MIX CHALLENGE - MC074 March 2021 - Winners announced

[Coiled_Ear]

Plugins I used: soothe (to remove harshness especially of drum track), Fabfilter PRO-mb to change balance in complex instruments, Fabfilter Pro-q3, FirComp2 for glue compression and normal one, Transient shaper from Softube to improve excessive reverbs on synths, Ableton's Utility bass mono feature to do exactly the previous one too. A lot of processing actually. I like the track but it's pretty hard to mix it, a lot of important instruments, they are super wide and drum track is pretty hard too (looked for the softer sounding though).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9bhid7n2bon3b ... r.wav?dl=0

[gmcalsiter4248]

New to site. Just stumbled across it a couple days ago and love the concept. Very appreciative to be able to touch the multitracks for this song. Huge shoutout to Dodging Rain for giving us access to their work. Had a really good time doing it, just wish I found it sooner so I could have tweaked more.

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

EQs: Really just used stock EQ3 to get rid of resonate frequencies and try to clean up some of the tracks

Dynamics: Used some Parallel Comp on the drums with the focusrite console emulation from pluginin allience. In hindsite I could have used more PC on other tracks to thicken things up. Also used a VSC-2 on the mix buss with some multiband parrellel using ozone 9.

Distortion/Sat: Used Decapitator and softubes saturation plugin on BASS and vocals. Or where it was needed

Automation: after getting a rough balance with everything static, I automated volume/pan of most of the elements to try to create more impact/feel.


I'm still new to mixing and would appreciate any constructive feedback. Thanks again to Dodging Rain for allowing us to work on your track

[Dwic]

Here's my submission:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CeQYr2 ... sp=sharing

Really good song this month, very evocative. I figured the key was to get the bass right, then fit in the drums and percussion. Once that worked the rest could produce a very interesting landscape.

The bass tones got just a bit of Saturn saturation, and a slight amount of compression in the group buss. I sidechained the bass group with the kick sub, which I included in my drum group.

The 'snare' track got some work done - sat, eq, comp from CLA-76, and Cymatics Diablo to punch it.

For my mix, I tried to follow Dodgingrain's original mix pretty closely but I did make some different choices.

I saw this as almost a soundtrack to an astronaut's mission, like Bowman in the end of '2001: A Space Odyssey'. The song evokes that feeling of fear and isolation, and rushing forward to the unknown. Hopefully my mix reflects that.

Thanks again.

[GB Real]

Excellent track with outstanding sound design and sample curation! Really love how the arps and pads interplay smoothly here. The drums that come in midway are incredibly satisfying.

Focused on grouping extensively, keeping basses working harmoniously so that each one takes the low low end at a time. Did a lot of filtering and creative automation as you'll hear right at the onset of the track. I also focused on using dynamic eq on the arps and hats to tame the high-end and sibilance. I did some volume automation as well to accentuate the melodic components, keeping the melody at the forefront at all times, especially during the buildup with the Keys track. I saturated the Rhodes pretty aggressively and found that it really worked well to my tastes. I didn't compress and limit anything that hard, needed very few bus plugins on the Premaster to get things to gel. Enjoyed the track and look forward to hearing your thoughts on the mix!

Here is my submission:
Screen capture: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kAtOOA ... sp=sharing
MP3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fdnxHW ... sp=sharing
WAV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cDw5Oe ... sp=sharing

[Nimii]

Hi All!

Recently discovered this forum and what a great song for a first mix! I really liked the 'space' feel of this track.. almost like something out of a movie.

For my mix, I went for a more "commercial/cinematic" sounding mix.. I pictured this track being using in a scene in space with a wide shot of a spaceship or something.. haha!. I used a decent amount of reverb and stereo tricks to get things out wide and more "smeared" or blurred together.

The most extensive thing I did was split the main bass track and process the sub differently from the rest of the signal. For the top I used a Midside processor to get it wide, then Waves Bezerk distortion with automation to get some movement. The lows i kept more mono and added subtle distortion to make it more audible. I also only really use the lower part of the bass when the drums come in initially. After that everything gets various filters to give a more "ethereal/space" sound.

