MIX CHALLENGE - MC087 August 2022 - Winners announced

[filipandrei]

Hello all,

This is my entry:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/82qw1qehgx3rl ... i.wav?dl=0

Thanks for these beautiful multi-tracks and lovely song
My mixing idea was to bring out the groove and the voice, with other instruments sustaining the music.

My processing:

MIX BUS - Using Black (Acustica Audio) for some glue and a bit of console drive / SSL Bus Compressor, aiming for no more than 2 - 3db / bx_digital V3 for some small nice stereo widener and a bit of mono making around 80Hz

DRUMS / PERCUSSION / BASS - SKnote Distressor with 6:1 compression and British mode on, squeezing about 5-10db compression with a fairly slow attack and a fast release, followed by an SSL Channel Strip with a bit of top end and small boost on 60Hz.
On the bass track, I've used GRAPHITE (Acustica Audio) to shape the sound and give it an amp vibe

GUITARS BUS - Mild compression with an LA-3A and / SSL 9000J console for a narrow 360hz boost and a bit of 6KHz

ORCHESTRAL BUS (Trompet / Sax / Ribab) - SSL 9000J console for a bit of sound shaping, giving some clarity around 1KHz

VOCAL BUS - Started with some DeEsser / SSL 9000J for a bit of air and 2KHz clarity / Tube-Tech CL1B for some compression and finishing with a 902 De-Esser plugin.

I also have some parallel compression with a Neve 33609 and another one with a FATSO for some punch and Tape emulation

[PistolPete]

Title;Statistics - "MC087__Cable_Street_Collective__Power_Is_Out_HTRS_Mix__PistolPete"
Loudness_Value;-16.67 LUFS
Loudness_Range;4.92 LU
Max_True_Peak_Level;-5.12 dBTP
Max_Momentary_Loudness;-10.42 LUFS
Max_Short_Term_Loudness;-11.12 LUFS
Sample Rate;44.100 kHz
Average RMS (AES-17) Left;-16.83 dB
Average RMS (AES-17) Right;-16.55 dB
Max. RMS Left;-11.81 dB
Max. RMS Right;-11.77 dB
Max. RMS;-11.77 dB
Peak Amplitude Left;-5.15 dB
Peak Amplitude Right;-5.62 dB
True Peak Left;-5.12 dB
True Peak Right;-5.62 dB
DC Offset Left;-oo dB
DC Offset Right;-oo dB
Bit Depth Left;24 bit
Bit Depth Right;24 bit

My Mix Here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QlbHI4 ... sp=sharing

GEAR:
Monitoring: 20 year old Fostex PM5 monitors, HD280 cans (for quick mix checking)
computer: 12 year old homebuilt PC,
SOFTWARE: Cubase 10.5, waves, Valhalla and plugin alliance plugins.

Another amazing song to mix from Ady!!! Thank you very much for bringing such wonderful and unique music to the mix challenge for us to work on…
And thank you to Mister Fox for hosting a great place to challenge myself and learn.

I didn’t listen to any reference tracks, didn’t listen to the supplied mix, and didn’t listen to any other forum members mix as I wanted to just go off what felt right for me and what the song told me to do.

My biggest challenge, the 2 cymbal tracks: since there was a blend of clicky (snares?) as well as the cymbals it was really challenging to bring out the best of both worlds. So for these I created 2 auxiliary FX sends, one focused on the Cymbal highs and top end of the “clicky snares” and the other send was focused on the punchy low thumps. This seemed to work fairly well and I used some transient tools to bring out the punch and snap, high pass filters on the snare send and low pass filters on the cymbal track.

Percussion: Karkaba, Cajon, Cymbal and Kala were all sent dry to the mix bus. Each track had different ratios of 3 Aux/FX sends: Cymbal FX, Cymbal (low drum)FX and Percussion FX.

• Cymbal FX AUX: was a high pass eq with added HF shelf, CLA drums (eq, compressor, gate)
  Cymbal LOW DRUM FX AUX: was a low pass eq, CLA drums (bass and treble boosted, compressor, delay, reverb and gate)
  Percussion FX AUX: Maserati DRM and Sheps Omnichannel Side Chained to the loop track kick)

Main Vocals Vocals were sent dry to the mixbus, I blended a FX Vox send which featured eq, compression, a lot of delay and short reverb to create a more modern processed type sound on the vox with a nice "doubling effect". On the FX Vox Send I also added a panner set to project tempo to slowly shift the aux blend slightly left and right.

LALA backups I did use plugins directly on the channel track and used wet/dry automation to control the levels as the backups were only in the very beginning and the middle 1x. Valhalla Supermassive and H-delay were used, a vocal tuner set to give just a slight "chorus" effect. The supermassive was set to a very long distorted "haunting" reverb with pitch modulation delay in it and boosted with automation during key parts of the song.

