MIX CHALLENGE - MC067 July 2020 - Winners announced

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
We're in the final 24 hours to submit your edit for Mix Round 2

[SDB_12]

Mix Round 2:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7gpov1p07l5ci ... 2.wav?dl=0

Video:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/719bqxh1j2jy9 ... 2.mov?dl=0

Hi all!

First off, thanks to the band and Mr. Fox for this great song and site for all us audio nerds! And thank you for selecting my mix for round 2

-I changed up the tom overdubs, shaving off the attack and giving them a cool wave sounding reverb so that they sit way back in the track and hopefully sound more “under water.” For this I used Crave EQ for general shaping, and DAW Cassette to grunge it up a bit more, then Valhalla Supermassive for the cool wave like reverb sound.

-Next I made sure the ending chorus break was dry and punchy, with lots of impact. I just used rides and brought down the reverb just a tad for this section.

-Then I addressed the personal revision requests that Sam gave me. They wanted the vocal more forward and possibly less scooped, so I reworked it a bit. I tried to give it more of a midrange punch and throaty sound, as well as give it a bit more saturation and vibe so that it cuts through and sounds interesting. In trying to bring the vocal out more, I was fighting with it getting too harsh…so I ended up using Waves F6 to tame some of the upper frequencies that jumped out a bit, an SSL EQ to clean up a touch of mud I was hearing (-1db cut at 966hz), Crave EQ to pull out more upper ringing/harsh frequencies (extremely narrow cuts), then added a bit of Slate Monster in parallel to give it more presence/punch and fill it out. Finally, I put Waves L3 Multi-Limiter just to tame a bit of the upper mids that jumped out at parts. Sounds like a lot, but everything was doing very specific things and adding up to hopefully create a vocal that demands the track a bit more and sounds more forward.

-The next thing Sam mentioned was trying to make the middle 8 distorted guitars wider, so I did this by slightly delaying one side and EQ’ing them a bit differently to add more width. I also used a touch of overdrive on them set differently to add a bit of weight and character, and again to help separate them making them sound wider. I also panned the “crunch guitars 3-4” super wide so that it helps keep the middle 8 wide throughout.

-As you all know, when mixing and making changes, it can sometimes bring light to other things…in making these changes I thought that the bass guitar could come up just a bit in the end sections of the song, when it really starts to groove. So I slightly pushed it in the end to help climax the song. I made a few other little volume rides to the vocals and guitars just to help them be a bit more dynamic and wrap around the vocal.

Thanks again all! Good luck to the round 2 contestants, and I hope the band finds a mix that they can use and release!

Seth

[HomespunAudio]

Thank you so much to Sam and the rest of Paint Me In Colour!! Again, this song was a blast to work on, so I'm honored that you enjoyed my take on it (Incidentally, my name is Sam too. It's a solid name.)

Here's a Google Drive link to my revised Round 2 mix:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13o7WqK ... sp=sharing

(Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a video - I tried to grab a screen recording while I was making my edits and didn't realize that Quicktime had crashed until after I was done Sorry about that! If you need something, I can do my best to take a video once I convince my computer to cooperate a little better.)

As for the edits, here's what I did:

1) Sam asked that the floor tom have more low-end thump, so I added the following processing to both tom channels and boosted both in volume:

Tom 1:
-FabFilter Pro-Q 3 (12 dB/oct low cut at 35 Hz, 4 dB broad boost around 99 Hz, 5 dB cut at 631 Hz, 5.2 dB narrow boost at 2311 Hz, 24 dB/oct high cut at 18054 Hz)
-JST Transify (Bass and Mid bands active with +20 attack and -20 sustain on each)

Tom 2:
-FabFilter Pro-Q 3 (12 dB/oct low cut at 32 Hz, 7 dB boost around 92 Hz, 4.3 dB cut at 408 Hz, 24 dB/oct high cut at 18054 Hz)
-JST Transify (Bass and Mid bands active with +20 attack and -20 sustain on each)

2) For the Tom overdubs, to try and get an "underwater"/more muffled and distant sound, I added the following processing to the overdub bus which included the individual tom channels and the overheads:

Tom overdub bus:
-JST Transify (All bands active with +40 attack and -40 sustain on each)
-FabFilter Pro-Q 3 (6 dB/oct low cut at 471 Hz, 6 dB broad boost around 2730 Hz, 30 dB/oct high cut at 7951 Hz)
-Soundtoys Little Plate Reverb (2 second delay, mix *almost* fully wet, low cut around 3:00)
-UA Moog Multimode Filter (cutoff at 750, automated filter sweep to open up very slightly over the course of the tom overdub)

The pretty aggressive use of Transify just served to counteract the dulling effect of the reverb and the Moog filter so that the toms would announce themselves and be audible while still being muffled and tucked more in the background.

