MIX CHALLENGE - MC069 September 2020 - Winners announced

[jeffssoloband]

Dear Joshua and the Mix Challenge community,

Please find my submission for MC069 here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2omkna10h7u8q ... d.wav?dl=0

My mix was don ITB (Logic Pro X). All tracks were used.

My main focus was on the vocals throughout the whole song. All of the tracks containing vocals were individually cleaned up (clicks & other noises removed, breaths attenuated, etc.) then they were automated with a fader rider and/or hit with compressors (anywhere from just one to as many as three in series) to try to even the performance out. In an effort to keep things intimate, yet upfront, I left some tracks bone dry, and blended them with the doubled tracks soaked in reverb. The lead vocals are panned up the middle, while the background vocals are panned to various degrees of left and right to spread the image. There's also a little delay used for echo on a couple of the BGs.

The bass tracks were pretty dynamic by song sections. I assumed that was on purpose, so I kept it that way. Basically just hit it with EQ and tape saturation.

The percussion tracks were grouped by how they were titled, so I ended up with four stacks, Percussion, Percussion Main (which included the counterpoint & mic scratch tracks), Percussion Loop, and the last one contained the Stomp & Tap tracks. Each of the four stacks were then treated a separate entities, and were EQ'd and panned and hit with reverb. Then the four stacks were bussed to one track. balanced, and hit with some tape saturation to try to glue them all together.

I didn't really see a need to do too much with the guitar, piano, organ, and synth tracks since the effects were printed. I just used panning (some automated and some static) and reverb to set things in their own aural space. I kept an eye on a correlation meter to keep things in the positive.

I used the "rear buss" technique to thicken things up a tad. The master buss has a 2:1 compressor with a gain reduction between -1 & -2 to hold it all together, as well as tape saturation, and an EQ to give a little boost to the highs (I felt they were lacking overall).

Please let me know if there are any questions/ comments/ concerns.

Thank you for listening (and reading), and for your consideration.

Best regards,
Jeff (jeffssoloband)

[shroom feverish]

Halo,

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

Started with organizing tracks to group. Time aligned and removed clicks/pops from percussion tracks where needed.

Vocals are tuned and time aligned. Compression, eq drive/distortion on all vocal tracks. Everything other than lead is processed with iZotope VocalSynth.

Guitars and all synth/piano sounds have different tonal processes, sent to different groups with added harmonic distortion and EQ boost.

Chorus, three different reverbs, two delays was used as send effect.

Baxandall type Eq is on Master bus.

[Euphony]

Hello Everyone
This is my first mix challenge
Hope you like it
Have fun.
Thancks for listening
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yvyvflgx71uoh ... l.wav?dl=0

[Olli H]

Cool song, pleasure to mix.

VOX
I started with vocals to check if I can create a basis for the rest of the mix. Some eq, delay, micro shift and parallel compression. I tried to create somewhat final vox sound before anything else.

I wanted to create an intime sound, ie quite dry one singer, not a group of singers singing together.

DRUMS
Next came drums and percussion. First I tried to find some tracks to form the essence. After that I added the rest of the percussions tracks one by one with different amounts of panning.

BASS
Not much here. Some eq and bass amp to add some analogic sound.

GUITARS
I did nothing. Just panning and levels

KEYS AND REST
I did nothing. Just panning and levels


DAW: Reaper

MC069_FellFromTheTree_Control_OlliH.wav
Momentary Max = -10.74 LUFS
Short Term Max = -13.06 LUFS
Integrated = -16.40 LUFS


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Dlus91 ... sp=sharing

[Dodgingrain]

Here's my entry, very cool song, it was a little tough to know where to go with this one, hope it sounds ok: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqpB-RLndYJrj9Y0tLb ... Q?e=bz5LXA

Drums: mostly the usual levels and compression and panning the parts. Most of the work went into making sure the drums didn't overwhelm the rest of the mix.
Vocals: used a bunch of eq, maag4, clarifonic, and phase adjustments to try and make the vocals less muffled. Used Nectar3 to do the delayed megaphone effect, mostly compression, heavy eq, little bit of delay. Also did some vocal alignment and pitch correction. Used parallel compression and some light delays. Some de-essing here and there. Broke up some of the vocal tracks to make it easier to work on the ending of the song. Some cleanup of clicks, breaths, etc. in the vocal tracks as needed.
Bass: Not to much here other than some eq and a little bit of saturation/distortion. Kept the far low end mono but widened the rest of the bass. Added a little bit of side chain compression off of the kick.
Guitars: Mostly low cut and panning, a little bit of eq work.
Pads: some widening with microshift and eq to get rid of un-needed freq ranges, otherwise just level setting and panning.
Pianos: some eq and panning reverb.

Master bus: tape with crosstalk, little bit of ssl glue compression (2-4db).

[IbanezoO]

Hi everyone,

first of all thanks to "Fell From The Tree" for providing the song!

My main approach was to create a thick low end like the artist demanded and to get nice flowing vocals.

I mixed in Reaper and my go-to-plugin for most of the tracks was Slate Virtual Mix Rack with the VCC (SSL E Channel emulation), SSL EQ and changing compressors.

Percussion:
I did everything to let the "kick" pop out. It´s pretty much heavy compression and EQ boosts around 100hz. Glued together by compressing the percussion buss.
I muted some tracks to avoid overcrowded parts, like the mic scratches and table stomps.

Bass:
I mainly added saturation to let it cut through, especially for the bass slap in the "paranoid" part.

