MIX CHALLENGE - MC089 December 2022 - Winners announced

[zajus]

Hello everyone,

Here’s my take in Inferno: MC089__Hooker_and_a_Handgun__INFERNO__Zajus

Fun track to mix, especially the layered vocals allowed a lot of space for creativity.

Generally on FX I used:

• Parallel compression for Kick and Snare

• Plate on Snare, Tom and the verse vocals

• Room on OH and a very little on rhythm guitars

• Ping pong delay on the lead guitars

• Dual mono delay with low feedback on pretty much all vocals

• Asymmetric stereo delay with no feedback on all lead vocals

• 1/2 note delay throws on a few words in the verse

As for the mix itself:

Drums

• Kick: Light touch of compression, EQ to scope some mids, bx_subfilter to add punch to the low end and another EQ to tame it again and reduce the high end thud in the opening and closing sections of the song

• Snare: Compression mainly to bring out the ghost notes, EQ to notch a few resonant frequencies, transient shaper to bring out the natural decay of the snare

• OH: Touch of compression and EQ to lower the snare spill

• Room: Heavy compression, EQ to remove both the very top and the very low end. Volume automated so that the room sound is much louder in the sparse sections of the song and less audible when the song gets busier

Bass

• Very little to do. BOD to add a little drive, EQ to remove low-end rumble. This is gently blended with the top end of a heavily distorted copy of the track. Both limited and EQd to gel with the kick and guitars

Guitars: I have used the provided printed tracks as I didn't feel they need re-amping, the sound was good as provided.

• Rhythm guitars: as this is the same track twice, I have shifted one by a few dozen ms to create a Haas effect. I have EQd each side differently (mostly scooping out mids) and used console emulation to gel the guitars together.

• Octaves: I have used the Haas trick again in the verses only and blended them with the rhythm guitars to leave the center of the mix free for vocals. In the chorus, where the lead guitars kick in, I have left the octave guitar in the center and tucked it behind the vocals.

• Leads: Only panned hard left and right and EQd to stick out from the rhythm guitars without clashing with the backing vocals.

Vocals: In general, my chain is: Clip gain to balance the biggest volume differences within tracks, EQ to shape the raw tracks (in this case mostly to remove low end rumble), Autoformer to balance the volume prior to compression, ~10 db of fairly aggressive compression, a touch of limiting for the peaks and de-essing to taste. Since this song contains many vocal layers, I could get creative with using stereo effects and creating a "conversation" between the individual vocals. I have also used a solid dose of HeadCrusher on some of the vocals to add some nice distortion. On the vocal bus, I'm using a tube EQ emulation to add a little shine to the top end.

On mix bus, I'm using a touch of compression (just a db or two), tape emulation to let the tracks gel and make them a bit warmer, console emulation for very much the same reason and a last EQ to shape the track a little bit to taste, prior sending it to limiter just to ensure nothing peaks beyond the limits.

As always, thanks for the opportunity to mix this track. As this was closer to my heart than the others I mixed here, I enjoyed it a lot

Stepan

[aggropop]

Hey!

Thanks for providing the multitrack and organizing the challenge
My first time to submit to something like this...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SgELCf ... share_link
[Edited 21:48, because I named the file wrong and had no silence before and after the start)

Ok, I destroyed the intro with IVGI.

Getting the snare to have a pleasing reverb was most challenging to me here:
I sidechained the snare to the stereo room track, to let the room track boost when the snare hits.
But I also gave a gated reverb to the snare. And there is some parallel compression on the drum shells.

Cut some highs on the kick to have it not sounding so digital. But did not want to overdo it.

I used both, DI and amped guitar: Delayed and put the DI through Amped Roots to have stereo guitars.

I used Buster and Tape Saturation on the Mixbus to glue Vocals and Instruments together.

Greetings
aggropop

[cpsmusic]

Hi Everyone,

Here's my entry for Mix Challenge 089.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V_8XOt ... sp=sharing

Thanks to the song provider and to the challenge organisers.

This is a style of music that I'm less familiar with so I used Alexisonfire's This Could Be Anywhere In The World as a reference.

For the mix I tried to keep things relatively simple in terms of processing, so rather than go through each individual instrument I'll just highlight some of the more interesting things that I tried.

Lofi Intro - This is a pretty common technique. Make the intro sound small, so that when the full song starts it sounds bigger. This was done using a combination of Studio One's Bitcrusher and Elysia's Karacter.

