MIX CHALLENGE - MC062 February 2020 - Winners announced

[chriskamery]

This was a very interesting challenge for sure. Let me know if the links do not work. Thanks again for hosting the challenge!



WAV File:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jdayr65hs8xfu ... y.wav?dl=0


Screenshots File:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/57fj9rehrppsg ... .pptx?dl=0

[copyc4t]

Hello all, here's my entry:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/aaey7cyhgmth6 ... t.wav?dl=0

Screenshots:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q4c33fgym4sdj ... 1.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/384cbjztijyrg ... 2.png?dl=0

The mix is done on Ardour, with plugins mostly from the Calf Studio Gear suite, the LSP plugin suite by Vladimir Sadovnikov, plus Luftikus EQ by lkjb, Dragonfly Reverb by Michael Willis and Rob vd Berg, Panagement 2 Free by Auburn Sounds, various meters by Robin Gareus, K-Meter by Martin Zuther, LUFS Meter by Klangfreund.

I aimed ad the suggested separation of elements, mostly achieved by working on the stereo field and differently placed EQ boosts.

As for the track processing:
- Most of the drum tracks just have basic EQ, plus the Damage Snare has some reverb, and the War Drums have transient designer (as de-rumbler), bass enhancing, and saturation from a tape simulator.
The Ambiloop Azure Drums track drives sidechain multiband compression on the basses and the pads with some low end content (Retro 1 and 2).
The drum bus has parallel compression and saturation from a tape simulator.

- The basses have sidechain multiband compression, compression, bass enhancing, and EQ.

- The Wind and Vocalise Intro have a pair of mirrored pulsators to add some LF stereo movement.

- The main vocals have air band boost, and the third and octave DoPahTet are panned via Panagement 2 rather than narrowing and panning via the track controls, to keep the whole width available while still clearly positioning them in the soundscape.

- The tracks Wavestation and CS 80 1 have an EQ dip on the mid channel, mirrored extra stereo weight via Calf Stereo Tools, Panagement 2 placement, and another pair of mirrored pulsators at a slightly different frequency than the intro pair.

Overall, the track have EQ high-pass where and when needed (with a little frequency sweep on the wind intro as the vocals come up) and differently placed boosts, and quite a bit of gain staging.

Finally, the sum bus has a safety low pass filter on EQ, subtle saturation from a tape simulator, and metering.

The peaks are at -1dB, the integrated LUFS stays safely below -16, the dynamic range stays around 8.7.

[dnlptn]

Hi all,

Thanks Gary for the opportunity to mix your track.

Here is the dropbox link to my entry and mixing documentation.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cegkzegeu8n ... ENIva?dl=0

Cheers,

[davemcisaac]

Mix Notes

First of all, I want to say this was a very nice song to work with other than the obvious mixing problems of printed FX, etc.

The primary goal was to create a clean and punchy cinematic track. That required separating all the elements then re-gluing them together. To accomplish this took a lot of gating and transient shaping to cut off the extended tails that were muddying everything up. My go-to gate was Gatey Watey and go-to transient designer was SPL Transient Designer Plus. It also took a lot of EQing to separate the elements (most used was ReaEQ - yes, I mixed on Reaper) along with MDynamicEQ, which allowed me to do a lot of shaping (I used 2 copies on Ambiloop Azure Drums to semi-gate the low end before Sugar then to control the upper mids after Sugar).

It also took a lot of controlling the stereo field to bring in some of the tracks so they could sit in a defined space in the mix. Primarily used Waves Vitamin for the tracks then BX Digital V3 on the mix bus for the Mono-Maker.

All in all, I feel like all the elements were able to sit cleanly in their own spot in the mix. A bit of automation to add some drama to the overall feel. I hope you enjoy my effort.

Wav - https://mega.nz/#!oeITTQ4J!UYx9Q3NsWebf ... pv-viZF3SQ
Mp3 - https://mega.nz/#!NKRhyQoQ!CRb1JBXoa3-w ... hMthgKgGKc

[kirurg]

Hello everyone,

Thank you Gary for the great song.
Generally I did not use any additional reverb or delay,
theres is eq, compression and Slate Virtual
Console on every track. There is also stereo field (Waves S1 imager)
control in almost every track. Some tracks having UAD bx_refinement
or Soothe eq plugin to control some frequencies.
There is volume and stereo field automation used on most tracks.

