2024-MAR-01 Info: Check out Songwriting Competition 079 if you're into "Synthwave" music making.

MIX CHALLENGE - MC069 September 2020 - Winners announced

Join the Mix Challenge - recurrence: February until December
Oba Ozai

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC069 September 2020 - Submissions until 21-09-2020 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#11

Post by Oba Ozai »

Greetings,

First I want to express my gratitude to the producers and participants of this forum, is an inspiration to me. I am a student of this art and science and i feel very humbled by the quality of some of the works posted on this thread and others. I have tried to do my best on this complicated challenge (at least it was for me). I tried to fix sibilance, sound, balance, and even tempo issues. I posted several photos of the state of my mixers before I exported this mix. I can provide, if asked by the producers, more feedback on how it was done. My main goal for participation (beside practice) is to get some feed back on my work, things that I can improve, or that I left out. Bellow is the link to my work, hope some can enjoy it as I enjoy the very high quality work of a good few others here.

wave file (link edited to correct sample rate)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dztj9i ... sp=sharing

wave file + images
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Thanks
Oba
Last edited by Oba Ozai on Tue Sep 15, 2020 20:40 CEST, edited 4 times in total.
Naturecord
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Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC069 September 2020 - Submissions until 21-09-2020 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#12

Post by Naturecord »

Had to test out the new studioroom, and as I am in the middle of projects, I had some time to play around with a mix challenge for the first time. A really fun experience, so i will be back for more challenges in the future! Also a nice song to work with.

I had alot of fun with the different small details that needed attention, I did alot of deductive EQ and Transient design.

I wanted the mix to feel pretty clean and not to filtered, focusing on vocal and percussion.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yc0yjcim92ci4 ... d.wav?dl=0

Here are some notes from the Mix process.

Aux:
Mixbus: SSL G bus to glue the mix -> Fabilter Saturation
Main Vox Aux: Neve 1073 -> Fabilter Q-3 -> 1176 compressor -> SSL E Channel -> Soundtoys Echoboy (sends: Plate/Shimmer/Delay 1/8)
* Vox tracks has been rided, some small pitch adjustments with melodyne, De-esser (Fabilter) and some corrective EQ (plosives). Vocal double has some delay effects (Soundtoys)
Vox Backing Aux: De-esser -> Fabfilter Q-3 -> API Vision Channel Strip -> Pultec Pro Legacy (sends: Plate/Shimmer/Delay 1/8)
* Echoboy on decapitated vocal, Vocal Harmonies has been declicked, general corrective EQ on most tracks
Guitar Aux: Slate VMR (FG-S/FG-N/FG-Stress)
* Noise reduction (cut track) on guitar 1, also added new delay on end of track and removed noise with automated EQ. The rest of the tracks are original.
Piano AUX: Slate VMR (VCC/CS-EQ/FG116/FGS/Revivial)(Sends: Shimmer/Plate)
Synth AUX: API Vision Channel Strip (Hammond enhancer) -> Pultec EQH-2 -> Fabfilter q-3 (roll of bottom) (Sends:Plate)
* Little alterboy added to Plucked Cycles, added low octave double
Bass Aux: Fabfilter Q-3 (to control top) -> Slate VMR (FG-N/FG-116/FG-Stress/Revival) to add warmth -> Fafilter Q-3 to carve space for kick
Drum Aux: Slate VMR (FG-N/FG-401/Revival) to add warmth and punch -> Pultec EQP to scoop out mids and create room for guitar/Sytnhs and vocal (Sends:Drum Verb)
Drum Paralell: Slate VMR, heavy on FG-Stress
*Drums have alot of work to them, most tracks have a transient designer. Mostly to get more/less attack or to control transients or room sounds to get a better effect of the drumverb.
* The drums have been divided in four submixes: Kick, Snare, "Middle" and "Top". It is treated a little like kick,snare,toms and overheads.
* Drum top has been gone via a API and SSL channel to create some shine
* Mid has some mild compression to glue it more together
* Snare has a classic snare presets from Slate VMR
* Kick has alot of EQ Both to carve space for bass, to give more bottom and top and a FG-401 compressor. It also have Slate VMR Revival to add warmth. Fabilter saturation to create more space and warmth.
SENDS:
Drumverb: Lustros Plate
Plate: UAD EMT 140
Delay: Soundtoys Echoboy 1/8
Shimmer: Valhalla Shimmer
Pål Isdahl Solberg
www.naturecord.no
ConcreteMixer

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC069 September 2020 - Submissions until 21-09-2020 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#13

Post by ConcreteMixer »

I’d really like to thank Fell From The Tree for this track. I love the juxtaposition of the aggressive marching drums along with all the little delicate parts sprinkled throughout the song culminating in the driving ending.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/740oxnsfl6u1z ... r.wav?dl=0

General Mix Notes:

• Mixed in Ableton Live 9

Drums:

• Added some tape saturation to the drums to give them some life using uHe’s Satin

Bass:

• That last bass line I wanted it to bring some more energy to the outro so I added the bx_rockrack and heavily distorted it. I also threw on a couple of Guitar Rig Pro 5’s filters to make even more mangled and did a slow filter sweep up the frequency spectrum to open it up as the track moves along.

