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

MIX CHALLENGE - MC086 June 2022 - Winners announced

Join the Mix Challenge - recurrence: February until December
jules666
Posts: 30
Joined: Sat Mar 06, 2021 00:55 CET
Location: UK

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC086 June 2022 - Submissions until 21-06-2022 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#21

Post by jules666 »

Well thanks @Jorgeelalto & @Mister Fox for getting me out of my comfort zone.
Never listened to this style of music, let alone mixed it!

So listened to the demo mix a couple of times, before I put a rough mix together focusing on the drum parts. All tracks had an EQ for some high/low pass filtering and a saturation effect (Burier) at this stage.

Then on the master bus I decided to tweak the rough mix using an SSL style compressor, dialling in a couple of dB of reduction.
I also placed an EQ as I felt the low end was lacking, boosted a shelf from 84 up by a dB or so, and 2dB boost at 630Hz and 1dB boost at 200Hz with a fairly wide Q.

Then I tweaked the tracks until it felt right, and had some fun with effects.

DRUMS: On the shells used some compression/clipper.

26 - WarmSub - stutter effect
27 Bass -transient shapper for more attack.
09 Perc Loop 1: Slight stutter effect, but blended in low.
10 Perc Loop 2: Doubler effect to thicken the sound a little
30 Vox Atmos - Stutter effect
33 Background: Some verb and modulation effect for some movement.

Created 5 Aux FX tracks:
DRM Delay - Tap delay where I sent a lot of the drums to.

Sent various amounts of some of the track to the following effects:
Ping Ping delay
1/4 note delay
Slap delay
Verb


Then on the master buss I added a Fairchild style compressor for another 1db of gain reduction.

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MwvR0e ... sp=sharing

Jules
User avatar
rvalle
Posts: 64
Joined: Thu Jun 11, 2020 18:12 CEST
Location: São Paulo Brazil

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC086 June 2022 - Submissions until 21-06-2022 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#22

Post by rvalle »

Hello again, my fellow mixers! :hyper:

I couldn't help but participate in this edition of the contest. First, because it's the anniversary of our beloved Forum and I take the opportunity to send my congratulations :clap: ! Then because electronic music is what I like to do the most. So, here's my mix for this contest:

MIX: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tkWlQI ... sp=sharing
PRINTS: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

This is a really nice tune, @Jorgeelalto , and was a joy to mix it.

kicks:
-in the main Kick, I thought it lacked a more present bottom end; so i put the bx_subfilter and added some resonance at 53hz;
-I grouped the main kick with the Extra Kick and the Perc Kick support; in these last two layers, I only used equalizer for cleaning;
-in the kick group channel, I used an eq for a little gain in the 2.8khz region, compressed with the AIR Comp for glue, saturated it with elysia karacter and put some reverb with Melda MconvolutionEZ to bring a spatialization.

Drums:
-in the vast majority of the drums elements, I only used eq for cleaning and, in some of them, I worked on a better positioning in the panorama;
-The highlight is for Snare, in whose channel I used, in addition to the eq, a short reverb (ReaVerbate) for spatialization, compression with the AIR Comp and the iZotope DDLY for the effects. This delay is very versatile because it has two sessions that can be configured independently. Some controls have been automated for good effect variation;
-on Ride, I applied Dimension D, which is a chorus, to soften it up.
-on the drum group channel, I used bx_console Focusrite for compression and EQ, as well as elysia phil's cascade for saturation. The intention here was to give a nice boost to the high frequencies, since in both references suggested by the producer, the high end is very present.

