MIX CHALLENGE - MC104 June 2025 - Mix Round 1 in evaluation

[tubiesubie555]

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

This is my mix. I mixed it in fl studio on 770 pros, here to prove you can cook up a banger mix, without crazy equipment. I'm not 100% sure if it passes the mastering criteria

[sthauge]

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

This is my mix. I mixed it in fl studio on 770 pros, here to prove you can cook up a banger mix, without crazy equipment. I'm not 100% sure if it passes the mastering criteria

Hi @tubiesubie555

It's not possible to open the link to your mix. You have to grant 'Everybody with the link' read access to the file in Google drive if we should be able to open it.

An easy way to test if everything is OK with the link: past the link into a incognito window in your browser. If you'r able to open the file, it's OK, if not, you'll get a message to ask for access.

Steinar :-)

[tubiesubie555]

I think I was able to fix that. Try again

[tubiesubie555]

My one problem with the mix, now listening to everyone else mixes, is that the kick is a bit too high and causing distortion cause of the saturation on the master. let me know if you got any other critiques.

I think the master is a bit loud so you might have to turn it down.

[jules666]

Here is my attempt at this challenge, not what I would normally listen to, but was enjoying by the end ...I am pretty happy with how I got it sounding.

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rWn0NF ... sp=sharing

Speakers: Kali 5-IN (Using SoundID for corrective room eq)
Headphones: DT 770 Pro and Audio-Technica ATH-R70x (Again with SoundID)
Did the rough mix for volume and panning on the R70x', then alternated between the DT770 and Kali speakers during the rest of the mixing process.

Mixed in Reaper

DRUMS
Did not do too much here some subtle saturation on all tracks, a little EQ on Hat tracks.
SNRs - Transient designer on both to push attack- bussed together where I saturated, SSL channel strip for some subtle EQ and compression and a clipper.
KICKs: Got a level between them that I liked, then bussed together with saturation, SSL channel strip for EQ and compressoion and clipper
Toms: Bussed together some compression and little EQ pulling a little out around 500

Drumverb for snr, toms and clap
(Automated Snr verb amount on chorus')
Bussed to Drum bus which had saturation and compression and a little more EQ pulled out around 500

BASS:
Sub: Saturation, EQ removing everything above 1.2k, also a flanger automated in near the end just for a few bars
Diva Bass: Saturation, EQ, Limiter and some verb (automated) - This track had the most automation on it as I felt it got a bit lost.

GTR:
Feedback just a bit of EQ pushing around 1k
Chords, SSL pushing around 10k, 5k pulling a little 300 out
Both sent to a bus where I just put a widener on and a little flange for slightly more movement

KEYS: All sent to a Keys Bus (compression/widener/little verb)
Two verbs set up here chamber style and a reverse which had various automation sent to it.
Did not do much on the individual tracks, used Radiator by Soundtoys on the piano tracks, and a few others, "KEYS ALONE" got a tap delay.

Vocals: Very impressed that they were not real.
Decided I would give them a slightly more "airy" feel so little bit of highend boosting.
Vox FX: Used a few different verbs and delays

All instruments were sent to an Instrument Bus and all vocals went to a ALL vocal bus (fx included) Both of these just had wave NLS which I normally put on my ALL busses, instrument bus got some extra compresion.

Both ALL busses into the master which had
SSL Compression and Tape- mixed into these
Then I just put an EQ on the end to tidy up some areas I thought were getting a little muddy.

There was quite a bit of automation also.

Hope you enjoy

[MFTWC]

Hello again.

This song was mixed in Cubase 14 using a pair of beyerdynamic dt 900 pro x headphones going thru the toneboosters morphit plugin, the mix where also checked on a pair of krk vxt6's with a 10 inch sub.

I started with cleaning all the tracks from unwanted low frequencies, then sending to different
group channels for easy mixing.

Drums:

I took the “Drums VSDSX Kick” and rolled off most of the lowend to use it as a clicky sound for the “Drums Reason Kick” and to get a more consistent lowend on the kick, I automated the
“Drums VSDSX Kick” lowend back where the “Drums Reason Kick” didn't play.

Bass:

I took the “Key Diva Bass” and sent them to two group channels for frequency separation.
The low part got side-chained to the “Drums VSDSX Kick” track.

Guitars:

not much going on just some leveling with the neold u2a plugin.

Synths and Keys:

I used the cableguys shaperbox 3 for some panning fx of the track “Keys Gated Pad”.

Vocals:

I used the neold u2a for leveling and the lindell 902 for de-essing.

On the group channels I used a uadx ssl g bus compessor for some gluing.

Hope you like it.



https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h22nEQ ... sp=sharing

[Mister Fox]

I am once more kindly reminding everyone to please adhere to the given Rules and Guidelines. Most notably what was written in post #003.

