MIX CHALLENGE - MC060 November 2019 - Winners announced

[Mister Fox]

I quote the Rules and Guidelines yet again:

Giving feedback to each other:

• giving feedback to each other is highly encouraged. This adds to the learning process
• please hold back the feedback until at least Mix Round 1 has ended. This is to not influence others during the current running challenge
• the thread remains open for discussion post Mix Round 2

Please... either wait until Mix Round 1 has ended, or push it to the General Gossip Thread. Please don't make me repeat a third time.






Additionally - to everyone new to the forum, welcome.

However... please do educate yourself with the Rules and Guidelines on "recommended signal levels". Just out of pure curiosity, I pulled one track from recent submissions and ran it through analysis tools and listened to the material.

8. Stereo Bus

Logic Compressor - 1.5:1 Ratio, Attack - 10ms, Release 81ms, threshold to only compress 3db

Ozone 8 Dynamic EQ

Ozone 8 Exciter

TR5 One

Just some stats:
ILk => -11,5 LUFS
RMS => -11,83 dB RMS avg
dBTP max => +1,008 dBTP (Clipping, signal was limited to -0,01dBFS)


This might put your edit in danger of getting into the next mix round, as your track is "premastered". (technically, a rule violation)

A quote from the rule book:

Rule set for mix participants

• This is a mix challenge, NOT a (pre)mastering challenge (unless declared otherwise). The main focus is to create a balanced mix, which can later be used for a possible mastering process
• ...
• ideally, the final mix shall be anywhere within the the following range: -21dB RMS realtime to -15dB RMS realtime on average, alternatively -16LUFS ILk, while the maximum digital signal strength shall ideally not exceed -1dBTP (True Peak)
• ---
• We do recommend to not send in your mix within the first 24 hours of the Challenge. Take a day off, give your ears time to relax, take another listen the next day. Your entry is final - no re-submissions with changes allowed unless you're selected for Mix Round 2 (see FAQ)

[F3zM4d]

yes, for my personal deformation, when I work I tend to keep the sounds mainly in the center because today's kids listen to everything from smartphones or mono Bluetooth speakers. if you used a lot of stereo, some sounds would risk disappearing.

Hi. Have you considered the following:

1. How many people you know or see actually use their cell phone or bluetooth speakers to listen to music in real life? If you have to put it in percentage, how much? And when they do: do they really care for the sonic quality?
* In my experience, I am the only person I know that sometimes use my phone to listen to music when I am working. I am sure some do, but either I never saw them or didn't pay enough attention. And those are the occasions when they, I suppose, care very little for the sonic quality of the song.
2. How many people you know or see that actually use the headphones to listen to music? At what percentage?
* In my experience, I see a lot of people use their headphones when listen to music. Those and from the cars, of course. Same difference. And most times, in my case, I listen to enjoy the music+mix.

**if the arbitrary percentage of #1 is greater than #2 then keep on doing what you do. If it's not, perhaps reaching out for a bong to "seriously" think about your decision is a good idea.

Note: Sure, some of the sounds would disappear when folded to mono, but that is not incurable, is it? We have a bunch of techniques for that. Cutting the stereo spectrum out entirely for something that "might" happen, in my opinion, is unnecessary. You are missing out not having a stereo spread in your mix.

Why I write this? Because I read somewhere on the internet someone wrote: Mono to stereo=heaven. I agree, and I hate seeing my fellow mixers miss out on something good. Ask anybody, especially CLA

if you analyze the spectrum of my mix you will realize that it is in stereo but I made sure that in mono it feels good anyway. I wouldn't hasten to shoot sentences without first listening to or analyzing the mix. A greeting

O.K. I see how it is, eh.

Let me ask you this: need I listen to your mix after I read your statement? What is it in your statement that compels me to take a listen to your mix to make sure? Have you not read what you wrote? You made it very clear (1) your vision of your mixes concerning the stereo spectrum and (2) the reasons for such action.
So, no. I didn't need to listen. I could imagine the mix already. But I did listen to it. (In fact, I listened to it the first time I saw the post from the other guy asking you if you mixed in mono on purpose). It confirmed exactly what I imagined. What is the chance of that? One thing to point out is I am not sure the other guy asked you ("to be sure" his words) because he thought it was good. But no need to go down that rabbit hole

Second, and I am feeling a little hurt in the smallest corner of my weak fragile easily bleeding heart, I think you should be thanking me instead. Here I am trying, god knows I do, to convince you to consider another avenue where you can roam free-er instead of being, to borrow Mr.Fox's words, "narrow-minded." Even if the road is winding and rough, at least, the good intention is there. At least I tried to show you an alternative. A better man would at least throw a bone, in my opinion.

Third, and hopefully finally, what I wrote were merely just questions that I thought you did not consider. I did not offer any help, criticism, or praise. I wrote base only on your statement. Maybe I did tell you to grab the bong, so, technically, I did offer some help. But even if I criticized your mix for being too mono, why the upset? It is. And again, I am not alone in this.

