MIX CHALLENGE - MC094 October 2023 - Winners announced

[malene]

Here´s my mix of Don't Panic

Thanks to @BenjiRage and @Mister Fox for this opportunity. I enjoyed mixing this song.
I oftentimes find that limitations challenge me to become a better mixer. So I sat out to do this mix in three hours and to limit my pallet to only a handful of plugins. In the video I show you how I organized the session to make this possible.

phpBB [media]

[Mister Fox]

Welcome to the community, @malene!

Just a slight request, especially for everyone that use this track as "portfolio" and / or for tutorial purposes on Youtube.

There is a TXT in the Multitrack Mix Pack called "Off-site redistribution agreement.txt". In it is a text block under Point 02 that provides a detailed credit information to the source material. Please use that (as in: please edit that into the Youtube "Doobly doo" - yes, this is what the "description box" is commonly called).

Thank you.

[Christoph_K]

What a great track! Thanks @BenjiRage for providing this to the MC. The Demo Mix was already very good and hard to beat. So I tried to enhance it where I thought I could. E.g. the snare was a bit spiky for me. It wasn’t easy to get the sweat spot for the snare between cutting through the mix and piercing your ears. The leadvocals had some harsh elements, maybe I am a little sensitive in that area. Also the bass was not audible enough in some parts for my taste. So, here’s what I did:

I (again) used my mixing template inspired by Michael Brauer with the parallel processors (Fed, K+SN Punch, 1176, Boiler, Zener, Portico and Tchad Drums) and the mixbus (Gullfoss, PA Natalus DSCEQ, SSL G Bus, Chandler Limited Compressor, Shadow HIlls Comp, Hitsville EQ, Ampex ATR102, Oxford Limiter. The Tracks are grouped with the LUNA API Summing.

DRUMS
Soundradix Autoalign 2 for Kick, Snare, Toms and OH Shells
All Drumtracks go into a UAD1073 first. The Kick has a Softube Transient Designer for shortening the low-end and a little punch in the highs plus a UA1176. The Snare bottom has a Fairchild670 and the RC-20 with the Iron Saturation.
Kramer PIE on toms, ZenerLimiter in Parallel, Bricasti Room
OH with UAD Fatso
The Room Shells go into Waves Magma Tubes for saturation, followed by Korneff Talkback Limiter and Waves Kramer PIE.
Softube SSL4k on all channels
The tracks are then summed to three parallel busses with different compressors: API2500, Zener Limiter and 33609 - blended to taste.
Parallel Processing for Kick and Snare with the K+SN Punch and the „Tchad Drums“ from the Brauerize Template. This is made of some eq, Fairchild670, Kush Pusher.

BASS
Distressor on the DI
The Amp Track goes into a nasty distortion AUX (API2500, ProQ3. DevilLoc, Scheps Omni, Kiive Type Face), blended to taste.
In Addition to that I duplicated the DI track and treated it with a trick I got from Dave Pensado to emphasize the pick, finger and string noises and blended that to taste.
All three tracks are routed to 2 Channels with Softube SSL9k, one for the neck tones and one for the body and low-end with UAD Avalon VT-737 and BlackBox HG for the lower and McDSP AnalogChannel for the higher registers.

GUITARS
Some Guitars go into heavy saturation with UAD Studer800, followed by API550A, LA3A and SSL4k.
FX: Spring, Echo, Bricasti Room

SYNTHS
SSL9k, Portico for widening

BVs
De-esser
All summed to a Zener Limiter
SSL4k
URSA Spacestation and Lex480 Plate - both with CLA Settings

LEADVOCALS
Soothe2 to remove some harsh high mids (only a few db)
Deesser
Soundtoys Radiator
UAD1176 RevA
Tube-Tech Equalizers mk II
MJUC
ProQ3 to remove buildups around 4k
SSL4k
FX: AMS DMX Slapback, EP34 Echo, Lex480

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sp68kaqp0ypm6 ... K.wav?dl=0

[LowlandsWave]

Here we go again with a great Challenge this month!! Thanx to @BenjiRage for sharing this song on the MC platform.

