MIX CHALLENGE - MC084 February 2022 - Winners announced

[Michael_K]

Hay @tmort1277,
Thanks for choosing my mix for round 2.
I tuned the vocals a bit more than the first mix, and tried to get a better balance on the cowbell.
Thanks again and good luck to everyone!
Here's the mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i2yKV_ ... sp=sharing

[maxovrdrive]

Thank you @tmort1277 for selecting my mix for round 2. I hope I satisfied your mix requests, although I wasn't sure about the acoustic guitars.

Here's my round 2 mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wcpI3Z ... sp=sharing

Good luck to everyone.

[Gertius]

Hi guys,
thanks for selecting my mix for round 2 and for the feedback!

I have now incorporated the desired changes:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WYdloZ ... sp=sharing

- increased snare volume
- lowered distorted guitars in chorus
- regarding the BV´s, I found that they were masked by the electric guitars and lowering them made the BV´s more audible, so I did not raise them anymore (did try, but it got too loud in my opinion)

Thanks again and good luck/have fun with the further evaluation process!

[PauPeu]

Hi! Here my second round mix.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11wGUyY ... sp=sharing

I tried to repair the overall harshness of the first mix, mostly on the solo guitar parts. I divided the solo parts and the rhytmic in two tracks.
Also fixed the drums and percussion, searching for more punch and clearness.
More "honk" on the bass (more agressive)
Openess in the chorus , send fx to an swapped aux with some effects.

And more...

Also, the little details:
Tuned the intro sample +1 semitone, it fits better I think
Some flanger effects on the guitar solo.
And tried to fix the vocal tuning in specific parts (as the feedback suggested
Some vocal effects in concrete parts

In the mix buss, a little compression, eq, and saturation, all very subtle (leaving room for mastering=

Zanx for listening and good luck

pd. I maintained the LUFS and technical parts the same, I hope this is correct

[JamesMusic]

Thanks @tmort1277 for including me in the final 15!

Here is a link to my R2 - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SzrMX4 ... sp=sharing

Thanks for the comments

JamesMusic
-nice LCR, good kick/bass, good vocal, good cowbell, interesting placement and use of the BGV, consider less of the highest voice, the drums could be a little more aggressive/lively, it doesn't feel like just a volume thing, maybe some saturation or parallel treatment or both

Things changed in the R2 based on feedback

- Reduced the highest BV and brought up the lower part a small amount
- Used parallell saturation and compression on drums to make them more aggressive and lively

A few other changes:

- Have been more creative with guitar part selections, so that things change up more frequently
- Have been more creative with panning automation of the organ and lead guitar parts, so that there is more movement left to right.
- Turned up organ in certain places
- Turned up tambourine and cowbell in a few places
- Exagerrated the stops/holes
- Added an effect to the vocal each time "time capsule" is sung
- Restored some top end to lead guitar part
- Added an octave effect to the final guitar solo so that contrasts with the earlier solo
- Boosted the top end of the vocal to balance with the more poweful drum sound

[Green-Dog]

Hi all,

@tmort1277 thank you for feedback! Since there were no special comments, I made only minor corrections in the mix. Tiny volume adjustment of the organ, and also applied a CurveBender on the master bus and added a little low and high frequencies.

Mix R2

Good luck to everyone!

[zajus]

Hello everyone,

I am honored to make it to the second round! I am also amazed by the creativity of the submitted mixes, I would say mine was definitely on the conservative side when it comes to arrangement!

Here is my updated mix: MC084__The_Buddy_Blake_Band __Time_Capsule__zajus__R2

@tmort1277 thanks so much for the feedback. With regards to the suggested changes:
Loudness: I made it just a bit louder to allow easier comparison with the other mixes
BGV louder: You're absolutely right, I somehow lost the background vocals in the mix. Now fixed to what I find a good balance between the lead and the background vocals.
Snare louder: Also a good point. In fact, I was fighting the significant OH spill in the snare, specifically the ride bell was loud as hell, and as a result it pulled the ride towards the center where it fought with the vocal. This was easy to fix in the first few repetitions of the chorus as the snare playing is nice and straightforward, but in the final solo and chorus, where the snare and ride are overlapping, there wasn't much I could do. But in the end the final chorus is pretty loud anyway, so it's not that much of a problem.
Drums louder: Done. I have also somewhat changed the EQ of the kick as after making the whole kit louder, the kick was just too massive, so I had to tame it a bit in the low frequencies.

While listening to the mix, I made small other changes as well, such as adding a little more compression on vocals as they still felt unbalanced, a little more slap delay on the lead vocal and lastly automating the acoustic guitar in the verses so it doesn't fight with the vocal for attention.

Again, thanks for the opportunity to work on this song!

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
We're in the final 24 hours to submit your edit for Mix Round 2

[dnlptn]

Here is my R2 entry.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13P81UF ... sp=sharing

Turned up the drums approx 3db but left the kick volume the same.
Cut some eq on the snare at around 2-4k. Slight cut as well around 800hz to tighten it a bit more.

Muted one of the vocal effects.
Slight boost in the lower mids for the BGV.

Cheers, good luck all!

[alantwelve]

alantwelve
-great vocal, cool Buddy(guitar) parts, good cowbell, overall good balance, drums could be louder and a little better “defined”

First of all, I am of course delighted to have made the second round - cheers, guys! Generally positive feedback as well - I've got to be pleased with that. So here's the second mix based on that feedback:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nCR527 ... sp=sharing

The changes I made were a bit more complicated than just turning the drums up. I certainly couldn't argue with the feedback about the drums - they were, especially compared with some of the other mixes, weak. I thought on reflection that the snare in particular wasn't cutting through and that they needed more oomph in general, but that much of the problem was actually with frequency masking by those brash guitars.

So the first thing I did was to take a tilt EQ to the two electric guitar parts to rebalance their sound more towards the lower mids. I then, of course had to take another EQ to them to take out some of the mud, but the end result to my ears was that everything else, not just the drums, was suddenly much more audible in the mix, so a good move.

Next the drums: I recorded the output of the drum buss and experimented, first with various compressors (none of which I was happy with) and then with various forms of saturation, till I found a sound I liked mixed back in - I settled on a guitar pedal plugin in the end, and a free one, no less; Analog Obsession's Gunner. I also made a copy of the snare track which I treated with some reverb and a gate to get a fairly 80s-Phil-Collins sort of sound, which is again mixed in under the main snare track to give it a bit of a lift. Finally I EQed some hi-mids into the kick and toms to help them cut through better and pushed the level of the overheads a bit and stuck a de-esser on the track to tame those cymbals a little.

There was a bit more tweaking (the main acoustic guitar was suddenly really loud and boomy, for example) before, since they'd been mentioned in so much of the feedback, I had a bit of fun with the holes using some time-(capsule)-based effects.

I think it's an improvement on my first mix and I hope the band agree, and that I've adequately addressed their concerns with the drums.