Riser - There's a short riser when the main part of the song kicks in. I created it using a reversed version of the rhythm guitar track which was fed into a reverb and a delay.

Kick Sub - I noticed that in This Could Be Anywhere In The World there's a sub "bomb" that's used to accent the start of differernt sections - I tried to create something similar using Metric Halo's Thump, keying it off the original kick.

Low Snare - I thought that the snare could do with some extra "beef" so I tried the "Back in Black" trick of pitch-shifting the snare down a couple of semitones and mixing it in underneath the original. I tried doing this a few different ways using PSP HertzRider and a few other plug-ins however they always seemed to add some "flamming". I ended up routing the snare to an ancient SPX990 and using the Low Snare preset which didn't seem to have the flamming problem.

Joe Barresi Wah Guitars - I picked up this technique online and thought I'd give it a try. For heavier guitar sections Joe Barresi mixes in a "wah guitar" parallel track with the existing guitars for added thickness and bite. I did this using the free Nembrini Wah plug-in.

For most of the mix I kept the mixbus pretting simple - Acustica Arctic (added right at the end), Newfangled Equivocate, Sonimus A-Console, ToneBoosters Reelbus, SPL Vitalizer (Hardware) and Sonnox Inflator.

Specs:

44.1kHz/24-bit
-16.4 LUFS (int.)
-4.2 dBTP

Good luck to all contestants and once again thanks to everyone involved in the challenge.

Cheers!

[Tapwater]

Hello all, here is my mix:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Cdsm1 ... sp=sharing

Drums: Added a little 60Hz to the kick. A little 5Khz to the snare. A little 10Khz to the overhead. Light parallel compression of the drum bus.

Bass: Combined the Bass DI and the Bass Amp. Rolled off some highs and took out some 500Hz.

Guitars: Combined the DI tracks with the Amp tracks. Added some 5Khz and some 3Khz. Lots of automation.

Vocals: Parallel compression, a little slap delay and reverb. A little high shelf and lot and lots of automation.

Thank you!

[EKVelika]

Here is my take: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lMi2kQ ... sp=sharing

I would not go on explaining every move I did but rather the sound and feeling what I was going for.
I was going for open, inviting sound, punchy drums, consistent sound and gain on vocals with not too much fx and wide guitars. Also I didn't do much on master bus except raising overall loudness but not too much. I used mostly presonus studio one stock plugins so no fancy shi..
Very cool song and style and I was happy while mixing it since this is the music I gravitate to.

[Michael_K]

Wonderful and challenging track!
Trying to keep the right balance between glue and separation was challenging.
Drums: Subtle subtractive eq and compression on individual tracks.
Drum Bus: A little air on top. Heavy parallel compression, off most of the time but sneaking in with automation where needed.
Bass: DI and amp are grouped eq'ed individually and compressed together.
Guitars: Used the amp track for depth and the di tracks for definition. Wide panning. light compression to add some dynamics, slight subtractive eq for low mud.
Scream vox: Tube saturaion, De-ess, eq, optp compression, 1176
Leadvox: De-ess, eq, optp compression, 1176
All other vocal tracks grouped and treated with eq and compression individually and as a group.
The vox-harmony tacks have additional tube saturation and a steep high cut for body.
Cheers and good luck to everyone!
The mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1toOnVQ ... share_link

[Elias]

Hello everyone!
Here's my submission:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aqrXHX ... sp=sharing

Happy Holidays!

[itsmorefuntocompute]

Hey everyone,

This is my first time taking part in the mix-challenge.
Here is my submission. Enjoyed working on the track.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8byjhus9sar2c ... e.wav?dl=0
I look forward to hearing any feedback!

Everything was done in Pro Tools.

Nearly every track has Brainworx SSL 9000J as a primary channel strip. This was used to speed up workflow and maintain a basic structure that had to be adhered to.

Additional compression was used on certain elements, such as drum room tracks, bass, vocals.

Instrument groups were then assigned routing folders for some buss processing.

For Drums there was Softubes Drawmer 1973 Multiband Compression and a FabFilter L2

For Bass there was Arturia's Tube Culture distortion with PT stock eq7, Arturia's 1176 plugin and Fab Filter L2.

Guitars are a combination of original tracks mixed with reamped di tracks that were processed using GuitarRig 6.
The Guitar Buss has FabFilter Pro Q2, Brainworx Vertigo VCA compressor, WavesFactory Trackspacer being sidechained by the vocal busseses, and Waves Center plugin for some mid-side processing.

