MIX CHALLENGE - MC081 October 2021 - Winners announced

[fcamp]

This one has been a lot of fun. For me, the song has several songs inside, and so I did some automation of volumes, effects and panning to guitars, vocals and drums to fit the mood in each part. I am not sure if the texture or the tone of the song is math rock-ish. I did a first mix that was too muddy/grungy tonally, and I had to revise it several times when checking against the reference songs. Here it is:

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

Vocals: Nice performance and very personal style from the vocalist. I cut some resonances with bx digital, then VQA-154 is used mainly to give some warm saturation and body, Electra for HP filter, remove some lows and boost 1,5kHz. Then Softube FET to catch some peaks, deessing with the LSR plugin, Kush AR-1 to level and pultec style eq for a smoother sound and boosting 5kHz for a better intelligibility. The ADA to widen the stereo. In the interlude from 3:00, I use the Valhalla SPaceModulator to create an harmony effect and the Excalibur to pan the voice with a fast rate. Just for a tripping/dreamy touch.
Send 1: LSR VLB902, Valhalla Delay, bx digital v3mix. Short delay to give some body.
Send 2: LSR VLB902, Black Rooster RO-140 Plate. To give some depth to the voice, insert it between the instruments.
Send 3: LSR VLB902, Soundtoys Echoboy, bx digital v3mix. Longer delay for the final part.
The eq in the sends is to avoid a muddy sound in the mix.
Send 4: Room reverb from Liquidsonics Seventh Heaven

Guitars: I found it difficult to make the Cindy’s guitar compete with David’s one. Finally, applying SansAmp style distortion I was able to find a space for it. Panned them not too hard, sent some delay to the other side of the stereo in both. Automated a lot to avoid hearing the delay when they mute the guitars. Grouped them to apply some more levelling with a Pular MU compressor.
Cindy guitar: Fuse VQA 154 for the colour, Nembrini PSA 1000 SansAmp, TDR SlickEq, Softube FET compressor, Echoboy. Added some bubbly effect with UA Sandman Pro, in the trippy interlude and the outro. It was random so I had to freeze the effect in a parallel track.
David guitar: Fuse Vpre 376 for colour for the colour, DR SlickEq, Softube FET compressor, Echoboy
Send 4: Room reverb from Liquidsonics Seventh Heaven
Send 6: Exponential Audio R4 in guitar wash mode in the intro.

Bass: Fuse Vpre 376 for saturation, Softube FETcompressor to control the signal, Acme Opticom for levelling and low mids, some Bx Subsynth to clean the deep lows and add something between 70 and 90 Hz, and then some Electra Eq. Boz Width knob to fix it in the middle.
Send 4: Room reverb from Liquidsonics Seventh Heaven

Drums: Phase reversal in snare bottom, tom 2 and OH. Used gating and automation. For the snare I used the top mic for the low mids and the bottom one for the crack, had to apply StandardClip to cut some peaks, and grouped them to add some eq. Used the OH for air applying low pass to a group with them. Lowpassed the rooms and squished them to use them to give depth and movement to the drums. Used the hi-hat mic in some moments, I preferred to mute it instead of dealing with the heavy bleed. Applied SSL style compression with the Glue to the drums group.
Send 4: Room reverb from Liquidsonics Seventh Heaven
Send 5: Black Rooster Plate for the snare group only.

Mix bus: The Glue SSL style compressor with the typical settings, Dangerous BAX eq to apply low pass and high pass and Volko audio Q3D Maag style eq to add some 40 Hz and some 20kHz for air. All af them put from the beginning. Then added Oxford Inflator for added volume perception and Voxengo Elephant to add 2 db of volume but without limiting.

Good luck to everyone and thanks to the song provider for this opportunity!

[dnlptn]

Hi All,
Thank you salvadorcassis for a very cool track. Here is my entry - hope you enjoy it.

Mix
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RF2Znn ... sp=sharing

I initially mixed with a lot of saturation/compression, but at some point found I lost too many transients. It came to a point where I had to dial back on the effects to restore the punch and energy.

Drums
Checked phase first - flipped the bottom snare, aligned this to the OHs.
All drums except the kick went to a bus for separate treatment. I used Scheps on each track for saturation. Gate on toms and hats.
Kick
Eq (for bottom/top), bx ssle 4000 comp (infinity), Pultec EQ to boost lows/highs. Had a bit more eq on the 100hz to fatten the sound. I thought the kick was pretty important for the rhythm.
Duplicated the kick, microshift & eq between 400-1khz to add widen the midrange area
Used a reverb and filtered out the lows
Snare Bus
eq, transient designer, multiband compressor to reduce the highs, limiter,
gated snare reverb (emt140)
Drum Bus (no kick)
Pultec EQ, bx SSl E 4000 for buss compression
drum reverb (emt 140)