Synths:

• Mostly just used highpass and lowpass filtering as I ended having most of the synths in the background and less of a focal point than the other instruments

Vocals:

• Needed to do some surgical EQ work on the vocals because some of them sounded muffled. Ended up cutting a bit from most the vocals around 200-300 Hz.
• For the pops on the vocals, I just used automated gain reduction using Ableton’s Utility plugin
• I really wanted those vulnerable vocal parts to be in upfront so they are completely dry during those sections
• Lots of delay automation in other parts of the song
• Automated vocal doubles and the octave part throughout the track

Master Bus:

• Added a small amount of bus compression on the master using Ableton’s stock Glue Compressor (Cytomic) to glue the mix together

Loudness:

• Metering via YouLean Loudness Meter 2
• - 17.5 LUFS (integrated)
• - 3.0 dB True Peak
MrFlat

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC069 September 2020 - Submissions until 21-09-2020 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#14

Post by MrFlat »

Here is my mix

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ye6a5h0ob8luw ... t.wav?dl=0

I mainly used Fabfilter plugins

Some Waves:
WavesTune
Scheps Omni Channel

TDR Nova EQ
Lemmonz

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC069 September 2020 - Submissions until 21-09-2020 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#15

Post by Lemmonz »

Mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qI-1l0 ... sp=sharing

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

Started with rough balances and a couple plugins to get some sonic ideas in place until a rough production mix started to come together. Refined that further and then bussed it out to a fake tape/console setup for saturation/glue and focus on tracks working together. Mixed into plugins on the mix bus (light eq/compression/saturation/tape). Lots of going back and tweaking, moving forward, and all that. Screenshots show plugins and settings, edits made, FX, and automation moves.

Thanks to Joshua for letting us play around with the song!
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Mister Fox
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Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC069 September 2020 - Submissions until 21-09-2020 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#16

Post by Mister Fox »

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 7 days left to submit your edit
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Green-Dog
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Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC069 September 2020 - Submissions until 21-09-2020 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#17

Post by Green-Dog »

Hi everyone,

I like the song and find the arrangement cool. In my opinion, this mix is all about balance.

Like always nothing special in my mixing process. Some EQuing, compressing, saturating, and some parallel processing. More info sees on the screenshots.

Mix
Screenshots

Cheers,
Andrejs
einmh

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC069 September 2020 - Submissions until 21-09-2020 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#18

Post by einmh »

Last edited by einmh on Thu Sep 17, 2020 18:47 CEST, edited 1 time in total.
alavault
Posts: 78
Joined: Sun Jun 14, 2020 15:00 CEST
Location: Dijon, France

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC069 September 2020 - Submissions until 21-09-2020 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#19

Post by alavault »

Hi everybody !

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

Quick summary :
  • Edits : depoping (especially the "paranoid") and slight tuning
  • Drums and percussions : Balancing and compression on the sum. Medium reverb and parallel compression on everybody. Highpassed substantially.
  • Bass : Multiband compression on the sum as well as a parallel distortion for "bass slap synth". Also, distorting the sub-bass tracks.
  • Guitars : Several sends to synced delays, shelf at 150 (down) and shelf at 8k (up). Slight compression for transient control.
  • Synth : widening, top and long reverb.
  • Piano : top and transient control (i.e. fast compressor) into a long reverb.
  • Vox : Saturation and levelling compressor on the "lead-est" vocals. Deessing and compression on everybody. Parallel compression for fullness. Automation on the bus (where everybody is sent to).
Thanks to the provider for the song !
SuC76
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Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC069 September 2020 - Submissions until 21-09-2020 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

#20

Post by SuC76 »

Hi, everybody.


Here's the mix:

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


DAW: Ableton Live

Kick: little bit of stock comp and eq
Snare: layered, little bit of stock comp and eq
Bass: layered, stock eq
Percussions: all to one group, balanced and automated
Guitars : all to one group, little bit of stock Eq, automated
Vocals: subbed into two groups, Lead and Back, stock comp and eq, little bit of automation


Mixbus:
VTM Brit-N, UAD-Pultec, VTM
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