MIX CHALLENGE - MC091 April 2023 - Winners announced

[Mister Fox]

I'd love to be proved wrong though and if I am I'll hold my hands up and admit it, @Franz please weigh in!

@Franz is a regular and a longtime user. I do not think he used samples, however I already did reach out for clarification. There are multiple software tools with similar names, and you can't know them all at heart.

One thing of note though... Do not underestimate the power of equalizing and compression/transient shaping. You can drastically change the tone of drums just by these two tools alone.

I gave a quick (and dirty) example during MC084 / February 2022 for this very topic.

[sirmonkey]

To zed999: Had a listen, and there's a lot I like. I liked the drums, but...reverb is WAY heavy. Drums are absolutely
thunderous. Which sounds cool, but overshadows the whole mix. They're way bigger than everything
else in the mix. Having said that, I hope you make it to the next round. I really want to hear the same,
or nearly the same mix, but with the reverb on the drums dialed down. I thing the whole mix would work
a lot better just with that one change.
After the break (after the quiet part) where the guitars with drive come back in, did you high pass them?
I wanted the guitars to be a bit brighter there. Not a lot brighter, but a little bit.
On my mix (page 8) I hope you have a listen. When I listen back to my mix, now the vocals seem too prominent.
I thought I got them dialed in just right, but when I listened to my mix on dropbox, all of a sudden the vocals sounded
way more dominant. Anyway, there are probably MANY more critiques to be made on my mix, and I would welcome them!
In any event, hope to see you in round 2.

[BenjiRage]

One thing of note though... Do not underestimate the power of equalizing and compression/transient shaping. You can drastically change the tone of drums just by these two tools alone.

I gave a quick (and dirty) example during MC084 / February 2022 for this very topic.

This is very true and a great example post there, quite enlightening. I'm probably a little behind in my transient designer tool knowledge these days to be honest, I've used the same simple tool for donkeys but I was just looking at Shaperbox that @zed999 mentioned and that looks so much more powerful.

I absolutely do have doubts about my call-out but the main thing that sticks in my mind is there's so much hi-hat spill on the snare tracks in this recording such that any amount of snare compression ends up amplifying the sound of the hats, yet that doesn't seem evident in his mix. If it is in fact mixed without samples then @Franz please accept my apologies (and I would love to know how you got rid of that spill!)

[zed999]

To zed999: Had a listen, and there's a lot I like. I liked the drums, but...reverb is WAY heavy. Drums are absolutely
thunderous. Which sounds cool, but overshadows the whole mix. They're way bigger than everything
else in the mix. Having said that, I hope you make it to the next round. I really want to hear the same,
or nearly the same mix, but with the reverb on the drums dialed down. I thing the whole mix would work
a lot better just with that one change.
After the break (after the quiet part) where the guitars with drive come back in, did you high pass them?
I wanted the guitars to be a bit brighter there. Not a lot brighter, but a little bit.
On my mix (page 8) I hope you have a listen. When I listen back to my mix, now the vocals seem too prominent.
I thought I got them dialed in just right, but when I listened to my mix on dropbox, all of a sudden the vocals sounded
way more dominant. Anyway, there are probably MANY more critiques to be made on my mix, and I would welcome them!
In any event, hope to see you in round 2.

Thanks for the critique!
You asked so
Vocals - they sound like they are in an empty gymnasium - like my snare! Definitely not too prominent.
Drums - thin for my taste. You knew that!
Guitars - I get where you were coming from but those main guitars need some crunch IMO if only to level them out. They are too dynamic compared to everything else.
Dunno what it means exactly, but when Dropbox draws you volume representation the volume doubles on the "quiet" bit. Strange? Bass boost?

To answer your question, yes I high passed guitars, vocals, drums everything. My god, this track was awash with high mids. A lot of things got severely high passed. That guitar you point to - agreed, but it has to not steal the thunder from the almighty power chord as the band come it so I didn't want to make too much of it. Tricky. Generally, I should have had all that last section up a dB or 2, that might have made it easier.

After I'd high passed everything down to mud, I put the highs back on the entire track on the mix bus + some distortion, added more distortion to the mids and gave it a 40hz bump with a a tape effect - Taipei by London Acoustics. too. Sad thing for me was that with nothing but that on the mix bus I was at 12 lufs so I had to go back over everything and find some dynamics.

[zed999]

One thing of note though... Do not underestimate the power of equalizing and compression/transient shaping. You can drastically change the tone of drums just by these two tools alone.

I gave a quick (and dirty) example during MC084 / February 2022 for this very topic.

This is very true and a great example post there, quite enlightening. I'm probably a little behind in my transient designer tool knowledge these days to be honest, I've used the same simple tool for donkeys but I was just looking at Shaperbox that @zed999 mentioned and that looks so much more powerful.

I absolutely do have doubts about my call-out but the main thing that sticks in my mind is there's so much hi-hat spill on the snare tracks in this recording such that any amount of snare compression ends up amplifying the sound of the hats, yet that doesn't seem evident in his mix. If it is in fact mixed without samples then @Franz please accept my apologies (and I would love to know how you got rid of that spill!)

