MIX CHALLENGE - MC066 June 2020 - Winners announced

[EchoOread]

Thank you White Punk OD for letting me know that my link is not public. I did not know that Google drive changed the interface. The mix is still the same one except the new link. Thanks.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s4haPT ... sp=sharing

[andrepvh]

Hello everyone.

Thank you for the opportunity. Please, if you don't understand something, let me know.

I tried to capture in the mix the sound of rock from that decade that was talked about and in the middle of which I grew up.

I usually have a challenge with kick drum and bass and this was not the exception. I took some risks especially with the guitar trying to give the song that sounds that I thought John was referring to.

I enjoyed the whole process and celebrate these sharing spaces to learn and make contacts.

I send you all my best wishes.

Overview:

- I duplicated the kick drum to be able to treat highs and lows separately for more control and clarity in the mix.
- On the drums, I put eq and a mastering tool and added an auxiliary with parallel compression. I also automated the volume on that track according to the song section. There is one reverb for Kick and another one for toms and snare.
- The bass is compressed and has eq and distortion in several instances to make it natural (I heard it artificial). I added a multi-band compressor in the bass master to control the low end. It is also automated to give it more presence in the choirs.
- I separated the voice in two channels to be able to affect only verses or only choruses as needed.
- In the voice, I tuned it and inserted several processes like compression, to be able to make it even, to give it presence, and to correct color changes that I interpreted as microphone axis issues (although I am not sure). There is Eq to give it brightness and air and to get rid of some annoying frequencies. There is also a De-esser to control the wheezing sounds a little without losing brightness. I also created several buses with reverb, doubler, flanger, two delays, distortion, and some other effects that give it body, consonants clarity, and width.
- I compressed the additional voices and equalized them with a hi-pass filter. I used the second voice to duplicate the lead vocal gently. I used the third voice far behind the lead vocal with a noticeable delay to give the choir a little dynamism.
- I duplicated the guitar and added different amps and effects to each one to create a bigger sound. I left one of them with the mid-bass range to give weight and continuity, and the other giving prominence to the riff. I edited them to have all the choruses with that riff. In both, I inserted a plugin to increase the stereo image.
- In the guitar master, I put an eq cutting excessive brightness.
- I put a delay on the leading guitar to give it a little more presence and spaciousness, and I automated it at the output to make room to the voice entrance. I took advantage of the track that came with reverb.
- I tried to mix the piano with the guitars based on frequency ranges. I left the pads fulfilling their support function. I inserted on the keyboard master a detuned reverb to give depth.
- I repeated the last phrase in the voice to make a more congruent fade out.

The mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13vhSTI ... sp=sharing

ScreenShots: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

[rvalle]

Hello. I'm submitting my entry.

DAWs: Reaper and Ableton Live
ITB process only.

Reference I used: Billy Idol - Eyes Without a Face

Lead voice: Good quality in record and edit. I make a minor tuning correction only for vibrato control. Some basic equalization adjustments were made, to give a little shine, and compression. Sent to two delays and two reverbs;
Secondary voices: Maintained in the very background; Vox2 and Vox3 without further processing, only panorama adjustment; in Vox4, I duplicated it with a simulator.
Vocal Bus: Tape saturation, compression and equalization.

Drums: Some good challenges.
Snare:
It was a little thin. I tried to create lower frequencies by duplicating the channel and using a pitch-shifter (Reaper native) to decrease an octave. But the timbre did not please. Finally, I went to Ableton, where I extracted a MIDI file referring to snare hits (including the corresponding velocitys), using the "extract groove" function. I was then able to create a layer with another snare, which supported the original snare; The two layers were added in a channel in which an enhancer was applied, a gated reverb and equalization.
Kick:
Basic equalization; Compression;
On the other drum channels, only equalization to control harshness.
On the drum bus, compression, equalization and tape saturation were applied. The sum signal was sent to a channel dedicated to parallel compression in which, in addition to the compressor, a little harmonic distortion was also applied.

GTR: Basic Equalization on all channels. In Id2, a harmonic saturator and a specific delay were applied.

Keys: Basic equalization across channels. Piano and Verse Keys were sent to a channel in parallel with a Leslie rotary simulator to provide some movement.
In the key bus channel, another equalizer and spectral shaper were used to add a personality.