I used my template to start of this mix. The template is derived from the Michael Brauer mixing proces.

All tracks have a SSL4k plugin, reverb is seventh heaven

Some processing:

Drums:

• Kick: SSL4k, Parallel distortion with decapitator + Parallel compression

• Snare: added gated white noise track to get some more topend, summed all snare tracks to snare group, SSL4k, transient shaper, JST clipper, reverb send

• Toms: Group processing with SSL4k, JST clipper, some reverb

• Drumgroup: UAD pultec

Bass
Split the bass in two groups high and low
Low: < 200Hz, High: > 200Hz
Low group compression LA-3A
High group Manley vox box to add some "growl"

Guitars
All tracks have neutron4 eq:

• resonant highpass at 70Hz

• 200Hz cut

• 700Hz cut

• 3200Hz and 6000Hz cut (high Q)

• 2000Hz gentle shelve

• Lowpass at 10000Hz

Guitargroup parallel processed with 1167 compression and little radiator from sound toys

Synths
just blended to taste

Vocals
Left the vocals pretty dry, to get em upfront
Leadvocals send to different parallel compressors and blended to taste
Little tape delay

• Mixbus

Filterbank to clean up low end
SSL buscompressor for some glue and low end punch
UAD Pultec

Lowlandswave mix

[bluesation]

Here is the mix: https://my.hidrive.com/lnk/WISTW0y6

Bass: routed the two tracks Amp and DI together to taste. The destination track was split into a high track and a low track. So I am able to change the highs and lows of the bass according to the song part. These two tracks were grouped to a bass buss. There a bit compression took place, and a bit saturation too warm up.

Drums: Snare, Toms got the same parallel reverb, a plate type one. Overheads and room join a room reverb. OV and room have a little VariMu compression, just to even out. Snare and Kick go through a SSL Console emulation with gate, EQ and Comp.

Guitars: After understanding which guitar has which task, I did panning first of all. Then the "left ones" got a bus and the "right ones" got a bus. These two busses go to a guitar buss for a soft compression and fix some harshness. Each guitar track was higpassed around 120 HZ, for a tighter low end.

Vocs: lead goes through a reverb and a slap delay AUX. All tracks have a 1176 type parallel compression and if needed some 550 HZ out, plus a routing to a exciter track for sheen. All involved tracks are routed to a vox buss with a SSL bus compression with fast attack and release.

Master: mono out all beneath 100 HZ. Tape emulation for some soft compression/glueing. Last a limiter, which is not working at all.

[mvd83]

It was so much fun to mix this song. This is my first take on punk so I hope I did a good job at it. Feel free to give me feedback cause that's the way you learn to become better at it, isn't it?

Here is the link : https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/00cN ... nic__Mvd83

I write down what I did to the summing busses, not too all instruments apart (I tread them all individual as well like the kick bus etc).

Mix Bus : UAD Oxide Tape, PSP MasterQ (to cut around 465 1,5 db), Pulsar Modular P42 for the saturation, Nebula TimP SSL Bus Comp (2:1 ratio, HPF at 100 hz, Gain reduction around 4 db max), Nebula CDSM SSL Main (console emulation), PSP MasterQ (only enabled the soft limiter, gain reduction around 1,5 db max).

Drum bus : Sonimus N Console (HPF at 27 HZ), UAD Oxide Tape, UAD LA2 Gray (Limit mode, around 2 to 3 db GR)

Bass : Sonimus N Console , United Plugins Plamen for colouring and control EQ, Nebula Cuptone 3 for more colouring and EQ, UAD LA2 Gray, UAD 1176LN

Guitars : N Console, United Plugins Plamen, DR MS for the stereo spread

Lead Vocals : Lindell 902 de-esser, Gullfoss for tonal balance, Kirchhoff EQ with multiband EQ for tonal balance, Audified U78 saturator, Audified U73b for compression. I route this all through other busses with a LA2A compressor, 1176 comp and the Lindell 7x-500 in serie to come all back to 1 bus again.

