MIX CHALLENGE - MC070 October 2020 - Winners announced

[DennisBastioni]

Hi guys, thank you for the opportunity to participate to this mix challenge,it's a beautiful song and i really enjoy the mix, here are the process i did for this song:

Drums group: saturn (clean tube mode), elysia comp, kramer tape, pro c2.

Kick: pro-g, pro-q2, Rbass, spl pass eq.
Snare: eq and ssl G channel (compression and a bit of mid boost), and a light compression on snare bottom.
OverHeads: pro-c2.
TomsGroup: spl pass eq and elysia alpha mix.
RoofRoom: just eq to remove resonance
FloorRoom: pro-c2.
Room: pro-c2.

Bass: lo-air, eq, vertigo vsc2, pass eq.

Vocal: pro-q2, nectar3 (for dynamic eq and tube saturation), maag eq4, cla-76, de-esser.
BackgroundVocals: eq and twin tube.

HarmonyGuitar: pass eq.
GuitarIntro: eq, saturn.
GuitarVrs: elysia mpressor, trident a-range.

For guitars arp and guitars hvy i did nothing, just blend the signals to find the right tone.

GuitarDirty: eq to remove rumble and a light compression.


I also make some parallel processing:

ValhallaSupermassive (as a reverb) for main vocal and a bit of guitars intro.
ValhallaRoom for drums, a touch of guitar verse and a bit of main vocal.
Chorus effect for bass and a very low ammount of main vocal, then saturate it with the saturn.
FabFilter pro-r for background vocals and main vocal but completely in mono.
Cla76 for parallel compression of main vocal.


For final i put an eq and a compressor on the master bus: an elysia museq to lift the top end in a very musical way and a light compression with the api2500 (1,5 db of gain reduction, new mode, 60% stereo link and 1,5 ratio. very slow attack and medium fast release) to give a glue and more definition to the transients.

I hope you like my mix and thank you again for this chance.
Have a good listen and good luck to everyone!

DennisBastioni


Here is my wav file:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kSBrR9 ... sp=sharing

[dozzer61]

Hi!

Thank you for the opportunity, I had a lot of fun with this one!

The first thing I did after listen to all those guitars is to record some other as I think there was missing some layers (just kiding)...

Drums : Align snare and toms to OH, SSL channel E everywhere, slight compression and EQ. All mics have been used. I then bounced it and use the bounced to track and make a parallel track with a bit more compression, blended with the other. some automation here and there

Bass : SSL channel E on all, took the DI to put some saturation and HPF, LPF and HPF on the 2 others with chorus and blend them to taste. Bounced it to track.

Vocals : I slightly edited the main vocal (volume wise). SSL channel E on all, gave more air and a pinch in the mids, HPF, put some verb, slight compression and de-esser. parallel tracks: one with more compression, one delay automated, one thickened track (doubled tracks and pitch shift them slightly), blended to taste.

BG Vocals : SSL channel E, HPF, bussed, reverb, slight EQ and compression, bounced to track and use this one.

Guitars : SSL channel E almost everywhere, all tracks have been used, slight compression, some more EQ than others, bussed all those that were related and bounced them. I decided to use all tracks, blend them to taste, they are all dry as we had a lot of choices with different tracks. I made some automation.

Master bus : stereo widening, tape emulation, analogue stye compressor, and about 3db of reduction on the loudest part.

WAV : https://www.dropbox.com/s/ipfmtteqzi0b9 ... 1.wav?dl=0
Session : https://www.dropbox.com/s/k50bp876c9ve8 ... 0.png?dl=0

Good luck to everyone,

Thanks!

[Blang]

Hi Everyone,

Here is the mix I made:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vz7GIX ... sp=sharing

To me the key to mixing this song was using automation to enhance and contrast the different segments. I used volume to feature new elements and duck 'old' elements as well as automating effects and sendlevels.Most processing was done on groups. All guitar parts had their own subgroup that went to a Guitar ALL group.
The guitar tones for the different parts were quite similar. I believe the same guitar, amp and cab were used. That's why I liked having different mics for the guitars. I mostly used a blend of 1 or 2 close mics with some room, but sometimes I used certain mics only for a specific spot in the song. The DI tracks were only blended in when I wanted a slightly cleaner tone with more definition.