3) Boosted the electric guitar just during the band dropout at the very beginning of the second verse.

4) Got rid of the tape flange effect on the Crunch 4 track since Sam mentioned that they weren't fans of that effect.

Hope you like these changes and that they bring the track closer to what you have in mind!

[MattRocket]

Hi from France!

mix Round2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/csmv102gvpivf ... 2.wav?dl=0

It is not easy to play Toms underwater.
I tried with delay, reverb and automation of EQ

Time lapse video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/px44btfaj63c7 ... t.mp4?dl=0

MattRocket

[jimmy88]

Hi,

Here is my submission for R2.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ex2bxrsff06h8 ... 2.wav?dl=0

Edits:
Snare: added low shelf EQ boost to make the snare fatter, and rebalanced the level.
Toms: added reverb and lowered the level few dBs to make it sound like underwater.
Middle 8 Guitars: balanced the level to make overdubs sounds as one, pan adjusted to be all Gtrs Hard lift/right.
HiHat/OH: automated the HiHat&OH level (lowered few dBs) in the last chorus.
Crunch Guitars: re-automate the level in the last chorus to make the sound more audible (raised few dBs).

Thanks.

[sam.pierpont]

MIX CHALLENGE MC067 IS COMPLETE!

Thanks to everyone in round 2 for getting your mixes submitted in time! The EP is getting distributed in a few days time so we were eager to listen to the mixes. They we're all fantastic and you all did a great job of making all the tweaks that we're mentioned in the revisions so thank you!

Anyway we've listened to them all a good few times but there were a few that stood out to us and one that REALLY stood out so here are the top three mixes:

1st Place: @Mork - we'd be more than happy to have your mix feature on the EP!
2nd Place: @HomespunAudio
3rd Place: @jimmy88

I'm not sure how the prizes and things are going to work so I'll leave that to @Mister Fox but once again thank you so much EVERYONE for taking part it's been such a fun experience!

Please go like and follow the bands social media and keep an eye out for all the fun stuff being released over the next month in the run up to the EP!

Paint Me In Colour x
www.facebook.com/paintmeincolour
www.instagram.com/paintmeincolour/?hl=en

PLEASE FOLLOW US ON SPOTIFY - IT'S FREE BUT HELPS A LOT!
https://open.spotify.com/artist/7a7Yqk6 ... H71GxSUO5w

[Mister Fox]

It's the 07th August 2020, 12:20 (UTC+2) - the 2nd Mix Round has officially ended.

Everyone has sent in an edit.
We have no submissions after the deadline.

And... oh boy, the feedback came in quick. I did not expect that.
Well, no need to wait and check the thread ever so often then.


First and foremost, congratulations to the winners!

The Winners Podium is
1) @Mork
2) @HomespunAudio
3) @jimmy88

Additional to that, congratulations to Mork to also make it on to the EP with your mix.


We perform with the usual - please select one license out of the pool (in order of the winners podium) and mention it in this thread, then (important) get in touch with me via PM with your full name, email address and your plugin selection. If one company has been selected, it's not available for the rest of the podium anymore.

I'll update the "winners podium" thread shortly.

Thanks again for your participation. You can leave the thread alive if you want to exchange tips/tricks, edits, etc.




I'm now opening up the room (again) for Q&A's and giving each other feedback (which is highly encouraged)

Please check out all other games on the community. The Songwriting Competition - which needs as much love as the Mix(ing) Challenge.


See you on the flipside.

[Mork]

Awesome!
Thank you Sam, I am glad you guys and gals liked it!

Congratulations to @HomespunAudio and @jimmy88. Great job!

My pick is the Acon Restauration Suite.

Cheers
Mork

[HomespunAudio]

Congratulations @Mork and @jimmy88!!

Thank you so much to @Mister Fox for putting this together and to Paint Me In Colour for your kind words! Again, it's clear you all are fantastic musicians so I'm honored that you liked my mix

My pick is the Metric Halo ChannelStrip plugin - I'll PM you my info right now!

[jimmy88]

Congratulations @Mork and @HomespunAudio

Many thanks to Sam and Mister Fox, I really enjoyed participating in this challenge.


My pick is the HoRNet Tape.