Drum Room
SansAmp, Eq, Delay (to widen)

Cindy (panned ~60 PT)
Neutron transient designer to add more bite

David (panned ~60 PT)
Wanted this to be smoother in contrast. Soothe, decapitator (50%)
I wanted to highlight this guitar sometimes so I would pan it to the middle, sometimes adjust the saturation and reverb

Guitar Bus
bx ssle 4000 parallel bus compression
Guitar verbs were echosphere and emt140

Bass
Sansamp for the upper frequencies for more clarity
Rbass, Scheps OC preamp sat, side chain compression to the kick

Vocals
Eq (scooped out a little 200) deesser, gentle LA-2a and soothe to take out some edge
No volume automation but would adjust the clip gain to even out the volumes or enhance some areas
Emt140 reverb and timeless 2 delay for the middle-end section

Mixbus
Bx_townhouse
I was also trying the Atr-102, I liked the colour but seemed to lose the low end punch

Thanks!

[Ein Stuck]

MC081_Por_Mientras__Sable__Ein Stuck

Here is my mix.

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/rbt0zy4ru9ob5o ... k.wav?dl=0

This is a great song. I wanted to create space for the guitars without panning. It was tough but I think it turned out pretty good.
I don't use buses so all of my glue compression is in the master track

24/48k res
-18.8 Lufs Int
-1.1 peak

Guitar David - Delay, UAD 1176, Ocean Way, ATR 102 for FX Wow Flutter, Black Box, Lindell 1073, track Spacer to duck vocals

Guitar Cindy - EMT 140, Black Box, Lindell 1073, Track Spacer to duck vocals

Kick - Bx Clean Sweep, Pro C2, Lindell 1073

Snare Top - Little Labs IBP, Lindell 1073, EMT 140 Mono

Snare Bottom - Lindell 1073

HH - Lindell 1073

Tom 1 - Lindell 1073

Tom 2 - Lindell 1073, ProQ3, Ocean Way

OH L & R - Uad 1176, Lindell 1073

Room - Uad 1176

Lead Vox - The Kitchen Sink - Klanghelm MJUC, Lindell 1073, Lexicon 480L, ProC2, Delay, bx Stereomaker, ProQ3, Black Box, ProDS

Bass - La2a, Lindell 1073, Track Spacer to duck the Kick

Master Track - DSM V3 for light glue compression, Atr102 for a little saturation, Weiss EQ1 to cut some mud , ProQ3 to deess, ProL2 to set the level. no limiting was introduced on the L2

Ein Stuck

[pabloAT]

Hi there,
First to all, many thanks to the song provider for this nice song to mix and to Mr. Fox for taking care of this game.
Please find below my contribution for MC081:

[Dropbox's link to MC081]

Submission:
DAW = Cubase 11.0.40
Integrated LUFS = -18.9
True Peak = -5.52 dB
File Format: WAV, 48kHz, 24bit

Preliminary work : cleaning-up, raw balance, panning/stereo spreading, Removing glitches, noise, etc. from guitar and vocals. All tracks benefited from Focusrite SC console emulation (from Brainworx). For most tracks I’ve applied the HPF/LPF from the console strip.

Drums
For each kit, the compression was applied from the Focusrite console strip. Drumkit group sent to busses with early reflections, saturation, and extra compression for glue.

Bass
Applied an instance of CLA-2A compressor. Send to buses with early reflection and distortion.

Guitars Cindy & David
Panned hard left and right. For both guitars, I’ve used the CLA-3A compressor to bright-out and even a bit the original sound. Sends to busses with instances of early reflection, reverbs, and delays (different for each guitar).
For some parts of the track, I’ve automated an extra guitar amp to reinforce the vibe and added an harmonizer.

Vocal
Vocal dynamics controlled with the Focusrite console strip’s compresor and a Diode-609. De-essing and saturation with TAIP at the end of the chain. Send to buses with early reflection, vintage reverb, doubler and delay. For the heaviest parts of the track, I’ve automated the vocal with a lot of distortion.

Stems & Master busses
Different instrument groups were sent to 3 stems (“drums&bass”, “guitar”, and “vox”), where I used instances of tape machine emulators. The stems were in turn sent to the master buss, where I applied Arturia’s Bus Force (gentle compression + Pultec-like EQ), SSL compression, a touch of bx_digital V3 for final low/high end frequency adjustments and wideness (very subtle), P42 Climax (demo, under testing as I found it very expensive) and an instance of tape emulation.

Best wishes,
Pablo

[Gloo]

Hi!

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dtm2oomdqb71l ... o.wav?dl=0

Great song and very well recorded!