Bass:
-since the Square Sub and Warm Sub are variations of the same element, I've grouped them together to apply the same processing to both. I applied Acon Digital Equalize 2 for high pass at 28hz and a small bell cut of -1.5 dB at 58hz;
-on Bass Hit, a bell cut of -8dB at 48hz with the Acon Digital Equalize 2;
-Main Synth also joined Bass' group. On it, also with Equalize 2, I applied a high pass at 52hz and made a shelf cut of -3.5dB at 90hz;
-on the Bass group channel, I compressed with Krammer PIE and used Wavesfactory Trackspacer to sidechain with the kick;

Synths:
-the Main Pad doesn't received any processing, only a gain of 1.5dB; the Vox Atmos only received Clean EQ.
-on the group channel, I only used Kush Audio Omega TWK for coloring.

Perks:
-Bongos, Perc Loop1, Perc Loop2 and Perc Snarey didn't receive any processing, only positioning in the panorama and gain adjustment;
-Perc Drum received clean EQ on the low end and a 4dB boost at 800hz; I also inserted Melda MAutopan for a movement on the sides, since the timbre has two distinct moments in its evolution; the first impact is more on the left side and the tale is more on the right side.
-I also added the Foley channels 1, 2 and 3 in the percs group. The only processing was on Foley 3, in which I cut the low frequencies to 580hz. These three channels were grouped and in the group channel I used only one eq to clean the bass and control a resonance at 9.7khz.

FX:
-Chant received Soundtoys EchoBoy Jr and Delay DLYM from Imaginando for effects processing; once again, some parameters were automated.
-on Scream, I chose to resample some effects and then select and edited parts that worked best with the rest of the elements; I created two other audio channels and placed effects takes resulting from Audio Damage Dubstation 2 and Raum reverb, from Native-Instruments.
-on Dialogue I also inserted Raum for ambience.
-on Background Noise I used VolumeShaper3 from CableGuys and Melda MAutopan to give the timbre a movement.
-the other effect elements had no processing.

Fills:
-Main Fills receive eq for cleaning and some compression with AIRComp;
-Also Prefills only eq'ed.

Overall ambience:
-I created two ambience channels, both with reverbs, one short and one long;
-on Rev Short I used RealVerb from UAD, which received signals from the Drums, Synths, Percs and FXs groups, in addition to the Snare and Scream channels;
-on Rev Long, I used PSPAudioware 2445, which received signals from Snare, Marching Snare, Main Synth and the Fills group.

MixBus:
-I usually create a mixbus channel (MSTR B), which receives the signal from all other groups and ungrouped channels. In it, I just inserted the XLN Audio RC-20, using the distortion and space modules to get a glue in the mix. I usually also use a buscompressor, but as we weren't looking for a very loud mix here, I didn't see the need to use it.

Print:
-the MixBus signal was printed on a new track; I then opened a new project to finalize the mix and set the loudness values;
-At this point, I chose to hold the low end a little, which seemed too loud. So I used iZotope Ozone Dynamics to adjust the compression not only for the low end, but also for the other regions. I also inserted the Ozone EQ for a small cut of 0.7dB at 133hz and a 0.3dB cut at 1970hz.
VasDim
Posts: 79
Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2017 07:57 CEST

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC086 June 2022 - Submissions until 21-06-2022 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#23

Post by VasDim »

Hi all,
this is my attempt to mix:

https://mega.nz/file/L3Z2VQgL#Wv0DHkdg6 ... sAT52gCOqs

For all track are used:
- Waves Q10;
- Waves C4;
- Db ProComp.

AUX Effect;
- Waves TrueVerb;
- Waves SuperTap;

Good luck to all.
VasDim
User avatar
JanLefr
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2021 14:42 CET
Location: Berlin

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC086 June 2022 - Submissions until 21-06-2022 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#24

Post by JanLefr »

Hello everyone,

here's my mix!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vbboy7mrfdvmh ... r.wav?dl=0


My idea of this song obviously was to push the drum and bass groove while keeping clarity/transparency in the mix. Had some fun playing around with different delays and automation!