All Vocals have the same 9000J channel strip used as everything else, but some have additional compression coming from Arturia's 1176.
Most vocals also have the FabFilter de-esser either per track or on the final vocal busses. Lastly there is the L2 from FabFilter on these.

Effects were kept relatively simple. Two reverbs. One for instruments and the other for vocal depth. These were done with FabFilters Pro-R.
All delay sends were done with Valhalla Delay. These were used for guitars and/or certain vocal elements.
There is also a final aux send that uses sound-toys little microshift, valhalla delay and a de-esser.
Lastly for the intro and ending effects, I used Arturia's Mell-Tape plugin in tandem with Valhalla Delay to give some tape stop effects with additional Hi-Pass filter sweeps.

Finally for my Mix Bus, I have minimal compression and tonal shaping. This signal chain is as follows:
Brainworx Vertigo VCA compressor. Averaging around 2-4db of reduction.
Brainworx BlackBox for some saturation
Arturia's Sitral Equalizer for slight bass and treble shelves at 100hz and 10Khz respectively. There is also a small cut at 1.5Khz.

I shot for an average loudness of -16LUFs.

Mix Window Screenshots for those interested.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9b7c6tyoqnxhl ... M.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pvizc0o6sba01 ... M.png?dl=0

Thanks again for reading through this. I hope I got my requirements correct...

[alan_mix]

Hi everyone,
thanks for the great song.

Here is my mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19KfIPd ... sp=sharing

I was too busy recently and did a quick mix. I was overall trying to get the balance right and to sound decent. Also hoping to at least not get disqualified this time.

Kick: EQ/Comp
Snare: EQ/ Comp/ reverb
Bass: EQ/ Comp/ re-amp with DI
Guitars: EQ/ reverb / delay
Vox: EQ/ reverb / delay
Also did a slight bus compression.

[Arthur Labus]

Hello everybody !
Very thankful for the oppurtunity to mix that song and here is what i've done:

Specs:
Tracks set to 0 VU. Izotope Neutrino and NLS Channel (Neve) on every instrument bus.

DRUMS:
Drum Bus - Thrillseeker VBL (light compression + trafo processing), Toneboosters Sibilance (harshness de-essing), Overloud GEM EQ550 (smile)

Kick - BRA VEQ-1P Pultec style "kick trick"
Snare - Waves CLA Drums with focus on attack and adding some reverb
Tom and fill with no extra processing
Overheads - Waves CLA Drums as for Overheads, TBProAudio GSat+ adding saturation to tame the highs
Room - Waves CLA Drums as for room

BASS:
Bass DI: Audio Assault Bass Grinder as reamper, Overloud Gem EQ550, Focusrite Red 3 compressor, Waves Scheps 73 (clean bass, HP 80 Hz), Chorus in choruses, GVST GMono Bass under 150Hz

GUITARS: BRA VHL-3C with high pass 150Hz, low pass 15kHz, TB Sibilance de-esser, GVST GMono Bass under 150Hz

Rhythm guitars: pitched the Guitar 2 track with amount of 0,02% so the both guitars can act as stereo pair. Also added Toneboosters TB_ReelBus tape sim to both to create more subtle differences.
Both guitars are send to track with FA3 amp sim with phaser and delay - automated to appear in section as extended delay only

Octaves: Waves CLA Effects - fiuu and phaser, Voxengo Stereo Touch for some more width

Lead guitars - only panning

VOCALS - TB Sibilance de-esser
Scream Vocals - Waves CLA Vocals (EQ, reverb, stereo fx), BRA VLA-3A compressor, Soundtoys Decapitator for some more edge / SEND to Waves Morphoder as whisper track
Clean /Chorus / harmony Vocals - Waves CLA Vocals (EQ, reverb, stereo fx), BRA VLA-3A compressor, Acustica Jetmix as dynamic eq pulling fown 400 Hz

All busses except bass send to track with Acustica Silver with big hall for glue reverb

Overall a lot of volume automation

Master Bus:
NLS Bus (Neve) analog summing, Acustica CoralEQ (pulling down 350 Hz a bit), Density MkIII compressor (glueing), Toneboosters ReelBus tape sim, BaxterEQ for overall tone shaping, Toneboosters Sibilance, Charly Limited analog gain
as metering: Toneboosters TB_Barricade, Youlean Loudness Meter

WAV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u7Rt_6 ... share_link

WAV 24bit/44kHz, round 1,9 dB headroom / loudness -16,4 LUFS

Good succes everybody !