I put my trust in the readers, and I don't demand much, just ½ a brain should do, to see that all I did was raising a point to counter your statement for your consideration. Your response leaves, to borrow the words of U2's One, "a bad taste in my mouth."

Should it end here and now?

I apologize, it was not my intention to hurt you. indeed the fact that you are spending a lot of words for me is flattered.

[Waleed Morris]

Hello.
Really good song and production as well, a very nice voice.
starting with drums kick remove unwanted rumble, added a little bit presence.
Snare T/B added 2/3db@ 4K, fixed phase in OH track, remove a little bit in the bottom open high end just a little, Eq hihat remove all unwanted low end and added 2/3db @10k. I used for Tome eq and compression as well.

Plugins used,
Eq :bx digital v3 , Fab filter Q3,maag eq4,SSL E channel,waves pultec.
Compressors :Dbx 160 ,Slate VBC ,Waves puigchild ,u-he satin,R compressor
Reverb: Psp 2445, Echoboy, Phoenix reverb.

Loudness: -17.9 LUFS, TP Max -1.8 dBTP (By NUGEN), any comments or feedback are most welcome.

My submission.

MC060_Eveline Martins_Mil E Uma Estacoes_Wizzo.wav
MC060_Eveline Martins_Mil E Uma Estacoes_Wizzo.mp3

Cheers!

[Mork]

Heyho,

to me this track feels like Singer Songwriter Pop, so I tried to achieve a dense, bright, poppy mix. I heard a lot of slamming drums but I think that doesn't fit the tune. I tried to put them more behind the lead vocal but still have a little point that reaches out, which (hopefully) is achieved by fast attack compression (bus and parallel) and UAD Lexicon 224. The goal was to have her "float on the band cloud", Everything is panned out of the center to give her some space. It hurt my head a little to put the cello on the left side, but I did it to seperate it better from the piano. Given the recordings everything is eq'ed and compressed heavily and thats for the most part just to fix stuff. The funkiest chain must be the male background which is ChopShop into Sonnox EQ into Decapitator (for some hair, hardcore high passed) into Multiply Chorus (1 voice, mono to wash him out) into MetaFlanger (for a little phasey spread) into Echoboy jr. If you hear some phasey esses, that's him in the background.

Wav: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZZYFG ... 99p-Po4z-D
MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=13b83Q ... BMHa3y--MH

Cheers
Mork

[ppalmiero]

Good music to all. I am a newcomer and it is the first time that I have played in a Mix Challenge.

The proposed song is very nice and I used Protools. In the mixing I have limited myself to using a minimum of compressors (those present in CLAMIXHUB of Waves) retouching some eq with Fabfilter Pro Q2. I finally used a reverb and a delay. By the way, I didn't do automations on the volumes, reserving to do it in the next phase.
Thanks for this great experience.
Paspal alias ppalmiero from Italy

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VceQX ... hJKidgUVkn
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1T10dD ... E8qefIeLay (wav)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1S1YZE ... Wc31QBPy6S (mp3)

[Jerze]

Hello all,
Thank you to Eveline Martins and Alexandre lack for the chance to mix their song.

I struggled some with the sounds trying to get them to work together. I think the song lacked a little in feel so I did a lot of automation in the different sections on various instruments. I’m not sure about the automation on the vocals It’s hard when you don’t know what they are saying though, but they did have it translated. Overall not totally happy with a few things, but times up.

No samples used and or any tuning done.

Here is my take of the song.

MP3 https://www.dropbox.com/s/ri58nlu3n8fy5 ... e.mp3?dl=0


Wav https://www.dropbox.com/s/8q2y1rvygyb7h ... e.wav?dl=0


Notes: All tracks had some eq on them then sent to their own buss for additional processing.
Side- chained the bass to kic added a delay on the cello did some eq notching on the piano to take some ring out. The vocals I used some de esser plugins eqs and a fair child compressor along with nova to hold things down some. The biggest thing to me was again was automating the different parts in the different sections.





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

[wmac]

Hi.

This is my first post and contest on this forum, the song is great it was fun to mix but also challenge, I had a lot of trouble in trying to fix the sibilance although I got some improvement I am not satisfied with my result.
As I have no Brazilian song as a reference I used one from Alison Krauss that gave me an idea of tone and balance, my finished mix is -16 LU
I work with Protools and my template is heavy processed I took some pictures of my session so you can see if need more explanation I will do it, so here are what I did on the tracks:

Drums
Q2, CLA, DBX160, Puig child 670, PT gate and Revibe II, UAD Fatso, UAD Pultec EQ 1, Waves L2, McDSP F202, Sound Toys Microshift, Waves SSL 4K E, Pro-DS, Bx_Saturator V2, MFX_ Magma

