MIX CHALLENGE - MC072 December 2020 - Winners announced

[Naturecord]

Nice song to mix, a lot of things happening, so many choices to be made!

I have been struggling a little with low mid buildup in my mixes after moving into a new control room, so I have had to make some changes in my setup. I also got some new headphones (sennheiser hd650) to see if that would help a little, so I am very happy for feedback on the overall sound to see if I am moving in the right direction.

Also after some black Friday plugin purchases I wanted to try out some of the new plugins that I am not very familiar with yet (CLA Epic, Sonnox Inflator, Slate Fresh Air and FG-2A)

I started out with some gain staging, panning and created a rough mix, then started working on the drums -> Bass -> Guitars -> Vox -> Back Vox -> Keys

Overall I wanted to create a mix that had a nice balance with vocal, drums and acoustic guitar as main elements, with keys and electric guitars also stepping into focus now and then. I also wanted to try to avoid my previous problems in the low mids/high low area.

The mixbus has a SSL G mixbus compressor and a Studer A800 UAD tape saturation (Headroom preset).

Main Vox was one of the elements i spent a lot of time on. I cleaned it up in melodyne, removing some of the unwanted noices, and did minor key and volume adjustments there, trying not to process it too much. It goes via a Uad Neve 1073, a de-esser, a slate FG-2A, UAD Manley Massive Passive EQ, Oxford Inflator and Limiter and a touch of the new (free!) slate Fresh Air plugin. Before it hits the main vox bus it has a Vocal Rider on it.
It is also is sent to some verbs and delays, and tried out the new CLA Epic plugin (mix of verbs and delays)

I made a parallel track out of the second choice lead vocals, and crushed it with compression and distortion, then panned it all the way out on the sides with Microshift, not talking any space in center (FG-Stress, Devil-lock, Microshift). It is mixed in very low.

Back Vox is pretty basic: Neve1073 -> Pro-DS -> - VMR (warm vocal preset) - Microshift for some with, but with more verb on it than main vox. Automated quite alot.

Electric Guitar has some basic EQ to clean up and remove lows (Pro-Q3) and a UAD Manley Massive Passive EQ to sculpt the sound, then a VMR with some compression (FG-Stress). Solo and Slide guitar are sent to verbs, plate and some delays (1/16, 1/4, 1/8). The slide also has a Oxford Inflator to make it fuller. I opted for mixing in the stereo guitars very low into the mix, was almost on my way to remove them from the mix, but let them stay in the background.

Acoustic guitars have a cleanup EQ, UAD Manley Massive Passive EQ for creating some air and body, a FG-410 compressor and a Haas plugin for stereo field as i took away the DI track, and duplicated the other track and panned it hard Left-Rigth.

Piano has a UAD Manley Massive Passive EQ and Fresh Air on it. Organ a API vision strip (Hammond preset with minor adjustments)

Bass AUX has a EQ with a dip to make room for Kick, a SSL E strip and a Pro-sub to take up some more space in the lower mids. It has a Bass Rider on the track.

Drums AUX has a UAD SSL E strip on it, a UAD pultec EQP-1A to scoop out mids and make rom for guitars and keys. It has a Decapitator to make them a little fatter and a oxford Inflator. It is sent to drum plate and room. There is a Parallel compression AUX and a drum crush AUX mixed in very low, it is feed with snare and kick.

Kick has a EQ (with a dip for bass) ->Gate then going into a transient shaper for some minor adjustments, a VMR with some EQ and compression before it ends up in the Decapitator blended in slightly.

Snare has a API Vision strip and a Decapitator on it. It is sendt to verb, plate and a 1/16 delay. Also tried to add the CLA Epic (and liked it alot on the snare, the snare preset was nice rigth away).

HH has a EQ to remove some of the snare leak, and a Slate Fresh Air for some... air.

The rest is put in a Perc AUX with some mild EQ (FG-N, FG-S) and a FGA-401 compressor. The Triangle and Egg has a Oxford inflator on it, and the Egg some more Fresh Air (I have allowed the Egg to occupy quite alot of space in the mix, so wanted it to stick out and sound good.

Overheads are placed Left Center Right according to recording technique, some EQ to filter out low end (cutting below 120hz), some EQ to bring out the top (FG-S) and a FG-401 compressor. Topped of with fresh air, again for... air.