Guitars no effects on the channel tracks, sent directly to mixbus. Created a guitar FX aux/send and used some a mid hard compression, a “club” type reverb and a stereo widener with a slight eq on the top end to boost the highs and a slight low end tweak to bring out the nice bottoms. The main focus was the rhythm guitar as I wasn't too fond of how the other non distorted guitar was blending so I kept i low in the mix for accents.

sax, trumpet and Ribab I spent a lot of time on these, as they all shared similar frequency ranges and I didn’t quite like how they were blending on all parts of the song. I gave preference to the Ribab for most of the song. Some of the solos I focused attention to the Sax and trumpet, using volume automation and FX send automation to crate some movement in the mix. No plugins were used on any of the sax or trumpet tracks, except for Trumpet solo, which I placed a single reverb and used automation to help it shine when needed, and I only used a delay on the “horn FX send” to create space and widen the sound.

Ribab I didn’t use any plugins directly on any of the track channels, and only use a single “ribab FX send” to blend the sounds how I wanted. The FX channel included some eq, some compression, a short delay and a hall verb.

Saturation FX send/Aux: Waves Abbey Road: I sent a few tracks lightly to give some nice crunchy high end and smooth mid snaps and blended it into the mix bus.

L side compression Send/Aux: Panned hard left. Some of the instruments that were panned hard R were sent to the compression FX send to help create a pseudo room effect and open up the mix.

Mix Bus: Waves j37 tape emulator to give it some warmth and natural compression. Black box tube plugin to bring some light distortion to the mix. I used a Waves S1 to slightly widen the mix bus to my liking.

Stereo bus Waves L1 limiter to keep any peaks from going over -1.3db and a threshold of -1 to give just a slight glue to the mix.

Well hope everyone likes it and I am always open to feedback on the mix (good and bad). I really enjoyed mixing this song as it was fun and upbeat!

[Los_ady]

Hey Everybody!

Thank you so much for your kind words and all the entries, I can't wait to listen to all of them! <3 You all Rock!!!

Sorry to hear that one person have problems with the file export, I tried it as well on a 2014 Mac and it worked fine

THanks also @maxovrdrive for watching our Documentary about Morocco on PLAP, there you can actually see how we recorded the samples for this song hehe https://youtu.be/iDc3JKjfgW0

[Tapwater]

Hello All, here is my mix:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m1eMWD ... p=drivesdk

I separated the highs and lows of the main drum beat to address them sepately. The low end was particularly challenging in this song. There is a lot going on down there so drastic cuts were nessisarry to make it all work.

The various percussion instruments offered another challenge to get them to all work together without sounding too cluttered. Lots of high and low filters to create space.

The vocals were quite nice in this song. A little harsh at times so I used to dynamic eq to help with the 2-4k range. A little bit of slap delay and hall reverb to round them out. Lots of automation to get them to sit right in the mix.

The bass I added quite a bit of saturation to give it more definition. Cut the highs around 5k.

The horns were a bit shrill at times so I added quite a bit of low mids to help fill them out and some chamber reverb to give them space.

The guitars I played with a lot of panning positions and balances with the different microphones to give them their own space.

The flute sound I gave a lot of 10k to give it a breathiness and stand out.

Slight glue compression on the mix buss.

Mixed in Logic Pro using waves and sound toys plugins.

Thanks!

[AskAndy]

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Al0k-deoMtpH4w_Imwa ... S?e=anE7NJ I liked this piece alot. however with this session ,i am trying some new template ideas and focused alot on the basics of gain staging. Fiist off I normalized all the tracksto-6 dB. I evened out the lead vocal wave form before i normalized it. each track has an 1176 and an EQ . They are busssed to their respective stem and a shared stem parallel compression aux. Each stem is trimed -6 dB then an F6 dyn eq with the output dialed back 3 dB (-3 dB) then L1 .stems to a sum bus with slate VBC . The Gtr trax each have Neutron 4 after the 1176. dont think im gonna do that agian.

[jules666]

Hi All,

Here is my attempt at this track:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F8nvwH ... jY7WJ/view

Desert loop, dupliates a couple of times.
Original loop just had saturation then some simple eq push around 66Hz then into a compressor which is slamming it pretty hard. - Smooth Operator to reduce some of the highs.
2nd loop filtered keeping the low end only and help give the kick element a little more punch using a pultec style EQ and extreme compression.
3rd loop - filtered upper mids trying to focus on the snare sound - which I then saturated/compressed and threw a
ping-pong delay and automated how I felt to give some subtle movement, blended very low in the mix though.

