MIX CHALLENGE - MC063 March 2020 - Winners announced

[LughSenderson]

Hello

I'm a little out of free time, but I liked this song so much that I took the time to participate.

As usual, all my equalization and compression was done on the ssl native channel (with the exception of the compression bus, which was ssl native bus compressor). I equalized and compressed all the tracks, digging the mids in the drums, adding in all instruments, medium and high frequencies to improve the energy of the recording and eventually bass for the body.

I had four reverbs, room for drums, plate for guitars, random hall for guitars licks and synths, a second plate for vocals where I also used a dual delay, all Lexicon PCM Native.

I also used Eventide H3000 Factory for additional effects on vocals and “GTR Licks” A, B and C.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p1fnVT ... sp=sharing

[Photonic]

Hi all,

What a nice song. Thank you CeZar for providing it!
The arrangement of this song is quite dense, especially in the chorus. On one hand I tried to keep this wall of sound feeling. Otherwise I wanted to make it clear and give room for the voice. I could achieve this best with the ThrillseekerXTC on a lot of tracks. This can solour the tone to make it more audible,without making the track louder.
When listening to bass and acoustic guitar alone, I heard some bass notes slightly out of pitch. I corrected them with the pitch automation in Reaper.
Except the GTRAmpDrive (here I used the processed sound), I used the DI for all other electric guitars and did some re-amping.

Mixed in Reaper v5.51
Drum-Bus: Presswerk (bus compressor mode), LoudMax, ThrillseekerXTC
Kick: ReaComp, ReaEQ
Snare: ReaComp, ReaEQ, TDR VOS SlickEQ
Toms: ReaEQ
Hihat: ReaComp (ducking the snare), ReaEQ
OH: ReaComp, ReaEQ, MideSideMangler (to widen the stereo)
Room: ReaComp, ReaEQ, Verberate
Bass-Verse: BassProfessor II (add some satturation and hard transients)
Bass-Chorus: BassProfessor II (making a more soft tone), Acon Digital Multiply
AcG Bus: ReaEQ, TDR VOS SlickEQ, ThrillseekerXTC
All AcGs: ReaEQ, ReaComp
AcgMain: MideSideMangler (to widen the stereo), ReaEQ, NastyDLA, ThrillseekerXTC
Gtr Verse, PreCH and Ending: Boogex, ReaEQ, ReaDelay, NastyDLA
Gtr AmpDrive: ReaEQ
Gtr Drive L+R: AmpliTube2, ReaEQ
Synth1: ReaEQ
Synth2: ReaEQ, ThrillseekerXTC
VoxLead: ReaEQ, Presswerk (vocal mode), TDR Nova (for de-essing), TDR VOS SlickEQ, ThrillseekerXTC
BackVox Bus: ReaEQ, Presswerk (vocal mode)
Backing tracks: ReaEQ, S.LAX

Reverbs: Acon Digital Verberate
Master: MQ57, Presswerk (bus mode), SPAN

WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ccq5as78ta4sc ... c.wav?dl=0

[lavlane]

Here's My mix 1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xn3xy880hfk15 ... e.wav?dl=0

Cool song! I was all in the box on this one. Had an SSL comp on the main buss trying for that classic 2000's pop rock sound.
Mixed it in headphones cause my room is not up to scratch. I think it sounds good though on headphones it translates pretty well or at least I hope it does lol. Hard to tell with cans sometimes. Let me know what you think if anyone listens! I'd be happy to listen to yours

[maxshin]

Hello.

First of all, I appreciate Mix Challenge and the song provider CeZar. It was really enjoyable time with this song.

I didn’t use extra DI tracks. I put T-Racks EQ-73 or EQ-81 on every track for THD and EQing. And SPL TwinTube on some of tracks like guitars and vocal for more saturation. Especially on drum bus, I used 100% dry signal of Softube FET compressor as a saturator by increasing input gain. i made sub-bass at Kick and Bass by Waves RBass.

I choose different compressors for each track as occasion demands. T-Racks Black 76 on kick drum, T-racks White Channel Strip’s comp on tom-tom, T-Racks White-2A on bass and vocals, T-Racks VC-670 on drum bus, guitar stroke(I think it makes a gentle and greasy sound), Vertigo VSC2 on all the rest(I think it makes the sound to open up to high freq slightly). And I used T-Racks Bus Compressor as a final bus glue. As you all know, slow attack, fast release and gain reduction less than 0.5db.

I added chorus effect to power chord guitar. I wanted it sounds more solid. And chorus effect to the latter part of vocal melody too. It was for a little more musical reason.

I thought synth track’s low-mid freq is too much massive. so I cut it extremely.

I put room reverb for instruments, plate for vocals using Lexicon 480L’s IR and other room for drums.

Thank you guys for reading this in spite of my English. I hope it helped.

Wav:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a50v3tpt5ue8k ... n.wav?dl=0

Print Screen:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mb9oltqmp8tinan/1.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xksnaevcx3jy26w/2.png?dl=0

[davidlopezmixing]

Hey everyone!

This here is my first time participating in Mix Challenge and I had fun mixing this song!

I mixed this song in Pro Tools and used Slate plugins along with some Pro Tools plugins as well.

Mix Bus - Slate VTM and VMB and FG-Grey compressor only doing 1 db of gain reduction in the chorus.