Other vocals : mainly used the IK Multimedia JC Vocal Strip

[1ktone]

@BenjiRage Hi Ben, I’ve been spending a bit of time getting inside the guitar arrangements of your track. There are a lot of interesting harmonic relationships going on here. I find myself hearing more and more different things as I go along. I think the band has a really good sense of melodic structure and relationship.
I’ve been listening to your stuff on the website where I downloaded your press kit. You have some good material and it is a big sound. It’s nice to put a picture to the people in the band.

I have a question:

I noticed that your demo sounds quite a bit different from what I’m hearing as I’m typing this message. The energy is there. Are you looking to bring it more in line with your overall sound? There is an amazing amount of depth in the recording. I’m listening to “Big Trouble” and this sounds like the vibe that “Don’t Panic!” is. If this is the case then it’s all cool as this is where I was hearing it go.

I have some other questions of a more personal nature (if you don’t want to go there I will understand) and then Boys Of Summer is playing and I had to go back and check the webpage….

a) what has been the most memorable gig you guys have played and why was it so?
b) what are the top 5 items on your gig rider?
c) do you guys like teddy bears?

and…what is the significance of the name?

I think that’s it for now. I hope you’re having a good weekend.

Cheers.

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 7 days left to submit your mix.


So far, we have 12 entries (compared to 135 Mix Pack downloads).
To the late adopters, please take note of the "TL;DR Rules.txt" file as part of the Mix Pack.

⚠	Moderation Message from Mister Fox
	IMPORTANT INFORMATION: As of 07-OCT-2023 23:50 UTC+2/CEST, the filename template has been changed to something that should work on any Operating System (no matter the language setting) and any DAW. Please use the following Filename Template: Filename Template: MC094__Pray_For_Hayden__Dont_Panic__ForumUsername.wav The Multitrack Mix Pack has been updated accordingly. Only the TXT files got adjusted. Those of you that already downloaded the pack, you can just re-download the updated TXT files instead.

[White Punk OD]

Hi Mr. Fox, @BenjiRage, and everyone!

This is my mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xfwoAj ... sp=sharing

With a 44100 project I have to figure out how to achieve a clear sound.
I render the mix at 48k with up-converted tracks (EZ-CD), without plugins on the stereo bus,
then I convert back to 44k and render the premaster with a PLParEQ3 linear phase resonant lowpass at 25kHz (it does this outside Nyquist and compensates everything perfectly), Shadow Hills MC and Ozone 8 elements. So that's really a trick to get a 44k mix crispy.
It's not in the clipping or something, EXPOSE tells me it is -16.4 LUFs, and the limiter has cut off a couple of overs.


Mix details:
As there is a little bit of a "Punk" attitude, some aspects are kept minimalistic.

I did my regular tree structure, that helps me address any detail anywhere immediately, on the highest possible level.
But for so few tracks, I did not use any aux bus or "brauerizing".

vocals
All helper and backing vocals have steep elliptic hipassing, checked individually somewhere 150-350 Hz.
Ash's add.vc just panned and routed into lead vc bus.
Bus: Nova GE with Smart Ops (autopilot to remove room modes, ringing etc.) plus another surgical EQ with another 2 frequencies that turned out later as disturbing in the lower vocal range. Main tool was bx Focusrite with strong compression (fast timing), some typical EQ, a little bit of DeEsser. The EQ sidechain filter came very handy to not weaken certain midrange notes.
Then - Vocal Doubler (iZotope freeware)!! DeEdger. SIR1011 reverb with a self-made impulse, plate-type gated.
Another compressor MJUC in "slow" mode. Klanghelm IVGI2 tape saturator.
Feeds the sidechain of a "trackspacer"-like rack construct.
Vocals have quite some automation on word and sentence level.