Some notable moments / choices:

DRUMS
Reversing the polarity of the AKG kick mic (I used both in almost equal amounts) gave me the kind of thump I wanted (not too clicky).
In the second verse the drums get a nice dulling 'blanket', because I wanted the attention on the voice again. The filter I used is a tweaked version of Echoboy's Binsonette setting with 0ms delay. It's acts as a filter / vibrato / compressor that kinda reminds me of how Tchad Blake and Shawn Everett often process their drums. It does something peculiar with the transients that I like.

BASS
The frequency space between the bass and the high theme guitar (GTR.INTRO.CHRS) was a bit big for my taste. In some spots I mixed in some bitcrusher, suboctave and chorus to fill it out and get more energy. You can hear this effect clearly at the very end. The D112 was used for bass.

GUITAR
The verses could use some movement so I added a Tremolo (Tremolator) on one of the guitars add automated the mod speed. I think it also added to the spacy vibe of those parts.

VOCALS
Extensive clip gain and volume automation was used on the lead vocal. First of all to get as much detail out of the dynamic performance, but also to push it back into the mix on long notes with extra reverb and delay added.
The endless space reverb that sometimes pops up on the vocals is form the Valhalla Supermassive on Andromeda Mode.

To set the backing vocals apart from the lead I gave them a distinct echo: A (native Ableton) vocoder that focuses on octaves into an echo.

[mj247]

Hi
new here so I hope I get this right.tracks mixed in Studio One,used original track no di's plug-ins used mostly BX waves soundtoys,main bus BX 4000g for gain staging and a slight roll of of low end below 20 vca compressor and softube tape no limiters were harmed during this mix,track exported to SO project page to check level and fade in/out,
fun track to mix,dropbox link here
https://www.dropbox.com/s/55m9081djd7yb ... l.wav?dl=0

[TomImmon]

First of all thanks a lot for providing this very interesting piece of music. Brings me back to the sound of one of my first bands (80s).

My Mix (48khz,24bit):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6e2kb68btpvk4 ... n.wav?dl=0


Mix description
The drums and vocals attract a lot of attention.

Bass drum and snare were gated and freed from resonances. Rough Rider and DBX 160 were used for compression, and the transients were processed with the Transgressor. In addition, there was a lot of work with Saturation (Abbey road).

The toms were gated and freed from resonances. Attack was achieved by Abbey road saturation.

Room was heavily compressed and also given a little saturation.

The bass was processed with CLA Bass and provided with a chorus.

The dirty guitar was reamped, so only the DI was used. All other guitars were given a sparing EQ and processed with an SPL Iron compressor.

Vocals were prepared with Nectar Elements and then processed with a Neve EQ. It was compressed everywhere with SOL Iron Compressor.

FX: Snare uses a NLR reverb, otherwise a small drum room from the Phoenix reverb and an EMT140 reverb are used.

Several slap delays and EMT 140 were used on the vocals and guitars.

The master bus uses the SSL compressor for the glue.

No samples were used. Level -16LUV (int)

Cheers,
Tom

[Square]

Hiya!

Heres my mix for this month,

The vox have a very instrumental vibe to them, i tried to keep the sound this way. Nice lush verb and an almost ribbon mic sound at some points.

Ive kept the vox front and centre.

Ive tried to keep the original saturated feel of the mix and focus on the stylistic approach.

Lots of tracks here to play with and after finding the right ones to focus on and cut, the track blends quite nicely.

Nice and atmospheric.

Square

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

[_spafles_]

Hi everyone,

This is my mix:

Wav: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iIhxLd ... sp=sharing
mp3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kc5x7e ... sp=sharing

I've tried to use as few plugins as possible.

Drums on each track are only EQ's and compressor on most tracks.
a compressor bus and reverb/saturation bus are also added.
The snare has a delay for some extra width.

