MIX CHALLENGE - MC094 October 2023 - Winners announced

[BenjiRage]

Hey there chaps, kudos for keeping on going with your mixes! Here's a bit of feedback for you:

@againstpower: Your second mix is a definite improvement, a lot more balanced overall in terms of levels and frequencies so good work all round there. Something I didn't note in the first mix, which has become more noticeable listening to the R2 - it's quite "mono" as in, most of the tracks seems to be clustered in the middle of the stereo field or not panned very wide. This could explain the apparent darkness of the guitars previously as due to the double-tracked recordings the top end does suffer when mono'ed due to slight phase cancellation of frequencies.

@1ktone: Another big improvement over mix 1, much better balance in this one. The overall compression might be verging on too heavy as things are starting to flutter a bit in the choruses when everything is playing and the low end could perhaps be stronger. Regarding the guitars, phase etc - when I originally mixed this I think the guitars were one of the parts I did the least work on. Basically just a bit of compression and extra amp distortion on Ash's tracks, a high frequency lift on them all, pan left and right, done! No automation or phase correction anywhere, and apart from an extra compressor on the guitar bus I think that was it. If you chuck an extra Amp sim on Ash 1&2 it might bring everything into line.

If you're interested, these are some screenshots of the demo mix giving a brief overview of the session setup and plugin chains, sends etc.
Edit Window: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NH7Yhs ... sp=sharing
Mix Window: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15vOpbD ... sp=sharing

Also, these are the mixed Drums, Vocals, Guitars, Bass and Synth stems as bounced individually from the session. This might help to better analyse the sound of each individual element within the context of the mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RHQAYW ... sp=sharing

Best regards,

Ben x

[1ktone]

Thanks for the feedback @BenjiRage and for the look at your mix setup. I’ll have a review of that info and I’ll see where that leaves me. Yes, there is probably a little too much compression. I’ve been playing with parallel compression on top of the mix bus, groups and channel compressors. On top of this I think the Mastering Assistant is putting another layer of that and limiting on so it’s probably a wonder there is any legible sound coming through at all.
I think what I’m going to do is take it back to basics and let go of everything that is there and rebalance from the start. See if I can’t get it a little cleaner and keep my hands off the desire to compress everything into oblivion. With each pass I seem to get a better understanding of what I’m doing and where the song is.

There is another interesting thing I hadn’t taken into account earlier. Just making assumptions… The Pro Tools files we receive are marked L and R. All good with that, but when I have been recreating these tracks in Logic I am creating a summed track for L and R. I don’t think this is a good way to do it as each time I’m summing I’m creating an extra gain boost which I then have to counter along the way. Also, I think it’s handy to have L and R as mono tracks as this would be the way I would see them on a desk. So I think I’ll keep it this way and only sum when I get to the group tracks. Much cleaner. And the other thing is that on a desk I would be EQing the L and R channels separately and I think this makes a big difference. In Logic on the Mac I could dual mono a stereo channel on the iPad I can’t or haven’t found the way to do that yet so it’s all experimental and very interesting.

This is the reason why I’m participating in the Mix Challenge. It’s not necessarily about winning a prize (although that would be nice), it’s more about the opportunity to learn and practice. It really helps when there is a responsive ear on the other end who can give you a little feedback too. So, I really do appreciate this opportunity.

[1ktone]

@BenjiRage OK so I remixed it from scratch. Each channel was setup with three plugins: gain, FabFilter Q3 with the frequency nodes all set to variable Q and the Logic native compressor. I also put the Ash 1 guitar through the Logic amp simulator as an AC30 amp. I kept all channels L and R and didn’t subgroup these or combine them into one channel. Actually the only subgroup I created was for the drums which had the same standard plugin setup that all the other channels had. With Ash’s vocal I split the bridge bit out and added a delay to give it a little effect and I put a FabFilter DS on Ash’s main vocal. I had 4 FX sends in total. An EOS 2 set as a vocal plate which basically received Ash’s main vocal and a bit of the snare, A stereo delay which received sends from the vocals, a phaser for Ash’s bridge vocal and an instance of Space Designer which acted as the room ambience which every channel was sent to individually at different levels.
The master channel had a Logic compressor set to the Focusrite type VCA model that was compressing at a ratio of 2:1, a FF L1 instance to catch the peaks and I put it through the Logic Mastering Assistant to polish it up.

So, a very different and cleaner approach. I found myself not EQing too much at all in the end. Mostly just balancing. I think this is the best version that I’ve created. I kind of like this one and am doing my best to leave it alone.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/igaei1j9 ... c0i21&dl=0


Let me know how this translates. I think it’s got a clarity that I like.

Kind of wish I had it this together the first time around. I might still do some work on the snare, maybe….

Looking forward to the next challenge

[BenjiRage]

So, a very different and cleaner approach. I found myself not EQing too much at all in the end. Mostly just balancing. I think this is the best version that I’ve created. I kind of like this one and am doing my best to leave it alone.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/igaei1j9 ... c0i21&dl=0

Let me know how this translates. I think it’s got a clarity that I like.

Sorry for the slow reply, I forgot to check back. Definitely the best one you've done here, really good work! Great stereo spread of instruments and balance of frequencies, everything is clear and audible

[1ktone]

So, a very different and cleaner approach. I found myself not EQing too much at all in the end. Mostly just balancing. I think this is the best version that I’ve created. I kind of like this one and am doing my best to leave it alone.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/igaei1j9 ... c0i21&dl=0

Let me know how this translates. I think it’s got a clarity that I like.

Sorry for the slow reply, I forgot to check back. Definitely the best one you've done here, really good work! Great stereo spread of instruments and balance of frequencies, everything is clear and audible

All cool. Thanks for the feedback. I’m going to have another mix up in the next couple of days. I just opened up LUNA and thought I’d give it a whirl. Figured your track would be a good one to test it with. So far I have to say that it’s actually quite amazing with the API console plug in and the Studer tape emulation. It feels like a desk when you get into mixing mode. I didn’t want to like it, but it’s growing on me. Lacks a couple of easy editing features, but as a mixing environment it is quite special.