Basic Work steps:
- cleaning the low end to be sole for kick and bass
- removing some harsh frequencies where it was needed

DRUMS/PERC

- Kick:
I took away a lot around 300-500 Hz
RBass Plugin to push the basic tone
Sidechain Routing to duck away the Warm Sub Bass by ~3db

- Snare:
Envelope Shaper for some more Attack
Send FX to a 1/16D as well as an 1/8D Delay

- Hats:
Envelope Shaper for a shorter, more attacky sound

- Tambourine goes into a 1/4 DLY, which turned out well as another groove element

- Purple Audio MC77 Compressor on the Drum bus for glue

BASS

- Square Sub was almost cool as it was, some little EQing and Compression
- Warm Sub goes into a FX-Send where it is heavily distorted.
I then slightly mixed the distorted signal to the original signal
- Warm Sub is ducked by the Kick by around 3db

VOX

- Dialogue: Reverb and DLY Send FXs
- Scream:
Has three different DLYs which I automated to pop up when needed, as well as some Reverb
I also did some "Reverb Fade-In effect" on the Screams.

- Chant: Goes into a 1/8D Ping Pong Delay with some phasing modulation

SFX

- Background Noise moves around with Autopan-Insert-FX
- Sweep End has RBass on it to push the low bass frequencies

- Several Tracks are Send into Cubase's Reverence convolution reverb


STEREO OUT

- Shadow Hills Compressor doing just a little gain reduction, mainly used for colouring and glueing the mix together.


Other than that, just leveling and panning!

Thanks to the song providers and the MrFox! Looking forward to the evaluation.

All the best and peace out,
Jan
Michael_K
Posts: 26
Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2021 18:37 CEST

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC086 June 2022 - Submissions until 21-06-2022 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#25

Post by Michael_K »

Hi everyone!
It was a lot of fun and a great challenge to mix this track!
Very well produced track, and the numbered tracks are really appreciated!

All tracks were processed through a combination of eq first and then subtle compression.
The goal was to use the combination of eq and compression to balance the perceived loudness of each element so that everything can be heard without generating too many peaks.
The mix bus uses two parallel compression channels. One with a medium-slow attack medium release and one with a fast attack for more glue.
The parallel compression tracks are automated slightly to account for differences in the density of the material.

There are 3 reverbs: short, long, gated room (only on the snare and tiny amount on the kick)
One slap back delay (multiple taps, early reflections style) It is combined with the reverbs to emphasize a second set of early reflections.
Four multi tap delays with different panning, loudness, and feedback combinations of 8th, dotted 8th, quarter, and dotted quarter values.
Different combinations of all the above effects are used on each track.

Good luck to everybody!

Here is my mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1paZJws ... MUCsH/view
andreybenassi

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC086 June 2022 - Submissions until 21-06-2022 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#26

Post by andreybenassi »

Hi guys!

It was definitely a challenging mix, I've never mixed anything in the genre.

My mix was more volume based and focused on the interaction of elements, that's what I tried.

I started with the general balance of the music, then I soloed the kick and bass, tried to maintain an interesting synergy and then moved on to the interaction between the instruments to fit the general context, I hope you like it.

The mixbus already started with some light processing because I knew that the tracks sound great in isolation, but I still started with a little compression and EQ on the highs to bring some extra glue to the material.

I also used a lot of reverb on the channels, I felt I would like different sounds at different times, fill holes in different ways.

For the most part, just an equalizer or nothing, just volumes and panorama.
Some channels has some distortion in it, just to make it different a bit, or to sound more organic.

My mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U6sMcF ... sp=sharing
User avatar
zajus
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Feb 04, 2022 22:41 CET

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC086 June 2022 - Submissions until 21-06-2022 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#27

Post by zajus »

Hello everybody,

Here’s my mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15PPntw ... sp=sharing

Thank you @Jorgeelalto for providing the song and giving us the opportunity to mix it!

This was quite an exploration for me, as this genre was way out of my comfort zone, nevertheless I liked the song so I gave it my best and enjoyed the process!