Guitar:
I cutted low mids and filtered out the low end. Both "Guitar 3" have a sidechain EQ cut at 425hz triggered by pad 1 &2 to avoid masking.

Synths/Pads:
Main part was stereo imaging to find spaced to cut through.

Piano:
Piano 1 has a cut at 400hz (sidechained by lead vocal) and a delay send.
Piano 2 has a L/R EQ to boost lows left and highs right.
Light compression and a low filter at 125h on the piano buss.

Vocals:
Send all to a plate. De-essed, filtered low end at 127hz, boost at 560hz, 3k and shelf at 7.5k
Compressed 4:1 with medium attack and fast release to push the end of words/phrases
Harmonies slightly panned
Used a De-Esser to control the "P"s in the paranoid part.

Mix Buss:
Slate Virtual Mixbuss (again SSL E Channel emulation), finishing EQ (filtered lows at 48hz), cut 400hz, boost 10k
SSL buss compressor (3:1, medium attack, auto release)
Virtual Tape Machine

I also automated a lot like boosting/recuding volumes, pan automation, stereo widening automation. Somewhere in the vocal octaves was something like a hickup that I didn´t cut out but boosted it through volume automation to become totally obvious.

File link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q7-KkG ... sp=sharing

Good luck to all participants!

[Magnus]

Thanks to the song provider, this was a nice challenge to work with!

Here is my mix:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2mh89v48ku2vq ... s.wav?dl=0

It was a bit tricky to balance all the different parts of the arrangement. And as I listen to the other submissions it's obvious that it is possible to go in many directions with the material.

Here are my mix treatments:

Vocal double: Just filtered out some low end and added some top end with Sonimus Burnley 73.

Vocal OCTAVE: No FX

Vocals LEAD: Rocket Compressor – ReaEQ (heavy cut at 200 and massive boost at 5k) – Burnley 73 for saturation and slight eq – ReaTune in automatic pitch shifting mode (the vocals already had some tuning artefacts and this adds more to make it a more distinct feature) – TDL Nova dynamic EQ to tame some de-essing – Reapers Compciter a compressor exciter type plugin – NI Guitar Rig with Traktor Digital Lofi/Quad delay/Traktor Delay – Manny Marroquin Tone shaper

Harmonies for the first half of the song: All tracks high passed with Sweetone and bused to one track added Sonimus Sweetone to high pass filter and tilt the eq towards a brighter sound.

Harmonies for the ending: Sonimus Burnley 73 (Saturation and top end) – Stillwell Rocket Compressor – NI Guitar Rig (in parallel 22 %) with Phaser nine/Skreamer/Fast comp – NI Guitar Rig Tape echo – Compciter – ReaEQ cut 350 and 1300

Guitars are paned and bused to a stereo track: MJUCjr – Sweetone HP, LP and tilt darker.

Keys are bused to one stereo track: Sweetone HP – MSED added 4 dB gain to the side channel.

Bass_1 and Bass layer: No FX

Bass slap synth: NI Guitar Rig Tweed delight small compo amp mixed in 69 % - ReaEQ cut 350 and boost 2500

Drums and percussion, all tracks bused to one stereo track: Sweetone LP and tilt towards darker (I take it out for the outro) – Burley 75 add some saturation and low end for the first part of the song – NI Guitar Rig Spring reverb 26% - ReaEQ cut 200 – Rocket compressor added at the end to beef up the drums for the outro

Master bus: Some gentle EQ from Mixroom

Thanks!
Magnus

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
We're in the final 24 hours to submit your edit.


Please triple check that your files can be downloaded, and that you've added some documentation what you did

[DeifDiamond]

Hi all,

I am participating in this type of contest for the first time, but from now on you will see me here very often.

I have sought in the mix that the voice is very present, and a polished and bright sound, within the standards of the frequency ranges for modern pop music.

I have found some difficulty in the rhythmic part, because in my opinion there are too many elements distributed in the stereo field, and I have not been able to find a solid rhythmic base for the song.

In spite of everything I have enjoyed the mix and I have had fun, which is the most important thing.

Here is my mix:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

[gaurav.talreja]

Hello Folks,
Hope I just made it in time.Got held up with work but so liked the composition this time that I was just hooked onto this mix since past couple of days.So this is my rendition of the mix on LOGIC PRO.

Vocals- Since there were already many vocal layers , I decided to blend them equally give it all space through the mono.I ve used fab q3,CLA 3A, nektar2 for dynamic proc and desser,used Manny M and black hole for ambience processing.Also used C6

Percussion: I have used Nomad Factory for dynamic and slight saturation.EQ- used Fab pro q3,ambience used manny M again so as to give the same ambience feel and make it sound like an alternative band studio recording.Panned the snare well to give the right placement.Used pancake for the stereo width

Bass-Wanted a smooth bass tone so used the inbuilt Logic amp and compressed it with good amount of knee.Eq and compressor used the inbuilt knobs of the amp.Used C6 for some dynamic processing.

Guitars- Was looking for a good stereo imager, so went in for mfx magma stereo imager, alongside good amount of eq and parallel cmpressionto get depth.

Keys & Synth/Pads- used a good widener and inbuilt logic direction spread.I used subtle ambience using Fab R for reverb and stock delay.

Summing Bus- Used API Bus

24/44 - WAV @ -16 LUFS

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19IcmRP ... sp=sharing

Thanks Mr Fox !