MIX CHALLENGE - MC086 June 2022 - Winners announced

[MFTWC]

I started with going through all the tracks cleaning out unwanted frequency's, then I bussed the drums & percussion tracks to one group channel (just to collect them, not to process them).

I took the three bass channels and bussed them to their own group channel, I did the same with the fx & the vocal sounds, the main pad & synth left by them selfs.

I then started to mixing the drums & percussion tracks & and then added the bass tracks (I boosted the mid-high frequency's) witch where SC to the bassdrum track.

Next where the main synth & the main pad, vocal tracks (added some delays and reverb to some tracks) & finally the fx tracks.

On the master track I added some bus compression & some eq for the final balance.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Dg55PM ... sp=sharing

[tomearwaker]

Hey all,

Thanks for the opportunity to mix this, really atmospheric track and loved working on it!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m1q5iJ ... sp=sharing

I created sub-groups numbered below to be able to adjust the overall balance and process groups separately:
1. Kick and main hats group - tape saturation (FerricTDS) and light compression (DC8C3)
Kicks - EQ tone shaping (mainly cutting some lower mids), some saturation and parallel distortion, and a little bit of 1176-style compression to highlight the attack
Hats - Highpass, some subtle slow vibrato and tremolo to give them a little movement/variation, volume SC to kick
2. Percussion group - tape saturation, SC to kick, large room reverb (Melda MConvolutionMB), highpass, saturation (SDRR2), soft clipping (Venn FreeClip)
On quite a few of the percussion tracks I added some EQ for tone shaping, quite often cutting some low mids.
I felt like some of the tracks needed a tighter sound (e.g. the foley and the marching snare), so emphasised the attack relative to the sustain using some light 1176-style compression (analog obsession FETISH) and/or transient design (Auburn Couture)
I separated the snare into two tracks, putting alternate hits on each, with slightly different tone and delay/reverb settings (brighter sound on first, with spring reverb and darker sound on second with more delay)
Used some autopan on quite a few percussion elements, and some subtle chorus/flanger effects to add movement.
3. Bass group - EQ to add midrange, some bitcrush (airwindows DeRez on low mix), saturation (Melda MSaturator)
On the bass hit track I added some parallel distortion, cut some sub added some ping pong delay and a little bit of phaser
4. Synths group - Light compression (MJUC), saturation, SC to kick, highpass (automated)
Main synth - saturation, phaser, some frequency shifter automated to sweep frequency in certain places (quite low mix %)
Vox atmos - chorus
5. FX group - no group processing
Chant and scream had delay and autopan
Scream had detuned doubler effect (Melda MUnison)
Quite a few tracks had some EQ for highpassing and tone shaping and some SC to kick
Background noise had some custom tremolo (Melda MTremolo) to add rhythm
Some autopan or panning automation to add movement

I set up several sends for reverb and delay:
Send 1 - 'cavern' reverb (MTurboReverb) with some automation on volume and highpass freq throughout track. Also SC to kick. Sent percussion, synths and FX to this.
Send 2 & 3 - TRacks space echo (different delay time on each send), SC to kick. Sent some of the percussion FX and synth tracks to this, with some automation throughout track

On the master bus I did some tone shaping (Luftikus maag-style EQ), light compression (TRacks Vari-mu, slow attack fast release) and saturation (Melda Msaturator). I also automated the stereo width down before drops so there was more impact (Ableton Utility).
Hope you enjoy! Any feedback appreciated.

Tom

[patrlord]

Hello everyone,

I participated in a couple of song competitions, this is my first entry to the mix challenge.

What a fun song to work with, dark atmosphere and cool beat !

I use Ableton Live 11. I have default audio tracks with the most critical parameters already set up: Ableton Drum Buss for drum tracks, EQ (+high pass and low pass macros), washout, delay, reverb, sidechain compression and gain. Then I can quickly tweak things with my Midi Twister Fighter auto-mapped to these controls for whichever track is selected, then fine tune the detail after.

