MIX CHALLENGE - MC070 October 2020 - Winners announced

[javiramallo]

Hi Ady,. Thanks to you, to the Band and Mr. Fox for the continuous effort to keep MC with this "Iron health" .

I share my round 2 mix.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-DZ1GG ... sp=sharing

The changes was as follow:

I came up a bit the Ride hit's.
I came up +1dB the Kick.
I softened the rattle feeling in the snare.
I automated the Snare to acomodate better to the band likes.

I hope you like the results!

Cheers from Spain

[Los_ady]

@javiramallo muchas gracias my friend !!!

Cheers from Morocco!

[nicores]

Hello! im very excited to made it to the 2nd round!

thanks for the feedback, y adress the click/pop sound and the voice noise. i tame the cymbals and specially the ride. and i unburied the vocal and put it more up front.

here is my mix for round 2


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

[Los_ady]

Awesome thank you so much @nicores well deserved, you were in the Top 20 and made it on the third listen into the top 10 with your great mix!

Thanks for doing the fixes, I know I'm a bit crazy with this noises haha

[GB Real]

Congrats to everyone who advanced. Was my mix skipped over in the first round evaluation? I should be right after ArneB and before WhitePunkOD in the feedback sheet, but I don't see my feedback... I expect a full refund of my time, lol

[Los_ady]

Haha GB Real my friend, I can assure you that no mix was skipped and appreciate your time mixing it

Sometimes I just didn't had time to give feedback, as mentioned above - if you like a full feedback and you're not in the list, just send me a PM and I'm more than happy to give you a personal review

[TomImmon]

Hi Ady, Piotr and all the others from the band,
Thank you for being selected for round 2 and your nice feedback.
So, here's my mix for round 2.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/arbadeqvvftmf ... 2.wav?dl=0

In fact, my first version had a real bug. The phase correction between OH and Snare had changed while mixing for an unknown reason. Of course I corrected that now.
I cleaned up the main vocals from too much hiss with the RX7 and a few edits.
Backing vocals are a bit more subtle now.
Snare and kick have been revised. And the drum bus compressor (Distressor clone) has been set to a lower ratio
All Reverbs and delays got a HPF.
And otherwise a little was optimized here and there. I hope you enjoy it.

Many greetings from Berlin
Tom

[m_tree]

First of all I'd like to thank Ady and the band for this great mix-challenge and the detailed feedback! I'm very glad to be elected for round 2.


Here's my submission for round 2:

>> MC070_CheapFlights_Waterfall__m_tree_R2.wav <<

48kHz / 24bit
-17.8 LUFS Integrated
-3.5 dBTP


My amendments in detail:

a touch more Oomph on the kick
-> gates mixed with dry-signal
-> boosted subbass on the outer mic (C1) and turned it down 0.5dB

Maybe too compressed drums?
-> parallel compression of the kick: -3dB
-> snare-bus: bypassed slight compression (max. 3dB GR on loud hits) with 1176, therefor added volume-automation
-> drum-bus: less compression (-1dB) by the soft-clipper

1:53 going to 2nd verse, weird loud cymbal ?
-> turned it down with volume-automation of the ride-cymbal and slightly of the overheads at that point

lacking a little energy on vocals at some point
-> changed volume-automation a little
-> less cutting at 4k of the dynamic EQ
-> set the named dynamic EQ after the compression (instead of before it)
-> bypassed additional distortion
-> attack of the compressor little longer


Annotation to my drums-compression:
The remained compression consists of heavy compression of the room-tracks (all together), the parallel compression of the kick and the soft-clipping (which is partially similar to tape-saturation/compression) on the drum-bus only. And of my 2dB mixbus compression, of course. This nearly is the manner like I mix my own drum-recordings at the moment. Less is here definitely more and overcompression of drums lessens their impact or (with long attack-times) produces strange and unnatural attack with boosting transients, which are suppressed later in the mastering anyway, and sounds 'small'. Natural impact at the recording is key ... if you want punchy drums, the drummer has to hit them hard at the recording. And I think this drum-recording fits the needs of this particular song and it's sonic structure.


Cheers and greetings from Thuringia.

[dnlptn]

Hi Ady,

Thank you very much for the detailed feedback and all your work. Excited to be through to the 2nd round. Glad you enjoyed the ending - it was my favourite section to work on!

Changes to the vocals to bring it more forward. I turned down the vocal effects (reverb/delay) a notch, and added sidechain compression. It hits harder when the vocal sings out.

Multiband sidechain comp on the guitars at around 3-3.5k so it doesn't interfere with the vocals there as much. I refined the automation of the vocal/guitar in the verse so they aren’t clashing when the vocals go soft.

In the bridge, I increased the toms for more excitement. I had a 600hz cut which I have now removed, small boost at ~100hz for more weight, and decapitator mixed in for slight edge. I also pulled the vocals and guitars down.

Cheers from Australia

Google Drive Link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bXmRxo ... sp=sharing

[Los_ady]

Hey @m_tree and @dnlptn

Niiiice, appreciate the documentation

Have a great day/night haha

Good idea with the reverb/delay down, usually I use reverb only on one or two elements and work with delays only for some cleaner tracks