In my mix I mainly focused on making the song come alive through spatial effects and automation. It does feel much wetter than the original mix, which is good for my ears, but I’m not sure how much it would work in a club :)

Regarding the processing:

Kick: It missed a bit low end, so I have used bx_subfilter and added a bit of 40Hz
Snare: I mostly used the right channel as the “ping” sound in the left channel was a bit too loud for my taste and ruined my stereo balance. I have used a rhythmic gate for the marching snare to make it march a bit more, and sent all snares to a plate
Hi-Hats, Crashes, Ride: I processed these together by compressing them and slightly reducing the top end. I sent them to a plate and a room reverb.
Various percussion: I did very little beyond just panning. I have high-passed quite high (probably one of the sounds was messing with the kick) and used various delays (ping-pong for Foley3, simple distorted delay for Shakers 2) and some rhythmic gating
Bass: I have distorted the bass a bit and used a little saturated delay. I had the tendency to make the bass very loud in the mix as it really enhanced the dark atmosphere, but from what I heard the bass in this genre is barely audible, so I happily obliged to the norm :)
Background noise: I really like this one, I used a lot of rhythmic gating, stereo widening, bitcrushing and volume automation to utilize this as much as I could.
Sweeps and Falls: Haas effect and some gating
Main Synth: EQ to enhance mid-range. I have sent this to a stereo delay with different delays in left and right channels (same as used later for the scream) only to enhance the ending of some phrases.
Chant: I took it though massive reverb first, then through a lo-fi spring and then through a panning effect
Dialogue: I aimed for the “announcement at a railway station” effect, so I reduced the frequency range and added tons of reverb
Vox Atmos: Again some rhythmic gating

This time I have done a lot on the mix bus to make the kick really prominent, maybe I went too far! Firstly a few dBs of compression, then tape emulation with some additional compression and saturation and then SSL emulation to add a little distortion.

Overall, it was fun to mix something really new for me, thanks again for the opportunity!

Stepan
JulienMeirone

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC086 June 2022 - Submissions until 21-06-2022 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#28

Post by JulienMeirone »

Hello, guys

Fun mix this month and I tried to do my best.

Here my mix : https://www.dropbox.com/s/stj3ewsoup660 ... e.wav?dl=0

Here some screenshots : https://www.dropbox.com/s/f5aikl155gsnq ... S.zip?dl=0

DRUM : Pro Q3, neutron 4, radiator, lo fi, newfangled saturate, echo boy (for the snare), Black box, standard clip, cla mix down, tape, compressor, dox 160, Softube dynamite, bx ssl E, decapitator, Valhalla room

A lot of small saturation everywhere, a bit of parallel compression and a tiny bit of reverb. The kick was the most important element in the drum to me so I tried to make it work with the bass by keeping a very sub bass and more attack on the kick.

BASS : Pro Q3, compressor, bx greenscreamer; black box

Super simple, not needed a lot. I just spitted the lows and highs to have more control and to compress them separately

SYNTHS : Pro Q3 , Arousor, Pro MB

Not much here just a bit of eq and character with the arousor

VOCALS : Pro Q3, Pro MB, Lindell 902, cla 76, tsar reverb, vintage verb, echoboy, cla efx

Just a bit of control, parallel compression and ambiances

MIXBUS :

Bx Digital v3, pro q3, Ozone Eq, Dangerous Eq, Ozone Dynamics, Inflator

Mostly EQs here ( I prefer small moves on a couple of eqs), dynamics for mutliband compression and inflator for loudness enhancement.

Hope you will enjoy my mix and that I exported to the right loudness (did not submit a mix in a long time).

Have a great day and stay Safe.
pabloAT
Posts: 47
Joined: Mon Mar 09, 2020 12:59 CET
Location: Chartrettes, France

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC086 June 2022 - Submissions until 21-06-2022 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#29

Post by pabloAT »

Dear all,
Many thanks to the client for providing such an interesting track to mix, and to Mr. Fox for carefully chairing this serious game.

