MIX CHALLENGE - MC095 December 2023 - Winners announced

[MixedByDSpence]

Hi guys! I'm Dylan Spence! I had a lot of fun mixing this song it was nice and dynamic, I chose a light vs dark theme with this mix to compliment the feeling of being lonely full of despair (Dark) utilizing a black hole reverb style in the beginning then switching to a more righteousness sounding reverb to compliment the lighter side of things.

For the vocal's dynamic control I paired an 1176 with an LA-2A plugin followed by Soothe2.
I used the tremolator as well to enhance the LV Intro FX track as well with an automated version of the plugin on the LV Intro track.
I think the mix came out pretty cool in my opinion, I wanted the song to a cinematic feel to it as well! Let me know what you think of it!
The song is at 16.1 lufs with a peak of -1db

Download Link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vG2ebQ ... drive_link

[_StillBorn]

Hi there,

Here is my mix.

Nothing out of the ordinary tbh. Please say if you want any info about anything and I'll break it down.
Merry christmas.

[DIVESPANNER]

MC095__Arvo_Kim_Noah__Home__Divespanner.wav
Hi, thanks for the opportunity for a great song to mix.
This month I tried to do everything with the Presonus stock plugins and nearly succeeded.
The only exceptions were a couple of waves plugins De Breath the breaths were a little strong for my taste so I brought them down a little / Bass Rider and Vocal Rider Also BX Opto compressor was used as a bit of D Esser.
I carried out a lot of automation to the best of my ability and also added some of what I like to call enhancements although that could be open to debate,
X Trem chorus and Flanger I tried a Rotor but gave up on that idea
Thanks for all your help and I hope you enjoy it.
Here's the link

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoWtKkpqMH3IgrBH5Am ... Q?e=7IiGyN

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder / update:

⚠	Moderation Message from Mister Fox
	In agreement with the Song Provider @Christoph_K, we decided to extend the challenge deadline... ...until Friday, 22-DEC-2023 23:59 UTC+1/CET To those struggling for time, this gives you an extra 24 hours (1 day) to get your mix sorted out, and properly prepared prior to uploading. Please check that everything is in order, and your file is accessible. The Filename Template is: MC095__Arvo_Kim_Noah__Home__ForumUsername.wav Please pay attention to detail. Do not put your entry at risk of being disqualified. Have fun, and good luck!

As of this moment, we have about 36 entries.

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!).

[bluesation]

download : https://my.hidrive.com/lnk/cXyTWyNK

This month it was not a mix challenge but a creativity challenge. After reading the lyrics and listening to the provider mix I had immediately in mind - this is a case for a cinematic approach, not a normal mixing task. Tell a story, paint a picture, create excitement.
Sound wise there wasn't much to work cause of the song structure arrangement and recording quality.

first step which took more time as usual. It was to see and hear what all this tracks are doing and get an idea how to use them in the mix. After the first ideas I did a rough mix for the fundamental sound. Nothing speacial, Eqing and compressing. In jobs like this I use mostly the ReaComp. It is clean, very flexible, useful for a lot of different sources and with a lot, lot of lite on CPU. Eqing is done with a parametric EQ.

Next step I searched and tried a lot of FX plugins for the sound ideas I developed while mixing. Mostly I ended up with the one of the Valhalla plugins SuperMassive, FreqEcho and Spacemodulator. For the Vox I used delay and reverb. Delays came from my old but beloved line6 Echofarm. For reverb I used I convolute reverb and L480 Irs.

Last step: I did a lot of automation of volume, pans and send levels to get everything in place. To get all together, I put a buss compressor, a tape simulation and a limiter on the master buss. The bus compressor takes away 1 - 2 db, the tape is for rounding up and about 0,5 db of compression. The limiter does nothing, no limiting at all, just lift the level for 1.8 db to get in the loudness range.

I am very satisfied with the result. You like or not. I hope the provider likes it too.

[JanLefr]

Hi everyone,

this was fun! I loved that track, beautifully performed, touching yet it had me grooving!

