MIX CHALLENGE - MC084 February 2022 - Winners announced

[AskAndy]

I could not use any pitch correction on the vocals. had to be true to the artists' unique style and sound. edited the rhythm gtr out whenever the keys were playing and in the last section. all the individua sections, bass, drums, perc, Lvox, BVox, Gtr, Keys have some sort of parallel compression. the sum bus has OzonePro tape and Slate BVC rack for glue. I use a 3space reverb section and a 3x3 delay matrix for the room space.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10lSTi8 ... sp=sharing

[Mister Fox]

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

[mobiledrummer]

Hi all,

here is my entry:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nko9wixgah6q1 ... r.wav?dl=0


I tried to achieve a dry and compact studio sound.

Kick: To tame the kick I used a gate, transient shaper, eq and compressors.

Snare: This was a tricky one. Tried to get it under control with a gate, transient shaper, (dynamic) eq and compressors.

Toms: Gate, some rather aggressive eq and compressor.

Hihat: Eq and compressor.

Overheads: Also tricky with the kick mostly in one channel. Some notching, compressors, and dynamic eq.

Drum bus: Compressor, vintage drive, and tape sim. Individual drum tracks sent to drum room reverb.

Percussion: Eq, compressor, and some transient shaping.

Bass: Preamp, eq and compressor. Light sidechaining from kick to duck it a bit.

Lead vocals: Light tuning, eq, compressors, vintage drive, and tape sim. A touch of tape delay.

Background vocals: Eq, compressors, chorus, vintage drive, and tape sim.

Lead Gtr: Eq, compressor, and tape delay. Volume, pan, and delay send automated. No time corrections.

Rhythm Gtr: Eq and compressor. Haas widening in second half.

Ac Gtrs: Eq and compressor.

Hammond: Eq and vintage drive.

Synth: Eq and compressor.

Intro sample: Eq and tape delay.

Reverbs: Most tracks sent to ambience and studio room reverbs.

Master: Bus compressor with around 2dB GR and tape sim.

[Al B.]

I aimed for a live sound on open stage.

All voices got automatic tuning. Then cleaned up a bit with EQ and compressed. Then added some reverb and delay.

Kick, snare and toms got some gating, eq and compression. On the OH and percussion, I took away some at 12kHz and compressed the peaks a bit. Then added some reverb to the drum tracks and compressed drums+perc for the glue in a bus.

Bass got an amp and was also compressed.

Rhythm guitar got some reverb. Lead guitar got a lowcut, highcut and some reverb. Acoustic guitar got a buss with a lowcut, highcut, compression for some glue and some reverb.

Hammond, synth and intro sample got only some reverb.

On the mix sum I have nothing, so that the mastering engineer also has something to do.

Here is my mix:
https://we.tl/t-UoYrc9kDpk

[TomImmon]

Many thanks to Mr Fox and the Buddy Blake Band for this great mix competition and the cool song.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6baffw1j43awf ... n.wav?dl=0

Almost all channels were processed with Neutron's EQ. Where some color was needed, Focusrite and SSL E were also used.

Drums: I did some things to minimize the bleed from the hihat and cymbals on the snare. Above all, the C6 was used to hide the high frequencies. Ghost and hits were edited separately by duplicating the track and gated separately. The reverb effects are mainly only fed by the hit.
The other drum tracks (except for OH) were also gated.
Also the OH track caused some headaches. The Glyn Johns set up, where you usually set the panning to 100/50%, worked poorly because the kick was much too loud on one side. The only thing that helped was radically turning out the lower ferquencies. So I then used a add-on drum room on the R4, which was slightly gated and compressed.
The drum bus ran through Softube's tape and the Townhouse Compressor.

The electric guitars used Blackbox HG2 and some Eddie Kramer FX and MannyM ToneShaper.

On all vocal tracks I optimized the pitching with Waves Realtime. Basic sound was made with Nectar Elements and refined with MilenniaN, plus dynamics with Rvox and ShadowHill. The vocal tracks were enriched with Microshift and got a stereo slap with Echoboy and a ducked delay with MutanDelay.