This is a one-time reminder for every participant.


Including today, 05 days left to submit your mix.

[John Rowley]

Here is my submission https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u19cMg ... sp=sharing

I used Cakewalk and mixed on Ollo X1 Headphones, as I do not have a room for speaker set up.

Basically used Native or SSL channel strips on the busses. Reverbs and Delays on vox with some reverb on the snare. Added some tube saturation on the busses for warmth. Tamed a little brightness with soothe 2 on the cymbal. Glued the overall mix bus with SSl 4000G. Panned out guitars and synths quite wide, with narrow BV around the main LV. Should now give room to breathe for everything. Great challenge this month, really enjoyed it!

Thanks John Rowley

[maxovrdrive]

Thank you @BenjiRage for your song. Nice production. When I saw D-50 Fantasia, I knew I was going to have fun. If you had put DX7-II Siberia, that would've knocked me down. Nostalgic synths for me.

@Mister Fox, thank you for keeping it together. Great learning platform.

Here's my mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12R1PMv ... sp=sharing


Only the bass and vocals received direct compression. The rest used parallel compression, which preserved the transients while thickening the tracks nicely.

BASS
-trackspacer with kick as side-chain
-eq
-compresion
-valhalla symphoic flange (13.2% only)

-lowender on parallel

DRUMS
-nothing fancy... eq and parallel compresion
-snare had a little Magic7 to thicken it using non-lin

Kick and Reason Snare had parallel compression for each.

ALL DRUMS BUS had parallel compression.

GTR FEEDBACK
-only Seventh Heaven for more depth

GTR CHORDS
-Relife

KEYS
-except for digi hits, flute, shimmer, and rising, the rest had low pass and/or high pass
-except for the above 4, others had compression and/or imagers and/or saturation
-keys alone, piano 2000, and digi blips had Seventh Heaven chambers
-D50 had Cinematic Rooms to give it a little of body and some more sustain

KEYS BUS
-limiter for rouge peaks
-LA3A: no compression, just going through it

VOX PARALLEL COMPRESSION
-vox verse and center chorus vocal

VOX VERSE
-compression
-eq
-soothe
-spectre
-satin

-plate and delay (side-chained comp) for effects

CHORUS VOX
-group compression
-soothe
-eq

-plate for effects

-center vocal had dynamic eq for sibilance, then Satin for sheen

VOX PARALLEL COMP for VOX VERSE and C CHORUS VOX

BGV
-group compression
-soothe
-eq

REAR BUS PARALLEL M/S COMP
-everything except drums and bass

D&B BUS PARALLEL COMP
-drums and bass

MASTER
-compression
-dynamic eq
-saturation
-limiter

Mixed on calibrated Samson, room is treated.

[Strange]

Thanks @BenjiRage for the cool song and the great tracks.

The tracks at 0dB alone make for a usable mix, so you have to be careful not to destroy the song with an overly ambitious mix. And yet I did a lot, but all in homeopathic doses.
My aim was to get close to the demo mix, but to make it sound a bit cleaner and bigger.

What did I do and why?

BASS:
For me, the DivaBass is the focal point that gives the song its size. As the vocals already had a good sound, I started with the bass. As I didn't want to wash out the pressure in the bass range too much, I used the Split EQ from eventide to boost only the transients in the bass and in the 1kHz range. The Pultec 30Hz range adds further low bass, which I cut with the Kirchoff EQ using an 11dB/oct low cut below 30Hz. In addition, Spicerack adds some "drive" saturation in the low-mid range. The SubRhythm bass gets some wobble, tube saturation and compression from BassRift. Everything together gets further saturation from the bass thickener preset from TrueIron, a little more attack in the high-mid range from MultibandEnvelopeShaper and unmasking from Neutron4 via kick-sidechain. A little Kirchhoff EQ provides the final finishing touch.

KICK:
As with the drums as a whole, I didn't mix two drumsets, but layered the sounds of the individual instruments, a little more VSDSX Kick than Reason Kick. CurveEquator and Kirchoff EQ shaped the sound, reduced the treble a little and dampened resonances in the 115Hz range. An SSL G Buss compressor in the parallel bus adds the smack.

SNARE:
The VSDSX snare is a little quieter, a Kirchhoff EQ removes the low bass components below 100 Hz with 12dB/oct. A Magic 7 bricasti reverb gives the snare the right amount of space.
The claps are treated similarly, the reverb is a Valhalla VintageVerb snare preset with 1.75 s decay and 11ms predelay.

TOMS:
The great tomfills should stand out and therefore got a Neve from voosteq Model N channel with a slam compressor and some extra 10kHz, a Pulsar Neumann W494 EQ (great EQ) in M/S mode for stereo extension and a SmackAttack from waves for 21pt more attack.

