MIX CHALLENGE - MC051 February 2019 - Winners announced

[bluesation]

Hi,

nice to have a rock song, that is not in englisch but French language.

Drums: Drums sounded ok so far. Just did a bit of equing and some compression, nothing special. A small room reverb for snare, toms and OH.
Guitars: I used all tracks amped and DI. I doubled the amped tracks for a bit of chorus and reverb. Every guitar got their own reverb. The DI tracks go through an amp sim, with the highs set down low, just for some stab ability. The bus was equed and a bus compression.
Bass: Two tracks, one equed and one set up for some saturation in the highs.
Vox: Just panning, no equing or compression on the tracks. The vox bus has a soft EQ and 1176 compression, nothing else.
Master bus: just a clipper to prevent going over 0 DB.

wav: Autour de toi
mp3: Autour de toi

[kevin gobin]

Hello everybody,
Thanks for that one David!

My first impression was "the mix is perfect already". It fits the song, the genre, there is no need to mix it unless the artist want another approach.

That's why I tried another stylistic, but I wanted to remain true to the source material, so there is no drastic change eventually, I just tried to find the best ratio between shit soup rock compression and lifeless pure sonics.


https://www.dropbox.com/s/pzes9ktkasl5s ... n.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5diqvupxpiknt ... n.wav?dl=0



Mixed ITB with Reaper:

I put a compressor (Acustica Ceil) on a bus just for bass and drums to glue them. The rest goes into another bus with another Ceil instance.
Both busses go thru Softube Sat Knob on the final 2BUS.

The guitars went thru a trident console and were compressed a bit. TSAR Reverb used on symmetric busses.

The bass: Softube FET, Fix doubler, eq and limiting.

Drums: EQ, CEIL compression, transient process, TSAR reverb, limiting, parallel compression (Major Tom).

Vocals: Eq, compression, limiting, Sat Knob, Softube tube delay, tape echo style sends, TSAR reverb.

[westcoast2]

Hi.

Here is my mix:
(can right click to save)
***mp3: http://www.infinite.force9.co.uk/MC51/M ... coast2.mp3
***wav: http://www.infinite.force9.co.uk/MC51/M ... coast2.wav

***My regular server (above) crashed here are alternatives:
(can right click to save)
mp3: http://dwghdesign.co.uk/MC/MC051_-_Davi ... coast2.mp3
wav: http://dwghdesign.co.uk/MC/MC051_-_Davi ... coast2.wav

Mixed in Reaper.
All plugins are Waves except compressor DC8C2 which is Klanghelm

Basic aim: Retain vocal character, even out the volume on the solo guitar and build the song to a crescendo towards the end.

Vocals:
All vocals have eq with hp filter @ 80mhz, vocal rider and are sent to a plate reverb.
Hi pitch Chorus Ad voc has additional Eq
Ad voc Ending was duplicated for panning automation.

Guitars:
Each Rtm Guitar had Eq' and individually Grouped (Di+Plain) with a Scheps Omni Channel Strip. These groups were then sent to a reverb.
The Solo Gtr had Eq, Compression and used a SSL G Channel before being sent to a Delay and reverb

Bass:
The Bass had eq 'plus the Scheps 73 using preamp.

Durums:
Overall drum buss had an NLS Buss sent to reverb.
The Kick and snare had Eq and Compression (Klanghelm DC8C2)
Toms had individual Eq and were then grouped with a Scheps Omni Channel.
The OH had Eq and compression (API-2500)
HH, Mono Room and Drums bleeding just had Eq.

Automation:
Vocals used Vocal Rider with manual tweaks for volume automation
Ad voc Ending duplicated for panning automation.
Guitars had manual volume automation.

west2

edited to provide alternative links due to a server crash.

[stansom]

Hello boys and girls!

Here is my mix :

WAV
MP3

Drums : EQuing of most of the drum tracks, compressed it in the NYC style compression, some additional ambiance and reverb send tracks for snare and room mics. Distortion in a send.

Bass : In this case, I made three copies of the original bass track and made different processing on each of them. First is for the upper mid - high frequencies, second for the mid frequencies and third for the lows. I tried to achieve a balance between these three tracks for a nice sound. EQuing, compression, and distortion of course.

Guitars : I made a reamping from the DI tracks and slightly mix it with the original ones. Originals have Decapitator, Eq, and a little bit of compression.

Vocals : Not too much limiting and compression on the three serial instances. Some EQing, Decapitator, Halls, Delays on this. Backs are slightly detuned and panned hard left and right. At the end of the song additional vocal runs thru a guitar combo emulation for nice and interesting effect.

Automation : on most of the tracks, from the bass to the vocals. Volume, pan, amount of distortion and other stuff are automated until the song goes.

