MIX CHALLENGE - MC097 April 2024 - Winners announced

[JeroenZuiderwijk]

Hi Per,

Thank you for giving me the oppurtonity to improve my mix in round 2 and also thanks for your detailed feedback. I think I have a good feeling where I can improve my mix. Just one question:

"Backing vocals: good with no oddities.

Audible, but just barely so, lower voice in the choruses from the vocalist. Good.

"

What do you mean with "just barely so".....and you finish that line with "good" so i was a bit confused. What does this refer to? And is your conclusion that 'something' is barely audible something that needs to be changed? or am I reading it right that it is good' as it is?

About the cymbals: thank you for clarifying that. I'll see if I can tidy it up a bit.

I'll work on the revision tomorrow.

Cheers,
Jeroen

[francobhalla]

Thank you so much for selecting my mix and giving me the opportunity to improve it further for the round 2. Also, I think I agree with the feedback about my approach to the kick now that I heard it after few days with fresh perspective.

Now for the round 2 I have re-mixed the kick and some subtle changes here and there. Also, I have tried to improve the "call/responses" throughout the song as mention earlier.So, overall just automation edits and the kick.

Thank you again for for letting us mix this track. My best wishes to all other participants.

Link : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mVoVS8 ... share_link

Regards
Franco Bhalla

[JeroenZuiderwijk]

Hi Per,

I followed your directions and created this revision of the mix. Here are some notes of my work:

First of all, the electric bass was already very powerfull so didn’t need more volume to be more audible. You mentioned to try do someting with the transients / ‘picksound’. I think I understand what you where trying to tell me. It needed a little more ‘bite’.
I was searching where I could hear the ‘ratteling of the snares on the bass. This audio information was present in the recording at around 3 Khz. I boosted this region (peak boost) and there it was. First I overdid it because I kinda liked the sound but it was too much in the mix. There is now just a subtle boost.

The snare sound I made louder to match the rest of the drumkit and the bass. I gave it some body with a little boost at 300 Hz. This made it more prominent in the mix but the dryness of the sound I didn’t like now that it was louder. Therefore I routed the snare to a lexicon room reverb to make it blend better in the mix. I think it is an improvement.

I automated the volume of the cellos in the chorus to dampen it a bit like you adviced.

For the rest I did tweaks through the mix following your feedback.

For the overall sound I have been thinking about your comment that my mix might have been less bright than other mixes. And you where not sure what to think of that. I did made a choice to have my mix not too much hyped, to keep the old feel of the ‘70 in the sound. On the other hand I was curious to hear what a litle bit more brighness would do with the mix if I inserted an EQ on the masterbus. This was tricky because an high shelving boost gave the snare and cymbals sound an harshness that I didn’t like. So finaly I settled for a very subtle boos at 4Khz and some added harmonix. This did the trick for me, I think it sounds great.

Here is my revision. I hope you like it:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2dwlxh9u ... 5o4ky&dl=0

Cheers,
Jeroen

[M.P.3.]

First off, thank you @A Future in Noise for liking my mix! For being my first real mix done with that elaborate technique I described is a feat in itself .

I felt that listening to bits and pieces of all of your reviews was more beneficial than just focusing on what you said about my mix, so I've done several "improvements" i.e. changes to the mix.

First I enhanced the bass guitar with some RBass by Waves and LOVEND by Analog Obsession, I beefed up the kick with simple EQ moves to match the power of the stronger bass guitar.

I touched up the toms a bit, made them come out just a bit more in volume (a few dB according to what each tom needed).

I made the Wurly louder overall and made sure all the little embelishments (like the triplets and such that you kept mentioning in your feedback) were audible, or even really strongly felt and present. Oh, and I panned it to the right this time around, as I notice you intended it to be towards the right more.

I brought down the strings as you recommended, but tried to keep the triplets audible enough, I think I managed to help them all stand out a bit more, if I missed any that's because I had to rush this revision process sadly.

I upped the trumpets a few dB, didn't think they were loud enough in my first mix version.

Brought up a bit the harmony vocal as well.

And tried to quiet down the "forest of cymbals" in the ending of the song while keeping the main cymbal hits a bit audible, if it's still too loud, just shout it at us one more time hahah

I think I managed to deal with most of your critiques and added some of your general advice to my mix.