The bass track each have an eq and comp.

For the guitars ive used mostly an API 550 as EQ and a delay on the stereo track.

The lead vocal 2 compressors, EQ, de-esser, and a reverb.
A bus for some saturation and another compressor.

The backings only have a simple EQ and a compressor.

All the tracks are panned to my taste.

Hope you guys like it! Thanks to the band for supplying the tracks!

[simola]

Hi!

Here is my take on this fine song. The song is mixed ITB with Reaper.

I started with gain staging (clip gain) to get every channel peaking at about -12db. Then I went through the drum mics and corrected the phase issues. After that I tried to get a nice balanced rough mix with the faders to hear the big picture before any plugins etc. Although I am a post rock guy myself, I thought the original version was so roomy and reverby (is this a word?) that I did not want to go that path and tried to capture more vintagy pop/rock vibe for the songs overall sound. Added the NLS channel on all tracks.

DRUMS
After correcting the phase issues I went through all the drum channels and cut out the offending frequencies. Grouped the OH, Room and Boom tracks to subgroups and processed them in group. Kick, snare and toms went through Drum Leveler plugin for gating and some level balancing before hitting the SSL E-Channel for boosting the good and some compression.

BASS
Nothing fancy here. Processed the bass tracks as a group with some highpass, some eq to cut some low mids and boost some mids to get the bass to cut through the mix better. After that the bass signal went to POWAIR plugin with some leveling and compression.

GUITAR
Did not use any of the DI tracks, only the miked ones. A lot of phase issues here also, so first going through the different tracks to get the phase correct. Then some cutting of disturbing frequencies in the highs and cut out some mids for the vocals.

VOX
A lot of pre fader automation to get a more balanced performance and not to push the compressors too hard. Then the basic surgical cuts of the peaking resonances for all the vocal tracks, compression with CLA-76 and CLA-2A to even everything out.

REVERB
Created new tracks for the Ugritone 1989Verb, used as the "short" verb and Waves Abbey Road Plates as the plate verb. Routed some snare, toms, guitars to the 1989Verb and a lot of vocals to the plate verb.

MASTER
First the NLS Bus plugin for vibe, then a bit of SSLComp (1-2db gain reduction max) on the master bus and then Kramer Tape to get a more vintagy vibe.

And here is my mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q-y_19 ... sp=sharing

[PenguinJon]

Mostly used the Plugin Alliance Focusrite channel with a few Soundtoys bits for colour and texture.

Trimmed a few drum track backgrounds out for clarity and cleanliness, added a plate on the drums and vocals for colour and delay to the vocals to get them to gel.

Guitars, used the recorded tone, liked what I heard so left the clean DI lines muted,

Drums, used a couple of CLA76s to get the toms to stand out, but other than that, just balanced and bounced.

Track : https://www.dropbox.com/s/jq6a4ix4msfqi ... n.wav?dl=0

Mixer: https://www.dropbox.com/s/m8s16gwxim990 ... n.pdf?dl=0

[jetwolf]

Ady,

Here is my submission for the Mix Challenge.

First gainstaged all tracks.

Standard subtractive eq cleanup with ProQ3 on most tracks.

I felt the vocals calling for a spacey, atomospheric vibe, so I went that direction and used several different reverbs (rooms, plates, halls) and delays to create a spacey vibe for both the lead vocals and backgrounds and used automation to enhance some parts where the lead vocal blends into the background vocals with various effect splashes.

Drums tracks summed individually and also sent to parallel bus for some comp smash.

Bass tracks split for some added saturation.

I ended up using most guitar tracks and targeting different eq bands on each to blend together.

I did use a few of the DI guitar tracks and used some low-gain Marshall sims. Tried to make the mix build to peak when the lead guitar chimes in towards the end of the song.

There are a few more ideas I would like to try, so hopefully I will get a chance in the next round.

Thank you for the music!

Jetwolf



Here is the link to my mix:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10fo9o5 ... sp=sharing