MIX CHALLENGE - MC053 April 2019 - Winners announced

[cmbsa]

Hello, here's my mix:

wav: https://www.dropbox.com/s/72pgr8x4e7nci ... B.wav?dl=0
mp3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/j1zyq84grrb5b ... B.mp3?dl=0

Thanks for the opportunity, looking forward to hearing the other mixes!
Carlos

[paperthin]

Hello, fellow mixers. Here's my entry for this month's contest:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kavpq7uvyog25 ... n.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/umkel4aingz05 ... n.wav?dl=0

Here's my process:
I mixed the two drum kits together, the SSD being most prominent. The drum room was simulated with the use of reverb and compression (tight room, 1176) and mixed in to various amounts throughout the song.

For the bass I combined the DI signal with a re-amped version – I used Bias Amp 2 and pushed one of the bass presets pretty hard (the presets' names are ambiguous but I think it's an Ampeg).

For guitars I also used Bias Amp 2 and one of its heavy metal Peavey sims. There was also a smooth overdrive pedal in front like you would do in real life. I panned the rhythm guitars hard to the sides, bussed them together and used a multiband compressor to push the low mids a little by the verse vocals (yes, side-chain).
The fill guitar is in the middle with noises cut out by hand. I used the Waves Doubler to make it wider and leave room for the singer.

I comped the vocals in a way to try and make the song develop a little bit. The soft vocals are used in the first verse, followed by the main vocals later. The low ones are fetured a little in the second verse, and harmonies come in for a couple of phrases in choruses. All the shouts are used in the second verse. I panned them across the stereo field, added saturation and a reversed reverb as an effect.
I also made a few FX tracks. They are mostly delay throws, but one of them uses a stock Logic tremolo plugin.

Most channels have a Pro-Q2 and saturation of one kind or another. It is all samples and DIs after all.

On the mix bus I used an SSL compressor and Waves NLS-buss in Neve mode for warmth with the Drive knob automated depending on the part of the song.

This is my first entry, let's see how it goes. All the best to the author of the song and all the contest participants!

[Jerze]

Hello all,
Thanks for providing the tracks fun one to mix. I struggled with few things and still wasn’t happy, but it’s time to move on. I listened to the mix provided and tried to build from there. The last thing and not that it matters I mix using Reaper.


Mp3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wjx86mzif2e9d ... e.mp3?dl=0

Wav: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lfg81tc436tzm ... e.wav?dl=0

Track Plugin:

Drums- Scheps omni Channel, Fab Pro 3 EQ, ReaEQ, E-channel waves

GT-RE-Amp sounds Tse audio, Nick Crow amp, ignite amp Catharsis impulse

Bass-, Dub Track add Decapitator, ReaEQ high pass

Vocals-ReaEQ on a few tracks

All individual tracks went to their own buss

The drums had a eq and the ssl bus compressor. I added a fake drum room track using the OH track also a send from the snare and kic.

The GT had A api 550b, vibe eq Stillwell and slickEQ TDR for tone shaping and a limiter also added a parallel track with api 2500, vibe EQ and sp2016 reverb

The bass Amplitube3 svt patch, RBass, Cla 1176, tdr nova to tighten the low end up ReaEQ add some mids Limiter also add a parallel track with a Api 2500

The vocals REaEQ to cut some freq then into gain reduction, cla2a, cmx schwa to add some pitch shift and delay some more lite compressing and REacomp for some de-essing.

After that to my all drums, vocal and music Busses for some saturation and lite compressing. The last track is my pre master track that I have Waves ssl bus compressor moving a little.

If you have any questions or thoughts on what needs improving let me know.

Thanks Jerze

[kevin gobin]

Hello,

Nice to have such a great rock multitrack to practice, I really appreciate, thanks Morelia and Mr Fox.


I did nothing special on the individual tracks: just eq and compression, a bit of delays for the guitar solo and reverb for the vocals, that's all the kind of process involved. I chose not to use every track. Automation too.

The trick for me was to use a 2BUS sharing multiband compression, eq and wideband compression.

Good luck everybody!


https://www.dropbox.com/s/rrxnypv0s8m6y ... n.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/j0mghivhvzh2j ... n.wav?dl=0

[twranks]

Hey everyone, I'm really new here and this is the link to my mix for the the track. Had fun working on it and learnt a few new things while doing so too. I tried to stay within the rules as much as possible. Some of the terms were a bit difficult to understand, but thank God for google lol. I see everyone is breaking down what they did on their track, so I'll do the same. I used pretty basic fl studio effects cos I have a small setup.

