MIX CHALLENGE - MC054 May 2019 - Winners announced

[Slickster716]

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!

Hi Blang - I appreciate your feedback - thanks alot!

[Mister Fox]

It is the 22nd May 2019, 04:10am GMT+2/CEST - the first Mix Round has officially ended

Once more, a very warm welcome to all new participants, so many new faces. And once more a huge thank you to everyone that is spreading the word about the Mix Challenge. Please keep doing so, we need way more participants for the Songwriting Competition(s), and more audio content to continue the games past Summer 2019.


STATISTICS:

• If I didn't miscount, we have 71 submissions (72 minus 1 entry) this month. That is 20 submissions more than last month and 55 entries more compared to last year
• We have 0 users that redacted his entry (Clueless?)
• We have 1 submission after the deadline (technically 2, but GB Real's post was updated on 12:00am which can be seen as "late server response", while canese was posted on 12:17am and is disqualified - please, post within the deadline in the future)
• We had 0 submissions through SoundCloud only
• I had to address the Rules and Guidelines 2 time(s)

One more things that really stood out:

• Some of the new contestants posted a direct email contact address - please don't do that. This forum is public, and you never know what bots sniff out pages and sign you up to stuff you don't want (I removed those mail addresses - also for your own protection)

Please check all if your links again, make them downloadable(!, IMPORTANT: updated rules on SoundCloud links). Those that uploaded MP3s only, please take note: providing a WAV file is mandatory. Please also update your posts with documentation for others to learn from (see Rules & Guidelines).


I now open the field for everyone to give each other feedback (highly encouraged). This will be independent to the client feedback however.


Please watch this spot for the client feedback and Mix Round 2 participant announcement.

Good luck to all participants.






The Songwriting Competition 21 (SWC21) is still in full swing.
The deadline is 24th May 2019, 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST - so far there have been 3 entries (if I didn't miscount) - I hope we can exceed 15 participants.

Please spread the word!

[youngkeys88]

WAV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cUg9VW ... sp=sharing
MP3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j5U8ZJ ... sp=sharing

Mixed in: Studio One 4

Overall:
I aimed for a full yet clean sounding mix.

Drums
— trying out the flip button in console_N
— Kick got cleaned up in low mids and distorted with LoFi
— Snare: several dbs of FET-style compression, removed several resonances I disliked, EQed with SSL Channel emulation.
— Overheads & HH SSL Channel and EQ removed mud.
— Room: removed low mids
— Drum bus was saturated and compressed a littel for some additional snap.

Bass

— EQed to work with the kick better
— compressed with CLA L22A CLA 1176 C6 SIDECHAIN MODE to work with the kick better

Keys
— Used some EQ reverb, prior to that some compression with CLA 2A

Sax & Trumpet
— some compression and reverb.
— Lead trumpet also got some delay routed in to reverb.

Vocals
— Lead vocal was the most proccessed part.
— EQed SSL Channel emulation
— some tonal shaping and saturation with Hoser XT (added some of air @10k)
— compressed with CLA L22A CLA 1176.
— delay routed in to reverb..

Mixbus
— some SSL-style compression for glue.
— a couple of surgical cuts
— cleaned low mids
— tape saturation

[Snarowitz]

What's up everyone!

Great mixing challenge this month, I really enjoyed this song

The majority of the work here was focused on the vocals and drum kit. Cleaned up most of the headphone bleed, the click tracks, and gated most of the drum parts as well. Otherwise, I added your basic EQ's and compressors across most tracks. I also added some lite chorusing efx to the keys and added some sound to the bass with guitar rig to remove some of the pluckiness. I did automation to most of the tracks and added reverb as well. Slapped on a limiter and compressor to the mix buss.

Mixed in Ableton Live 10 Suite

Plug ins used:

Drum Kit: Pultec EQP-1A, Ableton EQ8, Glue compressor, Ableton Simple reverb, Gate compressor and Teletronix LA-2A compressor limiter.