I buss everything to their respective busses (drums, bass, synths, strings, vox, etc) and then to a mix buss. All busses have Slate Digital Virtual Mix Rack for console emulation and Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machine for some tape sound. SSL Bus Comp on the mix bus doing max 1db of compression into a AirEQ by Eiosis to push the mid-range on the mix.

I mostly used the SSL channel strip for EQ and comp on any channels.

Waves F6 for frequency-specific compression/ducking to help make space for the kick and bass where needed.

FX consists of a short room, a hall, a plate, a room, 8th and 16th delays, and a "H3000" style sound using Soundtoys Microshift. All reverbs are from Verbsuite Classics and delays are Soundtoys Echoboy

Here are links to my submissions :

Wave : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NXj5mS ... sp=sharing
YouLean Loudness Meter Read out : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xFBUBf ... sp=sharing

Thanks all!

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
We're in the final 24 hours to submit your mix.



Please keep in mind - there have been a "Daylight Saving Time" switches for certain countries on our blue planet. Please have an eye on the Global Countdown (server based in Central Europe/UTC+1) so that you're not missing any deadlines. If in doubt, submit to the forum with an additional 1 hour headroom.

[AskAndy]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lz-2Gb ... sp=sharing that is the tune. here are two screenshots of the foundation. If i advance I would show more work.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r4ofES ... sp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h0S4Pp ... sp=sharing

[cpsmusic]

Hi Everyone,

Here's my mix of the Digital Blue Deep Space Remix.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Oj7DbJ ... sp=sharing

Special thanks to the song provider for the opportunity to mix this song.

The main goal I had for this mix was to create a clear sense of stereo width and depth. My initial plan was to work with the original stereo files however after spending some time on this, I realised that working this way was going to make it very difficult to get the sort of separation between sources that I was after. So I decided to change tack and reduce most of the stereo source files to mono and then add width as required. I kept a few of (what I thought were) the key tracks as stereo to preserve the original sound. The stereo-to-mono bounces took a while as I auditioned different bounces - Mid, Side, Left, Right, Mono, and tried to pick the most suitable for the mix.

With respect to the mix, I tried to maintain a pretty strict LCR approach. I initially tried to use a fairly standard reverb approach (short, long) but found that this became muddy very quickly so I opted to use delay instead for the primary spatial effects, and then use some reverb to push sources to the back of the mix.

There were two aspects of the mix that I found challenging. Firstly, getting the multiple basslines to work together without sounding muddy or dissonant. Secondly, getting sufficient separation between the various noise and synth sources which had quite wide frequency content.

The mixbus chain is straightforward except for the use of two Novas and TB EQ 4. The first Nova was used for a small amount of low end upward expansion and midrange compression of the Mid signal. The second Nova was used for a small amount up upward expansion for the high end Side signal. TB EQ 4 was used to roll off the low end below 40Hz and for a small amount of "hissy" cymbal removal.

Most of the basic EQ and compression duties were done using the SSL Native Channel Strip. Fuse's VPRE-376 was used to brighten sources that I wanted more forward in the mix.

Main Loop - Submarine, TB EQ 4, Townhouse, BlackBox, Nugen Stereoizer 3
Extra Hat Loop - SSL Native Channel Strip
Hats - SSL Native Channel Strip
Percussion - SSL Native Channel Strip
Attack - SSL Native Channel Strip
Attack 2 - SSL Native Channel Strip
Hat Loop - SSL Native Channel Strip, Flux Mini
Clap - SSL Native Channel Strip
Hit - Dual Pan, SSL Native Channel Strip
Drums Level - MMultiAnalyzer, bx_digital V3 (Mono Maker only)

Bass - SSL Native Channel Strip, Frontier
Bass 2 - TB EQ 4, El-Germano, Frontier
Monoment Bass - TB EQ 4
Sub Bass - TB EQ 4
Bass Bus - C6 (Ducked by Kick)
Bass Level - MMultiAnalyzer