Bass: a little bit of tube saturation, a low frequency enhancer (UAD Little Labs VOG), EQ with a 3db cut in the 200hz region and a little chorus (Acon Digital Multiply).

Ambience Bus: the original “Id reverb” channel was maintained.
Five channels were added: Leslie; a tape slap delay for voice, with repetitions in 120ms; a ping-pong delay (1/8 and 1/8 d); a small chamber reverb and a medium plate reverb.

Everything was printed on a sum channel and this signal was processed with two bus compressors (for glue only) and a pre-amp simulator for coloring and final volume adjustment (this can be seen in the attached gif).

24bit / 48khz file, truepeak level around -3.5dbFS, total RMS level around -18db

It was my first participation on the Mix-Channel blog. I intend to continue participating because I thought the initiative was excellent. Thanks John for the great music. I'm working on my english, so I make some mistakes

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

Prints:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

[Blang]

Hi everyone,

Here you can find my mix:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1hk1judln3292 ... g.wav?dl=0

Drums:
Hair metal, ergo: FAT gunshot snare!
I used the UAD RealVerb Pro with an altered ‘Hairy Snare’ preset with a gate after it; which is actually my go to drum room verb. This gave the gunshot but not enough beef… To get this I duplicated the snare track twice and pitched one 5 semitones and the other an octave. I kpet a fait amount of the original snare to maintain the punch.

Bass:
Some (subtle) parallel distortion with Decapitator (E, Punish, Drive 5).

Rhythm Guitar:
Lo-mids were pilling up in the chorus, so I cut a lot around 180Hz, fairly wide.
Tamed the left guitar (A1) a bit around 4k. Parallel comp on both with Devil-Loc.

Solo (lead) guitar:
Added some higher harmonics with UnfilteredAudio Indent (parallel) to make it poke through.

Piano chorus:
more highs, less lows too avoid muddiness

Synths:
A lot of stuff is happening at the 1 of each bar in the chorus. The arrangement is quite dense and sustained. To get more clarity (also punch) and movement I made the synths swell every bar with SoundToys Tremolator and some automation.

Piano verse:
In my opinion to verse could use some more movement (8th notes) and variation. So I added a tremolated piano duplicate in the second halves of the chorus.
When I was doing this, I stumbled upon a happy accident: The verse sounds pretty badass to me with just drum, bass and vocal. So this is what I did for the start of the second verse. also some added chorus / verse contrast as a bonus. Perhaps a bit cheeky, but hey, since we’re living in this non-destructive playground…
I reversed the last chord towards the chorus to create more build-up, because the drums was kinda doing that all by himself with the snare fills.

Vocals:
Leadvocal;: mild Parallel comp with UAD LA-2A and UAD 1176 blue stripe. Also very little EQ: tiny dip at 300Hz and 1k.
FX: to create a more modern fake double, I sneaked a hard tuned (Little Alterboy) duplicate under the lead voc.
2 Echoboys: 1/8 note “echoplex” and a modulated 1/4 note (volume automated).

Had fun with this one!
Cheerio

[Moses]

Here we go;
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i3t59af5haj9k ... s.wav?dl=0

I liked the song not to be modern, even if haven’t reached my goal.. it has become a rather 70s sounding mix.

First I tried to get rid of the edgyness of the recodings with some saturation rolloff and emulations from Neve and tape machines.
The bass needed some restauration and limiting.
On the Background Vox i reached a clear lack of inspiration and just made it chorus a bit more, used mod delay and tremolo to make it even bigger.
I used the New York compression technique on the drums and also crushed one Room mic quiet hard.
Three reverbs where used to fill up the room; plate, a small room and a big hall. apart from this i used an extra plate for the vox.

[canese]

Hello, this is my submission this time.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jturbk7qzw18c ... e.wav?dl=0

I started with vocals. Slightly tuned them, not to much to notice. Put a chain with compression, EQ, saturation, reverb and automated delay. Backing vocals are also detuned and with more reverb.

Next was drums. I started with the Overheads and phase check the other mics as I add them. In bus there is a compressor and short reverb to glue, EQ to push the snare and kick, and lower some cymbals.

Bass has a compressor and parallel distortion, also EQ in the bus.

Guitars have lot of reverb and delay. Also EQ to sit them in the mix.

