MIX CHALLENGE - MC047 September 2018 - Winners announced

[MFTWC]

Hello there !!

My goal was to get a natural sounding mix.

On the individual drum sounds i used the Equalizer v4 and Compressor v3 from Tone boosters, i then routed them to a group channel for further processing.

On the vocal i used: Equalizer v4, CA-2A from Cakewalk, a DeEsser and then some Valhalla vintage verb.

The bass was compressed by the Klanghelm MJUC.

The guitars where individually compressed by the CA-2A then bussed to a group channel.



Wav

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

Mp3

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

[the_mazeman]

Here's my my first submission !
My aim was to make it sound as good as possible using my abilities.
WAV Link

Thank you for this opportunity, it was very fun mixing this song especially the drums. They were recorded very well and captured the essence of the drum precisely. Not much needed to be done in the mix except a seldom equalization or compression here and there. Although I used quite a liberal amount of reverb but in the mix it blended very well and not to mention quite a number of reverbs were used.

I didn't use any third party samples to augment the drums, just a clip of Snare Top heavily gated sitting under every snare hit to help get a consistent snare through the mix.
I mixed the guitars as they were so, no re-amplifying was done to them.
The vocal was interesting because there were no harmonies or doubles. I had to use various automated effects to make them sit right in the mix.

Anyways, it was very refreshing to mix this and I hope I have done justice to the amazing production and also such a intimate yet aggressive vocal performance.

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 14 days left to submit your mix.

[thomasberg]

Hello!

Really enjoying working with such good raw-material

It was a hard to try to "beat" the original mix wich was awsome...!
But a perfect learning experience

Vocalchain:
1176 and LA2A, Kramer Tape, Slate Distressor in parallell.
Eq was a combination of Slates SLL and Logic stock.
A little of C4 multiband at the end to lift the top but hold it.
Eiosis Deesser.

Most of my time was spent on finding the right amount of reverb and what type.
Landed on a combination of a convolution Bricasti and a Roomer reverb, and some slapdelay and dobler.
Aaaand some delay ducking and extra delay on refrain.

Felt the refrains also needed some more to underline the lyrics and feeling, so I tripled the vocal and made a distorted one and two pitchshift.

Heres my mix:

MP3:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/53ct6v1jersur ... g.mp3?dl=0

WAV:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nq188v7wc73vb ... g.wav?dl=0


-Thomas

[Bullshit Bastard]

Hi there,

first of all, the guy recording this, did a great job. I focused on drum and bass, as Rahel mentioned she is looking for. Toms are left as is without any paramater changed but level and panning. They could be worked out a bit, when requested. So consider this to be a rough mix. Would need to put more effort into overall editing as well. If this goes somewhere into the direction Rahel is looking for, I would work things out in detail afterwards. Some values:

-22.0 LUFS integrated
19.1 LU Range
-4.4 dB True Peak

So you may need to increase the volume of your device heavily.

MP3
WAV - 44,1kHz - 16Bit int (CD-Audio)
WAV - 88,2kHz - 32Bit float

Since I have been listening to the song various times, I cannot resist from providing a version with a different arrangement. Rahel, if you are reading this, here is a proposal for a different arrangement. I just instructed my audio workstation to remove some parts. This is the result. It's not edited in any way and just generated. Did not go into editing this any further. I just removed the parts making the song appear boring to me. Just my 2 cents…

WAV - 44,1kHz - 16Bit int (CD-Audio)

Best regards and thanks for providing the audio files to us.

[FrankieV]

Hi,

First-time submission to Mix Challenge.

This is a great song, with very tight performances and high-quality engineering. Has been a blast to mix this song.

The tracks:
Mp3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/btxhgi9nbys5r ... V.mp3?dl=0
Wav: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jb3zcrdozp93w ... V.wav?dl=0

Edits:
I did next to nothing editing, with just some trims and fades on the distorted guitar tracks.

Drums:
Tried to enhance the depth of the drum tracks with some additional ambiance/room FX.
Other than that I applied fairly standard Dynamic/EQ/Filtering to preserve punch and clarity in the mix. This was mainly done using Softube Console1 (SSL 400E).

Bass:
Re-amped the DI through a slightly driven DI and combined it with the amp-track for a fatter bottom end. Standard EQ/Dynamics and a Waves C6 MBC with the kick drum as the trigger for some attenuation below 200hz, giving the kick a bit more room.

Guitars:
Some run-of-the-mill filtering and EQ'ing to make fit the tracks in the mix. All guitars rendered as an ensemble through UAD Ocean Way for a bit of glue and space. A slight C6 MBC attenuation between 200-500hz triggered by the vocals for a little more vocal clarity. Leaving room for slightly more aggression in the guitars while preserving lyric clarity.

Vocals:
A little ambiance form UAD OW, volume riding, EQ, Compression (Distressor/LA2A emulations), De-essing. Bussed to plate reverb and saturated delay. Some micro pitch multi-tap delay from Eventide. On the breakdown/bridge, a second track was made with the vocal track brought forward in the timeline and a reverse delay effect applied, in an effort to provide a little extra "uneasiness" to the overall feel.

