MIX CHALLENGE - MC056 July 2019 - Winners announced

[shoma]

Hi @all!

After a long break I finally found time to participate in the Mix Challenge again. Thanks to Chris for a wonderful song. It wasn't easy to mix, but I hope you like the result anyway.

wav: https://www.dropbox.com/s/o5br5knrj6u9z ... a.wav?dl=0

-17.4 LU, -0.9 dbTP

My daw of choice is Cubase 10 and usually I'm not a plugin whore but this time I went a bit over the top.

I only used the "tuned" vocals and also I didn't use any time correction! Maybe that's something for round 2...

First insert in every track is Hornet V_UMeter MK III just for gainstaging reasons. I like to keep the levels at -12 dB
I copied the D116 kickdrum trackto a sampler track in Cubase to cut out the "best sounding" kick and then used the "Kick Sample Mono" as a trigger to get a more even result. The original D116 Kick then was heavily treated with Soundtoys DeviLoc Deluxe

Snare, Kick and Overheads were send to an aux-track and got some treatment with compression and distortion (Soundtoys DeviLoc Deluxe) and some reverb.

I used Klevgrand Gaffel on the bass tracks. The D.I. track was used for the Lowend and the Mic'ed bass had a lowcut @ 170Hz. Both tracks were then compressed separately (Fuse Audio VCL-4) and send to a buss for further treatment (Slate VMR, Nembrini PSA1000, Oxford Inflator, Bass Rider and Maxxbass)

Plugins I used on nearly every track or buss were: Sonible SmartEQ2, Sonible Smart:Comp, CraveEQ, Waves F6, Gullfoss, bx:control V2 among some others.
Reverbs used were: Relab Sponsig Rev A, Waves TrueVerb, Nomad Factory 80s Spaces, Eventide H910, Valhalla Delay.

This list is not complete and you cand find the rest in the screenshots. For further informations: just ask me









Edit: wrong information for the bass treatments; corrected
Edit 2: Missing screenshot added :-(

[Armenelli]

Hello all. Here is my entry:

MP3: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Apn8-0l6PfTIguwBsdJzOemz7kK2Lg
WAV: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Apn8-0l6PfTIguwCq9MV8JKKnlw2aw

Kick and snare are both using the SSL G Channel plug-in and the snare has an additional DBX-160 plug. Snare was edited to tame some peaks and is primarily the 57.

Overheads were high passed fairly high to get rid of sound around 500hz that wasn't too flattering. Some F6 was used to try to reign in some harshness.

All the drums were sent to Abbey Road Chamber plugin for space.

Bass clean was from DI with a bit of EQ and a n 1176 compressor. Bass mic was high passed around 110 and sent to UAD "Raw" to get the overdriven bass sound. That was then sent to a PS22 to get it bigger.

Piano got some EQ, 1176 as fast as it'd go with a touch of effects (delay, verb).

I treated the acoustics as a group with EQ, Fairchild compressor, F6 to tame the transition squeaks, and some verb.

BGVs received some RVox and Waves Tune and then sent to a verb and delay.

Lead vox has a Vocal rider to eq to RVox to LA2A and was tuned a bit as well. After that, it was sent to verb and delay.

Thanks to all involved in getting this tune in our hands. It was challenging but very fun, and a great song.

[Mister Fox]

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

[Musikality]

Hello! I finally finished my mix of "Ghost Limb" I've started and restarted many times, but I think how it is now turned out pretty well!
Well, I read I was supposed to talk about what I did for my mix, so here goes:
I started by editing the snare to hit more in time with the rest of the instruments. (I didn't end up editing the timing of anything else and decided to keep it pretty raw in that respect.) Also, I didn't tune any of the vocals.
I decided to just use one of the guitars and pan it somewhat to the left (and added a delay on the other side to widen it a bit). I automated all the squeaky guitar sounds between the strumming to make it not so loud.
The main vocals were particularly tricky for me. I couldn't get it to stand out enough without becoming harsh. After a LOT of experimenting, I realized that if I shifted the main vocal frequencies down lower than I normally would, it worked well.
The piano was shifted to a place closer to where I would usually have my vocals sit (in the frequency spectrum).
I did the drums last. Pretty basic eq and compression for the drums, and then sent them to a parallel comp bus and crushed them.
(also, I used some tape sat on most of the busses.)
I didn't put much on the master buss, because I didn't want to get disqualified I think the only thing I actually had on it was a Mid Side EQ(and Izotope Vinyl for the beginning effect).
Anyways, that's basically it! Good luck to everybody!

"Ghost Limb" Wav : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xqVBzU ... sp=sharing

[EchoOread]

Thanks for the music. Here is my mix.

EQs and compressors across the board. Nudged one of the snares forward a little for timing purposes. It seemed to tighten up a bit. Flipped the polarity on one of the guitars and 1 of the OHs. Paralleled the bass with a touch of distortion. Did the same with the guitars. Good luck to all!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i2W5am ... sp=sharing

[Eva Chiu]

Hello Everyone,

Here is my submission :

Wav : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1lm4f- ... yRWtJXCvqj

DAW: Logic Pro X

Plug-ins:
Logic Channel EQ's
API-2500
RBass
RVox
SSL EQ
Tape Delay
Manny Reverb

Comments are welcome!

[Satoshi Yoneda]

Hello all

Here is my submission.