AUX sends:
Vox Plate: UAD EMT 140 / Vox Verb: Lexicon 224 / Vox CLA: CLA Epic (Silky) / Snare CLA: CLA Epic (Snare top) / Drum Plate: Lustrous Plates / Drum Room: Lexicon 224 / Shimmer: Valhalla Shimmer / General Plate: Lustrous Plates / General Verb: Valhalla Vintage verb / Delay 1/4 - 1/8 - 1/16: Echo boy (also sent to general verb)

The track was bounced 24/48 and should be within the correct LUF and Peak range:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2qy4ff0yfhts0 ... d.wav?dl=0

Looking forward to hearing the rest of the mixes!

Pål

[Green-Dog]

Hi guys,
Here is my submission for this month: Mix

For my description to be useful for someone, I decided first to find out if there is someone among you who would like to know how I made this or that element in my mix? If any of you have an interest in learning something specific, please write. Otherwise I will choose by myself.

Cheers,
Andrejs

[javiramallo]

Hi Green DOg.

Nice job.

Did you use any sample in the kick?.

Cheers!

[Green-Dog]

Hi, javiramallo,

Thank you!

No, I don't. The rules of the contest do not allow using any additional samples.

[Mark Andrews]

Listening to the individual instruments it was tempting to make them sound ‘pretty’ but then you read the translation of the lyrics and title.

This is a protest song and titled Scream. There are phrases such as - kick the shit out, tortured etc. This calls for some aggression and attitude.

I took my job as mixer to serve this intent of the song. I used the more intense rock reference Coque Malla - She's My Baby; as the direction to follow. The mix starts a little polite and focused but gets steadily more explosive; as the words are repeated and the frustration builds to a crescendo.

This was helped on the mix bus, controlling the dynamics with volume automation, as well as steadily introducing more harmonic distortion.

Other volume automation is on the OH centre, main vocal and organ.

Main vocal
I used both but second one buried under the first, to make it a bit fuller and hint of vibrato. The song is in E major ( measured from the piano part). All voices were put in the same key.

DMG essence for de-ess. Sonible Smartcomp spectral compression. Elysia Compressor on breather setting - to emphasise the passion in the delievery. Soundtoys decapitator to add further drive and emotion. Leapwing Dynatone on the body algorithm to, you guessed it, give body! Eventide SP2016 Reverb at 33% on vintage vocalizer. Air Windows Smooth to smooth some out of control edge. Soundtoys Echoboy on 18% tube tape with a 63bpm delay time.

Backing vocals
Panned from left to right and put through a telephone eq setting and sent to one subgroup. On the group, Fabfilter Timeless 10% of echo 1 preset, to make them cascade into each other for a better blend. Eventide Blackhole H8000 setting at 39% to make the voices hang in the air (all knobs tweaked).

Drums
Used only the OH centre, HH and direct mics. Only one set of brush snares. All put to same buss. The brushes were combined into one and so were snare top and bottom.

OH center - Used for most of the top end frequencies. Took away frequencies not needed and used Leapwing Dynaone on overhead control algorithm -5db, as very splashy and out of control.

Hi hat - gated with DMG Trackgate and spectral compression with Sonible Smartcomp. Clearer, more definite and precise.

Brush snares - made into one track boosted 250hz +5db, 7k 2db and cut 3db between the two frequencies.

Kick - 70k and 3k +5db, cut by -5db between. Cut out above 10k. BX-boom on Hi setting, BX subfilter, punch 45hz and low end 4. Wanted the kick to be felt more than heard.

Egg and Triangle
Only panning and a bit of volume automation

Bass
Sonible smart comp spectral compression. Elysia Phil’s Cascade adjusted to taste for some harmonic content. Dynone - Smooth bass algorithm. Wavesfactory Spectre - full bass preset. Eq boosting 180hz +3db and 1k +1db. Leapwing Stageone - wider bass algorithm.

Guitars
All guitars were kept separate:

Tremelo - only Nugen Stereoiser on an adjusted EP filler setting

Slide - Boosted 350Hz +6db, 10K +4db, Leapwing StageOne Electric Guitar algorithm.

Acoustic - Used miked only. Boosted 200 and 30ohz +2db Positioned right with DearVR on a medium recording hall and a high density plate from Eventide SP2016. Mostly on the right but is panned briefly into the centre,

Central Rhythm - Zynaptic intensity on clarity setting to make into a more Vox AC15 sound, Fabfilter reverb fat rhythm preset.