Vocals - De-Essing and minimal EQ moves with a blue stripe 1176 and automation.
BG Vocals - Similar treatment

Kick - Slate VMR: Gate, VCC, VTC, FG-S, FG-116, CS Lift
Snare- Slate VMR: VCC, CS Lift, VTC, FG-S, FG-401, Trimmer
Toms - Individual EQ moves and FG-401 on the Toms Bus
Overheads - FG-N, FG-401
Rooms - FG-A, FG-Stress
Drum Bus - FG-Red

Bass - Added some distortion FG-N and FG-401

Acoustics - FG-A and FG-116 Modern

Elec Guitars - Mainly just EQ moves, no compression

Synths - EQ only

DropBox links:

WAV
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6x7ckfjxr0sm3 ... z.wav?dl=0

Screenshots
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tazxot23c8ld0 ... M.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ybts38fn6045e ... M.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dmk3vx9qmvfok ... M.png?dl=0

Hopefully I linked everything correctly.

Happy mixing!

David Lopez

[DrSpeed]

Hello guys,
This is my mix:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gqn9kzhbktzl ... Dn50a?dl=0

on this link you can see my screenshots:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y4ijpmjka63pt ... 3.rar?dl=0

My mix is about -12 LUFS, I'd use some bus compresion (drums, guitars, back vocals etc.). I really don't use processing on everything, some things sound great without grabing an EQ or some dynamics on it.
In this mix on El. gtrs bus i wasn't putting any dynamics, i just wonted them to breathe, to give them life back.

Great song btw, and I sincerely hope you like my mix.

[rawdrewage]

Hello Everyone,

Fun song to mix. I mixed this as an energetic pop/ rock song trying to get my head banging. I worked hard to preserve and enhance the energy on the source tracks.

I recently moved to a 64 bit only DAW, Nuendo 10, and have been using different plugins than the ones I had been using for years, like UAD. I have not gotten all of my old plugs in there yet so it has been an interesting journey outside my comfort zone and start using some new stuff. I hope you enjoy the result.

Here is my mix:

24 44.1 KHz wav:

phpBB [media]

192 kbps mp3

phpBB [media]

Mixed all in the box using Nuendo 10...

SSL 4000E Brown channels on drums just for eq

Nuendo Bass Amp sim and DBX 160 on bass

Nuendo IR reverb with Bricasti impulse for verb...2 delays, stock delay plugs.

I did some parallel compression on groups (drums, vox gtrs) as well as built in tape saturation lightly ~ 11%.

SSL bus compressor in parallel on the 2 bus as well as Pultec.

The level is around -13.1 LUFS.

If anyone has any questions feel free to contact me.

Thanks and good luck to everyone!

[paglia]

Hi everyone

I mixed this song in hybrid analog/digital configuration using Neve summing mixer. All drums channel are summed in one stereo bus with Smart c2 in parallel. Bass in Dbx 165A. Acoustic guitar in stereo IGS Alter 500. Distorted guitar nothing special, eq and comp. Vox StaLevel and Distressor. Reverb and delay of course.
If you want a more spec ask me!!

Greetings from italy..and it's a really bad time for Italian people. Hope this nightmare ends soon!!

WAV

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z6x0fhgwo1zof ... a.wav?dl=0

MP3

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p83rcmjuzr01l ... a.mp3?dl=0

[hjchjc]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uU5Q9h ... tkWvVeLPW/

Here's my mix! -1.09 tP, -17.3 LUFS, 2-3db of SSL compression on mixbus

I grew up on this kind of pop-rock, so I thoroughly enjoyed working on the song, CeZar!

My biggest struggle with this mix was how to keep the momentum of the song in the post-chorus instrumental sections and ending while also keeping the vocal present. I ultimately solved this problem by turning the post-chorus lick into something of a main riff, and turning down the vocals at key moments. My goal was less making the most polished mix than keeping the energy high.

I listened to a bit of 2000s rock like Nickelback and Lifehouse as a reference point (say what thou will about the songwriting but the production is incredible).

I originally had a mix with around 55 plugins; the final version uses a little over half that and is much stronger for it.

Vocal chain was sparse - Transature, VPRE-73, Vocal-King, and RDe-esser were the four main plugins (though the vocal ended up sounding really bright anyway). Then a LOT of sends to various delays and verbs to fill space and create ear candy.

Auburn Sounds Panagement 2

Plugin Alliance Lindell 7X-500, Unfiltered Audio G8, BX_subfilter

Unfiltered Audio Puncuate (for snares)

Pulsar Audio Smasher (compression on drum)

Soundtoys Devil-Loc, MicroShift, Little Microshift, EchoBoy, EchoBoy Jr, PanMan, Sie -Q

FabFilter Pro-Q3

LVC-Audio: Toned

jHUDSTudio: Vocal-King

Airwindows: PocketVerbs, Air

Waves: CLA-3A, C4, F6-RTA, API-2500, RDeEsser, SSLComp

Analog Obsession: KONSOL, Transature

Logic: Space Designer, Linear EQ, Compressor,

Black Rooster: VPRE-73

WAV:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uU5Q9h ... sp=sharing

MP3:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FSnLJf ... sp=sharing

[paperthin]

Hi guys!

In my opinion it is a well-arranged song played with feeling. I will present my mixing highlights as usual:

Drums: very well-recorded tracks, it was easy to get them to sound the way I wanted. The highlight here would be my personal 'parallel distortion' trick used to beef up the snare and make all the kit pieces sound more uniform, it's a similar idea to parallel compression. For gating I used the gate trick I learned from Andrew Zeleno (go ahead and look for it on youtube), it worked really well for this mix.

Electric guitars: fairly noisy recordings to my taste, so I used the DIs for a couple of parts to re-sculpt the tone a bit.

Acoustic guitars: anybody noticed that the printed parts and separate mics are different takes? I ended up using both in different sections. Again, very well-made recordings, very enjoyable to work with.

Synths: one of them was copied and pitched up an octave so that altogether they sound almost like strings.

The rest of the mix was done in the usual fashion. I'm not listing any plugins because I think plugin lists are the most boring thing in the world to post on a forum, but if I you'd like to discuss specifics – ask away.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0nk0186ak7a33 ... n.wav?dl=0