MIX CHALLENGE - MC054 May 2019 - Winners announced

[Blang]

Hey guys,

Here is my mix and some notes about my process. Hope you dig it!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pedw6D ... sp=sharing

Because the lyrics of this song are funny and the groove is also light/happy, I wanted to add some character/coolness. So that is doesn’t become a satire or cabaret. I went for a modern Motown sound you could say (those horns!).

That means spring reverb on guitar and horns and tiny bit on vocal: AIR Spring for darkness mixed with Waves GTR stomp spring for the ‘splash’.

Soundtoys Decapitor and Waves J37 tape sim (7.5 IPS for guitar and wurli, 15 for the rest) on basically everything.

Vocals: Clip gaining (parts of) words to make all the details audible without overcompression. That’s why I chose the following parallel vocal chain: chain A: La2a (max 2dB GR) Chain B: 1176 blue strip. Both go to the master vocal buss with: J37 > Devil-Loc (mix 8%) > TDR Nova EQ (+2dB hi shelf, -2dB mid) > de-ess > Puigchild 660 for peak taming.
Echoboy: Echoplex slapback on Vocals and a very subtle 1/8th note echo for some bigness without adding reverb. (alright there’s an UAD EMT 140 C plate -35dB on it). I wanted the vocals close.

Lately I’m using a rearbus inspired by Andrew Scheps, whom I find a great mixer and teacher btw. Everything except the drums and bass are sent to this bus, bit of compression and route it to the master. It works as a mild vocal rider; it ducks harmonic material when the vocal starts because the often the loudest in the mix. In this case I’m also sending bass to the rearbus, but it’s the same principle.

[Blang]

Hello here is my submission:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=16r9p9 ... 5Ha8lEHK9Y

I have been having issues in some of my mixes with getting instruments to have their own space, so I tried LCR mixing this time. I am still a beginner trying to improve with each mix. Please provide feedback if you wish.

I love steely dan and i tried to shape some of the mix around their vibe. One thing i found difficult is that the drum track is obviously quite a bit hotter and more up front then alot of steely dan mixes. i tried to find a bit of a middle ground.

I applied filters and slate tape simulation using protools audiosuite. I then tried to edit some of the issues with the clips removing some noise, etc. i used the fabfilter Pro G on most tracks to take care of the bleed, and also Pro-c more as a volume leveler.

I have tried using cla mixhub for eq, compression, and additional gating for most of the mix. I originally thought this plugin was more of a gimmick than anything, but to be honest it actually sounds good when adding to a track in the default setting. in that way i prefer it to the bx console e.

The bass has R-bass, Bf76 and MV2.

The guitar has an additional mxr orange phaser plugin added to add even more phasing. For Vocals i used Pro-DS on each track, as well as izotope nectar. I used Soundtoys echoboy/and Pro-R for the vox fx.

I did some parellel compression with 1176 on the room track as well as an VCA compressor on the whole mix.

Interesting mix Slickter716! Very stylized and definitely got some Aja vibe in there. If I were to compare I would would say Aja also sounds processed / hifi but the sounds are still open and somewhat natural, whereas your mix is gated and separated in such a way that it feels unreal to me. In this way, the music certainly makes a bold statement. So cool, follow your taste!

[zzklein88]

Here is my mix! What a fun song to play around with. The drums were my focal point - specifically the toms (those were tricky) I processed with Analogue EQ (Warm Audio EQP-WA's) on most of the tracks. I used LA-2A style compression on the Vox, Bass, and Guitar. The brass wasn't touched as much, but I did throw a small amount of HF compression where it got touchy to my ears. Overall I had a lot of fun. Besides the drums, all the other tracks were recorded very very well. Thanks for listening!

-Z

WAV

[Pitta]

MP3
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lcLr5C ... sp=sharing
WAV
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1okMN8Q ... sp=sharing