Solo - Zynaptic Intensity on guitar presence setting adjusted to suit track, Leapwing StageOne acoustic guitar setting.

L/R stereo side guitars in chorus - panned left and right with DearVR on 72% concert hall 2 setting with much less damping . Took off the initial pick attack with a transient noise shaper, Leapwing StageOne wide stereo setting. This makes the attack of each guitar travel from one speaker to the other. Slightly different settings on each.

Piano
Buss of L/R. Blackbox piano setting adjusted, Leapwing StageOne warm and deep setting

Organ
Buss of L/R. Blackbox synth smash to even out. Zynaptic Intensity 10k Air, BX subfilter 43Hz, Leapwing DynOne Rich algorithm, Fabfilter modern church reverb 34%. Reacomp set to duck when bass is playing.

Mix bus
A little eq to clear muddy frequencies and harshness. Some dynamic broad eq in the areas around the most energy.

The Leapwing Dynaone on its sweetener algorithm +1.9db. This does what it says - everything becomes more individually defined with solidity and any artificial aspects feel more real.

Elysia alpha mix +2.5db gain reduction in parallel mode - just enough to flesh out the quieter segments into the louder and improve a greater flow.

Fabfilter Pro Reverb, coloured room B at 10% - I like a touch of reverb to help glue the individual parts into one place.

Air Windows Smooth, 16% with dry/wet at 72% - I listen to the track through Soundways Reveal harsh monitor and adjust the nastiest fatiguing frequencies, without compromising edge and ambience.

Nugen Audio VisLM Loudness Meter:

-17.5 Max LUFS
-20.9 Intergrated LUFS
-10.1 TP Max

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

[PGPMixing]

Hello everyone,

here is my entry for this month's mix competition. I appreciate all kind of feedback, so please let me know if you liked the mix or if you would improve it at some parts.

Drums
Drums BUS: all drums summed up to this bus. No processing here.
Drums High Bus: all drums except of bass drum summed up to this bus. No processing here.

Kick: I used both mics to shape the drum sound. I took the low end of the D112 mic due to its defined low response. The Coles was used to shape the top end of the Kick. I summed up both signals to a BUS and did basic EQing on it. Furthermore i ran it through an transient shaper and shaped the low end with an additional EQ, removing frequencies in the unhearable sub area and pointing out the fundamental of the kick. Additionally, I created a parallel bus with only the low end and used an transient shaper with extreme settings. I subtly blended this parallel bus in to get a hard-hitting bass drum.

Snare: I used both mics and blended them together to fit my taste. Then I EQed the snare and ran it through an CLA-76 to shape the character of the snare. Additionally I added another comp stage with TDR Motolok, where I set up a very slow attack time to make the snare even more harder. TUBA is at the end of the snare chain, to reduce the transient and make the snare even more nasty. I added a plate and a large hall reverb, which gives the entire drumkit its depth.

HH: panned right and EQed.

Toms: there is only one tom hit . EQ, that's it!

"Room BUS": I summed up all overheads to a room bus. Snare OH panned right, OH floor panned left. I EQed the bus and sent it to a room verb to make the drum sound more natural (room mics are missing, so I had to create the room for myself).

Brush snares / triangle / egg: basic EQ and panning.

Bass

Bass: I EQed the bass and used ThrillseekerLA for dynamic control. Furthermore I used volume automation to enforce the higher parts of the bass voicing. TUBA was used on the midrange and highrange part to create some upper harmonics, which allows the bass to be heard on small speakers. I used TDR Nova to sidechain to lower frequencies with the kick signal as input. Furthermore I used a subtle setting on Wider to make the bass more spacy while maintaining the central placement of the bass in the stereo image.

Guitars

Guitar BUS: All guitars are summed up to this bus. No processing here.

29-GUITAR: panned to the center. EQed the signal and used Polyverse Wider to give it more integrity to the whole stereo concept. Added a small amount of stereo verb to it.

Tremolo: EQ and Compression. The compression is used to get more sustain out of the tremolo effect. For this purpose I used ThrillseekerLA. In addition I used Wider for stereo integrity.

Guitar 1 L/R: panned hard left and right BUT summed up 83% mono! Reason: Guitar 2 L/R and the acoustic guitar take away all the stereo space on hard left/right corners. EQed the signal and used no compression at all.

