2024-NOV-01 Info: Thank you everyone, for making MC100 a resounding success. Please show Songwriting Competition 087 the same love.

MIX CHALLENGE - MC33 June 2017 - Winners announced

Join the Mix Challenge - recurrence: February, April, June, August, October, December
GaryRegnier

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC33 June 2017 - Submissions until 21-06-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#21

Post by GaryRegnier »

Hi, Welcome aboard, plenty of time to download and join in, good luck, Gary
cosmodos

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC33 June 2017 - Submissions until 21-06-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#22

Post by cosmodos »

Hey, guys! This is my first time participating in the Mix Challenge!

mp3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6e8sphulp6zwq ... s.mp3?dl=0
WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/04cq823y0a9ev ... s.wav?dl=0

I stuck almost exclusively to the Bootsie plugin suite (Variety of Sound), mostly because of their intent on older-style sound.

Almost every track was pushed through TesslaPRO, to give it a little bit of transformer saturation, just like routing each track through a real console.

I used a few instances of epicVerb for plate and room reverbs. The drums are all recorded ambience, nothing added. One instance of iZotope Vinyl was used for the "old section."

Compression was used to lightly shape some of the sounds, but was used mostly as glue on the submixes.

EQ was almost all broadband, with just some surgical removal to get rid of some ringing here and there.

Lastly, one instance of FerricTDS on the master buss, to simulate going from console to final tape.

EDIT: Forget to add, the lead vocal has an ADT effect on it during the verses, through the use of NastyDLA!

Enjoy!

cosmodos
Last edited by cosmodos on Thu Jun 15, 2017 01:19 CEST, edited 1 time in total.
GaryRegnier

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC33 June 2017 - Submissions until 21-06-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#23

Post by GaryRegnier »

Hi Cosmodos welcome to the challenge. I hope this is the first of many to come, Gary :tu:
CameronSeebach

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC33 June 2017 - Submissions until 21-06-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#24

Post by CameronSeebach »

Hi Gary and Nick! What a fun song!

First timer here, and sad that I've just only discovered this friendly competition.

Here's my mix:
MP3 https://www.dropbox.com/s/ommn8vmir9bdh ... h.mp3?dl=0
WAV https://www.dropbox.com/s/jb9fjkrew3pp8 ... h.wav?dl=0

This is the first relatively big thing I've mixed - usually the tracks I make myself are on the order of ~20 tracks, so I appreciate the effort you put into pre-mixing this. I went relatively nuts with amp head simulation, and you'll find in about 5 different places, including the master, on this mix. I hope you both enjoy it.

In the rough order that I tackled the tracks, here's the processing involved:

Intro Strings:
These sounded like they could use some of that "70's analog thin classical music mix" sound, so they went through the Cool Plex amp from Guitar Rig (hereafter abbreviated as "Cool Plex"), about 90% wet, followed by a medium length reverb from Little Reflektor (also Guitar Rig).

Drums:
The drums all got grouped together into one bus, which had a little loudness EQ and some compression to improve snappiness in the lows and mids, from Alloy 2. Then, a little Cool Plex, with post-EQ bass boost and some more much milder compression. Individual instruments were also processed.

Kick:
I've heard it said that the relationship between kick drum and bass is the most important in any pop-like track - and that's certainly true here. Gary, you picked a kick with a nice pop that I chose to add a little more boom to with some surgical eq cuts, a little high rolloff, and some mild compression from Alloy 2. I found that the levels you chose for the two Kick tracks were perfect the way they were relative to each other.

Snare:
The snare needed a little more warmth and punch - so it got the full bevy of treatments from Alloy 2. Highpass at 250 hz, transient shaping to improve the attack and the sustain, mid and high moderate distortion, and some very soft limiting. I also used a tad of stereo separation on the bottom and top tracks, as well as a targeted intro fade, which I thought created a slightly more interesting sound.

Hihat:
The hi-hats needed a bit more sustain - so they got their mids and lows rolled off, with a surgical cut to make it more interesting, plus heavy compression.

Toms:
The toms had a good dynamic range, but they got more stereo with the Ozone 7 Imager, cranked almost to the max.

Overheads:
I split off a piece of the overhead track to emphasize the first crash, but didn't do this for each hit, just because I wasn't sure it sounded good. I played with the panning to get it to oppose the hats, which were mostly panned right.

Drum Room:
These were highpassed pretty extensively.

Tamb:
I couldn't find a way to make this sound the way I wanted, so I shoved it into the background volume-wise.

Bass:
The other half of the low frequency content. I tweaked a preset that emphasized the sub-bass and bass frequencies from Alloy, with strong loudness EQ, mid-frequency excitement, and strong multiband compression.