Drop Arp - SSL Native Channel Strip, Overtone RVB500, Fazortan 2
Dark Multisaw - SSL Native Channel Strip
Ummm Chorus - SSL Native Channel Strip
Ummm Chorus (D) - SSL Native Channel Strip
Background Arp - SSL Native Channel Strip
Pulse Arp - SSL Native Channel Strip
A Fine Pad - SSL Native Channel Strip
Rhodes - SSL Native Channel Strip, VPRE-376, Frontier
Synth Groove - SSL Native Channel Strip
Dark Sun - SSL Native Channel Strip
Pulse Chords - SSL Native Channel Strip
Organ Chatter - SSL Native Channel Strip
Harmony Synth Level - MMultiAnalyzer

Statment Amp 1 - SSL Native Channel Strip, VPRE-376
Statement Amp 2 - SSL Native Channel Strip, VPRE-376
Monoment DblGtr - SSL Native Channel Strip
Monoment DblGtr (D) - SSL Native Channel Strip
Keys - SSL Native Channel Strip, VPRE-376
Lead Synth Level - MMultiAnalyzer

Low Strings - SSL Native Channel Strip
High Strings - SSL Native Channel Strip
Strings All - Syntorus 2, Nugen Stereoizer 3

Dark Energy - SSL Native Channel Strip
Noise Background - SSL Native Channel Strip
Intro Noise Sweep - SSL Native Channel Strip
Chord Riser Low - SSL Native Channel Strip
Chord Riser High - SSL Native Channel Strip
Jam Leadin - SSL Native Channel Strip
Light Sweep - SSL Native Channel Strip
FX Level - MMultiAnalyzer

Lead 2 - Dual Pan, SSL Native Channel Strip
Backing Vocals - Dual Pan, SSL Native Channel Strip, MH Character
Harmony 03 - Dual Pan, SSL Native Channel Strip
Harmony 04 - Dual Pan, SSL Native Channel Strip
I Try03 - Dual Pan, SSL Native Channel Strip
I Try04 - Dual Pan, SSL Native Channel Strip
Vocal Level - MMultiAnalyzer, Frontier

Haas Delay - Unfiltered Audio Instant Delay
Mono 1/2 Delay - Unfiltered Audio Instant Delay
Stereo 1/2 Delay - Unfiltered Audio Instant Delay
Short Verb - Arturia REV Plate-140
Long Verb - Blackhole

Mix Bus - TDR Nova (1), TDR Nova (2), TB EQ 4, SSL Native Bus Compressor, SPL Vitalizer, VSM-3

Meters - Reference 2, Youlean LM 2, MMultiAnalyzer, TB Morphit, SPAN

Specifications:
44.1kHz/24-bit
-20.9 LUFS (Int.)
-5.4 dBTP

Best of luck to all participants and once again, thanks to all who made this challenge possible.

Cheers,

Chris

[AndyHsieh]

first time participant!
went for a drier mix though ,i think the original sound design are well made,
mainly tried to bring the bass out of some sounds using pultec style eq
and taming the midrange using proq
good luck everyone!
link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13ZukYN ... sp=sharing

[studjo]

Hello here's my take on this - I have no clue about electronic music but it's been a nice experience!

Mixed on a console for fader rides and bussing. I got lots of busses running but the main busses this time were:
- Drum bus: Chandler TG1 into a Pultec clone with a boost @20 Hz and a healthy boost @20kHz
- "rear" bus: Harrison compressor on 4:1 with pretty fast attack and roughly 150ms release

The Drumloop got a pultec EQ (+4 @ 20Hz / -1 @20Hz) for some low end boost and "that" trick ... the Loop also went into a SSL G compressor as a parallel bus
The reverb you can hear building up on the snare is actually a RMX16 on Programm 1 with 4.8 sec reverb time. I separated the snare through a Oxford drum gate plug in so I only had reverb on the snare hits. I like to widen the return of the RMX16 (with the widener plug)
The Mono Bass went into a Buzz Audio SOC @ 5:1 on auto only doing a few dB of compression - it also got a healthy dose of Lexicon PCM70 on that Medium Room patch with 40 ms predelay (love that preset)
I used a DearVR Reverb plug in on those mono Synth tracks. I let the "Noise Background" track spin around the listener's head (as good as it works on speakers) - I really like that plugin! I also did some up and down automation the "Pulse Arp" track ... it just smears the image a bit - I liked that effect!

If anybody wants to know anything else just hit me up - even a simple mix like this has way too much stuff going on than I could write down

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Tlxe9O ... sp=sharing