MIX CHALLENGE - MC055 June 2019 - Winners announced

[paperthin]

Hey guys, here's my entry:

MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/d7pbrdwous967 ... n.mp3?dl=0

WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fku6mbxpbujme ... n.wav?dl=0

Quite an interesting song, here is what I did.

Drums: most close mics have a Pro-G gate on, individual drum busses use a Pro-Q2 and a CLA-76 for snap. Kick, snare and toms also have high-end exciters, and there's a CLA-3A on the drum sum. The snare in the solo is separated from the main one and treated differently - it has less compression, no gate, and a slightly different EQ. I went for a natural drum sound so all the processing is fairly light.

Bass: my usual routine – FF Saturn split at 180Hz, followed by a Pro-Q2 and a CLA-2A, and topped by a MetricHalo's Transient Control. I find that amped basses tend to lose some of the attack.

Guitars: clean guitars have a Waves REDD17 saturator, a stock Logic EQ for high-end notches, and a Pro-Q2. Same with the heavy guitars, the only difference is that the single guitar playing octaves has a Waves doubler at the end. I didn't re-amp anything as I quite liked the original Kemper recordings.

Vocals: first I re-comped them for consistency and split the main vocal into the verse and chorus parts. I think I ditched one of the high BV parts, the one that's more mellow and that has the most bleed. I didn't miss it in the end. The main vocals have the same plugins with different settings: a Pro-MB, a Pro-Q2, a blue CLA-76, a PuigChild, and a de-esser. The are both sent to a bus with a Doubler on it for subtle thickening. The mid BVs are panned across the stereo field and treated as one channel with a CLA-76 (heavy compression), a Pro-Q2 and a de-esser. The high BVs are treated in pretty much the same way.

There's a reversed reverb effect added at the end of the drum solo, made with the lead vocal part and a 2-second reversed reverb. I felt that the song needed some sparkle and I think I found a good place for it.

Mixbus: an SSL-comp with a subtle glue setting, a multiband tape exciter for overall frequency control, and a Pro-L for bringing the mix up to the MC standard.

Overall thoughts: great song, the language made me pay close attention to what is being sung so that I don't bury any important words and word endings in the music. I used to study German but I forgot most of it, so it's a cool reminder, thanks! I like the delivery of the vocalist, especially in the choruses, the parts are played and recorded very well, mixing the song was a pleasure. Much respect to the band, and good luck to all the contestants!

[raffsmix]

Hey folks,
here's my mix:

WAV:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/51x1ooun648gc ... a.wav?dl=0

MP3:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qidaavhan97hk ... a.mp3?dl=0


Since the songs was well recorded, we all could pretty much concentrate on the musical aspect of mixing - it was fun!

Drums: some basic processing, EQ + Compression, some parallel compression on the Bus going on, no reverb (all coming from the mics)!
Bass: some EQ'ing and Compression, I guess I used some sidechain-comp (from the kick)
Guitars: midrange Eq'ing, no Compression. Some H910 & Spring reverb for the single note-parts.
Vocal: EQ, Compression, parallel compression (Pultec-trick, 1176-parallel), reverb, slap, quarter delay etc.
MasterBus: SSL BusCompressor, Tape, Pultec


Looking forward to your feedback!
Cheers!

[TiPa]

Hi everyone !

Glad to join the contest one more time.
Here is my version :

MP3 :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ya1zyudlfft1 ... a.mp3?dl=0

WAV :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1ql1fyp1k229k ... a.wav?dl=0

I mostly used Fabfilter Pro Q3 and Schweps Channel Strip for the basic EQ and dynamic treatments, some API 2500 comps on the drums, a parallel comp with H-Comp on the drum bus and applied a Waves C6 to lower the high mid on the guitars bus triggered by the lead vocal.
As "special tricks" I doubled the bass with a bitcrusher (Studio One stock bitcrusher is quite good actually !) and I enjoyed applying a reverse hall on the last vocal chorus.
I tried to stay quiet with the classic reverbs and delays to keep the mix dry and punchy.

Looking forward the comments Enjoy !

[the_mazeman]

WAV - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GcNXqq ... sp=sharing
MP3 - https://drive.google.com/file/d/157zPJe ... sp=sharing
The production was spot-on and so I didn't need any heavy processing to create this mix.

Drums:
Nothing special, just some eq on the room tracks to cut out the low frequencies, brighten up the snare and a moderate cut at mid-frequencies on the kick. The Drum Bus has an API 2500 to get some consistency and color.

Bass:
Some boost to bring up the low notes and to highlight the attack of the strings.I used only the provided amp track.

Electric Guitar:
Same as the bass, only used the provided amped tracks cause the tones were made for a reason and I respect that decision.
Used a delayed reverb on the lead to highlight it a bit. I went for the anthemic feel.

Vocal:
I had no problem with the room tone and used eq to cut the lows and add some highs. There were plenty of background vocals (each one was unique) so I placed them across the stereo field. I added waves abbey road plate only for the lead vocals and no amount of reverb was used on the background vocals.

Mix Buss:
I used a tiny amount of Greg Wells Mix Centric and used the Townhouse SSL compressor for finalizing the mix.

That's it folks !

Again, the provided tracks were produced and recorded competently so the job was easier for me. So this was an exploration of how I could add to the production rather than a challenge.

