MIX CHALLENGE - MC087 August 2022 - Winners announced

[zajus]

Hello everyone,

Firstly (as always), many thanks for the opportunity to mix this song. Its a great song with positive vibe and an awesome singer.

Here is my mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C0ZMoG ... sp=sharing

My intention was to retain as much as possible the dynamics of the song, while still aiming at a more “pop” sound with prominent beat and vocals. Here are my moves:

Main beat: Slight enhancement of the low end “thump” using transient shaper and bx_subfilter
Karkaba: removed everything under 650Hz to make more space in that region
Cymbals: Panned to opposite sides. Removed everything below 400Hz to get rid of the cajon low end spill.
Cala: I have separated the bottom track for the rest. I have compressed the bottom, used transient shaper and eq’d it so it wouldn’t fight with the main beat. For the remaining Cala tracks, I have only high-passed them at 450Hz to get rid of the bottom.
Cajon: Once again I got rid of majority of the bottom end of as it felt distracting at times and did not seem absolutely necessary in the track.

Bass: I have re-amped and compressed the bass and blended it with a distorted version of the same, just to give it some nice grit. I have limited both quite heavily.

GTR and GTR_DSTRN_2: I have ran this through amp and cab simulation to give it a few more harmonics and compressed it lightly.
Other guitars: only EQ to fit into the track

Sax and Trumpet and Ribab : I have manually clip gained the tracks reduce the dynamics a little bit, compressed them to reduce the dynamics a bit more and then automated the volume to increase the dynamics back up

Vox: Two levels of compression and de-essing, analog EQ to make the top end sparkle a little bit. The vocals are sent to slap, ping pong and a mono plate in different amounts in different sections. In chorus, there is also a slightly distorted vocal that runs through phasor and a little bit of stereo delay. The backing vocals are drowning in a massive reverb.

With regards to the other effects, I have sent more or less everything to a plate in various amounts and some of the percussive and brass instruments to a mid-sized room.

Very fun song to mix, I’ll be interested in any feedback!

Cheers
Stepan

[Michael_K]

Hello everyone! Great track once again!
Here is my mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SpHwxM ... tuWmX/view

All percussion tracks: low mid dip, dbx style compression between 2 and 4 db reduction.
A very light de-esser on the drum-perc bus to tame the cymbals a little.
Bass: Opto compressor la2a style, slight low mid dip to emphasize the lows without boosting.
Guitars: moderate low mid dip, Api style comp in modern mode.
The distorted guitar has some additional delay.
Tpt and sax : moderate high pass, slight high boost.
Vocals: slight low mid boost for body, slight high boost for air, opto-comp, very light Fet high ratio fast comp, slap back delay, reverb, very low level doubler.
Cheers, and good luck to eveyone.

[Proto Mixing]

Hello, everyone!
Thank you for this opportunity.

My goal was to create a relationship between kick, bass and wah guitar for a nice rhythmical feel behind the vocals.
Other instruments are more or less built around the vocal section stereo field wise except for maybe ribab which compliments the vocals in the same dimension.

Vocals were made up-front using serial compression: TR5 Black 76 and Acustica Audio TAN.
I used R-Bass on the "Beat" track and "Bass" track with frequency set to 41 Hz to suit the song's key.
For the guitars I used an amp plugin called "FA3 Amp" by Fretted Synth Audio.
A little bit of FL's stock Vintage Chorus is used on the Sax and the Trumpet.

I wish you good luck!

Here's my mix:

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

[ari5to5]

My mix here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sZa69i ... sp=sharing

My comments here:

General

Quite nice but challenging song to mix. I couldn't decide what approach to follow, dry or effect-rich? punchy club-song or ethnic vibe? raw or polished? compressed or dynamic? I got so confused and I'm sure the one I'm posting here is probably the least appealing:) It is what it is though.

Processing

Master bus: Tape emulation, Mono maker up to 80Hz, Compressor, Eq (dynamic control of 300Hz on sides 5db, boost 2db of 300 on stereo) vu meter
Drums bus (incl: loop, cajon, karcaba, cala,cymbals, rooms): 2 compressors
Loop: tape emulation boosting highs and lows
Cajon: channel strip boosting 60 by 15db cutting 440 by 15 boosting 3.45 by 5.6db, lowcut 40, and compressor
Cymbals bus: high shelve boost 7db from 6.3 kHz
Cala: channel strip - lowcut 100, boost 13K 4.5db, cut 250 by 12 db and compression
Cala room: compressor, eq to get rid or lows and lowmids
Bass: Amp simulation, eq cut 300 boost 830, dynamic eq to control 80 157 200
Gtrs: dynamic eq 324 3db on side, verb to push them back,
el gtr: ping-pong pan
gtr solo: eq
Ribab: opto compressor, verb only on room mics
Brass: saturation, dynamic control of harshness, reverb to push them back
Vox bus (all processing on bus): compressor, deesser, eq (lowcut 167, boost 8k by 5 db), dynamic eq to control 300 500 2700 by 3 db max, dynamic control of harshness, reverb, delay

[maxovrdrive]

Thank you @Los_ady for submitting your track. I watched your Morrocan adventure on PLAP when it came out --- kudos.

On with it... this is a dense arrangement, so the objective is to make room for everyone.

