MIX CHALLENGE - MC049 November 2018 - Winners announced

[kubaferenc]

Hello everyone, great song and great opportunity, I'd like to thank everyone involved in making this challenge happen.


Here's my submission:

mp3
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1p9CcY ... h3IvFE2gXJ

wav
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Ivn2r ... rZ6ww6UUat

I mixed in Cubase 9,5 pro, mostly stock plugins,two well known freebies used - Klanghelm IVGI 2 and TDR Kotelnikov.


My mixing process in short:

All tracks slightly saturated with Cubase's channel strip tape saturation, then eq'ed, compressed again with channel strip modules. Kick drum mics, and snare mics grouped, than with room mic, overheads and hi hat routed into drum stem group track. Some paralell compression on kick and snare, room mic gently gated (kick drum used as sidechain input). Drum group slightly compressed with vintage compressor, mix knob at 50%.


Guitars reamped with Amp Rack, my intention was to give them a little more dirt. Some eq cuts, and boosts, gentle compression. Routed into Guitar Stem bus.


Bass compressed, eq'ed, and mixed with additional paralell overdrive fx channell, multiband compression used to even up the sound. Routed into Bass Stem bus.


Vocal track eq'ed, compressed with standard and tube compressors, de essed, routed into Vocal Stem bus.


Guitar tracks, vocal track, and drum room mic track were snet to another FX - Revelation reverb, chamber type, some eq and saturation (IVGI2). All stem buses (Drum, Bass, Guitars, Vocal ) used IVGI2 as console style saturation effect.


Master bus processing: tube compressor with slow attack and medium fast release, no drive aded, mix knob at 60%, Magneto 2 for tape saturation, two instances of TDR Kotelnikov for mid and side gentle peak compression, maximizer and brickwall limiter as last dynamic processors, UV22 dither plugin to complete the chain.


Hope you like my interpretation, feel free to let me know what you think Good luck all.

[Henrik Hjortnaes]

A huge thank you goes to Black Rooster Audio for being with us from December 2017 until October 2018.

I agree. Absolutely amazing of André to offer the COMPLETE bundle as prize!

[Mister Fox]

ANNOUNCEMENT:


To all participants that upload their edit to SoundCloud (as bonus, or solely), please be aware of the following:

• those that solely upload to SoundCloud, keep note of the Rules and Guidelines, your production must be downloadable as WAV
• if you upload to SoundCloud, you must give full credit to the songwriter in the following form:
  • Song produced by Taylan Özdemir (Band: Moe Joe, 2008)
  • Song Name: I'm Alright
  • The rights of this song remain with Sarp Keskiner
  • These files are only allowed to be used as part of the Mix Challenge 049, https://mix-challenge.com
• your upload to SoundCloud must not imply that you created this production, mentioning that you mixed it is fine
• the Song Provider asks all participants to remove the production off of Soundcloud after the game has ended (December 2018), he did and does not agree to any other distribution/presentation other than via the Mix Challenge community

Failing to adhere to this, will result in a disqualification


Since there are new copyright laws on the horizon in Europe, the rules will be stricter regarding SoundCloud (for the mix(ing) challenges) starting with Mix Challenge 50. I am sorry for any inconvenience this is causing.

[eladnaimi]

Hello

That was fun
Here are my files, Hope you'll like it

Wave: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dtnc5i5nqmlyu ... i.wav?dl=0
Documantation: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2fy6l1scabmoc ... n.zip?dl=0

Thanks.

[FixInTheMix]

As everyone else already mentioned the raw tracks sound amazing by themselves, It was very fun to work such well recorded material.
I recently got some new headphones so this is good practice to getting to know how the work, most of the mixing was done in headphones although still going back between them and my speakers.

here it is:

WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MtKHB ... 6c1FAKzGFb

MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1fAmTh ... QBD7Yt1j12

Drums:
filtered the high end on kick 1 and boosted around 3Khz on kick2 to control the attack, scooped a lot of mids (500hz to 1000hz) on snare top since there where very prominent resonances, also boosted the body of the snare (around 200hz),then blended the high pass filtered bottom mic with saturation to add a little bit of brightness.
the OH channels where kind of mess to eq but basically a similar mid scoop as the snare mic and some mild compression.
For the room mic (the most interesting part of the drum sound imo) I high passed at around 170hz and boosted righ above that to add even more body to the general sound, then added a low pass at 10Khz with a gentle slope to enhance even more the apparent distance of the drums and then added pretty aggresive tape saturation with some added low pass filtering to get a very dark sounding room.
Didn´t used any reverb for the drums since I thought the room mic was more than enough. Finally added soft clipping to the drum bus to control the highest peaks.

vocals:
Used klanghelms MJUCjr compressor with auto attack and release, then a de-esser, added pretty strong saturation with Klanghelm´s IVGI and finally -3dB attenuation at 1Khz with broad bandwidth.
For effects I used a fairly short reverb with a fast decay (1s), a little bit of high frequencies dampening and with narrow stereo width to get a "large closet" kind of space, in parallel with that I used a slapback delay (50ms) with high feedback to emulate a spring kind of reverb.

bass:
I started with eq, adding a hp filter at 44hz to clean up the very low frequencies and boosting the higher low frequencies (200hz) area, then cutting around 8dB at 500hz to reduce the "honkiness" or annoying resonant frequencies (although they weren´t that noticeable in this case it still helps to get a more defined sound imo) and finally low passing at around 3Khz.