As this is a genre that I haven’t much knowledge about, I've started the mix process by doing some research, with a starting point based on the song provider and Mr. Fox’s suggestions. Therefore, I focused my mix on three main aspects: low end, frequency separation and distortion.

In a nutshell, this is what I did:
- Grouped kits into a drum group, reinforced with a // drum bus with dbx-160 and a send to Valhalla vintage verb.
- Grouped percussive elements in a percussion group, with sends to a shimmer and vintage verbs.
- Both groups were sent to a DRUM stem, with a Kramer’s tape.
- Raisers, impacts, etc., were grouped and send to an instance of Blackhole for deepening (except for the background noise). Everything was grouped into a FX stem, with a preamp for coloring a bit the whole tone.
- Basses benefited from instances of EchoBoy, Dimension-D and Darkglass. Grouped into a BASS stem, with Slate’s virtual tape machine.
- Synths were grouped into a SYNTH stem, with an instance of Softube’s tape.
- “Vocals”, dialog, etc. benefited from spring, 480 and lofi verbs, and were sent to a VOX stem with Arturia’s Mello-fi tape machine.
- All stems benefited from an instance of AMEX 9099 console for fine tuning and vibe.
- In turn, stems were sent to a MIX BUSS, with instances of API-2500 subtle compression, the brand new Arturia’s dist TUBE-CULTURE that I loved in this track, Slate’s virtual tape machine, closing the chain with a touch of the wonderful standardCLIP.

Below you can find the Dropbox's link to my mix:
[Dropbox's link to MC086]

I hope the client likes my approach. All the best for the participants,
Cheers,
Pablo
User avatar
scottfitz
Backer
Backer
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Apr 09, 2022 14:01 CEST

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC086 June 2022 - Submissions until 21-06-2022 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#30

Post by scottfitz »

No Escape - notes

Hi all,
What a great experience, every day I’m having this kick sound explode into my ears and scary sounds like knives being fired at me :) Thanks to @Jorgeelalto for the chance to work on your great music and not forgetting @MrFox for hosting and guiding us.

What I found in attempting to mix this track was that every day at the end of the session I thought I had made my kick a bit more punchy now and it was now nearly as punchy as Jorgeelalto’s version. Then the day after I’d come back with fresh ears and alas mine was still nowhere near as punchy as Jorgeelalto’s version. It seemed like every day this happened no matter what I did :whiteflag:

The section of the music that I was getting the most joy out of is around 3:00 where the marching snare meets the kick, warm bass, ride, synths + snare, like everything comes together. When I identified this climax point I worked backwards from there. What has to happen is that this groove is amazing and then the rest of the track can be about leading us to that point. What I was learning from the reference track is that the more sparse it can remain, the bigger the impact of each hit can be, so while we need as much ambience as we can get, all those reverb times and delays need to be chosen to stay out of the way as much as possible. I think like a lot of the other mixers I was drawn to this marching snare track as one that I wanted to get more out of, in the end I put it quite high in the mix and with something close to a gated reverb also high in the mix, I faded it in somewhat.

I went for as dynamic a track as possible and therefore I hardly used any compression at all and hence I have big transients. This was the main concern I was left with, that while I love the track this way, that no-one else seems to have the huge transients and maybe there's something about my ears or my monitoring system which is not working well for me?

For my worksheet, I grouped the tracks into 3 busses, ‘Kick’, ‘Bass’ and ‘everything else’.

The ‘Kick’ bus has the two different kicks and also the timpani. It sends to an ambience aux which is a tweak from the preset ‘empty garage’ from Waves RVerb, with the decay time set to 0.5s This FX channel has HP at 150Hz before the verb plugin.

The ‘Bass’ bus has the squaresub and warmsub patterns and also the bass synth and bass hits.