Guitar 2 L/R: panned hard left and right. EQ. No compression used. I used volume automation to bring up important melodic parts.

Solo Guitar: EQ. Then I used ThrillseekerLA to tame the dynamic signal a bit. This signal is sidechain compressed with the lead vocal as input. Furthermore I used Wider to shape the stereo integrity of the signal. I added a fat stereo verb that supports the mono reverb tail of the original signal.

Slide guitar: EQ and TDR Molotok to tame the signal dynamics. Wider for stereo integrity. I added a stereo delay to make it fit in the room of the other instruments that play in the beginning.


Acoustic guitar: I used the DI signal and the mic signal and panned them hard left / right. Baisc EQ. I summed all frequencies below 160 Hz to mono to maintain the body of the guitar signal. Furthermore I added a rather short and subtle stereo verb.

Piano: the piano part is BEAUTIFUL, but it has a lot of hiss! I EQed the signal and ran it through TDR Kotelnikov with a long attack time. I used the Kotelnikov due to its transparent and clear character.

Organ: panning and EQ. I summed all frequencies below 130 Hz to mono.

Vocals

My main goal for the vocal placement was an upfront mono lead vocal with supporting background vocals panned left and right. Due to the huge stereo image that I created with all the other instruments I had to use the background vocals more as a stereo effect rather than creating harmony lines with them.

Background VOX: EQ & panning. I reduced some lower frequencies of the 4th BVOX voicing to get a more high passed vocal image. I summed all frequencies below 200 Hz to mono. Furthermore I added a stereo reverb to get an even more broad stereo image of the background vocals. Volume Automation.

Lead Vocals: EQ, dynamic EQ, Limiter to chop up peaks, CLA-76 for compression and TDR Nova as deesser. Additionally I added Fresh Air with very subtle settings, to make the vocal more crisp. I used TesslaPROmkII for some tape saturation and even more dynamic control. To place the vocal within the stereo image, I used a dark mono hall reverb, a bright stereo hall reverb, a dark mono delay and a bright stereo delay. I used lots of volume automation to make the vocals fit in the mix.

Mix

WAV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bb6p7U ... sp=sharing
Max dBTP: -3.0
LUFS integrated: -19.5


Yours,
PGPMixing

[nicores]

hi everyone! i really like the song, it reminds me to Coti, Andres calamaro, Los Tipitos kind of style. i tried to give to the mix a more earlies 2000 sound, in the middle of a rock and a pop song.

Drums

ohs:
Insert: waves dbx160, millenia nseq-2, fab filter pro q 3, klanghelm mjucjr
sends: waves ssl channel strip

BD inserts:
Bd coles: waves ssl channel strip
Bd d112: millennia nseq2, waves q1.

Bd sends: bx_yellowdrive, dbx 160, ssl compressor, decapitator (over distorted)

SD inserts: drum leveler, waves scheps 73, cla76
Sd sends: bx_yellowdrive, dbx 160, ssl compressor, Rc-20 retrocolor, valhalla vintage reverb

HH insert: req eq

toms: i used the toms mics as room mics, so i overcompressed them with klanghelm MJUCjr

Brushes inserts: fab filter pro q 3

Triangle and egg: fab filter pro q 3, h-delay, MAautopan, cla 76 and elyssia mpressor.

Bass: millenia tcl-2, fab filter pro q 3, waves c4, amplitube 4, nls channel

Acc guitar: waves nls channel, puigtec eqp1a, req 4, elyssia mpressor, millennia tcl-2, valhalla vintage reverb

Eelectric guitars: millenia tcl-2, fab filter pro q 3

Organ: waves c4, vitamin

Piano: waves ns1, md autopan, vitamin

Vocal:

inserts: fab filter pro q3, autotune, rdesser, c4, elyssia mpressor
Sends: elyssia karachter, outer space delay, hdelay, valhalla vintage reverb, lexicón chamber, lexicón hall, echoboy, waves doubler, mpty 250.

Parallel compresor to all: api 550 a into fab filter proc2, rc-20 retrocolor, cla76.

Master bus: ssl compressor, millennia nseq2, voxengo shinechilla.


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

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 7 days left to submit your mix

[michaelh]

Hi all

This is my first time participating in Mix Challenge so naturally I had a blast. I really liked the song and it seemed like a perfect introduction to the challenge. Thanks to the staff and the artist for providing the song.