This time I used CLA Bass for the bass to get a nice growl.

Almost all instruments and vocals were dynamically leveled using fader automation, also FX switching an Paning via autmation.
On the master bus I used Townhouse for the glue, some base EQ and a little limiting for some extreme peaks.

If i make it to round 2, i will correct some timing issues and some „pop“ sounds in the main vocal. Also the bleed of cymbals in the main vox is sometimes too big. This could be fixed in R2.

Expose readings:
Integrated LUFS: -16.1 LUFS
Short Term LUFS: -14.6 LUFS
True Peak: -3.2 dBTP
Peak: -3.6 dB
Dynamic Range: 10.2 DR
Loudness Range: 3.6 LU

Greetings from Berlin
Tom

[dnlptn]

Hi All,
Enjoyed this month's challenge - thanks Buddy Blake Band for a great track.

Tried to approach this mix as simply as possible, keeping it clean and not going overboard with colour and channel strips.
Most time was spent on the drums, wasn't quite sure what to do with the snare. Once drums were done, I worked the other sounds around it.
Early on, I often referred back to the original mix to get a sense of the feel.

Drums
Parallel saturation/EQ on the kick/snare to bring out some snap. Gate on the snare.
Decapitator on the drum bus
Toms had some rbass
Dverb

Vocals
EQ, comp, CLA76, decapitator, lofi space for a little ambience, also some dessing and multiband
Blended a few VVV reverbs for texture (small room, large)
Timeless 3 delay with a bit of sidechain compression
I tried using waves autotune, but felt it was doing some weird stuff.

Elec Guitars
EQ, COMP, VVV reverb, panned ~90 l/r
Lead guitar solo had more delay/reverb and panned to the center, some saturation

Acoustic Guitars
EQ, Comp, some MS eq (expanding) to bring out the top

Hammond
EQ, some expander thing on the sides

BGV
EQ, Comp, lofi space, ozone imager

Bass
EQ, COMP

Intro
UAD Ampex ATR 102 with delay for the tape effect

Mix Bus
bx townhouse ~1-2db compression

I had some automation going on to create some buildup and excitement leading to the end.

Hope you enjoy it,
Drive Link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rZRwAX ... sp=sharing

[cpsmusic]

Hi Everyone,

Here's my entry for Mix Challenge 084.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N9aZvP ... sp=sharing

Thanks to the song provider and to the contest organisers.

Initially I was tempted to try and mix the song as if it were a live performance. For those interested there's a video by Dave Rat (FOH Engineer for bands like Soundgarden, Blink 182, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine and The Offspring) explaining how he sets up a live mix. See <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5S34Hf95gI> for more information. In the end I opted to go with a more conventional approach so maybe I'll try the live method next time.

Unlike my other mixes, for this one I did very little preprocessing to the raw tracks. The only thing I did was to go through the Lead Vocal and bring up any quiet words or phrases. Also note that I corrected a couple of exposed lead guitar parts that were out of time. The intro sample was moved slightly so that the explosion dies down a bit before the song starts.

The mix was organised into instrumental groups as follows:

Sample
Drums
Percussion
Bass
Keys
Acoustic Guitar
Electric Rhythm
Electric Lead
Backing Vocals
Lead Vocal

The processing was as follows:

Sample:

Sample: PreFET
Sample Delay: PreFET
Sample Verb: Deleight

Drums:

Kick: MAutoAlign, bx_console 4000E
Kick Parallel: MAutoAlign, bx_console 4000E, MC77
Kick Bus: TB EQ 4
Snare: MAutoAlign, bx_console 4000E
Snare Parallel: MAutoAlign, bx_console 4000E, Pulsar Smasher
Snare Bus: Oxford DrumGate, TB EQ 4
Snare Blip: Softube Transient Shaper, TB EQ 4
Rack Toms: MAutoAlign, bx_console 4000E
Floor Toms: MAutoAlign, bx_console 4000E
HiHat: MAutoAlign, bx_console 4000E
OH L: MAutoAlign,
OH R: MAutoAlign,
OH Bus: elysia mpressor, bx_console 4000E, SSL Bus Compressor, elysia karakter
Drum Room: TB EQ 4, SPL De-Esser, SPL DrumXChanger (used for transient shaping), Burier, Valhalla Room, elysia mpressor, Dual Pan
Drum Bus: SSL Bus Compressor, Black Box, Big Al
Drum Parallel: DC8C3, bx_console 4000E
Chamber: TB EQ 4, Valhalla Room
Snare Plate: TB EQ 4, SP2016
Snare Long: Little Plate, TB Gate, TB EQ 4
Drum Level: Fiedler Stage

Percussion:

Cowbell: bx_console 4000E
Shaker 1: bx_console 4000E
Shaker 2: bx_console 4000E
Tamb 1: bx_console 4000E
Tamb 2: bx_console 4000E
Perc Bus: elysia mpressor, Dual Pan (narrowed to 50%)
Perc Level: -

Bass:

Bass: bx_console 4000E, VLA-3A, Big Al
Bass Bus: -

Keys:

Hammond: Dual Pan (Mono), Instant Delay
Synth: Dual Pan (Mono), Instant Delay
Keys Bus: TB EQ 4
Keys Level: -

Acoustic Guitar:

Acoustic 1: TB EQ 4, VCL-4, RVox
Acoustic 2: TB EQ 4, VCL-4, RVox
Acoustic 3: TB EQ 4, VCL-4, RVox
Acoustic Bus: bx_townhouse, TB EQ 4 (Tilt)
Acoustic Delay: Instant Delay, Deleight
Acoustic Bus: -

Electric Rhythm:

Rhy 1: TB EQ 4, Fazortan
Rhy Double: TB EQ 4, Fazortan
Rhy Guitar Delay: Repeater
Rhy Guitar Bus: MC77, TR5 EQ-81, Wider

Electric Lead:

Lead: MC77, Vastaus. TB EQ 4, TR5 EQ-81
Lead Double: Instant Delay
Bus: bx_2098 EQ (High Shelf for solos)
Delay: Repeater
Level: -

Backing Vocal:

Alto: Waves Tune, elysia mpressor, Quadravox
Tenor: Waves Tune, elysia mpressor, Quadravox
Delay: Instant Delay, Wider
Bus: MC77, TB EQ 4, Dirty Tape
Level: -

Lead Vocal:

LV: RX 9 De-plosive, Pure Limiter, Waves Tune, Waves Sibilance, TB EQ 4, MC77, RVox, TB Compressor 4, NobleQ, Parallel Aggressor, Frontier
LV Parallel: RX 9 De-plosive, Pure Limiter, Waves Tune, Waves Sibilance, TB EQ 4, MC77, RVox, TB Compressor 4, TR5 Linear Phase EQ, TR5 Opto, TR5 Linear Phase EQ

Six spatial effects were used for the Lead Vocal:

Ambience: ConvologyXT
Plate: TB EQ 4, SP2016
Mono Slap Delay: Instant Delay
Stereo Delay: Instant Delay
Chorus: Instant Delay
Ping-Pong Throw: H-Delay

Four pre-mixbus buses were used:

Drums and Bass: Lindell 50 Bus, SPL Iron
Keys: Lindell 50 Bus, SPL Iron
Guitars: Lindell 50 Bus, SPL Iron
Vocal:: Lindell 50 Bus, SPL Iron

The Mixbus processing consisted of bx_townhouse, BAX EQ, SPL Iron, TB EQ 4, Bassroom.

A final (very minor) tweak was done with TDR Slick EQ M and TDR Nova.

Specs:

44.1kHz/24-bit
-16.9 LUFS (int.)
-2.8 dBTP

Good luck to all contestants.