Sax and Trumpets: Pultec EQP-1A, Ableton EQ8, Glue compressor, UAD RealVerb, and Manley VOXBOX.

Keys: Pultec EQP-1A, Ableton EQ8, Ableton Simple reverb, Glue compressor and UAD Brigade Chorus.

Guitar and Bass: Pultec EQP-1A, Ableton EQ8, Glue compressor, Ableton Simple reverb, and NI Guitar rig (for the Bass).

Vocals: Pultec EQP-1A, Ableton EQ8, Glue Compressor, Manley VOXBOX, UAD RealVerb, and Softtube Saturation knob


My Mix:

WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/avmhrd1vmrhlz ... e.wav?dl=0

MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ub52leu178nz7 ... e.mp3?dl=0

Screenshots: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wtjyz0neeebp ... SBDsa?dl=0


Hope you enjoy my mix. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you and good luck to you all, Cheers!

I really enjoyed your mix. It was very natural sounding, probably the best of the ones I've clicked on so far (maybe 5). The only criticism, I thought the vocals got lost occasionally. I would recommend automating or ducking to insure the vocals stay in front of the instrumentation at all times (if even only by a small margin at times).

[Snarowitz]

Oh, and the snare seemed to be off center. I assume this was on purpose, not a choice I love.

[Snarowitz]

Hi all,

First time here. Forgive the newb if I don't get all rules right. I tried to find and read it all (phew!), so we'll see how this goes. ;-)

mp3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/v8s1w1al442r6 ... r.mp3?dl=0

wav: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rulqsuxzxak5u ... r.wav?dl=0

This is a catchy song and it really grew on me as I worked with it. ALL great musicians! I know this is a mixing contest, so I left everything off the stereo buss to be safe. I really wanted to get tastefully creative with some production/mixing, as you can hear. Given that these are bounced sub-group stems and not the raw recordings, I assume that's what was wanted? Tried to not over do it, though.

Also, I set the Intergrated Loudness by tweaking master fader (no automation riding either), playing song start to end and repeat. I would have just set the ceiling on a brickwall limiter, but I consider that pre-mastering so I didn't. Maybe that would be ok, though?

Vocals:
Great performance! No pitch issues that I can hear and phrasing was spot on. I noticed mine are a bit wetter than other mixes you guys did. I tried taking some away, but then I missed it so I put back. We'll see. Standard EQ and LIGHTcompression with la-23. A little automation to level out some parts. I did some fun stuff with delays and some grit. If they hate it, I can always bypass it. lol

Drums:
I really wanted to just replace the K and S, but I read the rules and just EQ'd and did quite a bit of aggressive parallel comp with 1176 to try and get some body in the snare. I really want to hear some pick-up hits before the 1.1. I did the reverse snare trick, but I'm not sold on it. HH and snare intro fill would be uber-cool, but that's just my opinion and I didn't want to mess with it too much.

Organ:
Sounded really flat and lifeless to me so I did some spatial stuff and widened the image. rolled off LP at 110 Hz. Expanded to get some dynamis back. Couple small bumps at 1.5 and 5k.

Guitar: Not much more than some stock EQ and panning. send some to room verb

Horns: Loved them! EQ'd with Pultec 1a and found a nice conv verb which gave it that empty jazz club feel. large jazz club I guess (lol)

2 buss: Absolutely nothing! Plenty of dynamic range left to get it sounding sweet and loud.

Tons of fun and really liked several other mixes that I heard so far. Thanks!

Patrick Woehl
<email addresses removed>

Way too much reverb!

[Snarowitz]

Hi everyone,

here's my entry..

wav: https://app.box.com/s/d7px6crz44z2yikm0k172i3fszhwf1qw
mp3: https://app.box.com/s/z8k8bbtjgwlpnvt9cr494sy9exbl5opw

Mix isn't really finished yet... didn't have time to work in the mix but I'll be happy to work some more if I'll be selected for the next round.

Some info about my mix...

