MIX CHALLENGE - MC099 August 2024 - Winners announced

[Isa]

Hi all!

**Edit** Forgot that everything runs in to a very modest Frontier compressor just to glue it back together.

Thanks and sorry

Can't access

[kRisnadiza]

all tracks : Eq (t-racks eq81), compression (t-racks black 76), reverb.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T8cXqk ... sp=sharing

[SDB_12]

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/z04a7hin ... d6loj&dl=0

Hi all,

Thanks to the songwriter for providing a cool track to work on. I'm in the middle of setting up a new studio/mix room and this was perfect for me to play around with to test it all out.

Rather than talk about everything I did exactly, I'd rather focus on a few things. When I first heard the song I thought that it needed more excitement and scene changes from section to section. The challenge was finding ways to make it lift in the chorus/bridge and stay interesting in the verses. I decided to go with a bigger, wider, modern sound for this to see if I could do some of these things. I spread out the acoustics and bells a bit using delays so they appear as almost double tracked to help widen things, and clean up the middle.

With only 1 vocal, I wanted to add some layers. So I duplicated the vocal track twice and used SoundToys Little Alterboy to pitch up/down and formant up/down some layers. So it sort of sounds like a female singing in the background in the chorus/bridge, it's just the lead pitched up an octave with some formant...but I liked it. It added a lift I was needing.

Overall, there is a lot of filtering going on and automation with plugins/rides to help bring things in and out and up/down. I liked the surfer style bass in the beginning, but then wanted it to fill out. So some filter automation/reverb automation was used, for example.

A healthy mixture of outboard and plugins were used. I'll note some of the hardware:

Drums are bussed and running out to my 77x and into some CAPI LC25 eqs. Bass went through an Audioscape V-Comp, and into a Heritage Audio HA81 pre/eq. Acoustics went out to my AML 52f50 compressors and into some Heritage Audio 1073 pre/eqs. Piano went through some GAP 3A's. Trumpets to my Retro Doublewide ii compressors, and lead vocal to my SSL 611, and Audioscape 1176 bluestripe.

For effects, I had some ITB verbs/delays, but also used my Pioneer 202w analog spring, an old TC Electronics M1, and Yamaha SPX 990.

The whole mix ran through a pair of Neve 542s, into a Smart C1LA, and into a pair of Audioscape Pultecs along with a few plugins.

I had several plugins on all of the tracks as well for shaping, punch, crunch, etc. One to note would be Scheps Omni Channel 2...I found it really helpful with this mix to get the kick/bass/etc. to shape up and add some character. Such a great channel strip. Lots going on and too much to detail out. But hopefully that gives an idea.

Thanks!

[Mange]

Kick, Shortened the tail with a gate, some dynamic eq to tackle the uneven top end
Snarebus, Just an fabfilter eq and fabfilter compressor.
Hihat, just an fabfilter eq
Drumbuss, fabfilter Eq and Waves dbx in parallell. Send to farverb

Guchashakerbuss, just an fabfilter eq Send to farverb
Guiro, Send to farverb

Bass, Waves CLA-3A, fabfilter Saturn on top band

Marimba buss, fabfilter eq plus fabfilter comp, send to farverb

Acoustic, Waves CLA-76 plus fabfilter eq. Eq has a couple of resonance cuts. Tried Soothe but didn´t like it this time. Send to farverb

Piano, just a fabfilter eq, send to farverb

Trumpets, just the fabfilter compressor. Send to farverb. No eq?!

Lead Vocals, Waves Puigchild. Love the puigchild on vocals, fabfilter eq, fabfilter deesser, soundtoys Microshift in stereo. Sends to stock delay and closeverb.

farverb, fabfilter reverb, 3,3 seconds, short predelay
closeverb, fabfilter reverb, 3,3 seconds, long predelay

stereobus, MixFX the regular stock Console Shaper, Slate Digital Tape in mastering 2trk mode, Slate Digital FG-Red 2:1 Ratio, slowish attack, auto release, maybe 2db gain reduction, eiosis AirEQ some very minor adjustments, fabfilter limiter catching the occasional peak.