KARKABA - Little Eq rolling off low end, and satuation.
Cajon - Saturation/compression and removing some lower mids.
Cymbal tracks - rolled off everything below 500Hz, and some saturation - bussed both tracks and add a little verb as well.
Cala top - EQ'd out the low end, saturation and compression
Call Bottom - EQ'd out the .ids/highs and again some saturationa nd EQ.

GTRS - Main guitars had some cuts around 1k, rolled off below 90Hz and used a distressor style compressor to also add some harmonic distortion.
GTR Dist - Duplicated - Rolled off low end from 500hz and delayed one copy by 10ms and panned around 40% L/R
GTR DISTRN - just rolled off below 150HZ and a little extra saturation through distressor style plugin.
GTR Solo - rolled off everything below 280HZ and above 4.4k - and a delay.

GTR Wah - Enjoyed this one - Rolled off below 200 and above 3.5k - bussed them where I added some compression/flanger/plate verb - followed by an eq to bring the highs up a little more.

SAX/SAX SOLO- rolled off below 250, and a bit of high shel from 3.5k - saturation and compression
Trumpet/Trumpet Solo - rolled off below 400Hz, then some compression and saturation

RIBAB - EQ rolling away below 600Hz, and some compression.

BASS - Ampeg sim/saturation/compressor/limiter
Duplicated BASS track and removed amp sim and added more saturation, and eq'd to just get upper mids -blended in via automation to taste

VOX - Tamar - just compression and EQ
VOx - Fiona, loved her voice- used 3 compressors each doing a little bit, EQ in between first two compressors removing somes lows and push from 6k with a shelf finished chain with a desser.

Vox Effects:
3 delays (slap back - 1/4 note and 1/2 note) and automated to taste
Reverb
Distortion
Microshift
Little Alterboy - used on chorus mainly.

MASTER
Compressor - 4db max reduction 2:1 ratio - attack at 3ms and release at 0.1ms
Little saturation
EQ- just a little push below 60HZ

Used quite a bit of automation to try and keep the mix balanced how I felt it when mixing.
Enjoy!

Jules

[Vanderdude]

Hi all,

I really enjoyed mixing this song! Real earwurm!
Thanks for any feedback in advance and if possible since this is my first attempt to mix a professional band!

The mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k-jDxY ... p=sharing

Stereo buss: very subtle compression (1-2dB to glue together and for mixing priority purposes)

Drum Buss: Deesser(stock logic) + EQ + LOADED pre-amp en Deesser + serial compression (fast attack + slower) with EQ (low and hi-end boost)
Desert Roses: Gain + LowCut + MFlanger automation (intro section)
Cymbals: saturation, EQ boost around 6-8 kHz + deesser
Karkaba: Pan hard left and right
Cajon: used noise gate and EQ
Cala: create ambience through long VALHALLA Reverb

Bass: really had fun with this bass line !! For me this carries the groove throughout the song. So here I chose to put this on top of the Kick (lowest instrument 50-100 Hz) and Bass (100-200 Hz) just above to avoid masking issues and get them playing well together.
Used some heavy LALA compression from analog obsession. Also Parallel processing: hicut + locut and distortion effect blended in to really get that power going.

Guitars: primarily some Tube EQ and Room Rev

Lead vocals (Fiona): some short and long reverb + compression to get that power out. Also some slapback and stereo delays blended in (through sends). Also used saturation to add some extra spice.
Doubled her track to hard pan left and right with pitch shift (octave up and octave down) to get more stereo width.
Gave the backings tracks some ambience by using long reverbs (VALHALLA) and some subtle high end compression through OTT.

Sax and Trumpet got their own place in freq spectrum + stereo image playing up and down. Used some automation for the solo parts.
RIBABS: used volume and panning automation to add more interest when they came up

Thanks!
Vanderdude

[tomearwaker]

Hey,

Found this quite challenging, but enjoyable track to mix - here's my entry:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ln8uqk ... sp=sharing

