MIX CHALLENGE - MC098 June 2024 - Winners announced

[Mellow Browne]

Hello,

thanks to Arnwyn for providing this track.

Here is my mix:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/187_t98 ... sp=sharing

This is what I did:

DRUM BUS:

SSL G Bus > StuderA800 > Pultec

sticks > compressor
hats > EQ
tom bus > compressor

BASS:

Softube Bass Amp Room 8x10 > compressor > LA-2A > PSP E27 > linear Eq

PIANO:

Oxide Tape > Fairchild 670 > EQ

GUITAR (I used the original version):

Logic Amp Designer > 1176 > Fix Phaser > EQ

LEAD VOX (I used LVox2):

Neve 1073 > 1176 > LA-2A - De-Esser > EQ

BG VOX BUS:

compressor > EQ

All instruments share the same reverb (Arturia Rev Plate 140), with the shortest decay time. I then created an instrument bus to glue the instruments with the Api 2500 and a ratio of 1,5:1 and the needle not moving. To create a little more room for the vocals I also used the TDR Nova as dynamic EQ with three bands @ 146 Hz, 400 Hz and 5,2 kHz with 4db of gain reduction.

The vocals have 2 different reverbs. The first one is Redverb 2 with a shorter decay (followed by a De-Esser to tame the sibilance), and the second one is Soundtoys Little Plate with a slightly longer tail. To get some depth the vocals were sent to a delay fx with half notes.

For the final touch I used the api 2500 with 1,5:1 ratio and a Pultec with a 1 db boost @ 1,5 kHz on the stereo output.

[quaint twang]

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9btqxs74 ... ecvpu&dl=0


Hey ya'll,

Tried to convey the emptiness and hollowness the artist was looking for by mixing this as dynamically as I could.
Used Pulsar Modular P450 EQs on most of the drums, piano, and guitar.
Ozone 10 EQs and RX deesserssss on all the vox tracks. A little LA2A here, a little 1176 there.
Little Plates and Exponential Stratus for verb soundage.

good luck
quaint twang

[juhu]

Hello,

1) Enjoy my mixdown of "Robot Baby" by Arnwyn:
http://tinkerstate.com/mix-challenge/MC ... __juhu.wav

2) Documentation below (click on "Show" to expand):

► Show Spoiler

Some of the highlights from this session:

• I think the processing on the Fretless turned out rather nice and is working well within the song, making it almost like a co-star right next to the Lead Vocalist (don’t tell her I said that though, as lead singers can be a bit protective of their sole stardom status!). Here’s how I got to that end result: after basic EQ and Compression tasks were done on the Fretless, it was asking for some Chorus, so I added a Stereo Chorus to the Fretless as a Send effect. Sounded good, however, I found it had lost some of the crucial dynamics due to Compression. Then recalled a trick I had heard from somewhere that one could retain or even emphasize the apparent dynamics of a bass instrument by using a parallel uncompressed copy of the track that is EQ-d to be super thin (NOTE: must be using Shelves and/or Bells instead of a Highpass filter so that the phase doesn’t rotate through 180 deg - after all, we don’t want a Notch filter to occur on our bass when we go in parallel!), while the compressed version is EQ-d to be a bit darker. When combined this way in parallel, the louder the note the brighter it gets, conveying the playing dynamics effectively, while the low end stays well controlled by the Compression so that it works well with the Kick from the softest note to the loudest note and every note in-between.
• I suppose the part I struggled the most with was the Acoustic Guitar (I used the DI version and added Room reflections to it). It almost felt like a string or two may have been slightly out of tune during recording and so I had to make massive amounts of trial-and-error on a ton of EQ bands in order to make this slight tuning issue less apparent in the mix. I think I’ve succeeded with that.
• Also, I struggled with De-Essing the Lead Vocals part, as any strategy I tried still sounded a bit unnatural on the ’S’-es. After a lot of trial-and-error, concluded that perhaps the issue is baked-in to the recording, ended up picking the least-unnatural-sounding De-Essing method I had stumbled upon thus far and moved on. Perhaps a better result can be achieved by manually editing the gain for each and every ’S’ in the waveform, something I might consider trying in Round 2 should my mix make it that far.
• Regardless of my struggles with some aspects of some parts, I think the end result turned out quite cohesive and natural-sounding. Even the programmed drums would probably fool many listeners into thinking it’s a real kit.

That concludes my highlights from this mixing session.

[White Punk OD]

Hello Arnwyn, Mr Fox and participants!

Very nice song to mix, I enjoyed it a lot.