You have to put the work in - sometimes it's possible to get a good outcome. As you say pretty every snare hit had a flam kind of thing in what you would like to retain (hi-hat? I didn't pay much attention to what it was other than it was spoiling the snare). I'll be honest, I went through the snare tracks and manually dipped all those flams/hats or whatever they were with clip volume so the snare tail looked smooth. The alternative was cut the snare tails so short the snare turned into clicks. Then all the transient design. 3 band in my case, mixed together. I've never done this before, I'm new to but blown away by Shaperbox - the most I've spent on ANY software for music.

[Mister Fox]

This is very true and a great example post there, quite enlightening. I'm probably a little behind in my transient designer tool knowledge these days to be honest, I've used the same simple tool for donkeys but I was just looking at Shaperbox that @zed999 mentioned and that looks so much more powerful.

Notice that ShaperBox (Cableguys) is basically automating things like the "volume" of an incoming signal (VolumeShaper), which I'm pretty sure that @zed999 used in this case. Either through presets, or custom settings.

Since you can also do this "multi-band", you can create a very custom gate plugin with insane control over a signal.

I absolutely do have doubts about my call-out but the main thing that sticks in my mind is there's so much hi-hat spill on the snare tracks in this recording such that any amount of snare compression ends up amplifying the sound of the hats, yet that doesn't seem evident in his mix. If it is in fact mixed without samples then @Franz please accept my apologies (and I would love to know how you got rid of that spill!)

Let me throw something else into the mix that you might not have heard about: spectral processing.

Going by what @Franz listed in terms of plugins, I assume he used Flux Audio ircam Tools T.R.A.X. (or just Ircam TRAX), and more specifically, it's Source Filter (from what I could see from quick Google-Fu). So this is a more supercharged transient designer (think Eventide Physion, WavesFactory Quantum, or the IMHO excellent Boz Digital Labs Transgressor).

This isn't the only way to treat drums and "de-spill" things. One famous tool was Accusonus Drumatom. This was specifically made for reducing drum spill, but it's been discontinued many months ago (unfortunately), and the company now belongs to "Meta". Another option is iZotope RX, which offers a "De-Bleed" module. The concept is basically the same... it analyzes one track to a reference, and removes the content through "spectral editing".

All this can make drums sound "triggered", even though they actually aren't.



Then there is only the following left to ask yourself:

How perfectionist / clean scrubbed do you want recordings to be?
Or do you want to leave the "mistakes" and therefore have character?


Same question as with using vocal pitch correction, or time adjustment tools.

[sirmonkey]

Thanks for the critique!
You asked so
Vocals - they sound like they are in an empty gymnasium - like my snare! Definitely not too prominent.
Drums - thin for my taste. You knew that!
Guitars - I get where you were coming from but those main guitars need some crunch IMO if only to level them out. They are too dynamic compared to everything else.
Dunno what it means exactly, but when Dropbox draws you volume representation the volume doubles on the "quiet" bit. Strange? Bass boost?

To answer your question, yes I high passed guitars, vocals, drums everything. My god, this track was awash with high mids. A lot of things got severely high passed. That guitar you point to - agreed, but it has to not steal the thunder from the almighty power chord as the band come it so I didn't want to make too much of it. Tricky. Generally, I should have had all that last section up a dB or 2, that might have made it easier.

After I'd high passed everything down to mud, I put the highs back on the entire track on the mix bus + some distortion, added more distortion to the mids and gave it a 40hz bump with a a tape effect - Taipei by London Acoustics. too. Sad thing for me was that with nothing but that on the mix bus I was at 12 lufs so I had to go back over everything and find some dynamics.

Thanks for the feedback. I have only mixed a few songs, mostly mine (I'm a perpetual novice "guitarist") And I've watched way too many
Youtube videos on music production!
In any event, it's always interesting to see how the same material can be approached.
For vocals: maybe I should use a different reverb? Maybe cut the highs there, maybe with a bit of a longer tail?
Drums: Maybe I should UP the reverb a bit? Maybe more so on the kick than the snare? Hmmmm. More experimenting to do!
Dropbox: Maybe I just perceive things differently when I'm not in my DAW editing. Different mindset I guess.
On the 40hz bump you mentioned - I did something a bit along those lines too. In my case, I used a dynamic equalizer (Melda Autodynamic).
Seemed to add just a little heft, without spiking to volume and/or turning it into mud.
So now I'm going to listen to more mixes. But so far, I can only get the dropbox-linked ones to play. Looks like I need to sign up for yet
another online service/google drive thingy of some sort.
P.S. Can you imagine being the songwriter, and trying to respond to 71 mixes? Holy cow!

[BenjiRage]

Let me throw something else into the mix that you might not have heard about: spectral processing.

It's a term I've heard but I can't say I've owned or used any specific "spectral processing" tools. Thanks for the info though, I'll check some of these out and hopefully improve my game.

How perfectionist / clean scrubbed do you want recordings to be?
Or do you want to leave the "mistakes" and therefore have character?
Same question as with using vocal pitch correction, or time adjustment tools.