Drums:
Added some sub to the main drum loop. On most other drum elements cut some low frequencies to prevent muddiness. Cala group had some saturation (Ableton drum buss) and high frequencies panned (Melda SpectralPan). Cajon group had boost ~2k (Melda MDynamicEQ), a little bit of compression (MTurboCompressor SSL-style), and some stereo expansion in the higher frequencies.
Bass:
Little bit of tone shaping EQ (MDynamicEQ) and compression to bring out the attack a little and even out notes (MTurboCompressor). Slight bit of hall reverb added for glue (MconvolutionMB)
Guitars:
Main guitar had a cut ~500Hz, bit of compression to even out notes (Ableton compressor), some chorus (Melda MChorusMB). There was some volume automation of the guitar tracks to pull some parts out in certain sections where it felt like they should be more prominent. Distant melody guitar and distorted guitar had some expansion to bring out the transients a bit (Ableton compressor). Solo guitar had some chorus and phaser, boosting upper mids with EQ. Wah wah guitar had EQ boost ~1-2k and some 1176-style compression. Ducking the volume of the mid channel when the vocals came in to give space for vocals (Ableton compressor). Hall reverb on the group, with some automation.
Ribab:
Boosted upper mids and treble, hall reverb, and some tape delay with automation on dry/wet.
Horns:
Saturation (AO Prebox), compression (MJUC), hall reverb
Vocals:
Fiona - Compression (LALA & RVox), De-essing (scheps omnichannel), saturation (AO Prebox), Tone shaping EQ (MDynamicEQ), subtle slapback delay, tape emulation (chow tape), plate reverb and hall reverb (automated).
Lala Tamar - compression (MJUC), delay and panning automation
Mixbus:
Light compression with Melda MTurboCompressor (SSL G-bus style), some tone shaping with Luftikus (maag style EQ), some automation of width and low shelf cut EQ to give a stronger impact in some sections.

Cheers,
Tom

[Mister Fox]

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


As of this moment, we have about 36 mixes. I'd love to see more than 50 or even 60. So if you've been sitting on your mix, now is the time to get everything sorted out, and post both your link and documentation.

[floodo]

Hi, thank you very much for providing this material, it was amazing to mix these tracks, you could really feel the energy of the musicians, well to start I normalized all the tracks to -11 db, I made a static mix only adjusting volume and panning, when I got what I wanted I started mixing beat, bass and vocals, in that order, then move to the rest of percussions, finally the harmonic and melodic instruments, not to lengthen too much all tracks were equalized and compressed and cut in the low area as needed, for the bass I used Plugins Alliance's free ampeg emulation, I compressed the mids and saturated the mids and high mids, I sent the percussions and beats to a bus and treated them with a transient designer so that they have more punch especially in the low part, in the brass session, I needed them to be very aggressive in the chorus and with equalization it was not enough, as an experiment I automated an overdrive that is activated in the chorus and I achieved the aggressiveness I needed, the guitars I sent them all to a bus and with open air from studio one I carque a response boost from some Marshall, the guitar with wha bothered me a lot the reverb it had so I removed it with Acon DeVerberate and I put a plate, when the mix had taken the shape I was looking for I equalized the mixbus to reach the frequency balance of my reference song (A-ha take on me) I know it has nothing to do with my reference but I always use it as a starting point because it has a perfect balance, anyway I found that the mix was very bright and I balanced it to taste with a tilt, here I decided to abandon the mix and I started with the automations, I connected all the tracks to a VCA and I automate first from the beginning of the song going up progressively until completing 1db at the beginning of the last chorus, then I lowered 1db to all the verses, in the chorus I opened the panorama of the guitars and the brass, also in the chorus I changed the type of saturation in the voice, in the verses tape saturation in the chorus tube saturation, the voice has a slap delay to make it bigger and a reverb which had SC compression which was also automated, going from a 6 relays in the verses to a 3 relays in the choruses, the guitar with wha wha I automated the volume to sound less in the verses and increasing it in the choruses because I liked the groove it had, in the intro I automated some delays and reverbs to try to make it sound like something mysterious, I don't know if I succeeded at least I tried to do it xD, in the bridge I was removing the high part at the same time that I was entering a set of reverbs and delays, the intention was to create a feeling of distance to then make a sort of rise with the guitar to finally enter the last chorus with much more impact, in general all the tracks increase 1db in the chorus, the bus where the beat and percussion are I remove them from the beginning of the verse to the beginning of the chorus very gradually the low area to about 50Hz to release in the chorus also in the chorus I compress about 2db the sides of the percussion instruments to generate a sense of widening, I did many but many automations in this mix, at this point I rendered the mix and loaded it in a new project, here I tried to make some psycho acoustic corrections with analog modeling plugins to unmask some frequencies that interested me and give color to the mix, I did this with coral Baxter, jet, titanium basstard, the three from audio acoustics, glue compression with shadow hills and to give it a little more glue I added a very faint convolution reverb, a hall to be precise, finally I used soothe 2 to remove resonances in the 12k and 500k, I don't think I forgot anything, I hope you like my mix and if it is not selected, it would be very helpful to me a feedback, one last clarification, I am aware that the mix may be a little too low, but this was on purpose, being a sub genre of pop, I thought that above all things its mission was to make people dance, and the low frequencies incite to move the body, thank you very much, it was a real pleasure to have had the opportunity to make this mix.

My Mix ---> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zsophE ... 0SxcJ/view

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