DAW – Reaper
Audio interface – RME Fireface 802
Monitors – Genelec 8040, Auratones
Cool funny song.
Started by a lot of clip gain automation in vocals and drums. The drums is were the most of the time was put in. The performance is very dynamic and I felt the need to get it more consistent and still feel natural and not too processed. Also made some reconstitution for the drum passage into the last chorus. The toms were missing.
Went for a dry feel but every element is effected really. On vocals, a short plate (little plate-Soundtoys), a slap delay (j37-Waves), and some “invisible” delays (Readelay). On horns a short plate. Some delay on Keys with Valhala FreqEcho. Garden hose delay, two different length, on guitar (the only piece of hardware used). Compressed quite a bit the drum room track (Devil Lock-Soundtoys) and add some stereo chamber to it (MannyReverb-Waves). Added a second chamber were I’m sending kick, snare and toms. Very short plate on snare and toms. Vocals, overheads and horns are being send to a common Hall (RVerb-Waves) that is a bit hyped on the highs. For the bridge used some flanger on toms (MetaFlanger-Waves).
From the get go I have on masterbus a PuigChild doing nothing and a PuigTec with a smiley face. Later on added Api2500 (Waves) doing little (the needle doesn’t even move). I’m using one parallel channel were I’m sending everything but drums and bass and another were I’m sending drums and bass. Both have two CLA76 to compress Left and right independently.
For vocals and drums I use quite bit of parallel processing but to guitars, keys and horns used just a bit of saturation, eq and compression mostly with Scheps OmniChannel (Waves). Have some parallel compression on horns too ((Devil Lock-Soundtoys).

Hope you like it.
Pedro Pitta Groz

[AnalogDomain]

It isn't always the case that you get to enjoy the track your mixing, but this one had me smiling. I tried to keep the style of the references in mind and tried not to use too many modern treatments on the tracks.

Drums: Kick and snare got mostly saturation with a little compression. I blended the room and OVHs in lightly and kept them clean.
Vox: Slight warmth added to mimic a tube pre, serial comp to keep lyrics intelligible.
Inst: Keys as primary, others carved out placement with EQ and panning. Bass gtr limited to hold the foundation steady.
Bus: Usual compression, and light limiting.
Reverb: 3 different style/length reverb buses. The track took reverb well, but I tried to not over do it.

WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1b8d30 ... 6YuzjBXPZE
MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1orKPP ... Mst9Yhi4zG

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
We're in the last 24 hours to submit your edit.

[Noobishh]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9tricktleo4l1 ... y.wav?dl=0

DAW: Pro Tools
Vocal: Hardware Pultec, Tape, Klanghelm MJUC, Braiworx SSL E, Waves R-desser, Altiverb, Echoboy
Drums: Braiworx SSL E, Klanghelm MJUC, Altiverb, Cytomic The Glue, Soundtoys Decapitator, Waves REQ (also processed snare and kick through pultec before mixing itb and used drumatom to remove leakage - it did pretty good job with hi hat, snare bott and kick, not so much with snare top so i left the mic open without any gate)
Inst: Braiworx SSL E, Klanghelm MJUC, FabFilter ProQ 3, Altiverb, Klanghelm SDRR2
MixBus:Slate VTM, Braiworx Townhouse comp, Hardware Pultec, Tape

[Optoslam]

Hi everyone, some very interesting perspectives on the mix here! Here's my first submission on mix-challenge:

Few words about my mix:
I tried to keep the song fairly dry, most reverb ended up on the horns, a touch on vocals too. No heavy subs or sparkling high end, didn't feel the modern vibes with this song.

Drums - Most processing happens on the drumbus. Some shaping with eq (pultec style + pro-q on dynamic mode to level the highs) and flavor with a Vulf comp + Little Radiator + Softube Tape
Bass - Nothing too interesting, just a compressor to add some sustain and eq to shape it.
Guitars and Keys - Very similar processing, touch of eq to get em to sit in the mix better and saturation (Decapitator and Omega N)
Horns - These were the hardest part of the whole mix. Getting the harshness under control. A combination of lowpass, some eq shaping and Soothe gave acceptable results. Some slap delay and saturation with Little Radiator on the bus.
Vocals - Main vocals got a deeper cut around 2700hz + some Slate saturation, blue stripe 1176 and some shaping eq. On vocal double there's a Little Microshift and that's it. All vocals have touch of reverb to save them claustrophobic space.
Master bus - Pultec style eq to give some overall shaping, Softube Tape for saturation and glue (mixing into the plugin) and Pro-L2 to raise level to around -17 LUFS

MP3
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1N9QHS ... xEKXz5pFVX

WAV
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BZ1Y- ... F-jj-ITxV5

[EstebanM]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to these challenges and I had a lot of fun working on this one. Also, I'm not English-native so please forgive me if my phrasing isn't always clear ^^'

Here's my mix for the song : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AeZRl ... zq_ihcEuBb

I tried to go for a more modern mix, and especially wanted to accentuate the overall jumpy feel. Here's how I proceeded :

BASS

The bass plays a very rhythmic pattern which I felt needed to be pushed forward. So I used a first compressor only to control the dynamics (Fabfilter Pro-C2), then a second one with a longer attack time to tighten it up (Waves DPR 402). I then distorted it a bit (Waves Manny Marroquin Distorsion) to get harmonics in the hi-mids that I pushed further with an EQ boost at 2,6kHz (using TDR VOS Slick EQ). This allowed me to make it louder in the mix while not getting too invasive in the low-end.

