (>20 Hz depending on the track), LPF on some tracks. All tracks benefited from a Britson channel emulator (by Sonimus) of the famous British 8014 console. In some transitions of the song, I’ve added a BL-20 flanger + reverb to spice things up...

Drums
Gating on kick and up/down snare to control bleeding. API-2500 compressor on all kits. Aux sends to busses with early reflections (ER) and plate reverb. A touch of parallel distortion and compression for drum glueness.

Bass
Reamped with Ampeg B15N, a bit of Maag EQ2 to open @1000Hz, tube compressor for evenness. Everything is sent to a bus with chorus Dimension-D.

Rhythmic Gtr
API-560 to open a bit the high end, then an obvious LA-3A compressor. Send to buses with ER and spring reverb.

Solo Gtr
Reamped to reinforce the (already) nice guitar sound. Added a touch of tape delay and parallel distortion.

Piano
Used here as a percussive instrument. Diode 609 compression, and True Iron for vintage vibe.

Organ
Send to the back, with a bit of tube modulator.

Horns
1176 compression on all tracks, with a bit of tape saturation. Send the horns group to busses with (parallel) distortion and a touch of delay.

Vocals Ayoub
Tube compression and Fresh Air to open the sound. Auxs: tape delay and a vintage reverb.

Vocals El Cabu
Kramer pie compression, deeser and Fresh Air. Auxs: parallel (clip) distortion and tape delay.

Stems & Master busses
Different instrument groups were sent to 3 stems (“rhythmic”, “melodic”, and “vocals”), where I used instances of tape machine emulators. The stems were in turn sent to the master buss, where I applied a gentle SSL compression for gluing, NLS for ‘analog electronics’ vibe and tape emulation. I ended the master buss chain with a touch of Pultec-like EQ for final low/high end frequency adjustments and openness.

[doobop]

Hi everybody!

First Ι did a rough mix. That gets me to know the song better, to understand the parts, and to give me a feeling of how the elements of the song should sound to my ears.

Then I get into the processing of stuff. I love working with channel strip plugins which have the flow of a real analog console. I do not need a bunch of plugins and do sound-engineering secrets and methods. Just an EQ, a gate and a Compressor. The only thing I’ve done is one vocal channel to made it stereo using delay.

Then I did final adjustments and automation.

That’s all, hope you’ll like it!

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/t35bgfyxrp5ku ... p.wav?dl=0

Doobop

[Bologna57]

Hello everyone, I thank the organization that gives us the opportunity to do all this; it was fun to mix this song, very interesting!

A few notes on the mix...

I think that it was good to have a "naked" intro and so: no riser and just guitar and keyboard on the first verse. The keyboard has a whawha and a repeat.
Drums have been heavily compressed, overheads have an old-style phaser on it to get a vintage and sharp sound on crash and hi-hat.
Guitars have been re-amped.
Bass has been compressed and re-amped too.
Hammond (not too much) "as is".

The link is:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/159NZ-Y ... sp=sharing

Ciao.
G.

[hjchjc]

I splurged on a bunch of plugins recently like the Arturia TridA-Pre and the Vertigo VSC-2, and both of those are all over this mix. Lots of sound shaping involved (through things like deEssers and pseudo-channel strips like the Maag Magnum-K).

Bass - Plugin-Alliance Ampeg bass emulation

Rhythm guitar - ADT, MAAG EQ4, Logic EQ

Guitar solo - Chameleon and Olitanh, from the KVR Developer Challenge:
https://www.kvraudio.com/kvr-developer-challenge/2021/
EchoBoy at select parts towards the end

Horns - LXPHall, Olitanh,

Kick - Pro-G, MAAG EQ4, Logic EQ,

Snare - transient shaping, compressor, Bark of Dog MAAG EQ4,

Overheads - severe cut at 7khz

Drum bus - Vertigo VSC-2, RX-950 for light distortion and rolling off brightness, additional bus with heavy Lindell 254e, VComp, and MAAG Magnum-K compression

Basically all vocals - EQ (TridA Pre or SSLEQ) > comp (CLA-76) > De-Esser (RDesser) - Dynamic EQ (F6), then another 7k cut on the vocal bus

Mix bus - FilterFreak Mix Loudener preset


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zSsIjY ... sp=sharing

[Los_ady]

Woow Wooow Woow Thanks for all the submissions, you all Rock! From Youtube Videos (I think that's a fantastic idea) and everyone who took the time to describe their mixing process in detail, so others can learn from it! You Rock! This is a fantastic community and I can't wait to listen to all your versions!

Sorry for the low input from my side, I'm just in "Paper Work world" and try to leave Morocco this Saturday, which means a long, inspiring journey is ahead .. and a long list of client mixes as well that don't like to wait haha

Take it easy and let's chat soon!

[Los_ady]

@hjchjc welcome back amigo, please don't forget to make your mix accessible for us so we all can celebrate with you haha

And there was another from @Beja and .. 2 more, lemme check again!

[Promissel]

Mix link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n7ic8h ... sp=sharing

Hi all, huge thanks for organising this challenge! It's my first time so I hope I get it right.

Every channel: Izotope Neutron for basic EQ, compression and saturation
Drums: FET compression on Snares, parallel compression to get more spank and weight, overheads are controlled with volume automation.
Bass: both tracks used, DI -> Kuassa amp, both -> Vitamin -> Ozone 9 Vintage Limiter
Guitars: solo: awesome tone, so just basic eq and Dbx 160a compression, autopaning at 10% to create a bit of movement; rythm: basic eq and a big high end boost with AA Cream EQ, wanted it on the brighter side.
Winds: loved them! so I added a little bit of chorus to them and brightened them up with a Pultec EQ to make them the stars of the show when they play.
Organ: high pass and low pass filters to make it "narrower and further away" in the mix but still intelligeable.
Keys: just a bit of a high end bump with Kush Clariphonic EQ
Vocals: Chandler tone EQ, 2-3 instances of de-essers, MV2, Rvox. For the singing part adittionally, GAP Comp-3A was used and I created a deeply chorused and autotuned layer to slip underneath - more for the vibe than to be clearly audible. Short slap delay was used to make Rap vocals appear wider.
Back Vocals: same as the main vocals as well as a dark tape emulation, very fast compression and a chorus effect to separate and distance them from the mains
Mix buss: SSL mixbus comp, AA CelestialMB and HA Successor for thickening and colour.

FX: reversed GTR was used to make transitions in a few places.
Reverb: mixture of room and hall reverbs was used to create space.

Peak -1.3, LUFS-I -17.6

[Green-Dog]

Hi everyone,

Thank you to the song provider for the opportunity to try yourself in mixing an interesting mixture of styles. 

A little bit about how I made the transition to the chorus:
To make the transitions a little more interesting, I used a reverb to which the drums are sent. I have automated the volume of the reverb so that it appears only during the transition. I also added saturation to Adlibs during the transition.

Everything else was done by fairly standard means. If someone is interested in some particular processing chain is, I will be happy to share it with you.

Mix

Good luck to everyone