MIX CHALLENGE - MC083 December 2021 - Winners announced

[YvesK]

Thxs for confirming, Mr. Fox! I was aware of the rules & guidelines, but am not that technical when it comes to 'cloud storage', so was not sure if that was what we were supposed to use to pass on the link. After revisiting these guidelines, though, I must admit having overlooked the actual mentioning of Dropbox specificly, so must apologise for disturbing you unnecessarily.

All the best, season's greetings and stay safe!
YvesK.

[LCM!]

When I first heard the tracks I thought that a “hard winter” calls for a warm and smooth song. And so was my approach: taming transients and endings, and editing glitches and sounds that were poking out, here and there, mainly on the acoustic guitars. The bass track is the only one has been reamped. The second voice has been aligned with the lead one, and tuned both of them, slightly the latter. The fade out is a bit longer than in the Demo Mix (seemed somewhat abrupt). The Reverb and delay are intended not to go too much far.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r8mnFO ... sp=sharing

Reaper stock plugins.

[PrzemekM.]

Hi everyone
My mix

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_-alXW ... p=drivesdk


My steps:

A rhythmic acoustic guitar in a panorama, and one of the tracks with a chorus.
Similarly with the second vocal.

I used eq, reverbs and delay on all guitars.

Lead vocal - cla2a, eq,reverb, delay.

The bass was duplicated, the treble and midrange were cut and strong compression was applied.Bass tracks have been mixed.

On mix bus I used eq and stereo imager.

Greetings.

[adamhope]

Hey, so this is my first mix challenge and really enjoyed it.

Here is a link to the wav
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jvh7b99k7tnv ... Ncx7a?dl=0

And here is what I used to get to this result

Acoustics
Hard panned left and right
Pro Q 3
Pro C 2
Soothe
Pro DS
Reel ADT

Bass
Pro C 2
Pro Q 2
Decapitator -> 20% mix above 279Hz

Electric Guitars
Panned 30% left and right
Pro Q 2
Pro C 2
AR-1

Electric Gtr Bus
Pro Q 2
Reel ADT

Vocal
Pro DS
Pro Q 2
Pro C 2
Pro MB
AR-1
Novatron
Soothe
Gold 4

Reverb Busses
Pro R
Valhalla Vintage

Delay Bus
Echoboy

Mixbus
AR1
Pro C 2

[Vanilla Puff]

It's good to be back in this community. Thanks Mr. Fox, for keeping the supply flowing.
Here is my take on the song. Tried to keep it simple and go for the sound I thought would elevate the song.
Started with cleaning stems with automations, some general eq and compression down the road.
Two reverb send tracks for verse and chorus vocal parts.
Warmed up bass with some saturation. Lowpass eq.
Automated eq for when guitars get too buzzy for my taste. After that some high-shelf to accent choruses and solo parts.

File: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DVM8y4 ... sp=sharing

[EchoOread]

Hello all. Thank you for the music. Very relatable song. It affects everyone. Still rages on as we speak. But all is not lost. We still got music, yours. Thanks.


Editing:
Lined up the 2 acoustic guitars, smoothed out thump plucks, cleaned out as much esses as I could. Lined up some of bass notes and BV/harmony vocal.

Mixing:
Acoustic Guitar: HP (89Hz), cut ~400Hz, Hi shelf boost 3kHz up, panned opposite.
Electric Guitars: same treatment as acoustic guitars since they share the same register. Hi shelf cut from 4kHz up. Hard pan.
Bass: HP to 41Hz, cut lo mid
Vocal: HP 95Hz, cut 100Hz, hi shelf from 1.5kHz up, distortion, gate.

2 delays, 1 reverb.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B1BmvM ... sp=sharing

[Mister Fox]

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

[vintage]

Hello,
Thank you for this new challenge opportunity, very beautiful inspiring composition which makes you want to get the best sound.

I tried to reproduce a simple and tasteful mix of the "Audiophile" type with warmth and definition as on some test CDs known for their sound quality (Chesky records and others ...) I think the song is fine. lends itself well and could be in part!

I listened carefully to all of the tracks solo to identify any resonance and frequency issues and perform cleanups and other EQ adjustments, I use the MAAT EQ RED for this task.

I then parameterized by group the various elements of the mix in my DAW and applied console emulations on each track and bus, I used for that the Acustica audio N4 "AlexB MFC GE".

No compression on the mix bus ready for (Pre) Mastering
24Bits - 44.1Kz, -17.34 RMS, TPL -2.10, DR 13.00
Original length and no fade out.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/149aKvC ... sp=sharing

The plugins used:

Voices lead: AA El rey comp., AA Pensato2 EQ, Softube Weiss deesser
Voice 2: AA El rey comp., Softube Weiss deesser, Overloud Gem voice
Bass: AA El rey comp, TC chorus
Acc GT: Antares mic mod, Sonible Smart comp 3, AA Jade2
El.GT: Sonible Smart comp 3, AA N4 Soudrops Puretech EQ
Reverb: AA Silver Plate, Relab Rev-A & Vsr S-24
Deadline: Fabfilter Timeless 3
Others: Trackspacer Wave Factory (a few tracks), Ivory 5 Mix AA bus, SSL Fusion image.

DAW Studio One 5, Eve Audio SC 208 monitors, Abacus C-box3.