Made some edits to cope with the too sparse arrangement but removed them for the upload. If I remember I can link to it after the competition is done.
My take on the ending was about just stretching out the bass note to have a more natural decay and, I muted the last bepop on the piano and last strum on guitar. Made it a more musical ending to my ears. Some automation here and there, just on some eq and levels.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D2c6XI ... sp=sharing

[LughSenderson]

Hello, interesting music. I didn't deviate from what I normally use and do. I used bx SSL9000j on all channels for equalization and compression.

In the equalizer, the highlights are the snare where I added 22dB at 10Khz and 18db at 160Hz. And in the vocals, where I had to cut 10db at 100Hz and 3 at 2Khz.

For effects, I used lx480 for reverbs and delays, 2 plates and 1 hall, and two delays, one shorter and one longer.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rV8kSV ... sp=sharing

[Arthur Labus]

Hello everybody !
Not happy as i've got an earworm from this song but it was fun to be creative and here is what i've done:

Specs:
Tracks set to 0 VU. Izotope Neutrino and NLS Channel (Neve) on every instrument bus.

DRUMS:
Drum Bus - Thrillseeker VBL (light compression + trafo processing), Toneboosters Sibilance (harshness de-essing)

Kick - Waves CLA Drums with focus on higher freq and some compression
Snare - Waves CLA Drums with focus on higher freq, light compression and adding hall
Hihat - bx_console N
Overheads - Waves CLA Drums with focus on weight
Snare spring plate and Room_100wide - very low in the mix with no plugins
All percussion tracks are with no changes in the mix

BASS:
Bass : Vandal virtual amp
Bass send : automation with NastyDLAmkII (dual classic echo) and D16 Repeater (ping pong), Hornet TotalEQ with high pass, GMonoBass under 150Hz

ACOUSTIC GUITARS
Waves CLA Guitars with automation on reverb and delay
Black Rooster Audio VHL-3C high pass 150Hz

TRUMPETS
Waves TG12345, Mastering the Mix ANIMATE, Softube Dirty Tape, Thrillseeker VBL

PIANO
Waves TG12345
send: Audio Thing Filterjam adding some dirt

RIBAB - only panning done here

VOCALS
Waves Silk Vocal with atomated sections of Variety of Sound epicPLATEmkII (reverb), TB Sibilance de-esser

All busses except bass send to track with Acustica Silver with big hall for glue reverb

Overall a lot of volume automation

Master Bus:
NLS Bus (Neve) analog summing, Toneboosters Sibilance
as metering: Toneboosters TB_Barricade, Youlean Loudness Meter

WAV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PLY2UP ... p=sharing
WAV 24bit/44kHz, round 1,4 dB headroom / loudness -16,4 LUFS

Good succes everybody !

[asiohead]

Hi,

here is my mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13URG3_ ... sp=sharing

Thanks to LosTimpanis & Mister Fox for providing another mix challenge. Beautiful song and fun to work on !
Very good description and suggestions from the artist. Also used the reference songs before and during mixing.

DAW
Presonus Studio One

drums
I used a gate, Pro EQ and PSP Vintagewarmer

guache shaker, guiro
just a bit of EQ

bass
Pro EQ and Fundamental Bass to cut some boomy low end and to bring out the mid bass.

piano
used Pro EQ to cut low and high frequencies as referenced by the artist. A tiny bit of compression to bring the piano out more after EQ

guitar
Pro EQ and PSP Vintagewarmer

marimba
Pro EQ, some compression and limiting and Ozone Imager

trumpets
Pro EQ, FAT Channel limiter, Ozone Vintage Compressor

lead vocal
EQ to get a softer less harsh sound. PSP Vintagewarmer. TDR Nova Dynamic EQ for de-essing. A little bit of reverb, Acon Multiply & Bloom delay


volume automation for different parts of the song.

two effects channels as sends for some tracks; one reverb and one with Acon Multiply & Bloom delay to create a slightly wider sound.

master bus
a bit of Ozone Dynamic EQ and Ozone Imager

TBProAudio dpMeter5 for metering LUFS & Peak, double check with APU Loudness Meter

grtz

[Andreas_Ko]

Hello everyone,

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

mixed ITB
SSL native CS across all the tracks, random EQing, nothing extreme, compression as needed.
vocal: stock pro tools BF 2A, BF MC77, mcdsp mc 303, mcdsp de555, SSL native CS EQ
FX: AIR flanger, Eventide short room, MM long hall, D16 1/4 delay, Eventide H3000 harmonizer
master buss: SSL comp

[M.P.3.]

