MIX CHALLENGE - MC092 June 2023 - Winners announced

[Mister Fox]

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


As of this moment, we have about 57 mixes. Let's see what the "final rush" will be about

If you've been sitting on your mix, now is the time to get everything sorted out, post both your link and documentation. Do not forget the deadline. And please triple check that everything is in order (file format, signal strength, accessibility -- your entry is final!).

[Nbwltn2]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hd21hI ... drive_link

As many have mentioned, this one is fun. I'm from the mid-atlantic area of the US and enjoy bluegrass/string music. And there was a lot going on in this track....

Bass
I like channel strips. I used the brainworks N console throughout the porject, starting with the bass. Kinda my thing, to start with the bass. I bussed both tracks and then the N colsole. I used the Lindell SBC compressor to get it to thump, and IZotope Trash 2 for bite.

Drums
Everything to a BUS and then through the N console. I then used the PuigTec (both plugins) from Waves on the drums, with the Lindell SBC compressor and then Trash 2.

Guitars
All guitars to a bus and the N console. I like CLA-2A on acoustic guitars.

Banjo
Just like guitar above.

Fiddle
Only the N console.

Accordian
I used the N console followed by the Red 2 EQ. Then some saturation with CLA-2A to finish.

Vocals
Bussed everything. Did a manual vocal ride on the lead vocal. Used a multiband EQ, and the Waves Sibilance plugin. The hashness was hard to get out. Following that with the N console, CLA-76, CLA-2A, PuigTec (EQ only not the MEQ) I did add some delay, and then saturation with Trash 2. controlled the levels with LoudMax.

Everything then sent to a Mix Bus with the Krammer Tape plugin, multi-band EQ, TDR Kotelnikov, and meters.

Good Luck to everyone!

[pabloAT]

Dear all,
Many thanks to the song provider and Mr. Fox for such a nice track to mix:
[Dropbox link to MC092]

DAW: Cubase 12.0.60
iLUFS = -18.5 / TP = -1.67)
Wav file 48/24

Preliminaries
Panning, aligned drum kits and basses (MAutoAlign), sub frequencies cleaning (Pro-Q3), grouping tracks into 6 stems. Stems sent to a mixbuss channel. Intensive automation for individual tracks and stems towards the end of the mix process.
Percussions
Sub-grouped the stomboxes, cajun/snare & OH as a drum with EQ and compression. Sub-grouped the cajons with a bit of saturation. Sends to an instance of LX reverb. Stem = Tape machine.
Bass
Royer track treated as a “high” freq. bass and the U47 as a “low” freq. bass (with filtering) Applied soothe2, saturation and compression. Send to an instance of (//) Microshift for dimension. For the bass stem, I added the excellent SketchCassette II as a gluing tape.
Acoustic Gtrs
Hard panning L/R and instances of LA-2 compression, both tracks grouped with a transient designer to control the “peaks”. Sends to SuperPlate (reverb).
Banjos
Similar treatment as guitars. Sends to EC300 (reverb).
Fiddles
Hard panning L/R and instances of EQ and compression. Sends to SuperPlate.
Guitars, banjos and fiddles stem : tape machine.
Accordion
Extensive EQ cleaning, saturation and a bit of transient designer to remove boominess. Added tape machine in the stem.
LVs
Lots of cleaning, volume adjustments and automation. Then compression, saturation, deesing, etc. Sends to reverb and delay channels. Stem with tape machine.
BVs
Grouped all tracks, compression, saturation and a bit of microshift. Sends to reverb and delay channels. Added a tape machine in the stem.
Mixbuss
Subtle compression (red), saturation, tape machine and a final instance of a limiter only to catch a few wandering peaks.

Best wishes,
Pablo

[eccentric]

Here´s what i´ve done (very roughly):

- Aligning Phase for all Tracks
- Arranging all Tracks in Subgroups

BD - Boosting 65Hz, Adding Compression (SSL)
Cajun - Boosting Lows, Highs and Upper Mids, Adding Compression (SSL), removing resonances
OH - Low-Shelfing to Cut the Lows
Drum Bus - Adding Compression (SSL) to Glue together, Adding Tape Emulation

Bass - Boosting Lows and Highs, Side-Chaining Bass to the Kick Drum to create some Room, Adding Tape Emulation

Guitar & Banjos - Low-Cut at 100 Hz, Removing resonances under 500 Hz, Adding Compression (1176), dynamic EQ at 150Hz to keep that area in check, Adding Tape Emulation

Fiddles - Low-Cut at 200 Hz, Cutting at 500Hz and 2800Hz, Adding Tape Emulation

Accordion - Low-Cut at 200 Hz, Cutting 440Hz & 3700 Hz, General decreasing between 200 & 600 Hz, Boosting at 6800Hz, Adding Compression (SSL)

Voices - Low Cut at 100 Hz, Cutting 1100Hz, Boosting 5000Hz, Added Compression (LA2A & 1176 - both in Parallel to keep it natural, De-essing and Adding Tape Emulation

Mixbus - Boosting 300 Hz, Cutting 4000Hz very broad, Shelf at 30KHz to add some air, Multiband-Saturation lifting up ~300Hz, soft 1176 Compression in Parallel Mode to tighten things, Additional Tube Compression -3db, Adding Tape Emulation, Adding Clipper with 0,5db Reduction max

This one was a bit of a challenge due to it´s live recorded nature, most time it took to adjust the phase rotation and shifting of all tracks actually.
I decided to stick to the live nature of this track, so there is no gating involved as for this material it would have sounded unnatural due to the massive spill on all tracks.