Wav https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gcou2 ... t56DjmjBWO
Mp3 https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zqtUl ... Ye2BEH3TnB

I used ProTools and some plugins.

Use plugins here,
Equilibrium, Plugin Alliance SSL4000E, Satin
Devaster2, Elysia nvelope, SPL TwinTube, ConvologyXT

Enjoy,Good luck to everyone!

[White Punk OD]

Hello Chris, hi everyone,
here is my mix for this song!

I thought it is important, that we achieve some psychedelic feeling, as the mention of Joy Division and the lyrics about (post) addiction seem all to point to such an approach.

So I chose the multi-echo for the vocals, and some 80ies explosion reverb for the snare.
Further, I made the bass a bit grinding, and the guitars got a bright and notoriously strumming spread.
Verse 2 starts some subtle vibrato effect in one of the guitar tracks.
Finally, the overhead track was used to make the sound based a lot on cymbals, a bit jazzy if not alreaady "chinese", and to give the snare some more punch. (AirWindows cymbal enhancer, comp, hipass, Overtone EQ (different for L and R), DeEdger.)
The cymbals may symbolize some "phantom pain".
I gave the drummer priority to define the pace, groove and emotion.

There is a Limiter6 on the drum bus that cuts a dB or so like 6 times during the whole song, esp. limits the HF, else it is mostly inactive.

Editing:
I shifted around a couple of whole tracks, until everything felt more together.
Then, I did a few edits on snare and kick hits, that were still off.
I was not going for precision, just to avoid too much disturbance.

Another aspect of editing came with the screaming strings.
I created a gated noise track from the whole guitar bus, stereo, that contains only frequencies around 5k, and edited out false alarms (louder strums that should not get hurt).
With this, I ducked the hi band of a band split in the guitar bus. So the low frequencies in the guitars are steady.
The noise pattern chokes the HF almost completely, the time constant thankfully did hit the nail with the compressor I found for this (DensityMkII).

Intro git has a lot of plugins, but very subtle settings. Neutrino, 2 reverbs, compressor, analog "color" plugins with transformer and console emulation.

Other guitars have Neutrino, and different exciters for different tracks. Mutual balances of git channels are automated, so the sound has a couple of switch moments.

Bass has another reamp on the DI track, but uses also the amp track. There is a multiband comp, and some sidechain ducking from the kick.
The sidechain saves the show, as it cheats a better connection between drums and bass, and then vocals and guitars hide everything else.
In the end, the bass sounds a bit strange but not really off.

Vocals make use of parallel compression, means 2 comps and dry signal all in parallel.
Beforehand, there is also a lot of f-selective compression with TDR Nova. This also removes a lot of harshness.
There is also a saturator, and the Echomania (4 delays arranged from left to right), and Little Plate with hipass at 460.
Automation of volume is quite detailed.

BG vocalls run simply into the same bus through all effects. I thought that these should sound quite raw.


The stereo bus has an EQ and a soft compressor for glue.
Subsonic and air bands sure will need some good mastering. I did not regulate these sufficiently, as my monitoring is poor.

Questions are welcome! Thanks for listening.

WAV 48/24
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UWNjjS ... HEtE_/view

mp3 44/16
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SFbVpA ... VR2WP/view

[3ee]

Hi everyone,

here's my mix:

wav: https://app.box.com/s/kahi6neo3tm3zxcvct2n7tnpy7g4r1mk
mp3: https://app.box.com/s/rb5rn8jdlmw4u5yddft1qt07z8ituscm

time-adjusted tamb. and piano and vocal a little bit in some places... the rest like the bass (quite a bit out of time in some place) and drums I left like they are, I thought they added to the "Ghost Limb" vibe going..

trying to mention only what is different/interesting about the mix

Kick - since the sample track was more uniform, I used it as the side-chain trigger for the recorded track's gate.
Shaped both kick tracks tonally ... more or less the classic mids scoop with bass and high-mid boosts, compressed. Have a parallel doing density and transient shaping too.

Bass tracks after cleaned, eq'd and compressed go to two parallels; one for adding low-end saturation and density and the other for a bit of tone/edge saturation

GTRs - carefully tried to find and tame the neck screeches ... have a combination of processing for this; incl eq notches, dyn-eq, spectral dynamics, tape etc.. The intro part is processed differently for a bit of contrast.

Keys - I have many sends to different reverbs and delays to add space and stereo image and push them into the background.

Pretty straight forward mix, I have many processors but nothing 'wild' is happening. If someone's interested if something more specific please feel free to ask.

oh I forgot, master-bus processing (mixing and not mastering usage) :

- A touch of corrective eq
- SSL G bus comp doing about 1dB of GR
- DSM v2 (spectral dynamics) before tape to smooth out some peaks
- tape for smoothness and tone
- Pultec EQP1A emu as a more color box rather than eq
- Millennia NSEQ-2 emu to find some 'pockets' of tone doing mostly 1-2 dB boosts in the low mids around 500-750Hz with relatively wide Qs
- Limiter usually doing 0.5-1 dB of GR on some spikes, this is there just to level out a bit and for the sound of it, definitely am not using it as in mastering.

[Green-Dog]

Hi All,

First of all done some tempo corrections. I choosed BPM 185. Than I done EQing and compressing. Added some space on mix. Everything quit standard. Most of time take the cutting and moving

Here is my submission:
Wav
Mp3
Screenshots

Thank you for lessening and good luck to everyone!