MIX CHALLENGE - MC043 May 2018 - Winners announced

[OctopusOnFire]

Question: What's the trance sub supposed to do? Should we sidechain it to the kick, gate it, leave it as it is? There's no mention of it in the text iirc.


Also, an observation. Don't take this the wrong way, because it applies to everyone, including me: Please limit my options as a mixer as much as humanly possible, unless you want to risk striving away from your vision of the song.

[Mister Fox]

Question: What's the trance sub supposed to do? Should we sidechain it to the kick, gate it, leave it as it is? There's no mention of it in the text iirc.

If you talk about "Trance Sub.wav", then (if I understood the concept of the production right) you indeed "duck it away" once the kick hits, to have the bass a bit of a back beat.

[Giri IS]

hello greetings to the forum. this is my very first time to come this forum. i personally love low-mid freq, and imo below 200Hz freq of this song its kind of a treasure. so much power built from this song in that area.
so i decided to keep open that freq area especially for the kick, trance bass for example. and did partially cut low freq and mid freq above 100Hz for the other instrumen. i did common perspective for drum session panning HH, crash, percussion in tho left and right so it keep room independently.
the kick channel i put double EQ, one with 21.6-55Hz in 6.82 db, second i cut LMF in 225Hz and -11.76dB. trance bass with LF 7dB-88HZ and 250Hz-6dB for the gain to create warm bassline. i put a compressor with threshold -20dB with 69 attack and 65ms release.
these are good spot to start eq-ing the other track like fx, brass and many more else to partially cut low mid freq, but the purpose is keeping alive the power of low-mid freq of this song. the X-click stereo plugin from waves is very useful to reduce noise/pop/click-plossive on the intro organ track i set thresh 68.4% and shape 94%. i didnt do over with trance sub, just keep the way it is.
the two guide delay and reverb was amazing, but i decided to send my master bus to H-delay and Rverb stereo Fx channel.

i used Studio One Pro as my DAW and almost with stock plugins
here listed
-Pro eq
-Binaural pan
-Compressor
-Dual pan
-Analog delay
-redlightdist,phaser, slightly set up fx for drum fill
-room reverb
with waves plugin i used:
-H-delay
-Rverb stereo
-X-click stereo
-L3multimaximizer

on mastering, i used common plugins like pro eq slightly enhancement LF 4.24dB-189Hz freq, compressor ratio 1:1 treshold -2.89dB with 100.1ms attack and 610.7ms release, and limitter with 0db limiting 4.86dB input and release with 3.00s heres the link. ciaaaoooo!!!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qnsnuarhnsvfw ... s.wav?dl=0

[MOA22]

Hi there !

my turn. I was using Logic pro X, mainly with stock plugins this time. Some VMR, FG Mu, VTM.
No reverb, because I was using the provided AUX tracks.

The challenge for me was to give some body and clarity to the mix by improving the Key Tracks.
Used some side chain comp (sub track and bass track)
Was very gentle with the compression (none on the kick). I preferred to comp some busses and the use of distortion (stock one)

Tried to do a fat clear but not bright mix.

The first Trans/House material I had to mix. Not fan of the genre but the production seems clean. Had fun BTW, spent 4 hours on it.

Good luck and thanks to M Fox and Jorgeelalto.
Here is the link (wav+mp3) : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P5MVgg ... sp=sharing

[Dodgingrain]

mp3: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqpB-RLndYJriaB_VoRigyyxFbvlAA
wav: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqpB-RLndYJriaEAnziegR-NhctGWw

Let's see. Tough to do this without pushing to much into mastering territory. Went for an open sound with some pumping without sounding muffled. Used waves dbx 160 as parallel compression for the pumping effect. The kick pumps most of the tracks. Other than that there is a bit of automation here and there, some filter sweeps for interest, volume swells, loads of eq. and compression, some distortion, tape saturation on some of the strings to smooth them out and reduce the harshness, several delays, reverse reverb on the claps, expansion on one of the key parts, doubled the piano and panned with different settings, and some other stuff here and there.

Time stretched the trance part to 130, house part at 128 per instructions. Not a fan of time stretching as it can cause artifacts.

Look forward to feedback.

[Dwic]

Here's my submission:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mQwhS ... tfskij6DGc

Tried to be really creative with this one. A lot of automation to get the rises to pop - generate movement.

Being a dance track getting the bass and the rhythm to work was most important. Spent a lot of time on the kick to get it to cut through both parts equally. Used a gater plugin to add some interest to the transition.

[OctopusOnFire]

Question: What's the trance sub supposed to do? Should we sidechain it to the kick, gate it, leave it as it is? There's no mention of it in the text iirc.

If you talk about "Trance Sub.wav", then (if I understood the concept of the production right) you indeed "duck it away" once the kick hits, to have the bass a bit of a back beat.

I was doing the opposite actually
I understood "sub" as in "subckick", so I gated instead of ducking.

[Nonlinear]

I started working on this one (I like the demo mix) but I've run across a few issues:

1) "Reverse engineering" the time stretching. You say the transition from 130 to 128 occurs in the original project over the range of 98.1 to 114.1 beats. The problem is that the stems have been exported with that tempo map turned off ("linear mode") so the "beats" reference is lost. In other words, where, exactly, is beat 98.1 and 114.1 in the stems?

Also, 128 does not seem to line up completely in the second half on the tune - does it go back to 130 when the Trance beat resumes?

Not sure what everyone else is doing here but would appreciate some guidance.

(FYI - I appreciate this tempo change as an advanced skill test for a mixing contest but stems like these would best be rendered with tempo map turned on (like the demo mix was) since it is integral to the composition)


2) There is a ducking effect on the White Noise track in the demo mix during the transition from Trance to House sections. It sounds like classic kick/compressor sidechaining - but there is no kick anywhere in the project during that time, so what is ducking that section? Am I missing a kick track?

[MOA22]

Nonlinear :

I think that to change the tempo IS NOT the mission
Of the mixer. I can do it easely but I won't. It is easy to do that during the creative process. It can even ruin a bit the sound of your tracks. And if You were using some VI, you reduced the Risk of artifacts on it. If it is mandatory or if it has a influence in the judgment to do that tempo change I Will do it, but I am not ok. And personaly I think that a drastic tempo change sounds better (not musical opinion, just the pitch shift sound it self) than a something like 1,5 % of speed.

[Jorgeelalto]

Hi Nonlinear:

About the ducking of the White Noise track, it was done with volume automation. I don't usually use sidechained compressors for that since it's sometimes easier and more precise to use an specialized tool for the ducking in electronic dance music.

And regarding the tempo change... I don't remember it correctly. I don't know how I exported it (mind you, it has been almost a year since I worked in the track) but as MOA22 said, I would not automate the tempo on the mix, since the stems already have the tempo transition integrated. I understand the frustration of not being able to set everything right, it will probably bother you the most if you use synced tempo-based effects. I'd like to take a look at the projects and everything but currently I cannot get the time to look for the project files, then check everything, I'm sorry.