I also used barely any Automation, only the Panning of the Banjo at the beginning of the track was adjusted.
All Tracks are send to a Convolution Reverb, emulating a Live-Room, which also helped a bit to glue things together. Also i decided to use Scheps "Rear Bus" Technique to make it a little more dense.

Thanks for this Opportunity, it was Fun mixing something else than Metal for a change!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pd9qbq7r5uqag ... c.wav?dl=0

[jax]

Hello,
my first time here

My take is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11-UfyC ... p=sharing

I decided to treat the track as a hard rock song (which it is, despite the use of many "folk" instruments).
That's why I used a lot of compression and heavy EQ on the instrument groups. The drums are also very prominent in the mix.
I tried to make the melodic instruments "blend into one" (apart from the counterpointing violins). Similarly with the backing vocals - they were panned, summed and treated as a whole).

[Dirtymcduff]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sVP3da ... drive_link

I spent too much time trying to get a vocal that is forward and crisp, big cuts at 3k, minimal compression and It didn't really feel right until some Slap delay was added.

A lot of clean up (EQ cuts) on all the stringed instruments to make room for each other, finding the balance between cohesive and seperate was a challenge.

overall a really fun and challenging little track.

[cpsmusic]

Hi Everyone,

Here's my entry for Mix Challenge 092.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gmf3_I ... sp=sharing

Thanks to the song provider and to the challenge organisers.

In terms of performance style I tried to create a more polished version of a "live-in-the-studio" performance. In terms of musical style I used Mumford & Sons' Little Lion Man as the main reference as it contains a banjo and double bass and has a similar energy level.

Over the last few months I've been trying to simplify my mixing workflow. I'm mainly interested in how engineers used to work with hardware consoles and how that limited the options that were available at mixdown. So I've tried removing any buses other than the mixbus from my routing setup. Parallels are allowed but every channel feeds directly into the mixbus. So no "top-down" for me!

I also wanted to limit the number of plug-ins used on each channel to the following:

1. A console-tone emulator - Sonimus N-Channel
2. A console plug-in - bx_console G used mainly for EQ, but also for compression
3. An additional "insert", i.e. another compressor that could be used instead of or in addition to the channel strip compressor. This additional compressor was one of four "classics" - VLA-FET, VLA-2A, VLA-3A, Overtone FC70
4. A fourth utility effect - this varied and included saturation, distortion, limiting, clipping, etc. These varied according the channel and included TB Barricade (hard clipping), HG-2 (saturation), VPRE-376 (saturation). I used Devil-Loc on the lead vocal in the louder sections for a bit of extra grit.
5. The vocal channels also used the Lindell 902 De-esser.

With respect to spatial effects I used two of my hardware units for reverb, and plug-ins for the delays.
An SRV-330 was used to create an ambience for the instruments so that they sounded like they were all in the same space at the same time.
A TC M300 was used for a hall in order to create a larger space so that the impression of front-to-back depth could be created.

As I wanted to keep the mix sounding like a live recording I kept the delays to a minimum. A mono slap was used for the "front" instruments while a stereo 1/4 note delay was used to create some additional ambience. Instant Delay was used for both of these.

For the mixbus I used the following combination of hardware and software: Sonimus N-Console (in bus mode, default settings), Aphex 320A Compellor (about 2dB of gain reduction, SPL Vitalizer Jack (some brightness and stereo width), Technics SH-8020 Graphic EQ (gentle smiley face curve adding about 3dB to the top and bottom), then Oxford Inflator, and finally Newfangled Equivocate.

I didn't do much in the way of tuning or timing correction other than some touch-ups for the backing vocals.

One interesting technique that I used was courtesy of Bobby Owsinski. It involves using two chorus plug-ins (one for the left channel, one for the right channel) and setting them slightly differently to create more ethereal stereo wash for the background vocals.

Specs:

48.0kHz/24-bit
-16.4 LUFS (int.)
-4.8 dBTP

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

Cheers!

[Ojo]

Hi, everyone.
My mixing here!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v0gsz3uma5z7v ... o.wav?dl=0

Thank you

[Punchipum]

Hi. This is my version:

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

To talk a little about the processes I am going to start with the Mixbus. It has SSL-like compression for the glue and a bit of pultec-style EQ. For the drums I wanted it to be heard a little more and better than in the reference mix. The bass has a bit of distortion, the same as the lead vocal. The rest of the instruments don't have much, just equalization and compression with an SSL 4000 channel strip. Then it has a lot of automation.

I hope you like it. I see that there are already very good mixes, better for me than the one published on Spotify. The record label will have to take note

[Michael_K]

Hi everyone!
A great track and fun to mix!
Since this was a great live recording with a lot of bleed through in most tracks I tried to make it work to my advantage. Bleed-through that is slightly out of phase can also act as compression when summed with the main track and is colored by the slight phase cancelation that happens. So in all tracks except the Bass I used gentle vca-type leveling compression and eq to try to make the tracks work with one another in a way that the bleed through added dimension and character.
I grouped the two bass tracks and applied a multi-band dynamics process to get it to "speak" more.
The master bus has some gentle glue style compression.
The lead vocals are going through EQ>Slow-comp>1176
The backing vocals are grouped into a bus > EQ>cl1b>sonnox inflator
Good luck everyone!
Here is the mix:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kEHO5h ... 14GtR/view