I hope you like it better like this, if you didn't already heheh

Mix revision

[SimaGT]

Hello again,

Sorry for not mentioning wurlitzer in the notes,didn't want to write every single technique I did because it would probably take one whole page for it. So for wurlitzer I used both clean and drived, panned them left and right .
The Leslie plugin is from IK TrackS but mixed in only 10 %. Both have individual sends to revebs so that way I got some xfading between left and right. Also sends to are lowered when other instruments join to reduce cluttering.
Usually keyboards are one the one side but in this case I decided it to be in center/sides because it sounded best to me, and panning + some mild Leslie rotation helped to free some space for lead vocal.

Did all of requested changes plus some more. Toms are lowered, solo guitar is reamped and is now not aggressive as before, background vocal is more spaced now compared to main vocal also is panned slightly in the parts where the lead vocal is, cymbals at the end are softened with some reverb , el guitar chords are now more prominent. Whole mix is bit warmer now (less treble and bit more in the mids). So minor tweaks are done on the bass guitar and kick drum. Bass is more pronouncued in the mids now and that click of a kick drum is more rounded now so it doesn't stick out to much anymore.

Regards
Mate Simunich

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_eGvb1 ... sp=sharing

[cpsmusic]

Hi,

A quick question about one of the comments that you made about my mix:

Have you volume automated the hi hat? In the second verse, where it's closed hi hat on every quarter, I like that it rattles a lot. However, when it comes to the hi hat on every eighth note, you have to be more restrained, otherwise it often just sounds mechanically repetitive. But I think the hi hat is at a reasonable level in the choruses (the open hi hat is heard well, but I like the sound of that particular open hi hat (not everyone does, I've noticed)).

Are you saying that the eighth-note hi-hats need to be quieter? Aren't they the ones in the choruses which you later say are "at a reasonable level"? I'm not sure what you mean here. Could you clarify this please.

Cheers!

[Valter Zape]

Hello!

thank you for choosing me for round 2
I agree with the corrections highlighted, I made the corrections.

Link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1su6dZ8 ... drive_link


Thanks
Valter Zape

[BenjiRage]

Hi there Per,

Many thanks for your detailed feedback, it was very helpful when revising my mix.

I've taken all your points on board as well as a few improvements I had noted down myself over the past few weeks.

Here's a summary of my revisions:

• Improved the bass guitar - more mid and high frequencies to cut through better
• Choir - Lowered the reverb, increased the volume and increased the compression for more definition
• EQ'ed the kick drum a little better for more impact on smaller speakers
• Automations added to give more prominence to the wurli response phrases you have mentioned
• Added some high "air" EQ in the 10KHz band to the overall mix to add some subtle brightness
• Added some additional high end EQ to the "wail" track, lowered the reverb and increased the volume slightly to try and separate it a little more from the lead vocals
• Lowered the volume of the cymbals in the coda slightly - not by much though, only a couple of dB as I actually think they sound ok in terms of the arrangement
• Fixed the transient of the "try" on the lead vocals at the beginning of the final chorus, which sounded a little cut off

Here's the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oPgFND ... sp=sharing

I hope you find this one is slightly better. Congrats also to the other round 2 contestants for getting through and good luck!

Best regards,

Benji

[A Future in Noise]

Hello fellow musicians. I realize I owe you a couple of answers. As soon as I get home to my computer I'll try to answer as many as possible. But I'm really not a fan of long messages from my phone. But maybe I'll be able to try to replay to something, from my phone, within an hour, or so. (But I can't promise.)

[SyroniC_GP]

Hello Per,

thanks for choosing my mix into round two.
On my first mix I didn't set the area to be rendered correctly. So the song was cut off shortly before the end. Sorry!

Here is my adjusted mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B9K7br ... p=drivesdk

At the beginning of the song I applied the vinyl effect more moderately. The voice in particular is now a lot drier. However, the effect that everything gets bigger after the intro remains. It's a fine line to adjust this, but I think it's good the way it is now.
I also adjusted the volume of the toms in some places. These sound very different in several places.

What I meant about the song ending (“In the end I muted the instruments; I like her voice in the silence”):
I like the arrangement, instrumentation and voice of the song. It creates an atmosphere that is both hopeful and melancholic. If you get involved in it, you can really immerse yourself in it and empathize with the lyrics. But the jazzy/funky outro literally takes me out of this feeling and I thought that was a shame. That's why I wanted to suggest with my original mix to let the song end without instruments. I found that somehow more appropriate to preserve the feeling of the song even after it's over.

I just wanted to recommend an alternate ending, somehow my „Producer-Ears“ urged me. Now I left it the way you arranged it. But I would prefer the end without instruments.

Greetings
Martin