I cut most of the low end of the piano, so the bass and kick can have room. I put a compressor and some automated delay.

Synths are mixed all togheter with some high end saturation and reverb.

[Lewshwa Music]

MC066

WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hxz2ktpj9gl5c ... c.wav?dl=0

First off, thank you for the opportunity to mix this material. Well done song and tracks.

I used a few methods to get where I wanted to go. I'll describe in broad strokes, for brevity, and to avoid repreating myself from contests past. (my mixing process is largely determined by my personal template, and I've gone into great detail on this template in other mixing notes. Please let me know if you'd like to hear more about this)

Imported into my template (48k) and did my normal bussing and processing. i found things were fighting too much, so I did a series of mixdowns. Drum n Bass, Rhythm and Strings, Bvox, Lead Guit and Vox. This imparted my NLS sound and masterbus processing, similar to what I've done in previous contests, to the tracks, but stil left me room to contour things together and add verbs.

In mixdowns, I tried using my outboard gear, but wasn't getting quite what I wanted, so went back to ITB. I did a good deal of automation of EQ and volume. I was missing some Bass and Rhythm Guitar so I brought them in again as extra layers. I made sure to phase check them, but they offered another level of control and an ability to automate some panning between the choruses and verses. I put in a room verb and a mono verb to finish things out. Sent to varying degrees from the mixdowns.

Hope you enjoy!

Lewshwa Music

[SyroniC_GP]

Hello Everyone and thank you John for your tracks.

Here is the link to my mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yvNql- ... sp=sharing

DAW: Logic X
Plugins: Waves (e.g. NLS Buss, J37, C6, Q6 EQ, SSL EQ, SSL Comp)
Outboard: Warm Audio Tube EQ and WA76

I can write a bit more about what i've done if wanted.
But not today - it's late now.

Greetings
SyroniC_GP

[Franz]

Hi John, Mister Fox and all of you,

Excellent composition which contains all the ingredients to make a mix.
The goal is to obtain a harmonious and balanced whole between the instruments and the voices.
The basic sounds are of good quality, we can afford to refine the equalizations (often necessary) and
use sparingly special effects such as a harmonizer (Eventide H3000) or echo (Magix Ecox).

For the drums, I opted for a more in-depth overall sound while trying to keep the consistency and the punch
(plate reverb on the snare).
The bass has been treated in Vandal by Magix for more presence and attack.
The guitars have kept their original sound with slight equalization and spatial treatment in TVerb by Eventide.
Strings + Keys as such with a slight MicroPitch effect from Eventide.
The choirs remain natural + certain effects (echo on certain words or the word "HA" highlighted at 2'58 '').
And the main voice with basic processing (de-esser, equalization, compression).

You can listen to it here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qq9lj1fn21s7p ... z.wav?dl=0

Cheers

Franz

[linden6790]

Drums:
I tried to make 80s snare - I've managed to get this high end reverb on the snare by using pink noise and gate (ReaGate) in sidechain and applying reverb (Glace Reverb) on it. On separate track called "sn powr" I gated only low mids so it would have more low end punch.
I've havily compressed the rooms. I had problems with OH bc cymbals were popping out much more than the rest so I used volume automation to even that. I used Acon Verbate on whole drums just a little to make it sound more spacious and wide.

Guitars:
nothing special here. EQ and compressor. I added some delay (Nebula) on solo and EQ

Bass:
Multiple EQs with slight changes, saturation, compressor and used sidechain kick vs bass.

Keys/Synths:
On Verse Keys I used TAL reverb 4 and modulated it with some delay.
For the rest of key-like intruments I used some reverb (Acon Verbate), panned h.string and key sound a little (30% left and rigt each instrument)
Besides this things, EQ and compression.
Also sidechain with snare.

Vocals:
EQ, slight distortion (Krush) API 2500 compressor, deesser, F6 RTA to compress only around 4 kHz a little, IVGI2 satration for high freq, saussage fattener saturation (havily), Acon reverb for widening and slight reverb. Also Dub Delay TAL send and modulated TAL reverb 4 for adlibs.

Master:
MasterMix Buss Compressor used as a glue.


Screen shots:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t8wA5f ... sp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zdXS4f ... sp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XtWkgD ... sp=sharing


My mix:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VfWj85 ... sp=sharing