Most important notes are:
Drums:
Ambiloop kick splitted into 2 separate tracks: kick and snare,
to get better balancing possibility. There is additional multiband
compressing on the kick to control that sub-low tail. All the drums group
has aslo Aquamarine4 compressor.
Vocals: pad & harmony having a little bit transient designer to shorten
the tail. Vocals bus compressed by Waves RVox and additionally by
Acustica Audio El Rey.
Bass:
The Shortnoise bass track has gate to shorten the tail.

Main bus has Acustica Audio Sand compressor, Coral EQ, Roundtone Tape.

Wav
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bmwf66yz8t43g ... g.wav?dl=0

Mp3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cmpfig327tgoz ... g.mp3?dl=0

[Jerze]

Hello everyone, thanks Gary for the opportunity to mix this song.

The first step was to get a good blend of the different parts while trying to keep in mind that this was from a drone’s perspective. Next was the SSl compressor on the 2 buss for some glue. I then started to eq some tracks to get things to set in the mix not all tracks where eqed though. The thing I wanted to get out of a few parts was a way to make them feel like they were moving side to side for some motion.I ended up using sound toys pan man for this. Anyways there are some saturation plugs, a pumper, few rbass and a few other plugin adding to the mix no busses, aux or sidechaining all tracks sent to 2buss. .



Mp3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vbapwir8cdxzs ... e.mp3?dl=0

Wav
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0mmnzdt1bzxku ... .wav?dl=0w


If you have any question or thoughts let me know
Thanks Jerze

[Frequency Painter]

Hi Gary, everyone,

Here's my contribution to this contest. First of, thank you Gary for doing this, it was a pleasure to work with your music. The emotions of the main melodies (and their sound design) perfectly capture your vision of this dystopian disaster setting. I expanded a bit on it and made my own little scenario that goes like this: the scene is set into the future when robots try to take over the world by releasing a lethal virus to destroy humans. However, there's a "rogue" robot that (or who for that matter) developed compassionate AI and tries to save us all by developing a vaccine. When the music starts you can see the lab in an old desolate, concrete and damp building with broken windows (windy) and the friendly robot taking the vaccine vial out of the incubator (choir crescendo). He takes it to the drone and puts it inside. When the main theme 1 starts, the drone takes off and flies over desolate fields (bird's eye view). Theme 1 has a feeling of hopefulness IMO. Then you see more buildings appear (the added synths when theme 1 repeats) and the drone approaches a city. At the end of this theme1 reiteration, you see the drone descend (tape-stop fx on CS 80 1) and enter the destroyed city (theme2 Etheral expressing the pain, anguish, suffering and desperation of the humans) flying in between the buildings. The city is empty and grim. At the end of this theme (string run), the drone soars into the sky again and flies towards an old church on a mountain. You can see tents and what looks like a field hospital set up by the army. People see the drone and start running towards it, waving and hailing it. The frame cuts to the lab and you can see our hero, the good robot smiling. -cut again to the drone camera- You can see the human survivors who suffered a lot rejoicing (theme1 hopefulness, with a hint of the anguish = voice of theme2). The drone lands in front of the old church. The vaccine vial is taken out and carried into the building which serves as a hospital. The door is opened, you see the patients and then a close-up of the vaccine with the altar and the cross in the background (bell tolls). Now tell me, who needs to get out more? :-))))))

As for the technical stuff: There's a lot under the hood, and it's nearly impossible to describe everything, I'll stick to the most important things. I worked with the the audio files and their reverb/intended sound design.

Ambiloop Azure drum loop: transient designer, some eq automation, cutting the lows below 70 Hz in between every BD hit and whenever the two bass synths are playing. This to clean up the low end and give it more definition. I cut out the bass drum and the snare and used them to side-chain all instruments. I also used a copy of the snare to add some reverb to it, and yet another one to compress and EQ rather heavily to give the snare a bit more weight. I compressed the loop a bit the give it more vibe and movement.