Guitars
I wanted to try something a little bit different here so after eq and compression (attenuation at 500hz and boost between 1Khz and 2Khz + parallel compression with ott) and panned the tracks using a binaural plugin that uses actual convolution IR from an anechoic chamber, this gives the advantage of a more realistic spatialization at the cost of loosing the ability to automate the position and some phase issues when converting to mono. but since there´s only 2 tracks with very well defined roles I decided to try this.
maybe a silly idea but works as an excuse to try this out, I didn´t go for a very extreme position since I wanted to keep the guitars fairly close to the center. The eq and compression settings were the same for both tracks except for an added -9dB high shelf filter on the second guitar at 3Khz to make the solo guitar brighter by contrast.
I also made other unorthodox decisions like adding overdrive to the first guitar during the solo, I know adding distortion to an already amped guitar is strange but I think the solo needed an extra push and a more aggresive tone, I blended the dry and wet signal by 50/50 to make it a little bit more subtle. Also during the solo I added a 1/8 delay send for the second guitar that was automated to avoid some off-time notes, this was also very risky since the track was recorded without a click but I think that for the most part it works fine, I wanted to make the rhythm guitar feel a little bit less empty.
Both guitar tracks used a reverb send with very long decay, high damping, 37ms of pre-delay, low cut a 130hz and high cut at 6Khz.
Lastly added a limiter to catch the highest peaks.

[leoenne]

Hi Everyone!
This is my first mix challenge, happy to be here!

Here is my WAV Mix + screenshots: https://drive.google.com/open?id=11d4Bx ... ExkMFyRrSV
WAV:https://drive.google.com/open?id=14Wkw0 ... 8GP0xixo5O
MP4: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1oksoV ... 0_3Z1Iuq6E

For this mix, I ultimately decide to stick to my normal approach, as if I were mixing more modern music. This was both as a test to see if my template was efficient also for different genres, and also to see how modern mixing can damage such type of recordings, and how far one can push it. I personally don't like very present reverbs, and I followed this belief in this mix too, I went for a clear, bouncy feel, with detailed transients and groove.

Kick and Snare: Added some low and top end with Pultec, gentle compression for control, Neve EQ boosts for presence and slightly transient enhancing to top it all off. I carved the HH, OH, and Room to leave space for the rest of the song.

Bass: I split the bass into Low and Hi, to be able to use different types of distortion (always provided by Saturn) while maintaining its roundness. They both are summed in a bus, with a slight 60Hz Pultec shelf and a drastic high shelf from 1kHz and above. This gives me a very present bass that does not clash with the guitars.

Guitars: I liked the guitars, but I wanted a bit more bite. I got that with a few GEM EQ550 boosts, both shelves and peaks, and a slight tube distortion on the GT bus. As send effects I used a spring reverb, with everything below 400Hz cut off, and an ADT (Pitch Modulation), to give a bit of space.

Voice: The voice is the elements I treated the most. I find it was a bit honky, so I had two steep cuts at around 700 and 1,5k of about 8 dB each, plus a wider q cut to smoothen it. After that, I compressed it and subsequentially expanded it (with brings the beginning of a phrase out beautifully), then added an SSL air boost and some saturation to get some presence back. However, the majority of the vocal sound is given by the effects:
A very shot plate (less than 750 ms), another ADT (this is less spreading, more flangy than the guitar one), a multi-tap reversed delay, that fills some gaps, a 1/8 ping pong delay to make it feel right with the guitars, and a very short ambiance (also around 0.4s) to glue it all together.

The final taste is given on the mix bus, which is a combination of EQ and saturation: a side low cut under 120 Hz to clean the stereo image, an API2500 tapping 1-2 dB and grooving it all together, a VMR console emulation driven about 4 dB in, a low and high Pultec shelves, and a VTM for the final touch of saturation.

A final, important effect, is a very low volume hall (3s) on drums, guitars, and vocals, to give back some of that single room feel that got lost in the processing.

The total work time was about 3.5h.

This is how I put my own spin to it, and I look forward to any type of comment and critique!
Thanks for organizing!

Leonardo

[makeART]

A warm hello to everyone from my side as well.
After a long time i got back into mixing again and so here's my entry for this awesome challenge.

First of all, thanks to everyone for making this possible.
Also a big THANKYOU to the recording studio and the artist!