Bass
Pro Q2, CLA, Bx_Saturator V2, Waves Bass Rider

Guitars
Pro-Q2, CLA 76, UAD 1176 LN, CLA

Piano
Pro-Q2, UAD 1176 LN, CLA

Violas, Violin and Cello
Pro-Q2, CLA

Lead Vocal
Ozone 8 Dynamic EQ, Pro-Q3, Pro-DS, Bx_Saturator V2, McDSP SPC202, Dangerous Bax EQ, RX7 De-ess, Waves Kramer HLS, renascence vox, UAD Pultec, CLA 2A, Pro-DS, L2, CLA 76, UAD EMT 250, UAD EMT140, BBD Delay, Harmonize, H910

Background Vocals
Ozone 8 Dynamic EQ, Pro-Q3, Pro-DS, Bx_Saturator V2, McDSP SPC202, Dangerous Bax EQ, RX7 De-ess, Waves Kramer HLS, renascence vox, Pro-DS, L2, CLA 76, UAD EMT 250, UAD EMT140, BBD Delay, Harmonize, H910

Mix Bus
bx_townhouse, UAD Fairchild 670, bx_digital V2, Slate Virtual Chanel, Pro-DS, UAD Pultec EQ, UAD ATR-102 Tape, Ozone8, UAD Oxford Limiter



Mixes Wav
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/bcy ... c.wav?dl=0

MP3
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/cm0 ... c.mp3?dl=0


Pics
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mhxpotgevexd1 ... 1.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bd2jtz73zf3el ... 2.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u5obcdvirsqpk ... 3.png?dl=0



good luck to all

[Mbarathi]

8. Stereo Bus

Logic Compressor - 1.5:1 Ratio, Attack - 10ms, Release 81ms, threshold to only compress 3db

Ozone 8 Dynamic EQ

Ozone 8 Exciter

TR5 One

Just some stats:
ILk => -11,5 LUFS
RMS => -11,83 dB RMS avg
dBTP max => +1,008 dBTP (Clipping, signal was limited to -0,01dBFS)


This might put your edit in danger of getting into the next mix round, as your track is "premastered". (technically, a rule violation)


I see what I did there! Thanks for the heads up, I'll be more mindful in the next challenge.
Cheers!

[Mbarathi]

However... please do educate yourself with the Rules and Guidelines on "recommended signal levels". Just out of pure curiosity, I pulled one track from recent submissions and ran it through analysis tools and listened to the material.

8. Stereo Bus

Logic Compressor - 1.5:1 Ratio, Attack - 10ms, Release 81ms, threshold to only compress 3db

Ozone 8 Dynamic EQ

Ozone 8 Exciter

TR5 One

Just some stats:
ILk => -11,5 LUFS
RMS => -11,83 dB RMS avg
dBTP max => +1,008 dBTP (Clipping, signal was limited to -0,01dBFS)


This might put your edit in danger of getting into the next mix round, as your track is "premastered". (technically, a rule violation)

I see what I did there! Thanks for the heads up, I'll be more mindful in the next challenge.
Cheers!

[francobhalla]

DAW: Logic Pro X
Interface: UA Apollo 8P
Monitors: Dynaudio Custom

Links:
WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VwNQV ... HanlwpG59W
MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1LDiWw ... ulgQqMghm6

Processing:

Drums:
Bass Drum: Gate > Channel Eq > Compressor
Snare Top: Channel EQ > Compressor
Snare Bottom: Channel EQ
Snare Group: UAD SSL E Channel Strip > Compressor
HiHat: Channel EQ > Rcompressor
OH: Compressor > UAD SSL E Channel Strip > Channel EQ
Tom 1: Channel EQ > UAD SSL E Channel Strip
Tom 2: UAD SSL E Channel Strip
Orchestral Percussion: Channel EQ
Drum Bus: Bx Saturator V2 > FF Pro Q3
Drums Parallel Processing: Compressor > Channel EQ> Channel EQ
Drums Reverb: Space Designer > Channel EQ

Bass: Channel EQ > GTR AMP > Teletronix LA2A > Channel EQ > FF Pro Q3

Ac Gtr:
Ac Gtr Line: Channel EQ > UAD SSL E Channel Strip > Rcompressor
Ac Gtr Solo: Channel EQ > UAD SSL E Channel Strip > Rcompressor
Ac Gtr Reverb: UAD EMT 250
Ac Gtr Bus: Channel EQ > Compressor

Cello : Channel EQ > J37

Piano : GW PianoCentric > Channel EQ > UAD Teletronics LA2A

Violas : Channel EQ

Violin: Channel EQ > Rcompressor > UAD Teletronics LA2A

Vocals:
Lead Vocals: Channel EQ > UAD SSL E Channel Strip > FF Pro Q3 > Rcompressor > FF Pro DS > UAD Teletronics LA2A
Backing Vocals: Channel EQ > Rcompressor
Reverb: UAD EMT 140
Delay: Stereo Delay