[White Punk OD]

so, let's have some more fun !!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15b_EU0 ... sp=sharing mp3

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K2JchE ... sp=sharing WAV

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing PNG screen shots
-------------------------

Basically, Silbermond and Juli means German "Pop-Rock" genre and mainstream.
So, I treated it as if it is for radio or MTV/YouTube video.

To me, this was about going with the flow, as "change" is the heart of the thing in these short 2.5 minutes,
and it meant to create some drama and structure to make the changes in the vocal sound credible.
I goofed around with the BG vocals, .. how to use them and be not boring might be up to debate.

The drum solo got shamelessly distorted (Melda Saturator, I made my experience with some nice presets I created), just to make a noise, and not ask too much about audiophile drum production. It's a gimmick that should make listeners anticipate a joyful finale.

There is side-chaining from kick into bass and "stomping" rock guitar, and from vocals into guitar buss.

Guitars got a glue/saturating compressor on the buss (getting paralleled with another mult buss), and some detailed EQ on tracks with tinyQ and NWEQ, the first one quite surgical, the second absolutely killer for "coloring" and makin them shine.
Git 5 has a vintage delay with different delay values panned left and right. Creates funny chaos with the vocal delay in that central bridge part.



The first verse of the vocals wasn't bad at all, rather I struggled with repairing the later parts, as there was ugly background rumble, and sharp ringing frequencies. So I used rigorous high-passing and notch filtering.
Then, to not become dull, I beefed this up with that wonderful Waves Vintage Valve emulator, but I had to "freeze" it hahaha, though my CPU could easily run 12 instances of that one. But there is a lot of inefficient CPU usage going on in those other free plugins as well. So that's why.
I multed the lead vocal tracks into A) deep range with fullness, B) hi range with brilliance, using an exciter. A number of parameters were automated per line of lyrics, because of you know.

There are still 2 or 3 lines of vocals to fine-tune, if this goes round II.

------
There is nothing whatsoever on the stereo BUSS !

Thanks to everyone, I loved to do this, what a beautiful opportunity this is!

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 14 days left to submit your edit

[Jerze]

Hello all, here is my go at this mix.

Thanks to Fajebro and the band for the chance to mix another song... lol you must enjoy pain.

I’m going on Vac so don’t have any more time to mix. I will add what I did before the dead line tho.
I went aggressive on this one not sure it was the RT move, but that’s where it ended. I need to figure those lead vocal sections out more.

Reference Band: Panamore


Wav-https://www.dropbox.com/s/9veukdmk7b5st ... e.wav?dl=0


MP3-https://www.dropbox.com/s/f4nhbutfvk55o ... e.mp3?dl=0


Notes: The drums have some EQ on the tracks then to the drum buss with the ssl comp. the snare, kic and toms are sent to a sub buss with EQ, compression etc. As for the bass and guitars they were sent to their own buss wit EQ, compression along with some Re-amping. I also used the sounds of both. The last thing are the vocals I ended up using a little of everything on them.

FX Aux: True verb, Echo Boy, Abby Road Chambers



Thanks again if you have any pointers or questions let me know!
Jerze

[Photonic]

Hi all,

Thank you for provoding this song. Made fun to mix it.

I used the amped bass track. All guitars are DI-tracks and re-amped with the phantastic free ToneLib-GFX.
For the vocal I used the Acon Digital Deverberate to reduce the ambient on the recording.

MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/67173yb7h3429 ... c.mp3?dl=0
WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/olqh482yg3wg7 ... c.wav?dl=0

Mixed in Reaper v5.211/x64
Drum-Bus: Presswerk (Drum-Compressor mode), FerricTDS, ReaEQ
all aingle drum tracks: ReaEQ
Bass: ReaEQ, FerricTDS
all Guitars: ToneLib-GFX, ReaEQ
Solo Guitar: ToneLib-GFX, ReaEQ; tkdelay
Vocals: ReaEQ, Deverberate, Presswerk (Vocal compressor mode), ReaDelay (for slap delay)
Back Vocals: ReaEQ, Presswerk (Vocal compressor mode)
Master-Bus: MQ57, Presswerk (Bus Compressor mode), SPAN
All reverbs are Acon Digital Verberate

[canese]

Hey! Have a listen of this mix:

Mp3:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/seb77g55fxsvc ... e.mp3?dl=0

WAV:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2o7isbxygz8zu ... e.wav?dl=0

Process:
Drums: Started with overheads and added the other tracks regarding volume, paning, EQ, phase and polarity. Added a gate in the snares and a little reverb on them. Drum bus with compression, EQ, and stereo imaging to keep the low end in the middle and spread the high end.

Lead voice: No tuning (amazing singer btw!). The effect chain is: High pass filter, zynaptiq's Unveil for de-reverb, little chorus, compressor, a little distortion, a de-sser, Eq and automated reverb and delay. Also draw the volume up or down in some parts.

Backing voices: Mixed regarding the volume, phase, polarity and paning. The effect chain is: high pass filter, compressor, chorus and reverb. Also tuned the vocals to the song key.

Bass: EQ, A transient shapper to add sustain and attack, compressor, distortion, a little parallel detuned chorus.

Guitars: High pass filter, all re-amped with guitar rig 5. In guitar bus added a compressor, Eq, reverb to blend, and distortion. Don't know if guitars tone are the right ones. But I want to add more power to the song with them.

[White Punk OD]

no place like /home.
please can we have a public link?