The ‘everything else’ bus gets a compressor side chained to the bigger of the two kicks, so that each time that big one hits, we get 6dB of gain reduction across the track generally with release time of 0.2s but the kick and bass sounds remain clear of that pumping effect. Then the ‘everything else’ bus gets a +0.6dB high shelf from 1.3kHz. We then send this bus to an ambience aux which is also ‘empty garage’ but with decay time set to 1.25s

These three busses then meet the mix bus which then has Waves API2500 doing ~ -1dB at the most with ratio 1.5:1, releasing 0.2s and attack 30ms

Most notable specific plugin notes on each track

Bass
I made 3 copies of this one, one is intact, one is HP 280Hz and other is LP 280Hz
The LP track has some MaxxBass centred on 90Hz applied and the HP track is clear of it. I then try to blend those 3 tracks to add just a little more depth to the bass sound. The 3 of them join at a bus which adds a transient shaper for more attack, then into saturation chosen from the Scheps Omni Channel.

The Warmsub (later in the track) I found was largely inaudible as the midrange was quite low, so I ran it through MaxxBass (similar settings used previously) and then I added a large +5.5dB boost around 1.1kHz and +2dB boost around 300Hz until I could hear the bass in the track in a similar way to how it was in the corresponding section with the squaresub.

Kick
smaller kick - just gets the transient shaper to increase the attack somewhat. It then gets a parallel channel to MDMX Fuzz with relatively gentle settings.

Larger kick - I duplicated the track and blended one clean version with one which was a very short gated version which was designed to add attack (this was a trick from a video by Dave Pensado). The two of them then run into a bus which adds a gentle contribution from LoAir for some extra depth and the SmackAttack transient shaper for further attack. Then we have a parallel channel with decapitator setting “MassiveCrunch”

Bongos
Transient shaper for more attack and sent to Echoboy “Spaced” preset, with 1/4 triplet and 1/2 triplet delays.

Marching Snare
PuigTec EQ adds some depth at 100Hz and some presence at 5Khz this goes into “Snare 1” preset on the Scheps Omni Channel which is doing around 1dB of compression, saturation and a touch more boost at 10kHz and at 100Hz. It then goes to SmackAttack for a healthy dose of extra attack. Most significantly though it’s then sent to a verb channel with HP filter into Adaptiverb on preset “ultra buttery choir epic hall” except I’ve damped it right down and made the size minimal to give a gated sound. The idea is that because the kick floods your ears so much, I wanted to give the snare something to help it compete with that. Additionally it has a slight/gradual fade in when we first hear it.

03 Snare
PuigTec EQ again, although less added at 100Hz and a small amount at 3kHz then into Scheps Omni Channel a lot of the odd saturation and some more EQ boosting at 8kHz and 3kHz this then sent to two delays. First is echoboy “scrub-a-dub” preset, with 6 repeats at 1/8th note triplet subdivision with a fairly rapid decay. The second delay is echoboy “default” dotted 1/8 note with a medium feedback then into MetaFilter giving some modulation effect on the preset “seq LFO1” then it goes into LoFi stock plugin on preset “digital destruction 3”. The idea is that this longer delay sits across the quieter middle section of the track and then later when the full sound comes back, those delays can be like ghost notes in the groove.

Ride
I gave it a 3.35 semi tone pitch shift down to get it to be close to a ‘tritone’ sound vs the bass root, as I thought it could be more disturbing at this pitch.

Crash
Multitap delay into Brauer motion panning plugin

08 Perc support
A gentle Brauer motion panning effect

Speech
I added a Vocal Bender plugin to the second phrase, taking it down an octave trying to make it more disturbing.

Main Fill
Soundshifter preset Warm + Crunchy

30 Voice
“Puig Spread” setting on the PS22, into Brauer Motion “soft piano” preset

Background Noise
“Puig Spread” setting on the PS22, then sent to Adaptiverb

There are a bunch of little dub delays on other tracks, but I think these are fairly simple to hear so I’ll stop here and I hope you enjoy my mix anyone who takes the time to listen and good luck all

Link for my mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yPGHms ... sp=sharing

Cheers
Post Reply