The EQ, washout, delay, reverb, sidechain compression are all done with stock plugins. I use ducking a lot on the reverb and delay to keep the original signal clearer. I also have a default return track with a very subtle room reverb and all tracks send a very small amount to it. This I find makes the sounds seem ever so slightly more real.

Drum group
Given it's a Drum & Bass track, I first grouped together all the drums, and worked on getting the balance right between them.
Got the 2 kicks beefed up and punchy, and not stepping on each other with Ableton Drum Buss, grouped them.
Then worked on balance of other percussion depending on stage in the song, some of them less at the beginning and bringing more strongly later.
Perc drum was interesting, could get a good noisy tail on it and bring that out more over time as the track progressed.
Added some reverb to a few percussions to create illusion of more space, but not putting reverb on them all, would be too much.
Glue compressor on whole drum bus to gel together.
Made sure the 'signature fill' came through loud and clear (the author said it was important !)

Sub Bass group
Worked on the low end EQ, actually boosted the mids a bit, there's a lot of character in that part of the spectrum.
I also cut out a bit of the hiss from the second 'warm sub', but not all of it to keep the character.
Sidechained off the Bass Hit (left on its own track) so it cuts through them.
Sidechained off the kicks to get kicks punching through as tight as possible.
I automated lopass filter a bit to create some variation.

'Main' group
With the main 'drum and bass' part done, I then worked on getting the main pad, synth and vox atmos balanced. Sidechained pad&synth off vox so it sang through a bit more, cut down on a resonance at around 2k.
Added subtle Decapitator saturation and Fix Doubler to fatten the main synth a bit.
Sidechained the group off the kicks.
Boosted the low mids a bit.

Dub delays group
I grouped all tracks that the author wanted dub delays on, and sent to a return delay track that sent some of the output back to itself, and returns to a dedicated 'receive' track in the dub delays group. That gave a short term dub delay effect (with mid pass EQ to keep the rumble and tops out).
I then applied a longer term delay with Echoboy Jr to the Dialogue, the Scream and the Chant.
Volume automated the Dialogue to better hear the 'T' at the start of 'today' and increase volume in second part to be heard over the riser.
I sidechained the 'Main' group off this group so that the delays could be heard a bit more clearly in the mix, but not too strong.

Background noise
I got a bit more creative on this one. I put an Output Portal shimmer echo effect that created an unsettling alien critter sound. Then played with volume and washes to make it sound closer or further away at different parts of the track.

FX
I added reverbs and worked on making them flow from one to the next as they come in almost one after another.
Output portal smearing on the 'Impact Digital' to smooth out some crackles in the original audio.
The Fall 1 audio clip seemed to have a big phase issue, I had to correct that too.
Sidechained off the Dub delays group to help dub delays be heard through the various rises and downers later on in the track.


Here's the WAV - 48/24

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kj472hwb2nvqf ... d.wav?dl=0

[Dodgingrain]

Mix is here: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqpB-RLndYJrk6NU4IV ... A?e=4jpygf

Fun little track to mix.

Drums:
Kicks: all sent to a bus, some distortion added, side chain input on bass bus compressor. Little bit of low mid eq to make more room for the bass. Low end eq cuts, I decided the bass should take the far low end and the kick should be a little higher up.
The other drums were largely eq cuts. I did side chain the non kick drums to a dbx-160 to add punch and the marching snare has an additional transient shapper to add more attack. A few drum tracks like the crashes and shakers were sent to additional reverb. Did a little bit of panning on 1 crash and the hats.

Bass: Not to much here other than some eq cuts to fit with the kick and some ducking compression triggered by the kick.

Pads: Mostly just low end cuts to make space for the bass. Did some widening.

Risers: Similar to pads, mostly low end cuts. Did some widening as appropriate.

Vocal hits: Low end cuts and some echo's.

Sound Efx's: Not much on these other than the scream. The scream has a widener applied after a long plate reverb and compression. The goal was to have it persist for a little while in the track to fill things out. The widener is automated and expands the stereo width as the scream fades into the reverb.