Electric piano has a nice pan modulation.
Some of the drum tracks are introduced in gradually for a sense of build-up, the snare got some extra treatment to sound nice.. have some sends to pitch shifting processing doing -5st and filtered -12st

Drum bus pushed a bit more into tape than I do for a more 'vintage' vibe.

Bass got a mid to high freq exciter that also sends to a chorus for a bit more presence and stereo image.
Panned the Sax and Trumpet to opposed sides, Trumpet Solo center a bit to the right to go well with the gtr.

Some short delays to various elements for a nice sense of space instead of using loads of reverb.

Still plenty to do on the mix... like cleaning some more tracks, fine-tuning mix and automation is one other important thing!

Hi, I liked your mix. I toyed around with placing the drum and bass more prominently in the front of my mix like you did. But I thought the drums were too aggressive, and the bass had some pick noise that was distracting to me at high levels. I do like your drum sound, thought you replaced some at first. Maybe too aggressive for the song, But I dig it... Still can't get past the pick noise on that bass though.

[Snarowitz]

Hi! Here's my mix:

HQ MP3, 44.1kHz
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/664de5hiay4d2l ... B.mp3?dl=0

HQ WAV, 48kHz, 32bit
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9866iedz2zyfx ... B.wav?dl=0

Drums: Phases adjusted
Kick Bus: Comp, EQ
Snare Bus: Comp
Toms Bus: Comp
Cymbals Bus: Comp
Overhead Bus: Comp
Room Bus: Saturation
Drums Plate: EQ, Plate, Comp
Drums Bus: Comp

Bass: Comp

E. Piano: EQ Comp
E. Guitar: Comp

Sax: Comp
Trumpet lead: EQ, Comp
Trumpet: Comp
Brass Bus: Tape Saturation

Vox Lead: Comp
Vox Double: Comp
Vox Harmony: Comp
ADT FX
Vox Bus: De-Esser

Mix Bus: Comp, 2xTape Saturation

I like what you did with the vocals. And, your decision to place the drums way back would've been okay, except the bass is really up front and together that sounds weird to me. I think the drum and bass should be placed at approximately the same depth within the mix.

[Snarowitz]

Hello everyone, this is my first submission in this forum! This was a fun song to mix, and I can (sadly) relate very well to the lyrics

Here are the links to my submission:
wav
mp3

I have tried to maintain the live feel of the song by adding minimal effects, and I have stuck to a plate reverb to get that 70's vibe. I have automated many parts, and used eq (TDR Nova) and compressor (Waves C1) for most tracks. Following are some specific details on a few individual elements of my mix:

Drums: Phase correction in some tracks, gating to take care of some of the mic bleeds, eq and compression on the drum bus. Plus I have mildly used a transient shaper (Waves Smack Attack) on snare.

Bass: Eq, compression, and a harmonic exciter (Avid AIR Enhancer, subtly used)

Vocals: Since vocal clarity was important for the client, I have spent a significant amount of time here. There is clip gain automation in all three vocal tracks; which then go into a vocal bus for overall eq, compression and some de-essing. Finally, the volume level of the vocal bus is automated between different sections of the song.


Master Bus: Mild eq for tonal shaping, compressor for glue, and tape saturation (Waves Kramer Tape).
Integrated loudness: -17.5 LUFS (Measured by Youlean).

Thanks for listening, and good luck everyone!

I thought your mix was pretty natural sounding, which is what you were going for based on your write up. so good job there. I would suggest that the piano is too overpowering at times (and tonally not this songs best feature). Meanwhile, the vocals are maybe a little quiet at times. otherwise I like what you did.

[Mange]

Hi, stumbled on this challenge last night, only had the afternoon to work on it. Not sure 3 or 4 hours was enough time. But, it was a great tune, and fun to work with. I'll try to get in a little earlier on the next one.

Compression and EQ where needed. reverb to taste, with some delay on leads.Summed with outboard gear.

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

Thanks,

Steve

I think you did well with eq and comp. Not pristine but mix has a character to it. Slightly too saturated for my taste, cymbals feels panned hard right and center. Toms slightly disconnected. Good mix if you like the character.