Jonny and Ben vocals got various hipassing, some compressors, ERA6 plosive remover, Nova dynamic EQ to mitigate some resonances and shouting overs, and the ThrillseekerLA comp that has brilliant saturation and transformer emulation.
They got reverbed with a GlaceVerb construct that bounces right input to left output and vice versa.

Trackspacer
To make vocals sit in the mix, and to create a little bit of pumping, I made a DIY trackspacer with Nova GE and 3 sidechain inputs.
These are: lead vocals, bass, and kick, and it controls the guitar bus.
So, I can make the guitars quite heavy, but the kick cuts through and pumps them a little, and the bass that is very special in this production, will get room for its little games.

bass
Almost nothing, the 2 tracks got just added and then panned a tiny bit left and right.
Surgical EQ with a sharp attenuation at 55Hz (action space for kick) and a sharp boost at 713Hz, and then a shelf attenuation because of the bright DI sound.
Finally, townhouse comp and trackspacer feed.

guitars
- have a lot of automation going on, and some sound shaping.
Ash 2_01 uses Vallhalla Space Modulator in a soft, slow setting.
Tom 3_01, the funky one, got SPL Attacker, ERS250 with an ambience sound, Neold Warble (only softening a bit), Lindell50 console.
git bus:
Lindell50 bus shaper, SIR1011 reverb (same as vocals), ThrillseekerLA comp for brightening up and shredding, TDR Slick EQ for some general shaping (mid cut), resonant lowpass at 15k (silky).

drums, shortened description:
OH Cymbals - SPL Vitalizer, Overtone GEQ, ThrillseekerLA
Kick/Sn/Tom: their bus got a Crystalline reverb.
SSL 4000G was used for several tracks, it sounds very clear, direct, and classic.
Lindell channel X with its insane compressor shapes the snare sound.
Kick & snare united on a bus have an exotic TRs_SaturatedDriver (that's really knocking hard), and SIR with a very old "coffin" impulse, which makes it sound more physical, more body.
Kick was multed, one instance for general shaping with KSHMR, the other with a hipass and BlackBox HG-2 saturator for the "click" sound.

synth
bx Focusrite, targeting some "Jump" classic sound, it's not loud, only supporting the fullness of some guitars.


So this is that, and I hope everyone will have fun listening to it.

BenjiRage, thanks so much for the well-crafted production, I hope you have some use for my idea how to put together these external recordings.
(The mix is available also in 48k, there is still a little difference in quality.)

[Siey]

Here is my mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16cYbE1 ... sp=sharing

Hello everyone,
I'm new around here. In fact, I just signed up yesterday when I started looking online for ways to enter a contest and stumbled upon mix-challenge. I kindly ask for your patience for two reasons. First, I'm not very proficient in English (I'm getting some help with it), and second, it's my first time participating in a forum.
So, now I'll outline how I put together my mix. First, I grouped similar tracks together and created 6 buses (guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, and vocals), which then fed into the mix bus. I listened to the track and adjusted the levels to my taste, of course, while staying within the artist's preferences. After that, I began cleaning up the frequencies, especially the backing vocal frequencies. I tried to give the kick some punch with parallel compression and did the same with the lead vocal but with more parallel processing.
The guitars were the most challenging, but in the end, I chose who took the spotlight, panned the ones I found useful, and proceeded. As a bassist myself, I always mix two tracks, one DI and one amp, and I had no trouble with the ones provided. Of course, I added some ambiance directly to each track or bus as I saw fit.
On the mix bus, I used Waves' NLS, a bus compressor, a mid-side EQ, and a soft-clipper. The plugins I used are from Waves, UAD, Izotope, IK Multimedia. The DAW I use is Logic Pro. I hope I've adhered to all the rules, and if not, please let me know, as I wouldn't want to be disqualified in my first contest! Thanks to everyone for your patience.

Best regards,
Siey