Drums: EQ, tape saturation and comp on individual channels, parallel comp on bus, room reverb
Bass: EQ, comp, saturation
Guitars: EQ, comp, delay
Vocal: EQ, comp, de-esser, reverb & delay
Mix bus: EQ, comp

Plug ins: Fab Filter Pro: Q3, C2, DS, Timeless 3, Pro-R, and Saturn 2
T-Rex: Dyna-Mu, Saturator X, EQ PA

Daw: FL Studio 20.8

[Dodgingrain]

Here's my mix: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqpB-RLndYJrkbIufKA ... g?e=qZa40d


I tried to give it a bit of a warm jazzy feel and tried to make it not feel over compressed. I really didn't do to much to the mix as it was in reasonable shape already.

Drums: Really not much work here. Some level automation, a bit of static panning and a very small amount of automation on the panning. Drums, except for kick, are parallel compressed. Kick drum triggers a compressor on the bass.

Bass: This one has a ducking compressor triggered by the kick. There are a couple of amp simulators used, the stock cubase bass sim and in a few parts a sans amp simulator was added to give the bass more high end grit. Also ducked 106Hz based on the level of the bass.

Guitars: All of the guitars are run through a grumpy 636 using just the pre-amp side to fatten and smooth out the tone a little. The Cindy track was doubled with one track panned hard left and the second hard right, the right has extra eq, delay, and reverb and is lower in level. This was mainly to prevent the guitar track from sounding to narrow. There is some macro level automation to bring in and out some of the guitar parts to create interest.

Vocal: Vocal was tuned a bit to make it sound better. Added some delay and additional reverb along with standard eq/compression.

[Coiled_Ear]

Brilliante...brilliante!
Here is my link - https://www.dropbox.com/s/iv022avlgqq5c ... r.wav?dl=0
And here is my mix story ;-)
After 20 minutes of tweaking I have been pretty sad because I like to mix in punchy in your face style and overall recording just doesn't fit this intention. I almost abandoned the mix but then comes to the vocal reverb and magic plugin just done the mix in other Post-Rock way with a huge amount of dynamic range because tempo is so vibrant to overcompress (you know).

Ok, drums
kick - Softube transient shaper to push up attack, than Fab pro-q3 3k a bit to push up attack, then Decapitator at full drive and half mix to push up attack and again fab pro-q3 to push up attack. That's pretty weird, isn it? But works for me!
Snare - Top - reduce sustain in Softube transient shaper. And Snare group High pass at 10hz (am I mad already? :-) Don't know what exactly intention was haha. (also tried phase switch on the bottom but it doesn't even click with me, snare losted its...intimacy? So I leaved it as is). Actually love how the snare sounds, really stands out from the whole kit.
Toms - on both toms - Softube transient shaper to push up attack and sustain too and then Fab filter pro-q3 with kind of smile or Equal Loudness curve to add attack and remove boxiness
Overheads - Fab pro-q3 - Hipass at 100hz and bell -2db on 200hz. As seen in any mixing book :-)

Bass - Analog obsession LALA (LA2A) with hipass detector - works perfectly!, then reduce boominess at 100hz with pro-q3, then add REAL BASS with Analog Obsession LOVEEND at 90hz 3db (just love this), Decapitator in neve mode almost full mix to add bit definition, Thrillseeker from Variety of Sound - to make it stand out from a mix a bit (also love this tool for the purpose)

David guitar - reduce fullness at 300hz a bit with equalizer
Group guitars - Fabfilter pro-q3 - both hipass and low pass filter and at the centre did smile \ EL curve. then AnalogObsession Loveend to add 110hz harmonic (creates nice depth and glue with a bass), Analog Obsession Specomp compressor, ratio 3, short attack and release (compressor has a very cool detector so that settings work as dynamic range tamer), Decapitator in neve mode to add some brightness and attack, Thrillseeker (add mojo a bit), and finally pro-q3 to add more side info on 1800hz, just 3db

And vocal - dbcomp by Analog Obsession (that forward thing), fab pro-q3 to reduce some harsheness at 3.5khz - -7db, LOVEEND 180hz a little bump, more low end presence, or proximity effect, thrillseeker to add some air, Pultec from IK multimedia again to add some nice 16khz air, DMG audio essence to dess at 9.7 khz, and pro q.3 to add lost presence at high end end remove some 8.5 spike.

And aux which is very important for this mix
A - 112db Mikron reverb (the only reverb I know that add very nice spatial movement with right settings) and pro-q3 with curve like Moog low pass filter @_@ Nothing fancy but continues this spatial effect in spatial audition zone. Use this AUX only for vocal.
B - Softube Tsar - mostly for Early Reflections 3D effect. Really nice glueing for almost all track
C - ValhallaRoom large room for Cindy guitar
D - Replika Xt from NI delay - 200ms, mid feedback. For Cindy guitar and vocal too.
E - Replika XT again, same setting but with Chorus and BBD delay mode, for David guitar
F - ValhallaRoom - large chamber - 0,3 sec, for Drums

So that was my mix story. Good luck to everyone!