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

DRUMS
- individual tracks were processed as a group;
- all drums summed to one group;

- Desert Roses Beat processed and parallel track employed;

BASS
- DI, saturation channels, lowender summed into group and processed

FIONA
- vox plus room, plate, & saturation summed into one group and processed

LALA
- both vox tracks plus hall, & ddl summed into one group and processed

GUITAR parts were bunched then grouped, and processed where needed.

SAX and TRUMPER into one group and processed.

All RIBAB into one group and processed.

MIX BUS
- eq
- clipper
- saturation
- limiter

[erik_hansen]

Hello everyone!

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

I started the mix with setting my levels and cleaning up any unwanted low frequencies.

I grouped all drums and percussioninstruments and applied some mild compression and some Tape saturation in parallel. Each Instrument has some EQ moves done to make them clearer and hit nicely.

The bass got some parallel distortion and an 1176 style compressor with fast attack and release, ratio 4:1 and a lot of gain reduction.

Guitars got a small dip at 1k and a small wide boost at 3k with a low cut around 95Hz. The individual guitars have small boosts or cuts at 500Hz and 700Hz.

The Horns just have small dips at 1k and 3k and a slight boost at 10k.

On the vocals I am using Eq first with a boost at around 270Hz and a small dip at 3k. Afterwards two compressors (slow attack -> fast attack), some tape saturation and a deesser.

Lastly I set up 3 different reverbs for drums, vocals and a big reverb and routet some channels of each instrument group into them. The reverbs have a high and low cut on them and on the Vocal Reverb is a delay in front too.

At the end I applied some subtle compression and parallel tape saturation on the master bus and automated a couple of Instruments.

[VasDim]

Hi all,
this is my attempt to mix:

https://mega.nz/file/fzJwybwL#XmEys3umL ... A_zFZKVJMM

For all track are used:
- Waves Q10;
- Waves C4;
- Db ProComp.

AUX Effect;
- Waves TrueVerb;
- Waves SuperTap;

Good luck to all.
VasDim

[onecake2]

I want to thanks mrfox and the song provider for the opportunity to mix this lovely song

After many challenges where my mixes were completely out-of-scope (aka very bad), I decided to make an experiment and to mix this one using headphones (sony mdr 7506) only. Who knows...

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AgzJUlYVc9qtgY0sg6T ... g?e=sPGDtO

By the way, the mix on YouTube is really great. Congratulation!

I have approached this song like a rock mix.
I have compressed every trak with a 1176 and used proq2 eq.
No mixbus processing
Parallel Drums, instruments and vocals processing
Full ITB

Thank you in advance
onecake2

[Christoph_K]

Very cool (and challenging) challenge this time. Thanks to Ady for doing all the work (been there, done that). I like the track very much! It has a kind of Motown vibe combined with ethnic colors. Here's my opinion (aka mix) on this track:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y2og0h2wp2m9x ... K.wav?dl=0

Listening to the original mix I thought it is really good and probably quite hard to beat. I thought it could need some more depth though, and the low-end could be a bit cleaner/punchier as well. So I payed attention to track spacing and used different reverbs from Ambience to cavern style, a mono plate and a recording room to get more dimension.

For the low-end I first played around with a transient shaper on the drum track but I hated the results. So I extracted the kick with a cool multi band trick I found on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o11jyop4Lw4), reversed the polarity and got the kick separated from the rest of the track. I then tuned the lower part of the kick 40ct up to get a better fit with the root note of the bass and shortened it get a more solid low-end (I assumed it’s ok to tune drums when it’s allowed to tune vocals and other instruments). I even separated the transients of the snare in the chorusses and copied it all along the track to get a little bit more punch. Was it worth it? You decide
The intro and the bridge from the drum track was copied to its own space to let it pan around. The thunder in the end got a little help with the bx sub synth for additional rumbling.

The percussion just got a little bit help from UA1176 and Softube Harmonics Analog. UA Ocean Way for some perspective.

I duplicated the bass track and used the UAD Ampeg B15N and blended it with the DI track. Dbx160 for compression and the Studer A800 plus Sugar for saturation, bx sub filter for low-end satisfaction. EQed with the Pultec Brothers.

The Guitar all go through individual UA API Vision Strips and some of them are compressed with the UA LA-3A. For the distorted friends I use softube amp room just for the IR loader to get more depth.

The Solo guitars went into a tremolo, similar to the original mix I guess.

The Brass section goes into the UA Ocean Way on re-mic and LA-3A for compression. The Ribab goes into the cavern occasionally.

For Lala I used the FutzBoy for a Megaphone sound (at least in the intro), it gives it some kind of a female muezzin vibe. I then sent it to Reverberate with a bricasti cavern patch plus a quarter delay.

Fionas vocal chain: UA1176 RevA, Softube Tape, Summit TLA100, De-esser and Pultecs. In the chorusses I set up a parallel channel with sound toys Devil Loc to make it cut through. Reverbs: TSAR-1 for Ambience and UA EMT140.

On the mix bus live the Noise Ash Need 31102 for the dive section and a tiny boost in the low-end. Followed by the UA33609, the Softube Germanium Compressor in parallel, the UA Hitsville with a little bump at 50hz, followed bei the UA ATR102 and the Oxford limiter with 10% Enhance enabled.

Cheers,
Chris

[MattRocket]

Hello everyone!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vn19i5odqzumj ... t.wav?dl=0

It was not an easy mix. A lot of instruments in this session.

I have tried the plugin Haaze 2 (klevgrand). It is used to put a mono track in stereo.
I use it on WHA_WHA_sm57 and on Karkaba tracks.

Good luck to everyone