Happy listening and happy Christmas holidays!
Patrick from Brussels

Hello,
I just noticed that part of the dubbing of the main voice remained muted during the final export, the mix did not change, only this error ... I do not know if it is possible to take it into account?
Here is the new link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Foboj0 ... sp=sharing

[Chokaprod]

Thank you for this Mix challenge , very nice song..
here is my humble contribution

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dQh1A1 ... sp=sharing

For My mix , i do the same all the time..
For all the track :
Bandwidth determination: SSL EQ 2
Gain Staging.
Track cleaning: Eq Neutron 3.
I Choice for this Song BX Console N


Acoustic Gtr1 and 2 : Comp Vertigo /
Bus Gtr : Bx Opto

Bass : Duplicated 3 times ..
Bass Mid : LA 2A
Bass HI : Api 2500 / APi 550 A
Bass Low: LA 2A

Buss Bass : RX8 / Bettermaker / Blackbox H2 /

Gtr Harmonics : Comp Vertigo
Parallel bus : Echoboy
Gtr Lead : Comp Vertigo
Parallel Bus : Echoboy

Bus Gtr Harmo / Lead : Millenia Tc / Dangerous EQ


Voice Lead 1 : Nectar 3 / Rvox
Parallel Bus : Little AfterBoy / MicroShift
Parralel Bus Echoboy
Chorus Voice : Nectar 3 / Rvox / MicroShift

Bus Vox : Spl Deesser / Neutron EQ / BX N / Shadows Hills Classe A / Maag Eq 2

Reverb: SSL Native Flexverb for ROOM / 2C B2 for Hall

Print Bus : Shadows Hills Class A / Ozone Imager / 2C B2 Mastering Reverb 2% / Ozone Maximiser

I used Softube Tape Multitrack insert Mix FX Studio one 5

Voice Automation and Gtr ...

[cpsmusic]

Hi Everyone,

Here's my entry for Mix Challenge 083.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-8cg-P ... sp=sharing

Thanks to the song provider and to the contest organisers. This song really got into my head, more noticeably than any other that I've mixed for previous Challenges, so I certainly found it catchy! And hopefully the sun will return soon!

Before starting the mix I had a think about the overall direction - for this mix I was aiming for a modern "intimate" sound. I used Iron and Wine's Bitter Truth as the primary reference. Something that I found interesting in Bitter Truth was the use of a slap delay which I used in the mix of Sun Returns, but only for the verses. One thing I wanted to highlight were the "Pino Palladino-esque" upper bass notes as they sounded great against the vocal melody.

Before starting the mix I did some preprocessing. I aligned the vocal double with the lead vocal using Melodyne (although I didn't use any pitch correction). The instrumental tracks were tamed using manual levelling to control any rogue peaks. Some very light processing with Softube Tape was also used for texture.

The mix was organised into instrumental groups as follows:

Bass
Acoustic Guitar
Electric "Harms"
Electric Lead
Vocal

For the Bass the processing was:

Main - TB EQ 4 (HPF), bx_opto (smoothing), Ampeg B15N, Black Rooster VEQ-1P
Chorus - Linear Phase HPF, Syntorus 2
Mid Thicken - RBass
Bus - C6, TwinTube (Harmonics only), TB EQ 4

For the Acoustic Guitar the processing was:

Rode - RX 9 Guitar De-Noise (reduce finger noises), TB EQ 4
58 - RX 9 Guitar De-Noise (reduce finger noises), TB EQ 4
Both guitars were then bussed together and processed using elysia Alpha Mix (peak control), Audiority Type A (brightness), Softube Transient Shaper (decrease attack transients), Softube Tape
Parallel - SDRR2 (saturation), Major Tom (compression)
Bus - TwinTube (Harmonics only)
Send - Deleight (rhythmic delay), TB EQ 4

For the Electric Harms the processing was:

Main - TB EQ 4, elysia Alpha Mix (peaks), MJUC (levelling)
Chorus - Gem Mod, Little Plate
Bus - NobleQ

For the Electric Lead the processing was:

TB EQ 4, Summit TLA-100A, FreeAmp, SPL TwinTube
Parallel - Presonus Rotor
Parallel - Deleight (Chorus)
Bus - Little Plate, NobleQ, Dubstation

The original vocal was a bit sibilant so I decided to manually de-ess it by copying the "esses" to a phase inverted track and then adjusting the level so that the esses were reduced. The original vocal and its inverted "esses" were combined and sent to RX9 De-Plosive and TB EQ 4. The vocal double had the same processing but TB Compressor 4 and Izotope's Vocal Doubler were added. The whole vocal group was then processed as follows:

MJUC (Levelling), TB Compressor 4 (Upwards Comp.), VEQ-1P (5K Presence), Fuse VPRE-376 (Character), Summit TLA-100A (final smoothing), D16 Frontier (stray peaks), RX9 De-click (remove any stray clicks)

Four spatial effects were used:

Slap Delay - Fuse Bucket-500, Softube Tape (only present in the verses)
Short Reverb/Delay Hybrid - Valhalla Supermassive, Fuse Bucket-500
Room - SSL Flexverb
Plate - Acustica Plate Ebony 240

All instruments were sent to the Room reverb, while the Slap, Hybrid and Plate were used only by the vocal. All spatial effects were sent to their own bus which had Fieidler Stage for additional width.

The Mixbus processing consisted of TEOTE, Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor, SPL Vitalizer, TB EQ 4 and Bassroom.

The backing music was ducked by a couple of dB using the vocal as a sidechain input.

Specs:

44.1kHz/24-bit
-16.7 LUFS (int.)
-4.2 dBTP

Good luck to all contestants.

Cheers!