Kick Drums: Parametric EQ with a low-end preset
Snare drums: Reverb, Parametric EQ with a snare drum preset, separate panning for both snares
Guitar intros: Blood overdrive and panning
L/R Guitar: Blood overdrive and panning
Hi hats: Filter with retro effect
Guitar solo: Blood overdrive, EQ with high end
Vocals: Pitch correction, compression, EQ, Delay Reverb

I didn't add any extra sounds because I get the feeling they aren't allowed for this competition. I had to calibrate my ears a bit though, cos heavy metal is not what I'm used to, but I think it came out alright lol. Let me know what you think

WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/v8vzujftgraiu ... s.wav?dl=0

MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ralnn5lyi0mv3 ... s.mp3?dl=0

[JulienMeirone]

Hello everyone ,

I am new here and thanks you for creating such a fun contest. Here my mix for the contest :

MP3 : https://www.dropbox.com/s/b36xiratlr673 ... e.mp3?dl=0
WAV : https://www.dropbox.com/s/k4uk87gzyeh4a ... e.wav?dl=0

Just used my regular template with a bunch of parallel processing, automations and a lot of fabfilter q3. No limiting at all on my mix bus just a small compression with the slate red and the ozone vintage EQ.

Screenshots :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ca8xrgpqhqf2r ... 1.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qnuduwdaemda1 ... y.png?dl=0

Hope, you will enjoy it

[theparadoxIcles]

I have various things on my master and select mixing channels which is why I might have mastered while mixing, oops... Anyway hope you enjoy the track . It sounds very different than the original which is what excites me; and I tried make the kick and snare the main focus throughout the mix with an interesting reverb choice on the vocal. Hope you have the time to check it out, I uploaded to a cloud storage called "MEGA" heres the link (or visit mega.nz to check out the site before downloading if you wish):

WAV: https://mega.nz/#!OQVDFIgQ!ei85ouxtdRCz ... i3tdYcKIxw

[anto]

Hi All,
Thanks to morelia for the song and to Mister Fox for running the competition.

Here is my submission:
WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MYk5 ... Vz93zY1ASn
MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1g47h ... VZStSHTh_0

Mix notes: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_cR7Q ... vMb3dgbSlR

I tried to go for an aggressive guitar sound and mix this like more conventional hard rock. I used the SSD drums and ditched the other set.
I didn't feature much of the backing vocals but instead beefed up the lead vocal with compression, auto-tune, subtle distortion and short delays.
I probably spent a fair amount of time on the lead vocal getting it to sound gritty and aggressive enough for the song.

Whenever I've used compression, I've tried to keep it really light (around a ratio of 2:1 with around 1-2 dB of gain reduction), usually parallel compression and used multiple stages of compression if more compression was required. I typically use the TDR Kotelnikov GE compressor (it's extremely nice!) but also the UAD dbx160, 1176AE and usually turn on the compressor on the UAD SSL 4000 E or bx SSL 4000 G channel strips.

Nothing really fancy with the EQ used either but generally tried to remove mud with HPF and rolled off some highs with shelves where I needed to push things back into the mix. I used short reverbs too (Seventh Heaven Pro) more for ambience.

The most adventurous thing I did was to take chunks of the intro and scatter them around as ear-candy after the choruses.

A list of the plugins I've used, panning and sends is provided in the mix notes. If anyone would like more detail, please let me know.
Cheers,
Anto

[Dwic]

Here's my submission:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1w8iFz ... fHif445QXE


Really good song, all about the riff and the attitude. Here's the tools I used:

Kick - SSD bx_subfilter, Scheps Omni, Fabfilter Pro-C. SD Fabfilter Saturn, Pro-C. SLAX on the group.

Snare - SSD Scheps. SD Roughrider. Transpire, Pro-L, Pro-Q on the group.

Highhat - SSD Pro-Q. SD Pro-Q.

SD Tom - Roughrider.

Overheads - Scheps.