In addition to the volume automation of the vocals themselves, the dealy is also automated to give some extra oomph a couple of places.

General/Mixbus:
Used Waves NLS for some extra glue, and VMR/VTM from Slate on the mix bus for some very slight EQ/Dynamics/Glue & saturation.

No loudness processing on the mix bus as per the challenge guide, so the track is at about -23dB LUFS integrated (-18dB ST) and -7dB TP. This should be enough headroom for the mastering process.

Thanks for a fun challenge!

-Frank

[Lieto]

Hi everybody,

here is my mix of this beautiful song:

Drums: Just doing some EQ to remove resonances, low cuts for cleaning low end and I use a very well known VCA Compressor on SN and BD for shaping transients. On the drum bus some harmonic distortion.I only use OVH, BD, SN, SN Bottom.

Vocal: EQ to clean up. A passiv tube EQ to add some high frequencies and harmonics. A opto compressor for level control.

Guitars: EQ to clean up. Slow opto compression for level control. Harmonic distortion plugin on the bus for some "in you're face".

Bass: Just some compression.

At the end i add some room (short and long reverb, some delay), a tiny little bit of New York Compression on the master bus and a tube eq, just to get some sound from the transformers. Relatively easy mix, nothing fancy. I try to keep the dynamic and transients for the mastering guy.

Have fun listening. Let me know what you think.

Wav: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gc6jcufwl3szr ... _.wav?dl=0
MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b4ym0dj9vu3dk ... _.mp3?dl=0

[Photonic]

Hi all,

Repaer v5.211

Again a very nice track from Rahel. Very well produced and recorded. It was fun to mix it!
I used only the DI tracks for the guitars. As amp sim I took the new BlueCat Free Amp. The three amps in this plugin named Classic Clean, Classic Drive and Modern Drive are perfect for the three different guitar tones in this track.
In the quiet part before the last chorus I missed something. So here is the only place where I tried some additional FX, which are not part ofthe original version. I used some stereo delay to give the guitar more ambient. And I used some automated delay to repeat some words, put to extrem left and right with some chorus FX. I think this emphasis the meaning of the lyrics.

MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9g42fqtbvelyf ... c.mp3?dl=1
WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hxpkl1dembq1m ... c.wav?dl=1

Mixed in Repaer v5.211

Drum-Bus: Presswer (Drum Compresor Mode), TDR VOS Slick EQ
Kick and Snare: ReaEQ, ReaComp
Toms: ReaGate and ReaEQ
HH and OH: ReaEQ
Room: ReaEQ and ReaComp
Bass DI: Bass Professor II
Git DI 1&2: Classic Chorus, BC FreeAmp (Classic Clean Mode), ReaEQ, NastyDLA
Git DI 3&4: BC FreeAmp (Classic Drive Mode), ReaEQ
Git DI 5&6: BC FreeAmp (Modern Drive Mode), ReaEQ
Vox: ReaEQ, Presswerk (Vocal Compressor Mode), Realdelay (a bit of slap delay for the chorus), TAL Reverb III (for the end), TDR NOva (De-esser)
Vox delay: ReaEQ, Presswerk (Vocal Compressor Mode), Realdelay, TDR NOva (De-esser)
Mix-Bus: MQ57, Presswerk (Bus Compressor Mode)
Reverb: Acon Digital Reverberate

[RichardClarke]

Really nice to be back here as a competitor and not the client!

I had a lot of fun mixing this track, the drums are fantastic to work with and its a really great song.

Here's the wav file link https://drive.google.com/open?id=1raMHz ... 16peviWc4w

For the documentation I made screenshots of DAW plugins and sends as I thought this might actually be better if people are actually interested in what I did. I have a bit of a template I use sometimes which I kind of half used here. You can probably figure out what mixing books I have been reading if you have read the same ones! Some channels are not in use which you can see from the routing/faders.

Documentation https://drive.google.com/open?id=17z_Ap ... HCx1qjS3S-

My aim was to go for a clean, tidy sound with a little ear candy but not deviate from the tracks style too much.

Thanks Rahel for another great track to work with it!

[Franz]

hello everyone,

very happy to be back again for this competition from a title from an excellent recording and that makes this work really exciting.
Instead of returning immediately in technical details on which I will come back later, I would like to make a comment rather musical.
The title is very well designed at its base, we must stay in the spirit of the title, so not to deviate too much from the style which
is quite complex since it starts in a rather jazzy atmosphere to end practically in a mood metal.
The real difficulty is to live the title by trying to retransmit "the message" while remaining consistent

So I focused especially on drums and bass (as I heard Fabreju say in his commentary). And there, the possibilities are more
than many but it allows each participant to put his own color.
On the technical side, it is necessary to closely follow the variations of the level of the voice while trying to find the right
balance "music / voice". Exercise more difficult than it seems ....
Apart from the drums, Eq and compression on the rest of the instruments, sparingly...

Let's hear that!

my mix is here : https://www.dropbox.com/s/3ovv8kqe6ypvd ... v.wav?dl=0

Cheers

Franz