Cheers!

[Franz]

So yes, indeed, we return to a vintage atmosphere in which the titles of the time were quite stamped
by fairly characteristic sound traits (rather "fuzz" on the solo guitars, fairly distorted bass, fairly complex drummer
playing - opposed to the disco - very deep stereo mix, etc...).

So first of all find an atmosphere that "sticks" to this title.

So a kind of "pre-mix" before the hour to hear how the original "sound" of the different instruments.
Once this is done, once various technical problems have been identified which are linked to the recording itself,
they can be solved, individually yes, but above all in a general context.
Important step because it allows in the end to link everything together in the pre-defined musical context.

- The drums: quite difficult to control due to a lot of "bleed" and microphones that pick up everything (and especially
what they shouldn't pick up...). In fact, you have to consider the drum kit as a whole and not treat each portion
individually and separately. Well, that's difficult. But it's the ultimate condition to have drums that "sound"
while respecting the drummer's way of playing.

- The (excellent) bass was processed by Analog Obsession's FETISH compressor.

- The rhythm guitar has been re-amplified in Vandal from Samplitude Pro.

- The lead guitar went through various treatments (EQ+Comp) and "Belle Filter" + spatial treatment.

Morphverb, Leveling Tool and Frontier (D16group) were used on different tracks to "glue" everything together.

The duality between the "choirs" and the synth was also a big point to solve.

The voice underwent the "classic" treatments according to all the other tracks in order to determine the final rendering.

All to listen to :https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-JcbIs ... sp=sharing

[Coiled_Ear]

Here is my mix https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i3xUKX ... sp=sharing
Airwindows are only plugins I used in this mix, there is not even stock ones...so, challenge more - challenge less, right?)
I can describe what I exactly used but try to connect with my memory.
So the most diffucult was a snare drum track. Hat bleeds. After some time spending SoftClip plugin just came and done the job. By the way the most used plugin in this project probably Energy - amazing tiny up equalizer for upper band frequencies. You can really scuplt the tone without looking on Fabfilter pro-q, just listening and this is nice.
The second hard job was the vocal track - same issue, hi freq bleeding. SoftClip and then some mystery EQs like Air, filters - all were been set by ears and experimenting (they are quite nice looking in Ableton - all those sliders across devices at the bottom of the DAW).
Bass was kinda...already distorted? So I was decided to resculpt it's tone, cut that creepy picks and then added BassDrive and some mysterious EQs too.
All Airwindows stuff sound pretty much different to other developers and that's probably why the result sound quite vintage, glued and not to overcompressed...sometimes they're pretty difficult to setup and some of them have trashy sounding but of course you can find gems in the 200+ plugins then ;-)
Kick is another story - no click and endless rumble. Ok, Point transient shaper can catch constant punch after some precise setting.
On the master buss I used two buss compressors in parallel - Logic (SSL Like), and VariMu. Both of them give very different colors to the overall sound.

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

[Michael_K]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10sq7dJ ... sp=sharing

Hello everybody. This track was fun!
Kick, Snare, Overheads and toms: Each one goes separately through a dbx160 (rms attack) and into a vca compressor medium-fast attack and release. EQ before compression.
The kick also uses a bit of transient designer for a little more attack definition.
Minimal compression on drum bus.
Bass: eq, La2a comp, into 1176, eq
Lead and rhythm electrics go individually through the same processing la3a, vacrack, minimal eq.
All acoustics go through a cl1b emulation with miedium-slow timing and a little eq cuts in the mid lows and lows.
All additional percussion have low and mid low cuts and are grouped into a submix. Slight gentle compression on this submix.
Backing vocals: bussed into a stereo track wide pan, and compressed in linked stereo.
Lead vocal: a little low cut, V-Comp, C4.
Gentle pitch correction on lead and backing vocals.
The vocals could possibly use some more pitch correction given more time. However the raw quality that is there the way they are is also quite appealing!
Cheers, and good luck to everybody!