So heres the mix:
mp3:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rF-PZ ... oOJaC-5w_K

WAV:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1IApy- ... Jz4Q2mkiRi


Few words on my approach:
tried to keep it simple, so no experimental thing / reamping / Amp-Simulations...

Slate DIgital Tape and Console collection on all tracks for a uniform saturation.

Filtering on all tracks + slight EQ work here & there (source material was awesome so it didn't need to much work)

Bit of compression on kick & snare for shaping.
Heavy parallel drumbuss compression

Bass got parallel distortion for more presence.

Bit more filtering on the guitars + Plate Reverb via my Roland SRV330.

Vocals got compression with my ART VLA II + Filtering & EQ
Short spring type verb + medium hall verb.

Pultec Style EQ + light compression (1-2dB) on Masterbuss + Slate VTM

Mixing done in Cubase 10 with mostly Softube Console1 (SSL4000 / Summit Audio Channel / TubeTech) + few Slate Digital Plugins.

Hope you guys dig it.
HAve a gret one

[Sandro]

Hi there,
I have to thank the song provider Ergin Özler / Moe Joe for this fantastic song. Before I was not a bluesman, but now I am!
I did about 15 versions of the mix, still not shure if I got the right vibe. I did my best an hope you´ll like it a bit:

WAV
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dhy2ikrs9bs85 ... o.wav?dl=0

MP3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5he5911fxbxzv ... o.mp3?dl=0

For me the biggest Challenge was to find the right position for the guitars. So that they not mask eachother to much. First I tried it frequency wise, but because of the dominating mids with the blues I had no good results. So I decided to pan them left an right about 75% and tried to get the effects (slap and a bit room) to the other sides.
I found also difficult to put them all together in one room, without sounding to far away. I tried to fix this with small rooms on the vocals, guitars and the room-mic. I hope it is not to much.

Used Plugins: SSl E-Channel, 1176, LA2A, J37 Tape, API 560, API 2500, PuigChild 670, VEQ4, Q2, Q6, F6 RTA, NLS Channel, NLS Buss, Maag EQ2, RVox, RDeesser, VocalRider, C1 gate, GTR Amp, H-Delay, H-Reverb

On the Masterbuss is a SSL G-Materbuss Compressor with 2-3db gainreduction and a VEQ4 Equalizer.

Yours faithfully,
Sandro

[marc clement]

Hi
This was fun to do , thanks for uploading.....Lots of great mixes

KICK- TG12345 para comp boost high and low. Neve 73 for high pass
SNARE - Removed resonance , high and low pass filter 100hz shelf boost and 5k boost Tg 123345 para comp
OVHDS - TG12345 comp and cut lows. Narrow to almost mono
ROOM - slight high shelf boost at 500hz

DRUM
BUSS- TG12345 para comp m/s. Gain for some distortion
Abbey Rd chamber
Overheads and room are sent to a room reverb . Snareand, Ovhds are sent to distortion buss .
All drums tracks going to para comp buss




BASS- High and low pass, comp, puiltec eq boost, more compression, some swearing,,,,MV2 , Limiter
and para distortion buss and Rear buss



GUITARS- MV2, Neve 73 for HP , removed resonance Hard panned LR

Guitar grp - TG12345 duo mode , para comp ,boost high . reduced width back in, I like the way it does it, seems to leak L-R
Sent to room verb and Rear buss


VOCAL - Neve 73 on mic input High pass and then RBass by mistake and I liked it....
.Puiltec for more chest voice on such a ridiculous setting I`m to embarrased to write it down......
Boost dial at 7 at 100hz Att at 6ish Tg123245 para comp, Abbey rd chamber
de -ess , dynamic eq to crontrol the bite.....Sent Rear bus

Stereo buss

SSl comp knocking 3 dbs , Puiltec high and low boost, API comp, not doing any compression but it does something good
to the stereo image (Bob Horn)
Tape emulation......Processing is mixed into ,not applied after.

No make up gain is used on the stereo buss.

MP3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/17j8tIq ... sp=sharing

WAV https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fHg7p8 ... sp=sharing

Thanks

Marc Clement

[AnalogDomain]

Thanks to the artist for sharing the tracks, and also to the MC community.
This is my first submission so I hope I have everything in the correct format. My mix is just below -16LUFS if I am reading my meter correctly.

I do a stem processing as part of my mix routine, but restricted some of the limiting I would normally do on the mix bus.
MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AXXrB ... imie23l-g-
WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1D2SFc ... BFTb-Bjenn

Drums: I left the impact of the kick and snare pass thru mostly. the OVH and room was eqed to augment the kick and snare, with both receiving some compression for consistency.

Guitars: used complementary eq and panning for separation. spring reverb. Soft clipping to remove the spikes.

Vocals: eqed out some of the honk then compressed and then added some lows back in. lively darkish reverb.

Bass added some bite with saturation and then limited the low range and compressed to keep consistent
All comments appreciated.