[matt014]

MC081_Por_Mientras_Sable_matt014

Hi! It's my first time joining a mix challenge and here's my mix.

Math Rock is an unknown genre for me, but upon researching, one thing I loved about it is that it relies more on the feel, rather than the technicalities. Song is great and well played, kudos to Por Mientras and @salvadorcassis! I really had fun mixing, and I hope that I really made it sound as it should. Looking forward for more of this! Anyway, upon listening to the reference tracks and the song itself, here's how I interpreted "Sable" by Por Mientras. Enjoy listening!

GOOGLE DRIVE LINK
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GboLw8 ... sp=sharing

Loudness: -17 LUFS, -1 dbTP
Format: 48/24
DAW: Reaper v6.36

Summary of my Workflow:
Prep:
Gain Staging
Setup bus tracks and folders for vocals and instruments
Panning
Mix:
Subtractive EQ
Additive EQ
Compression (Main tracks)
Parallel Compression (Optional)
Sidechain Ducking (Optional)
Stereo Imaging
Effects (Delay/Reverbs)
Automation
Loudness

I always start with the vocals, 2nd is drums and bass, 3rd Guitars if present, then other instruments. Balancing using speakers, mixing through headphones, then back to speakers again for final touches.

Some Technical Info:

Vocals: Duplicated for some parts and additional panning effect using PanMan plugin.
Pro-Q3 for ducking resonance, harsh high freq. and boost on 6k
R-vox for subtle compression only on loud parts.
DeEsser
Sends: Parallel 1176 Comp, 3 Delays, 3 Reverbs (Hall, Plate, Tajmahal for some parts), subtle distortion using Devil-Loc
Bus: Pultec, iZotope Imager

I also did a bit of pitch correction on some parts. I left the rest as it is, and for human feel. I also think that the way it was sang was intentional. Slightly off tuned on some parts sounds good to me.
Lo-Fi automation.

Drums: Duplicated Kick for Sub and Body.
Pro-Q3 for boost on sub and 200-500hz,
Parallel 1176 Comp w/ ReaEQ boost on 300Hz.
Snare: Bottom inverted Phase
SSL EQ
SSL Comp
Waves C4 (Mid)
Hi-Hat: SSL EQ only
Toms: Pro-Q3 for boost and LPF
SSL Native Comp.
Overheads: Pan hard left and right
ReaEQ HPF 50Hz, +3db 6k HighShelf, +3db 500hz for snare
WaveArts Tube Saturator
Drum Room: ReaEQ for +6db LowShelf on 120Hz, slight boost on mids and LPF,
WaveArts Tube Saturator
Bus: Pultec, Izotope Imager
Sends: Parallel 1176 Comp, 2 Delays, 2 Reverbs

Guitars: I used Haas Effect on Cindy's guitar, Hard Right for David.
Pro-Q3 for harsh high freq. Brickwall low cut 60hz. Used GTR Tool Rack for Reamping,
Sends: 2 Delays, 2 Reverbs.

Sent all to subtle Room Reverb.

ST BUS: ReaEQ HighShelf Automation. -1db with vocals, +1db without vocals.
MasterTrack: SSL Native Bus Comp, L2 Stereo, Span, WLM Stereo.

Reverb Plugin is Verbsuite Classics.

Automation for panning, reverbs, and delays. I always have pultec on mix bus even if I dont do anything with it. I just like the subtle effect that it brings.

So far this is how I remembered my approach. Thank you for this opportunity! God Bless us All!

[Mellow Browne]

Nice song, I had a great time mixing this.

So, here is the link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Main focus was on the instrumental, I used NYC compression because I wanted solid drums and smooth bass, the vocal track is good, no tuning was needed. Only problem I had were some click noises at the beginning, so I used Acon Digital DeClick 2 to eliminate this.
I like to split the recording takes into different parts and adjust the gain from there, rather than writing automation. This way I also I have the possibility to drive comps/amps etc. harder for each section instead of just pushing the level of the whole track.
I used IKM Amplitube for both guitars and some flanger and phaser automation here and there. Vocal has some delay automation to emphasize the climax.
Stereo bus > UAD Fairchild 670 (sidechain filter) with the needle barely moving, just for that "glue" and UAD Oxide Tape for the tone.

Happy mixing.
Cheers!

[GB Real]

Here are the links to my mix of the track:

wav: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PgoSDd ... sp=sharing
mp3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vtdgIA ... sp=sharing
Screen capture: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cnOg5- ... sp=sharing

Good luck to everyone who has undertaken the mix of this next-level track