This is my take on "Robot Baby"!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VU6x8h ... sp=sharing
MC098__Arnwyn__Robot_Baby__WhitePunkOD

I saw this challenge in cleaning the tracks and give to each a little upgrade with some EQ and exciters, to make the overall sound bigger and smoother, so the instruments and vocals become one performance, when there was drum programming, DI recordings, and comping from several takes that had slightly different mic positions.

I used DeEdger, a declicker, and on many tracks the TDR Nova GE with "smart operations" (autopilot creating dynamic sharp EQ bands for room modes and resonances).

Aux:
1. Orilriver with a 3-band comp at its input, that takes away sibilance from the reverb. Used in many tracks including drums.
2. TAL-Dub 2 tape delay;
3. SIR with a delayed gated impulse, for harmony and finale vocals
There are also inline reverbs that merge with the sound directly.


VOCALS
Lead main -- Declick, Nova GE for cleaning, Nova 4-band to balance out critical frequencies, that sounded dull or sharp at different times, it also makes the lyrics more intellegible. Tube Saturator Vintage with some mid and bass boost. 2 comps in parallel with direct signal.
NEOLD Warble (takes away some digital 16bit harshness). Console N. SPL Dual-DeEsser.
Reverb and Delay sends, automated. A lot of volume automation.
>voice thickener formula by Warren Huart (+- 3, 6, 9, 12 cent hard panned=package of 8 mult tracks), de-essed.
Lead 2: band-limited 280-3100Hz, comp, surgical EQ; this is used for an automated doubling effect, slightly panned left.
Lead bus: HG-2 saturator, Klanghelm Tape IVGI2, T-DeEsser, slot for DIY "Trackspacer" on instrument bus, using 6-band NOVA.

Harmony vocals -- volume automation to enhance phrases, band-limiting 460-9900Hz Bessel shapes,
Lagrange granular delay, ADT Haas delay, colored compression (adds brilliance), HG-2 saturator.
The finale choir has a special gimmick, I adapted some "Unfiltered Triad" preset that creates an echoey spacey sound.

INSTRUMENTS (git + piano)
Morphverb chamber, Klanghelm IVGI2 tape, NWEQ (very colored character EQ), TDR SlickEQ, Trackspacer workhorse insert.
Git: one clip got micro-shifted until the phase was ok. One clip (=cosm) centered, the other half right and louder.
..SPL Vitalizer, Lindell 50 channel, another surgical EQ.
Piano: Nova GE smart-ops for resonances (also hipassing at 104Hz), bx Focusrite channel with a little bit of compression, Bessel lowpass 9100Hz

Bass -- Ampeg SVTVR, Dynamic EQ for the string rattle, HY-Chorus, Kotelnikov, DeEdger, elliptic lowpass at 3400, sidechain from kick.

DRUMS
bus -- Melda Saturator drum preset, Lindell 50 buss with Thd cranked up
Toms -- 4000G channel, insert Epic Plate, send to Orilriver, insert Ariesverb (its strong modulation makes them more organic sounding)
sidestick -- 4000G, send to Orilriver (the typical room sound)
snare -- placed twice, one with a resonant hipass at 98 (+Lindell ChannelX compression and EQ), the other at 869Hz + HG-2 saturator + Ariesverb mod.
kick -- KSHMR Essentials

Hihat & cymbals get bussed with a Lindell 354E multiband, then into drum bus.

I hope you will enjoy my mix,
greetings and good luck to all.

[approxgo]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Wn5kDj ... sp=sharing

The hardest part was mixing the vocals(which had a lot of harsh frequencies). I used 6 different de-essers . Some basic comp. No EQ was used at all.

Bass: A lot of distortion and eq shaping. Transient shaper used to boost the attack at 50-120Hz

Piano: 2 different rooms, slight compression with 1-3db gain reduction.

Guitar: Subtle flanger, basic eq and compression.

Drums: Plate and Spring reverbs with aggresive compression using Beat Slammer.

Vocals sends: Reverb with a large predelay amount. Delay with a long feedback time. Everything sidechained to dry signal.

Instruments group(Piano, guitars): Sidechain a mid/side EQ to vocal group.

Instruments group and vocal group: Sidechain only the mid signal to the bass track.

Each group's low band(~250Hz) was sidechained to kick.