MixBus : Little bit of clipping and limiting.

Cheers!

[GGermaine]

This was FUN!
Nice gritty punk rock. Love it!

MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ix6Uv ... zXZ4uTUQyV
WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Ib6vW ... rQEdDM4_z1

Didn't really mess with it too much. Just tried to keep it raw and punchy without too much verb or effects.
Heres my list:

DRUMS:
KICK: I lo passed on the kick out, and hi passed the kick in, as I didn't want any duplicating of frequencies. Just basic eq and comp from there. I put Fabfilter Saturn on kick in to give it some tube grit.
SNARE, TOMS, HATS, OH : Just your basic EQ and Comp.
MONO ROOM: threw on StThick plugin to give the mono signal some width.
Drums Bleed: Used very little of it.
DRUM BUS: More Fabfilter Saturn to punch it up

BASS:
Split into 3 tracks: LO, Mid, and Hi and carved out each to mix.
Bass Bus: Used Softube Bass Amp room to add some natural speaker vibe and mixed in about 40% in with 60% DI.

GUITARS:
Alot of work on these w/DI signal to reamp and eq to differentiate them.
Switched the phase on #2 DI and auto panned.
LEAD GUITAR: Used Phaser and autopan to give this a little character and push it out in front of the wash of other guitars.
GUITAR BUS: Used Waves NLS bus to add some saturation.

Vocals:
Lead Vox: besides the usual comp and eq, I used just a little aphex exciter, and a touch of izotope vocal doubler to give it some width as well as some delay.
Hi Vox: added chorus effect, some tight verb and vocal doubler to widen it.

MIX BUS:
Just SSL comp, Tape saturation and slight eq.

Here is pics of mixer settings:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hJJg6 ... FC0x2tifmm
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1fPJca ... ypBbJlB6aw

[iMax]

Hi,

Thank you for making this available for mixing. I have to say, this is not usually my type of genre, but the song was a joy to listen to, well done!

Here is my version of it:

WAV
MP3

Drums: I mostly used the SSL E-Channel from Waves on the Drums (compression, EQ) to get them into shape. I also added Airwindows' FathomFive on the Kick and a tiny amount of distortion on the Snare top and on the hihat. I also used TDR Nova to the overheads to get rid of some harshness there. There is also a parallel compression track for the drums to add some punch.

Bass: I used TDR Nova to get rid of some disturbing frequencies and then added Airwindows' CStrip and Waves MaxxBass to tune to taste.

Guitars: I tried panning the guitars fully to each side first, but did not like the way it sounded and went for a more gente panning. I did not use the DI tracks and used CStrip and a bit of the Airwindows GuitarConditioner

VOX: I used the Scheps Omnichannel there the main processing and added Overloud's EQ550 for the final touches and a bit of volume automation.

I also added a bit a reverb to the drums, guitars and voice.

I finally used the Wave V-Comp for bus compression, TDR SlickEQ, Airwindows ToTape5 and Channel 6 for a bit of coloring.

[ryanc]

Here is my Mix:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i2il6cl669phh ... n.wav?dl=0

Mixed in Studio One.

I felt like for this mix, in order to keep the grungy, dirty feel, not too much clean up was necessary, but I did eq out a few resonances and some buildup with the guitars in the mud area around 250 hz. Also added a few compressors to the guitars and vocals to bring them out. I added a chorus plugin on one of the outro guitars and had some fun with panning. Then I added a few simple reverb plugins to create depth between the drums, guitars and vocals. Finally, I automated some delays on the vocals to keep it interesting.

Thanks for listening and good luck to everybody!!

[VasDim]

Hi all,
this is my attempt to mix:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kim09fw33fc5z ... m.mp3?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/26l80k9w5cut9 ... m.wav?dl=0

For all track are used:
- Waves Q10;
- Waves C4;
- Db ProComp.

AUX Effect;
- Waves TrueVerb;
- Waves SuperTap;

Good luck to all.
VasDim

[Olli H]

Pleasure and easy to mix. Sounded quite ready just by pushing up faders.

My main inspiration for this mix was Doctor Feelgood. For the same reason I didn’t do any special mixing tricks just basic compression-eq-reverb stuff. Just for balance checking I also listened Green Day and Foo Fighters. But Doctor Feelgood was the one who dominated artistically.

DRUMS
parallel compression and parallel distortion to kick and snare

BASS
parallel compression and parallel distortion and chorus effect

GUITARS
parallel distortion and pitch shift effect

VOX
parallel compression and parallel distortion and Sun style delay

MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ssxXB ... 5jz3JkWust
WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1usM6a ... MfsXmL8TYV

[Nightmare]

Hello Folks,

first things first. A big thank you to Mister Fox making this possible at all!
Likewise to David Talbot and Delucq for providing this nice Song.
Had quite a lot fun mixing it, I really like the rhythm guitar sound. Top quality!