Initially when starting the mix I went for a more aggressive 'rock' sound. After spending a few days tweaking I realised that I actually preferred having a tamer, more clean sound by backing off some of the elements. Due to this, I started to aim for separation between each of the elements. I really wanted the listener to be able to pinpoint each of the guitars, piano and organ without them all blurring together. Perhaps this is not what the artist was necessarily looking for, but I really liked the outcome and I hope you enjoy my take nonetheless.

I mixed completely in the box using Ableton Live and plugins. Session was run at 48khz.

Drums
Kick and Snare I used heavy gating on both of these as I found there was quite a lot of bleed. Also used 1776 and eq plugins to shape and some decapitator to get the tone I was looking for.

Overheads Smashed into an 1176 to really get the transients out, and also some eq

Other percussion
Just used some slight eq and saturation on the snare rolls, and some eq on the shaker and triangle

Bass
Didn't do much, just some limiting in Ozone to even out the sound and a bit of a eq bump to the sub region.

Piano
Loved how the piano sounded without any processing. I ended up using some eq and an la3a to slightly level it out. Unfortunately I had to mono the piano. By itself it sounded absolutely fantastic, but in the context of the mix it masked too many elements when panned wide so I opted for mono in this case.

Organ
Just some slight eq and limiting in Ozone to level out.

Electric Guitars
These required some pretty drastic eq to really even out the sound. I also limited pretty heavily with ozone and automated some levels throughout. Hard panned most of these and ended up having them sit pretty far back in the mix.

Acoustic guitar
I loved how this sounded. I tried to match the DI and mic as close as I could with eq and then hard panned each to get a really wide sound. Also used an LA3A plugin to level and a tad of saturation.

Vocals
I used some gating to get rid of some unwanted noises, LA2A plug for compression and some dynamic eq in TDR Nova to de-ess and to tame some harshness. The backing vocals just had some eq and levelling compression.

Drum Bus
SKnote A25 for compression and some eq and saturation.

Summing
I used the newly released Airwindows Console 7 plugin to emulate analog summing.

Master Bus
Very subtle compression with BX Townhouse, small amount of eq and Airwindows toTape6 to add some tape softening and saturation. I also used Melda Loudness Analyser to get the mix to -18 LUFS ILK.

Mix
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oqJY8M ... sp=sharing

Looking forward to hearing everyone's mix!

Cheers,
Michael

[s&f]

Hi thank you for letting us mix ur song.

I'm from Brazil, so it was easier for me to understand the lyrics. nice song.in my opinion, I think latin music are generally bright with eggs, percussion etc. so, I think for this challenge, my suggestion would be to bring up the Lufs, because the brightness at high Lufs levels will definitely change the perception of the mix. my point is that some mixes will sound good at lower lufs, but as soon as u bring them up to normal levels, the egg and the triangle will definitely sound very annoying. just a suggestion though.

Here's my submission for this month:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zhhiue5515j9h ... F.wav?dl=0

Here are screenshoots:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qseacx2s7s9h ... v0nxa?dl=0

Here some details:
LV - I Multiband compressed and de-essed before sending it to a Avalon 737 unit. then, I pushed it very much so I can have a more stable vocal level through the song just using the tube natural compression. I liked the 1st take much better, so I used that take. I did replace some phrases that were damaged. heavy use of reverb and waves doubler.

BV - de-essed heavily, compression, reverb and waves doubler.

drums - used Waves SSL channel. no samples.

Perc - I did put them very quietly in the mix, and I used only one perc to avoid phase issues and mud build up.

guitar - I used waves doubler and abbey road plates reverb.

parallel compression - it was hard to glue the song as it's a very dynamic and live recording. I sent all instruments to a bus, and used logic compressor, and that helped a lot. generally speaking, I don't send the drums to Parallel compression.

Here is a limited version just adding 5db in fabfilter limiter:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q1vzahmwqrnvz ... n.wav?dl=0
and here the original mix for reference:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3kubsw4zk4pea ... a.mp3?dl=0

to be honest, I was kind of upset because I put a lot of effort and the mixes don't sound "THAT" different haha. I think the biggest difference is that the original mix gets smaller after the intro, because as the recording is very dynamic, there is just too much limiting in the original. so the intro is actually perceived louder than the rest.

thank u for the song, I learned a lot on this one.

S&F