DRUM

The overheads seemed to have a dominance on the right side, which I compensated by delaying the right channel a few samples. Most of the work left after that was about controlling some cymbals hits, so I used Waves RDeEsser followed by band compression in the highs.

The kick drum had a lot of attack and way too much low-end to compensate for it, so I saturated it to fatten it up (LVC-Audio PhreeFuzz) then tamed the low-end using both EQ and band compression (Fabfilter Pro-MB). I also used a Time Adjuster to align it correctly to the overheads.

My processing on the snare was mostly about controlling its dynamics, so I used a mix of compression (Fabfilter Pro-C2), saturation (LVC-Audio PhreeFuzz) and clipping (Kazrog KClip) to prevent it from jumping like crazy. It also was time-aligned to the overheads. A reverb send was used to both blend it to the kit and increase the length of the sound.

The toms were edited tightly to prevent too much bleed. For these and the hihat, most of my processing was about time-aligning them, controlling their dynamics and a bit of tone-shaping with an EQ.

All these tracks were sent to a drum bus that I compressed lightly to glue the elements together (Waves API-2500) and EQ'ed a bit to get a crisper sound.

KEYBOARD

This one has a very important role in the construction of the groove and is largely responsible for the jumpy feel of the song. The first step was to control its dynamics to prevent it from randomly jumping (Fabfilter Pro-C2). I then wanted it to be more present, so I saturated it a lot to make it richer and thicker (Waves Scheps Omni Channel), then EQ'ed it for both mids and highs (TDR VOS Slick EQ). I also wanted it to be wider so I delayed the left channel by a few milliseconds.

GUITAR

The guitar was very uneven in its dynamics, so I used both multiband compression and broadband compression to keep it in control across the whole track. I then saturated it (Klanghelm IVGI 2) to get a thicker tone, and used a delayed send panned symmetrically to widen it.

VOCALS

These are the lead element of the song. They have to be present and intelligible. In order to achieve that, I first used clip gain to even out the different sections, then used broadband compression with fast settings to catch the peaks (Waves CLA-76 black) followed by light multiband compression to balance the frequency spectrum across the different registers used throughout the song. I then shaped the tone using EQ and de-essed it to prevent any harshness in the highs that are responsible for intelligibility.
Two reverbs were used. One mainly to give some context to the vocals in the mix, and a second one to open up the choruses and glue the deliberately hard-panned vocals on those sections.

BRASS

The sax and trumpet were processed separately for dynamic control, then summed and processed together for fine-tuning. They sounded a bit too aggressive and thin when playing the responses to the vocals so I tamed the hi-mids, then compressed a bit to bring back some punch. I also rode their volume a lot to avoid them getting in the way of the vocals. Reverb was used mainly to create some depth.

SOLO TRUMPET

This instrument had very unpleasant highs that would feel uncomfortable every time it would kick in. So after controlling the peaks with a CLA-76 I tamed its presence a lot, and tried to give it some body by blending in a very tiny amount of lower octave using SoundToys Little Alterboy. Finally, a darker reverb was used for this instrument to give it some more mid-range.

2-BUSS

Once everything was dynamically controlled to prevent random movement, I used Waves SSL G-Comp to recreate a global movement. Long attack time to preserve drums dynamics, auto-release for natural pumping, medium ratio to mostly get the drum to trigger the compression. It was followed by Waves REDD for gentle saturation and Focusrite Red2 EQ for global tone-shaping.


I hope you guys like it

[Elver]

Hi,
HERE is my VINTAGE mix and I'll be happy if you reply to me with your feedback

MP3:https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AVgDP ... -hP86_QPfk
WAV:https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xalht ... odulbRkUO7

yellow=plugins

I used the old tech called "pul-tec trick"(with AA purple 3&CLA 2a)for the main vocal and I added some vintage slap delay by Echoboyand lift up a little hi-end with Maag EQ2.

Guitar&Sax&Trumpets: Fabfilter Pro-Q3;decaplitator;CLA76;ultraverb
Bass:Fabfilter Pro-Q3;Pro tools Lo-Fi;apogeMod comp
Dumrs:Maag EQ2;NLS channel;dbx 160;sslchannel

I hope my mix will make you feel the wind of the seventies and eighties.