It is my first submission ever, so here we go.

I mix in REAPER and mainly use Waves and FabFilter plugins.
I aimed for a fat punchy rock sound like David wanted it to be but payed attention to preserve clarity and don't going too "wet".

Drums
Nothing super special on Kick and Snare mics. "Kick in" and "Kick out" are summed to a bus. I cleand some 80hz on "kick in" to prevent clash with the bass and emphasized some 60hz on "kick out". The kick bus is sidechained to a dynamic eq on the bass guitar and ducks 60hz and 100hz to let the 'oomph' and punch through just a bit.
Snare mics are also routed to a bus on that I used Scheps Omni Channel for some tweaking. A little bit saturation, some noise gate to controll the 'sizzle' and I used a de-esser to controll some harsh frequencies around 3.7Khz. After that it is parallel compressed (just 30% wet mixed) to give it more attack and punch.
Some eq shaping on the toms and compression to make them more even among themeselves.
Overheads got another instance of Omni Channel for some saturation and a top end boost. I used a FabFilter eq to filter some nasty resonnances on 4Khz - 8Khz.
I treated the "drum bleed" like a room this and the room mic are compressed hard with CLA- 76 for a huge punchy sound.
I created an aux channel I send all close mics to. on this is a realy short reverb. often I use a 'slap reverb' or a 'tiled room' and tweak it for taste. Mixed underneath the drums it can give a nice spaceious sound and make it big without harming the 'in your face' punch.#
The drum bus got some sll bus compressor making the drums a little bit 'breathing' in time with the song.

Bass
My main bass sound is the DI track. I controlled some boominess around 120hz with dynamic eq. For more balanced volume I splitted the track in segments and balanced their input volume. This also helps to hit the compressor more evenly afterwards to create a solid sound. I createt an 'Re-amp' track and copied the DI on it this goes into an fx-chain where I created an heavily distorted bass amp with guitar rig. This is Hi-passed to only get the high sizzly sound and mixed in to taste for some definition in the bass tone.
Both tracks are summed on a bus got there some rBass and compression to work nicely with the kick and the dynamic eq i mentioned earlier.

Vocals
Didn't went to crazy with the Vocals. I wanted them to be focussed and upfront.
Again to controll volume I splitted the tracks and manulally adjusted their inputgain to even things out before i reach for compression.
Lead vocals go into Omni Channel (my new workhorse I guess haha) some de-essing and controlling of 'mud' around 200hz, eq and compression to bring them upfront but play well with the instruments.
Since the 'Chorus Ad Voc' 1 and 2 are identical I used them for widening with micro pitch technique. I also got a little bit creativ on them and gave them a 'telephone voice' sound to bring out some character.
Nothing special on the high background vocal, just some eq to blend with the rest.
the 'Ad Voc ending' is processed like the Leadvocal and takes over this role at the end.
The different vocals have sends to fx-chains for dealy and reverb.

Guitars
I used the recorded amp tracks straight away since I thought they're really well made and sound pretty nice.
I eq them with V-EQ for tone sculpting and fitting and controll some peaky resonances around 4Khz with dynamic eq.
Panned hard left and right to create a wide guitar wall. They also go to a reverb each which are panned to the opposit site of the panned guitar. the reverbs are mixed in quietly. this enhances the stereo positioning further and 'glues' them a little bit together even though they're hard panned.
the third rhythm guitar 'hi gain' which comes in at the end is panned dead center and got some slight volume automation.
The solo guitar was quite tricky to mix. I was more trying to clean it up in first place than mixing it to be honest. But I tried my best.
Did a tiny little bit of pitch correction on parts that I thought would be off too much but tried to preserve the 'dirty' feel of it.
Lots of resonance filtering and some noise gate to get the printed fx under controll.
I cutted a lot of the highs that sounded clipped and tried to get back some highs afterwards with an exciter, just a touch. createt one delay and a reverb for the solo to smooth it out.
On the guitar bus I got some tape saturation, an optical compresser and a dynamic eq that is triggered by the vocals ducking away 2Khz-4Khz only on the mid signal of the guitars to allow the vocals to cut through on guitar heavy parts.

Mix Bus
Just some light overral processing.
An API 560 graphical eq for tone balanceing and a ssl bus compressor to bring everything together are the main parts here.
Otherwise there is a Kramer Master Tape plugin and an FabFilter eq just to cut super lows and super highs.
One FabFilter compressor with the only purpose to catch sudden nasty peaks but otherwise don't touching the audio material.


Questions and constructive criticism are always welcome!

Files
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WAV 48Khz 32bit