Organ and Strings:
I had these oppose each other, pan wise. I applied some Cool Plex to both stereo sets, and followed that with a highpass filter at about 400 hz. That gave me the crunch on the organ and the movement on the strings that I was looking for to gel together other elements.

Guitars:
This track had a lot of awesome guitar tracks! It was challenging to come up with ways to make them all distinct and yet play together well. I'm not sure I succeeded. In the end, I ended up with a few different busses, and a few different kinds of effects.

Guitars Low (chugging 4ths)
I set these up to oppose the Sus riff tracks pan-wise, a little bit. They pretty much coalesce with the strings, but I think the overall effect is nice. They're highpassed and high shelved to leave mostly mids.

Guitars Sustained Riffs and Fills
I equalized this bus aggressively on the highs, combined with a de-esser to prevent harshness, and a highpass to leave room for the bass. In addition, a stereo imager was used.
On the Sustained Riffs, I used tape echo to add a little depth.
On the Fills, I added more intense EQ, and more distorted tape echo. I panned these more center to distinguish them from the sustained riffs.

Chorus Guitars
On this bus, I used Stereo Tune from Guitar Rig, a kind of stereo enhancing modulation effect, plus a cross-delay with a short tempo-synced length, and a lot of aggressive high-end equalizer and big compression. The long sustains in "Gtr Chorus L" and "R" got additional high-band compression. I automated the volume to add emphasis to the ends of choruses.

Brass
I was really pleased with the energy that these added to the track when they had a lot of high-frequency excitement and compression added and their volume automated so they add to the "wall of sound" in the chorus, peeking out just above the guitars and then dipping under again.

Lead Vox and Verse Harmony Vox
The lead vocal track was highpassed, low-mid cut, and high-emphasized, with lots of excitement above 3.5 kHz, large compression ratios in series, and strong de-essing to counteract all of that, along with a little reverb, distorted analog delay, and a tiny bit of all around analog saturation.
The harmony vocals were also highpassed, panned to different sides, and compressed to a lesser extent.
The whole bus then recieved additional saturation, reverb, and short delay.

Chorus Vox and Chorus Harmony Vox
These weren't messed with too much individually, except the Last Chorus vox, which gained a great deal of cross-synced delay for extra epicness at the end. The whole bus recieved Cool Plex, and a post-filter to compensate for the extra highs that unit grants.

Old-style Section
The harpsichord and the mello flutes were pan-opposed, the harpsichords Cool Plex'd and extra delay added, with wetness automated up during the extent of the section, the flutes Twang Reverb'd (another amp from Guitar Rig) with the spring reverb built-in automated up over the section.
The "old voice" recieved bandpass filters and distortion to help it sound a little old, and the vinyl noise was left untouched. The explosion was chorused to make the extensive distortion in the sample less obvious and then panned a little for extra interest, to oppose the "Here I go" stem, which was treated with a radio dialogue preset to bring us back into the era of bright and loud.

End Vox
These were panned, with a bit of delay added which gradually increases in time as the fade progresses.

Master Track
I went a little nuts. I tried not to touch dynamics much, but I threw in some broadband equalization, a tape emulation, and I ran the whole thing through Cool Plex, and a post-filter to reduce some of the errant high frequencies.
GaryRegnier

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC33 June 2017 - Submissions until 21-06-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#25

Post by GaryRegnier »

Hi CameronSeebach, welcome aboard :tu: Gary
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Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC33 June 2017 - Submissions until 21-06-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#26

Post by Mister Fox »

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 7 days left to submit your mix


Also - welcome to all new participants. Please enjoy your stay
OctopusOnFire

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC33 June 2017 - Submissions until 21-06-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#27

Post by OctopusOnFire »

Okay, here's my entry!

Don't wanna make up excuses, but I'm on vacation, away from my usual rig and with plenty of things to do that do not involve staying between four walls. :shrug:

Anyway, I didn't wanna miss this one. The tracks already sound great, especially the guitars, and the song was a blast to mix. Thanks to Gary and congrats on the recording, nice stuff!

I made a guitar driven song, tried my best to make it "radio material". For this one I forced myself not to use compression in the 2bus at all. Leave it for the mastering engineer.