Ambience - Roughrider, Pro-Q, bx_solo

Drum rev - Abbey Road Chambers, Pro-Q, Ozone Imager

Bass - Bass Rider, Scheps, ADHD Leveling tool

Guitars - Roth-AIR, TDR Nova, Aphex Exciter on group. L intro Pro-Q, FuzzPlus3, SSL Channel. R intro Saturn, SSL. Fills Cypress TT-15. Guitar L Pro-Q, JCM800 Preamp, Mercurial Cab, Transpire. Guitar L also got a parallel channel with Pro-Q, FuzzPlus3, SSL. Guitar R was treated similarlly and all four channels got bussed to ann SSL Channel, Pro-C. Fills VHL-3C, JCM800, Pro-Q. Guitar solo Pro-Q, GreedSmasher, LeXtac, Pro-C, Ozone Imager, Aphex, Little Plate. Guitar solo was also paralleled with Pro-Q, VPRE-73, Pro-C, GreedSmasher, Saturn, Leveling Tool, Little Plate.

Vox - Roth-AIR, Vocal Rider (sidechained to all instruments but vox), DubStation, Leveling Tool on group. All chorus vox got ReaTune, Pro-DS, Scheps into a subgroup with SSL and Pro-DS. All verse vox got ReaTune (except the shout) going into a sub with Timeless2, Leveling tool.

Sends - Abbey Road Chambers. Timeless2 slap. Aphex Exciter.


Thanks for the opportunity,
Devin Wickens

[gambler]

Hi everyone,
this is a cool song and I had a lot of fun (and headache) during mixing.

Vocals are a challenge.

I used all source tracks.

Tracks in group Gtr.: Guitar Fills Intro, Guitar L Intro, Guitar R Intro and all other guitars...
EQ: HP 92Hz, 234Hz Notch -1.4dB, 3.5kHz Bell +2.4dB, 10kHz Shelf +2.1dB, LP 18.6kHz
Compression: Tr. -35dB, Att. 30ms, Makup gain 2.1dB
Track Guitar L Intro: effect with guitar rig (native instruments), setup: Chorus Rammfire.
Delay and reverb are applied.

Bass.
EQ: 82Hz +4.5dB, Q=1.15; 70Hz -4.6dB, Q=12; 470Hz -3.6dB, Q=3.4; 715Hz +1.5dB, Q=3.7; no comp.

SD Kick, SSD Kick and SD Tom tracks are in the group.
EQ: HP on 38Hz, 58Hz Bell +0.2dB; 492Hz Notch -6.5dB; 3.2kHz Notch -0.3dB
Compression: Tr.-25dB, Att. 1ms, Makup gain +4.1dB
SD Tom dynamic EQ: 104Hz Notch -4.4dB, Q=6.9; 250Hz Notch -5.1dB, Q=4.5

SD Ambience, SD Sn, SSD Sn tracks are in the group.
EQ: HP on 124Hz, 509Hz Bell -2.4dB, 2.5kHz Bell +4.6dB, LP 15.5kHz
Compression: Tr. -31.7dB, Att. 11ms, Makup gain +1.1dB
Reverb and chorus are applied.

SD Hh, SD OH, SSD Hh are in the group.
EQ: HP 59Hz, 201Hz Bell -2.2dB, 520Hz Bell -4.4dB, 5.5kHz Shelf +10.5dB
Compression: Tr. -38dB, Att. 4.7ms, Makup gain +0.7dB
Sends to reverb bus

All Vox Verse* tracks are in the group.
EQ: HP 56Hz, 253Hz Notch -1.4dB, 496Hz Notch -2.5dB, 3.8kHz Shelf +2.9dB
Compression: Tr. -27.2dB, Att. 23ms, Makup gain 2.4dB

All Vox Chorus* tracks are in the group.
Dynamic EQ: De-Esser @7.9kHz Notch -31dB Q=3.98, HP 199Hz, 495Hz Notch -9.7dB Q=12, 4.4kHz Bell +4.9dB Q=0.7
Static EQ: 253Hz Notch -1.4dB, 496hZ Notch -2.5dB, 3.8kHz Shelf +1.7dB, Tilt filter @650Hz +2.5dB
Compression: Tr. -27.2dB, Att. 23ms, Makup gain 2.3dB

Vox Verse* and Vox Chorus* tracks are routed to vox bus (reverb and distortion).

And finally, the master bus.
EQ: HP 38Hz, 166Hz Bell +1dB, 3.9kHz Bell +4.3dB, 1077Hz Notch -3.7dB, LP 15.5kHz.
Compression: Tr. -31.dB, Att. 18ms, Makup gain 2.2dB

No limiting, mastering.

My reference track: Enter Sandman (Metallica)

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