Hi Everyone,
Here's my entry for Mix Challenge 093.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AAr8yN ... sp=sharing
Thanks to the song provider and to the challenge organisers.
In terms of mix style I tried to create a 70s-style sound with a few modern touches. In terms of musical style I used Queen's Killer Queen as the main reference as it contains an upfront piano and layered harmony vocals.
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!
In order to create the "70s flavour" I decided to prerender all tracks with a console and tape plug-in. For this I used Acustica's Cola channel strip and IK's Tape Machine 24.
I also wanted to limit the number of plug-ins used on each channel and keep to emulations that would have been used in the 70s. Here's what I used:
1. A console-tone emulator - Studio One's CTC-1 Custom Console
2. One EQ and one compressor - Softube's Trident A-Range and IK's Black 76 (1176)
3. An additional "insert", i.e. another EQ/compressor that could be used instead of or in addition to the A-Range/1176. This additional insert varied and included - 254E, VLA-2A, VLA-3A, VEQ-1P, VCL-515
4. A fourth utility effect - this varied and included saturation, distortion, limiting, clipping, etc. These varied according the channel and included Devil-Loc, VPRE-376 (saturation).
5. The vocal channels also used the Lindell 902 De-esser.
I decided to use the Polarizer versions of the lead vocals and after having a listen to them went with the following:
Frank 1,2 - Cardioid
Sion 1,2 - Omni
Sion 3,4 - Rev Cardioid, 8
LV - Omni
In each case I tried to find the pattern with the least amount of room tone and proximity effect.
With respect to spatial effects I used three of my hardware units for reverb, and plug-ins for the delays.
A TC M300 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.
An SPX990 was used for a drum room. For this I used the "Stone Room" preset.
The SRV-330 was used for a vocal plate (Stereo 140 Plate preset).
During the mix I found that I wanted an additional larger space and as I'd used all my hardware reverbs I opted for Eventide's Blackhole which was used to create a larger rear space so that the impression of greater front-to-back depth could be created.
A mono slap was used for the lead vocal while a stereo 1/4 note delay was used to create some additional ambience. IK's Tape Delay was used for both of these.
For the mixbus I used the following combination of hardware and software: Neold Big Al (gentle saturation), 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 also made a few tonal balance adjustments with SlickEQ M and used IK's Tape Machine 24 for some tonal smoothing.
I didn't do much in the way of tuning or timing correction other than some touch-ups for the backing vocals using Melodyne.
Specs:
24-bit/48kHz
-17.0 LUFS (int.)
-1.0 dBTP
Good luck to all contestants and once again thanks to everyone involved in the challenge.
Cheers!