As usual, here's an online note with extended info, pictures and the mp3: http://www.evernote.com/l/AawNxJgBCqhKQ ... RuZHXI41o/

The wav (MEGA): https://mega.nz/#!gbQiEIIL!HkF5kXA4Qhfr ... ou-X9Yn8so
The mp3 (MEGA): https://mega.nz/#!dehCgYhI!jnUAuxCuiVIC ... Dt7j2Pj81s

Hope you like it, good luck to everyone,

Cheers!
GaryRegnier

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC33 June 2017 - Submissions until 21-06-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#28

Post by GaryRegnier »

Hi OctopusOnFire :tu: Gary
davemcisaac

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC33 June 2017 - Submissions until 21-06-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#29

Post by davemcisaac »

https://www.dropbox.com/s/54jk7eni0nf09 ... c.mp3?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/exvqqch8se0ts ... c.wav?dl=0

Master: Halcyon for tube saturation, TB ReelBus v3 for tape saturation, PSP oldTimerME for a bit of glue, MCompare for reference tracks (I referenced Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band - the remix), and MAnalyzer

All tracks: HoRNetVUMeterMK3 for automated gain staging. Gets it in the ballpark!

All Buses & Groups run through Britson Buss

I used the "Brauerize" mix technique with a Vocal Bus, Drum & Bass (D&B) Bus, Guitar Bus, String Bus, and Inst Bus for everything else.

Vox Bus: TB ReelBus, A1StereoControl, Drawmer S73, & Oxford Inflator

Lead Vox Group (Lead Vox - MDynamicEQ to tame harshness, Old Voice - ReaEQ, & Here I Go - ReaEQ & Tuco) run through MAutoVolume & ReaEQ

For the Vocal Spread (ADT Effect) I used Stereo Touch by Voxengo. Delays are all EchoBoy Jr. & all verbs are Acon Digital Verberate

D&B Bus: TB ReelBus, A1StereoControl, QuadraCom, & Oxford Inflator

I used Burnley 73 for the EQ's on Kick & Snare along with Gatey Watey & elysia nvelope for tightness & punch. Plus I'm a big fan of BX Limiter for a little extra saturation (XL) & oomph. I used Gatey Watey & UltraChannel on the Toms. ReaEQ on Hats, Tamb, & Overheads. PSP FETpressor & MDynamicEQ for the Room group

Explosion: ReaEQ, Transpire, and S.LA.X to give it a more "thunder crack" feel

Guit Bus: TB ReelBus, A1StereoControl, Drawmer S73, & Oxford Inflator

The Guitars were eq'd with ReaEQ to give space for each other along with a bit of AS-Exciter (Nomad Factory) to cut through the mix. I kept them dry other than a bit of delay (EchoBoy Jr of course)

String Bus: TB ReelBus, A1StereoControl, Drawmer 73, & QuadraCom

Intro Srings L - MDynamicEQ to tame some harshness / Strings L & R (Grouped) - AS-Exciter & ReaEQ

Inst Bus: TB ReelBus, A1StereoControl, Drawmer S73, & Oxford Inflator

Brass got some AS-Exciter & ReaEQ / Harpsichord, Mellotron & Organ - ReaEQ, and Vinyl Noise was left as is.

I ducked the the Guits, Strings, & Inst Busses with Track Spacer triggered by the Lead Vox Group

I also had to do some phase adjustments in the drums.
Small Ocean

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC33 June 2017 - Submissions until 21-06-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

#30

Post by Small Ocean »

Wav: http://www.smallocean.net/pubshare/MC33 ... lOcean.wav (48 kHz, 24 bit)
MP3: http://www.smallocean.net/pubshare/MC33 ... lOcean.mp3 (320kb/s)

Short summary:

For this mix, I decided to use the new Reason 9.5. Mainly because it has a wonderful modelled SSL/'British' style mixing desk that all tracks go through, including the famous SSL bus compressor - which I used on this mix (as was, and remains, prevalent in rock music). Reason 9.5 also now finally allows VST plugins, making it a great choice of DAW in general.

I made liberal use of bus groups, routing similar tracks (e.g. harmony layers/left + rights etc..) into their own bus groups, and then from there routing these busses themselves to broader category groups (drums, vocals, backing, kick, bass) for further processing and balancing before being sent to the master. Much of the EQing, reverb and in some cases compression was done on the desk itself, although I made use of fabfilter plugins where I needed more precise boosting/cutting of certain frequencies and some waves compressor plugins on the vocals, alongside Reason's rack devices such as its m-class compressor which is used on the bass and the RV7000 reverb which is used on the overheads.

The entire mix once again of course goes through some subtle tape saturation to provide that authentic 60s/70s feel, as well as Reason's m-class equaliser to brighten things up a bit.

Dynamic range according to TT-DR: 9.9
Max Peak: -3.40
RMS: -15.1

The track was very enjoyable to work with, and I hope you guys enjoy my mix. :smile:
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