Welp, here goes

MC099__LosTimpanis__Falling__M.P.3

Hello all, hope you're all well! Thanks once again to everyone involved with this challenge! It was a really fun one! @Isa, wonderful song you got here, I just don't know why you buried it in your mix, I saw fit to dig it out and make it shine like it really deserves to!

Off Topic

(Excuse me if I don't immediately post my process notes, but seeing as I'm really pushing the limits here posting a mere hour before the deadline, I hope you'll forgive me.

P.S.
I'll post an edit as soon as I write it out )

Edit:

MIX Notes:

► Show Spoiler

(This time I won't go into details like how much eqing the vocals needed or which plugins were used on what instrument, rather I'll describe what was done on the tracks.)

For starters, I tried to incorporate a lot of Isa's references into my mix, hoping it would sound good, and I think it does! For example the plucky bass, although I think it gets buried at times by how I mixed it, it's really rather plucky! Also that piano, wow I have no idea how to really make it sound like the reference Isa provided but I think I got a similar vibe out of it!

Anyway, onto the tracks:

Drums and percussion: Not a lot of tweaking there, great samples and elements. Mostly just panning and volume balancing and a smidge of eq and compression on the kick and snare (also some volume automation). On one of the shakers I added a little delay to create a different groove, more latin inspired, helps fill in the space between. Guiro was panning automated.

Bass: just a lot of eq and compression, also divided it into three parts, a DI low end heavily compressed bass, a DI midrange bass with some distortion (also heavily compressed), all blended with the original track that was put through a bass amp sim. Also really liked the idea from the original mix of there being some reverb in the intro so I basically tried to emulate that with a spring reverb.

Guitars: nothin special, let's move on, lol, just some eq comp, a delay here and there, a little volume automation here, there, everywhere lol

Piano: ahh, a lot of eq, saturation, and a lo-fi effect with the free Cymatics Origin plugin also a little panning around with MAutoPan

Trompetas! Surprised me with how wet with reverb they already were so they got a touch of transient enhancing, some eq and saturation, and volume automation! In the end I also enhanced the width of their high end

Marimba: was first balanced amongst the tracks then eq, comp/limiting, saturation, added a delay plugin to enhance the space between, gave it a little tremolo like effect I think...

Vocals, vocals, vocals... ahhhh, so much was done... jk! Not really all that much was done I think, some general eq and then compression with LALA by AnalogObsession, de-essing (ok, prolly a lot of it, but I think it still sounds pretty ok, not lispy at all!), also used Waves Silk Vocal to even it out a bit more, like Soothe 2 would do, but I'm too cheap for Soothe 2 lol.
What else, what else... Ah! Yes. Seeing as I use that Brauerize template, my vocal was treated with several (emulated) vintage compressors (and a distressor, but he's also probably vintage by now lol), all of which I automated for different tastes in the verses and choruses, not a lot of compression either, mostly just for their color.

Vocal fx: ah, well, just some slapback delay, plate verb, hall verb, some delay swells here and there, and a repeat delay on the looong words in the choruses, not really much, hope I made good use of them all lol!

Well, if there's one thing my mix has a lot of it's AUTOMATION! A ton of volume and panning automation was done on almost all tracks to really help propel the song forward and I hope I've managed to do that.

Well, there's that! Good luck everyone!

[OnlyAdrian]

Hi!
Here is my final mix:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PB-Akd ... sp=sharing

I have only used EQ, Compressor, Reverbs, some Saturation and some vocal plugins from Waves.

Hope you like it!