Main bus: Typical tape saturation into a multiband compressor for glue, followed by a little bit of widening and level boost to bring the mix up to -16 LUFs.

[someswede]

Hi everyone ,

hope WeTransfer links are allowed here? Fun!

Filename: MC086__7th_Pyramid__No_Escape__SOMESWEDE.wav
Download URL :https://we.tl/t-LMLyPiZJbS

[takafinir]

Realy great song.... dificult to not do lot and keep it simple i tried to keep it simple play with compressors and little reverb and saturation



https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A-YbdT ... sp=sharing

[Mellow Browne]

Hello,

here is my mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zlOfm3 ... sp=sharing

I used StandardClip on every track to have the dynamics under control and then created these subgroups:

BD Bus: StandardClip
DR Bus (including BD and both snare tracks: StandardClip, UAD Studer 800
Hat Bus: Tonebooster Sibilance
Hand Perc Bus: StandardClip, Channel EQ, NI Raum
Rhythm Bus: StandardClip, Waves F6
Shaker Bus: nothing
Fill Bus: StandardClip, Arturia REV PLATE
Bass Bus: StandardClip, UAD Pultec, Devious Machine Duck > DR Bus
Instru Bus: UAD bx digital for stereo field and mono on single tracks, StandardClip or Waves L2, and Devious Machine on the Bus > DR Bus

The dialogue and scream effects: StandardClip or Waves L2, Echoboy.

I also used Kilohearts Delay on the snare track.

I have the Shadow Hills compressor (only the vca part) on the stereo bus for the glue and a little more punch and movement overall.
This is really a great song with nice energy. It was a pleasure to mix it.

Good luck to all.

[Lawrence Phaw]

Hi, Mix Challenge community. This is the first time I participate in the competition.
This is very interesting and challenging track to mix and here is my mix.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FWgI-D ... p=drivesdk

And the following is how I mix this song.

01 Kick extra - Eq
02 Kick - EQ, Compression, saturation, subtle reverb
03 Snare - Eq
04 Hat1, 05 Hat2 - Eq
06 Bongos - Eq, compression, Transient
07 Chant - reverb
09 Perc Loop1 - Eq, Transient
10 Perc Loop2 - Transient
11 Marching Snare - EQ, Compression, saturation, reverb
12 Perc Snarey - Eq, Transient
13 Perc Drum - Eq, Compression
14 Foley 1,2,3 - Transient
20 Crash clean - Eq
25 Square Sub - Eq, Compression
26 Warm Sub - Eq, Compression
29 Main synth - Eq, compression
30 Vox Atom - Eq
31 Dialogue - Eq
33 Background noise - Hi Passing,
34 Riser - Eq

The rest of the tracks were left untouched.
I tried not to add time effects as the provided materials have their own sonic signature.
And I only used reverb on main kick and marching snare.

And no bus processing.

Good luck everyone.

[Alex Van mixland]

Hello,
Here is my mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fkbbJh ... sp=sharing

What i have done:
- I try to get good balance of instruments
- I added reverb on some tracks.
- I change polarity and also some tracks panning, because for me some on the instruments was more right side, so concentration was a little bit more right then on center, so i changed it. It added track more wideness and more focused feeling.
- I did a little bit eq on some instruments. I didn't changed the sound on character, i just cuted a little bit with hpf and sometimes boxiness.

Cheers!
Alex

[maxovrdrive]

Here's my mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aizB03 ... sp=sharing

Most if not all tracks had some hi-pass filter going on. I really wanted to make sure that the bottom end has all the room needed. That bass was pounding in the sub frequencies. The kick took quite a bit of time before I was happy.

Kick: eq-saturation
Snare: eq-comp-room
Hats & Shakers: tame the high end. there's a lot of competition there too.

Main Fill: comp for character

Bass: eq-saturation; i needed to hear those notes despite the fundamentals being so low

Pad/Synth/Atmos: eq for clarity

Dialogue: eq-heavy comp-ddl-room
Scream: eq-ddl

2bus:
eq
comp
limiter
saturation