Indeed, these are the key questions and the apparent dilemma of a mix engineer! However, in my mind mistakes do not always equal character. I'll go into a bit more detail of my philosophy on this...

Things like the fluid timing of the performance, the drifting of the BPM not locked to a click, that's fab, I love it, a natural, musical performance.

Mistakes like the slight lateness of the drum hits against the guitars as the kit comes back in after the break before the final chorus, however? That to me lowers the listening enjoyment and detracts from the apparent musicianship and the professionalism of the record - in an ideal world it would have been tracked again, second best solution is to fix it in the mix. I've got to admit I was surprised that so many of the submitted mixes did not correct this, nor the wayward vocal alignment in the first chorus, or those few held notes in the first verse that are a bit sharp. These are things that, I would have tracked again. At the very least I believe they should be fixed in pursuit of a tight, professional and ultimately more pleasing record.

That being said, there is a balance between getting things tight and keeping things sounding natural. I don't like to mix the drums so processed that they sound triggered (why suck the life out of things?) I don't tune the vocals such that the intervention is obvious and it starts to sound robotic. I strive for professionalism but not "perfection". Keep it musical, keep it natural sounding, use as many methods, tactics, "tricks" (call them what you will) to fashion a professional music product, but above all try to create something that gives as much listening enjoyment as possible.

But, that's just my two cents, to each his own! I'd love to hear others' thoughts on these mix decisions.

[Franz]

Waouh @BenjiRage, I would have been a little more cautious in your pretrial assertions...
There, you live the story of the sprinkler yourself.
In fact I am very flattered that you find that my numerous manipulations on the tracks of the drums "sound" like samples...

I just listened to your mix, and seriously, I could wonder if it is not you who uses a sample on the snare track...
Indeed, I only hear the "smack" of the strikes on your snare. Let's take an example: from 1'47''. The drummer's playing
on the snare is composed of an attack and "roll" and "ghost notes". In your mix, clearly I only hear the strike and no
roll or ghost notes. Now listen to the same passage on my mix. Listen carefully: we hear everything: strike, roll, ghost notes.

In fact there is one thing that I (unfortunately) forgot to specify: the two tracks of the snare (top and bottom) have
been mixed into one track. OK. There, it's still a (small) hell: a royal "bleed", everyone is there (on this track): the kick,
the OHs in overpowering, the toms (not to be the rest...).
Big problem: the best gates do not resolve the situation. So there was only one thing left to do: the "manual" cleaning
in Wawelab. This excellent software makes it possible to give very gentle slopes with a multitude of "decay" settings
which avoid "brutal" cuts in the sound as they exist on the "rack gated" track (which was to be repeated in the same way).
Then , and this is an important point, I put each strike on the snare drum at the same level (in decibel value).
But I didn't touch the rolls and ghost notes. May consider that the playing of the snare was "not alive".
Then comes a myriad of software (Thanks to Mister Fox for having explained very finely certain technical aspects in #111 and #116)
and therefore a drastic transformation of the sound so much so that it is probable that we no longer recognize the original.
No, sorry, no samples...

Cheers

Franz

[BenjiRage]

Waouh @BenjiRage, I would have been a little more cautious in your pretrial assertions...
There, you live the story of the sprinkler yourself.
In fact I am very flattered that you find that my numerous manipulations on the tracks of the drums "sound" like samples...

I just listened to your mix, and seriously, I could wonder if it is not you who uses a sample on the snare track...
Indeed, I only hear the "smack" of the strikes on your snare. Let's take an example: from 1'47''. The drummer's playing
on the snare is composed of an attack and "roll" and "ghost notes". In your mix, clearly I only hear the strike and no
roll or ghost notes. Now listen to the same passage on my mix. Listen carefully: we hear everything: strike, roll, ghost notes.

In fact there is one thing that I (unfortunately) forgot to specify: the two tracks of the snare (top and bottom) have
been mixed into one track. OK. There, it's still a (small) hell: a royal "bleed", everyone is there (on this track): the kick,
the OHs in overpowering, the toms (not to be the rest...).
Big problem: the best gates do not resolve the situation. So there was only one thing left to do: the "manual" cleaning
in Wawelab. This excellent software makes it possible to give very gentle slopes with a multitude of "decay" settings
which avoid "brutal" cuts in the sound as they exist on the "rack gated" track (which was to be repeated in the same way).
Then , and this is an important point, I put each strike on the snare drum at the same level (in decibel value).
But I didn't touch the rolls and ghost notes. May consider that the playing of the snare was "not alive".
Then comes a myriad of software (Thanks to Mister Fox for having explained very finely certain technical aspects in #111 and #116)
and therefore a drastic transformation of the sound so much so that it is probable that we no longer recognize the original.
No, sorry, no samples...

Cheers

Franz

Yep I stand corrected, my sincere apologies for jumping in too soon with the comment. Kudos though, that's a heck of an effort you put into your drum mixing, and certainly a distinct sound it's resulted in. Not to my taste, but again to each his own.

Yes, you're quite right the ghost notes and rolls aren't as audible in my mix - they have been ducked with the snare gate. They're a little too messy and a tighter gate was an efficient means of clean-up. So no, sorry, no samples here either...