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/cvybcgkm ... et6a9&dl=0

So I did this in a bit of a hurry (in the last 2 days) but I didn't wanna miss out on this one. Let me see what "special things" I did:

There's really a lot of automation going on:

- Level automation on several elements like the Intro GTR and Main GTR, or bringing down the bass in the quiet part before action comes back
- Panning automation, e.g. on the "far away" high vocals
as well as AutoPan Insert on the Bottle Solo, Pitched Drops, Piano Plucks to give them some movement
- EQ High Shelf automation, most audibly in the Intro and Outro, to make the GTR appear and dissapear

- a very slow gentle tremolo effect on the pump HH to give that some swell-and-decay kind of movement

- extensive automation on echo and reverb send FX: I used several instances of EchoBoy, Raum, SmartReverb, Reverence and Crystallizer - including Slap DLY; small and big rooms/reverbs; long and short DLYs. The mix is full of delay and reverb throws on the vocals but also on the instruments.

For this mix I gave some of sonibles plugins a try; smartEQ is running on a few and smartComp on many tracks (I really like this compressor) as well as smartReverb, e.g. on the snare and vocals as a small room.
Another sonbile thing I tried was automating entropyEQ on the Main GTR to give some subtle muting/ unmuting strings movement.

Saturation Knob and Aphex Exciter are running on some tracks. I also automated these, e.g. bringing up the saturation on the vocals at the 4:00-climax or in the very end; or bringing up saturation on Bouzuki 3 right before the "drop".

And some quirky little things like a hint of flanging just on a word in the LV Intro, or a hint of Sub-Octaver on the Inro Space GTR, also automated to pop up just a few times.

Oh and I actually used some RX on the vocal tracks first, to tame some mouth smacks, clicks and reduce some noise. On the BG tracks there was some kind of hum going on which I got rid of.

I noticed that my mix turned out quiet a little bit busier than Christophs original mix - but hey, it's meant to be different, right?

Happy holidays to all of you.

[Waleed Morris]

Hi everyone ,

I'm happy to join this contest , I want to say that the material was really clean and well organized ,Thank you @Christoph_K for this opportunity
I will try to explain what my most important actions were.

◉ Adjusting the sound of the drums using EQ but not as much like Action Strike Track , I process it a bit to glue more together in the rest of drums and percussion .

◉ Bass Guitar, I like to use TLA 100-A on the bass it's really added more nice color.

◉ All Guitars, Adjust the EQ for all main guitars and used panning.

◉ Bouzoukis, I did EQ'ed a bit with the bouzoukis.

◉ As for the other parts of the music I focused to added more depth and color by added saturation plugin.

◉ Vocal, I adjusted the main singer voice to make it sound nicer and I am pleased with how it turned out ,used doubler
◉ 2 different reverb 1 for main and the other is more decay time! delay and saturation.

◉ And Finally a lot of Automation .

Best wishes to everyone, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year ! Long Life Mix Challenge.

► Show Spoiler

Analyze Audio

My submission.
MC095 Home


Cheers !
Waleed Morris

[Cubic]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gCAxMF ... share_link

[AltonJames]

Season’s greetings, all!

I hope all is well with you and yours! :-)

Given that I compose for TV and film, I took my normal cinematic approach in this mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t3i2x7 ... sp=sharing

1) I played with the lows and highs in the intro to make the idea of “home” seem nebulous and soupy to hook the listener. The mix from start to finish tells the story of “home” being uncertain and ending with being specific and personal.
2) Throughout the song, I made the idea of “home” expand and contract—at times being vague and others crystal clear. So, I automated the stereo width on many of the risers and hits as well as the high frequency shelfs.
3) I wanted the end of the song to make “home" contract to the very personal. The mix conveys that, at times, “home" can be large and full or small and personal. As I wanted to end it small and personal (to contrast from the opening of the song), I automated the last drum loop to gradually reduce in volume, stereo width, and frequency “air”—making the idea of “home” feel like it’s on the listener’s insides.
4) Considering my work with cinema, I wanted to simultaneously address creating a sufficiently loud stereo mix to send to mastering as well as Atmos (I wanted to create a mix that should only need limiting). So, while this stereo track sits at -19 LUFS and -10 DBTP and has plenty of room to be mastered louder, I’ve also prepped the stems for a dynamic mix that sits at -18 LUFS and at -1 DBTP for Atmos.

Thank you for the opportunity; this was a fun one! :-)

[jaywoolcott]

Hi all. This is my entry for this month: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2tonusp5 ... tjsz5&dl=0

This was a really fun track to mix, very eclectic instrument choice and excellent production values; thank you to all those involved in this project, and for those that have organised another great monthly competition.

Mixed in the box using Pro Tools, UAD, Softube, Plugin Alliance, Fabfilter and a few others.