[mix.altmsh]

Hi,

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MflHsn ... drive_link

BVOX: All of them bussed together...on the bus track Airwindows Consolidated Galactic reverb...Piano is also on this bus

VOX: Fresh Air, Echoboy

Bass: Pulteq Eq, Pro Q3,

Drums: All of them bussed together while Toms and Cymbals also had been bussed feeding into the Drum Bus....Clipper, Limiter, Saturator

Guitars: Wide Panned with 3k taken out...

Master Bus: Clipper, Pulteq Eq, Fresh Air, Q3, L2

[josh26757]

Such a talented group of mixers. Just uploading my submission for some feedback. I have a Sountracs Solo board along with a few analog compressors I used to run parallel compression. This was a pretty quick mix just to share with the community here. Really love the feeling of this song. Best of luck to everyone. I have heard so many amazing mixes going through the forum.

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

[Strange]

here are my thoughts:

https://os5.mycloud.com/action/share/1f ... 0090b4142c

I used a Neve-channel plugin on all tracks with different settings
Drm: first the sticks disatracted me, so I I lowered all upbeat sticks about -6dB. The Drums are in an uad-soundcity room. The SN and Toms got an extra reverb, too.
Bass: Bassrift was my goto plugin and automation.
Vocals got lots of EQ and an lexicon-480 randomHall
Backgroundvocals: got some baby-computer-voices with vocalbender and "outaspace" shimmerverb at the end you'll hear an O-vox Computer appearing.

I hope this touches the providers meaning and taste.

[SimaGT]

Greetings

I have used standard EQ and Compression techniques on individual channels with ssl channel strip E, LA 2a comp, 1176 comp, etc. there are few intsances of smart eq, mild soothe2 on vocals many sends from various tracks on delays and verbs
Alot of automation everywhere, most noticeable in the quiet part when she sings "do you ever need a lullaby" to get that change in dynamics more noticeable.
Room for drums is made with T-RackS The Farm Stone Room. Snare and toms have additional plate sends. Bass is reamped with Guitar Rig to get more body also there is aux for it to bring up the mids.

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

[jules666]

Hi All,

Here is my link to this months challenge:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17i8kzD ... drive_link

Drums: Saturation and EQ used on all tracks.
Hihat/OH: used Exciter just for top end.
Kick/Snare/Stick: Also had an SSL channel for more EQ and some compression, followed by a clipper.

Created 3 AUX bus for DRUMS that have compression/distortion/verb and sent all shells to these in various amounts.
All drum tracks and the aux busses going to a main drum BUS which has Waves NLS, EQ, tape and compression.

Bass: Did my normal duplicate process one for high and other for low, using a Sansamp and EQ/Clipper. Also created a 3rd bass track as I wanted a slight different tone in places used an Ampeg SVTVR here and transient designer, heavy compression and limiter.
All bass tracks sent to a bus which has some further EQ/Compression/Limiting/distortion.
Used a chorus effect in places on the bass as well.

GTR: Got a little overly complex here as I used the clean DI which I duplicated, to try and get a large stereo sound. I think it worked well, but probably a little bias at this stage after listening so many times
Processed one with a Roland Jazz style amp, and ran it through Waves Real ADT2V and sent to my GTR BUS.
Other DI, I used a transient designer some tape saturation/EQ and a limiter. I also sent this to an Exciter and a Marshall style amp for a little grit, these were blended to taste, and were bussed together with a short stereo delay, they were then also then sent to the GTR BUS.

The GTR Bus has Waves NLS on, EQ and a little saturation/compression/limiting.
Some subtle verb was added

Piano: Waves NLS, compression/limiter and used Trackspacer to reduce some upper mids sidechained to the vocals.
Sent also to a plate and amient verb.

Vocals: Tried to align the vocals a little more together.
Main vocals have Melodyne on which I used to just to reduce some breathyness. Then my normal vocal chain of compressors/EQ/another compressor and then limiter followed by De-esser.

The BG Vocals I grouped together and processed with just EQ/compression/De-esser
All vocals going to main VOX BUS, which had a touch more EQ, a little further de-essing and a limiter.

Vocals were sent to various effect busses which include: Chorus/Slapback Delay/Plate verb/Distortion/further compression, these were automated a lot. For some phrases I sent them to a pitchshifter to give the vocals a slight robotic sound just underneath.

I used a Rear Bus technique and also tried a parallel bus for low end only, this was the first time I tried this this technique, liked it a lot.

MIX BUS had Waves NLS, a compressor and tape, which I mixed into. Near the end of the mix I added further EQ (smiley face), a little multiband compression and exciter.

I used a lot of automation for volume and fx levels.

Hope I have done the track justice, enjoyed mixing this one a lot.

Jules