HH, cymbals and noise sweep:
Just some EQ for the HH, which I've bent to the left and right.

DRUMBUSS:
UAD-Neve33609C compressor, slow attack, fast recovery, 50% mix; Native TransientMaster, KClip Zero with light clipping.

KEYS:
The keys all have an analog feel thanks to different analog emulations. In addition, each sound should have its own place on the stage. In most cases, I use aurora with different predelay, decay, width and treble attenuation. I particularly like the unmask function because the actual sound is not so smeared.
OB Plucky incl. delay is the main sound for the verse. EQ with low cut and treble boost (pulsar W495 and Kirchhoff EQ), aurora and a stereo widening in the delay channel give the sound assertiveness and space for the bass and vocals.
The Diva Pad brings the “above the clouds” effect and is the most important sound in the chorus: UAD Avalon Channel Strip, Harrison Tremolo Panner and outobugi Extend give the sound additional width and movement. Split EQ and Neutron 4 TransientShaper carefully smooth the transients in different frequency ranges. Shimmer and Echoboy add a little more depth to the sound. The Diva sound is just behind the vocals, like a cloud on which the angelic choir sings - that's my idea.
For me, the K2000 piano is the white grand piano on the clouds on which the songwriter plays his melody, big, broad and yet intimate. Pulsar W495, Scheps 73, unfltered sandman and aurora shape the sound.
The gated pad receives special attention as a playful background effect: PingPong Delay and Harrison TremoloPanner add movement, LowCut and Magma BB Tubes Saturation create presence, aurora adds depth.
All other keys are deprived of low bass with Kirchhoff EQ and given more spaciousness by aurora and partly with ECHOES and FOX Echo Chorus.

The GUITARS also have a valuable job in the chorus.
Gtr Chords introduces the chorus and gets an extra portion of distortion from UAD Raw (RAT pedal), Gtr Feedback responds to the vocal melody and gives the chorus even more depth. I support this with aurora with a little predelay. Both guitars get a low cut and a little more EQ in the mid-range.

The VOCALS:
I treat the verse and chorus differently, but there shouldn't be a big jump between verse and chorus, as in the original mix.
The verse voice should sound close, intimate and yet big. I use lots of small steps to achieve this. smart Deess, Kirchhoff EQ with LowCut, Hilbe MO5 and Harrison 32 Classic ChanneStrip for the analog touch, SSL G3 MultiBuss Comp with 2 bands to compensate for small volume differences in the frequencies. The reverb is a bricasti M7 clone of seventh heaven, Sandors Hall, 3.2 s decay, 69ms predelay, 1/8 delay, -11dB early reflections, hi and locut. The delay is a 1/4 note PingPong delay with tape sautration from EchoBoy. Reverb and delay are treated with EQ.
The Chorus should sound bigger and wider. The Vox Chorus li and re- voices get the same treatment as the verse voice. The reverb is a Lexicon 480L random reverb with 2.8s decay, lots of spread and shape and 66ms predelay and extra treble with the Kirchhoff EQ. I also send it in parallel through a UAD Studio D Chorus in position 4.
The Vox Chorus C voice gets its sound from smart Deess, Silk Vocal, SSL G3 MultiComp and EQ, the Lexicon reverb and the Echoboy delay.
All together UAD Pultec 10kHz highs and 100Hz lows, UAD Studer A800 tape saturation, bx refinement harshness control and some Kirchhoff EQ.
The background vocals are tamed by some EQ, LA-2A and Studer Tape.

MIXBUSS:
1. Kirchhoff EQ, 10Hz 96dB/oct cut
2. UAD API 2500, only 1 dB gain reduction, long attack, shortest release, smallest ratio, medium knee, loud detector, old tone type
3. Ampex ATR-102, 900 band, 1/2" head, 15 speed, no noise, no wow and flutter
4. Ozone LowEnd focus, 42pt punchy contrast from 20-190Hz.
5. bx Clipper in m/s mode, a bit of clipping and a bit of stereo widening
6. SSL G3 MultiBussComp, just some gain reduction with different attack and release per band.
7. FG-X2 limiter, punchy, 3 dB gain, -1.05dB true peak, no Comp.

Monitoring:
KSdigital C8, Avatone cubes in a well treated but small room with IK ARC Studio, Audeze LCD-XC, JBL clip1, sonos play one for reference

Here is the result
MC104__BenjiRage__AboveTheClouds__Strange

Thanks to @Mister Fox, thanks to @BenjiRage. I hope you like my work.
I'm very curious about your feedbacks and, yes, I know how much listening work that means.

Best regards from Germany