CS 80 1: Added some light saturation, a chorused hall reverb and some level automation to make it move and swell a bit more
CS 80 2 & 3: just some light distortion to lift the sound a bit.

Damage Industrial Hats: just as they are, panned a bit to the left

Ethera: Added some airy high end (17K), compression and a delay. I also added some fades after every phrase to make it feel more musical.

Assorted snares: I honestly don't remember which snare is/was which because I bounced some of them and I gave them other names in the process. In any case, I tried to be as close as possible to the snare sound in the Ambiloop. I used one snare sound to created this Vangelis noise fx. For this I used the free NI RAUM reverb plugin with a 1/8th pre-delay.

Field Snare: a huge cut @2.9K and balanced it against the War Drums

Music Box: just as is with an autopanner to give the mix some movement

DoPahTets: I added some highs and panned them over the stereo field LCR.

Omnisphere Bass: I evened it out level wise with Waves bass rider and additional compression. EQ wise I cut out 200 Hz 4 dB and added 3 dB of 2K. I also limited it with Waves L3, mainly some of the low-end. For me this felt like the main bass (adding to the Vangelis feel of the CS80 1 synth). Level wise I made it work together with the Short Noise Bass and tried to fit both together with emphasis on the former. See description below.

Omnisphere Loop: EQ cut out resonances

Retro 1 & 2: just some complimentary EQ to make them fit together. Retro2 got some distortion (PA Phills Cascade), Bass and a narrow cut @83 Hz (resonance)

Short Noise Bass: Some M/S EQ cutting 50-70 Hz in the mid channel to make the Omnisphere Bass fit in the middle. RBass and L3 to make it extra tight.

Strings and Sopranos: M/S EQ cutting 3 dB out of the centre from 170- 2500 Hz - Additional boost @ 100Hz and cut at 2.2 kHz

Symphonic Strings: Basically the same as Strings&Sopranos.

Vocalise C Pad & Harmony: just some EQ to clean it up = cut at 320 Hz and a high shelf @ 15K

Vocalise Intro: an automated LP filter gradually opening up together with the Waves S1 also gradually going from mono to 15% stereo.

War Drums: cutting resonances @ 105, 291, 957, 5400 Hz with a slight shelf boost @4800 Hz, some low-end limiting L3 and a M/S mid cut @ 60 Hz to make room for the basses/BD

Wave Station: just added some chorus to give it a more 80s feel

Wind: I gave it a more eerie feel by adding a dark reverb (subspace)

The master bus has a pultec style EQ with a slight boost @ 60 Hz and 5K, an SSL style compressor (fastest release and 10ms attack, 2:1 ratio), tape saturation.

Overall there is a lot of level automation going on especially in the end where everything comes together. At that point I just took the master bus fader up 1 dB while at the same time lowering certain tracks conflicting with the War Drums. All synths were grouped into an aux that I widened with an M/S tool, the sides were boosted 1 dB.

I struggled a bit to find a good (cinematic) frequency foot print for the mix. It came out pretty even with enough low (controlled rumble) and high end (see screen shot).

Best of luck to everyone!!

Cheers,
Louis

WAV-file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nbvkrqxudzewd ... r.wav?dl=0
Frequency plot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/t7o1i3d3xt2n4 ... 1.png?dl=0

[HyeInnCho]

Hi, there!

Here's the link of ma drive:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AOp7XH ... VyeCC/view

I really enjoyed this music and got finished mix!


Thanks. :-) ㅡ

[thenormalone]

Heyy guys hope you well.
Just here to ask about the results.
When are they going to publish?
Thank you for your time

[Samonov]

Hi everyone
This is my version of the mix
Look to project:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sb818g2jzh5d0 ... 1.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vulcrxz56h9bk ... 2.jpg?dl=0
Mix:
Wav: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uw9evsqm8v98o ... v.wav?dl=0
Mp3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8y6rjz1dvmws ... v.mp3?dl=0