MIX CHALLENGE - MC072 December 2020 - Winners announced

[CeZar]

Hey folks,
This here is my submission to this month's mix contest:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mgpwwsrxgxuhv ... r.wav?dl=0
Edit: -16 Lufs version(I didn't see it in the rules(don't punch me, FOX!), but the author of the song asked for it):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vavt7ufy7a1bx ... s.wav?dl=0

Screenshots:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8gcl6e1rwoov4 ... 9.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cndy36jg72k9i ... 0.png?dl=0

DAW: Steinberg Cubase 10.5

Short description of mix:

I mainly had trouble with resonating frequencies all over the place, so I've used soothe2, bx_refinement and subtractive eq to correct those issues. The channel strip was Console1 with mainly SSL 4000 emulation throughout the mix, excepting some drum parts where I've used the American Class A(API) and British Class A(Neve) for the bass.
Main compressors were those from Console 1's channel strip, Sonible's SmartComp(which I can't recommend enough), Cytomic The Glue(SSL 4000 Bus comp), Fabfilter DS and Rennaisance Comp for guitars.
Equalisers were Console 1, Fabfilter Pro-Q3 and Equilibrium(on the mixbus)
My main go-to saturation was, again, Console 1's channel drive and True Iron on the mixbus.
Reverbs: Soundtoys LittlePlate and Sonible SmartReverb,
A bit of delay on the main vocals with Steinberg's stock StereoDelay plugin.
A bit of Fresh Air for harmonic enhancement here and there, and an SPL Vitalizer to widen the mixbus.

I haven't done any automation yet, I will do it in Round 2 if I qualify.

Hope you enjoy it,
I'm open to reviews and advices

Cheers,
Cezar

[J.R.]

Hello! I spent quite a bit of time on this. I think it is a great song, and I had fun working on it. Mixed completely in the box. I don't have any analog gear. This is my first post here, but I tried very hard to follow all the rules, and I am confident that I did. I believe the rules say I need to note everything I did, so here it is. I will go in order of instrument tracks.

Kick
I used both the ribbon mic and condenser mic tracks. I used high pass and low pass filters on both. On the ribbon mic everything is filtered out except 63.2hz-170.6hz. On the condenser 58.4hz-120hz.
Both are panned directly in the center.

Snare
There was a lot of bleed into the snare mics. I wanted to bring out the snare in the mix without the bleed, so I used a gate on the over and under, as well as a compressor. I EQ'd the over by scooping out the middle frequencies, and adding a small boost at 303.4hz and 1.4khz because that's what sounded best to me. Finally, I used a limiter on both over and under. On the over, I set the thresh to -6.9 dB and ceiling to -9.8dbTP. On the under, the thresh is -12.3dB and the ceiling is -11.9dbTP.
Both are panned 11 to the right.
I used a non linear reverb for the snare.

Brushes
Panned hard left and right. Plate reverb.

Hihat
Panned 33 to the right. That's all.

Tom1
Panned 25 to the right. EQ'd high pass filter at 71.2hz. Lowpass filter 9.6Khz. Big lmf boost at 129.2hz that is gained 15.1dB. Small boost at 1.19Khz that is gained 5.7dB.
I used large hall reverb, plate reverb, and non linear reverb on it. Only a small amount of each.

Tom3 OH and Snare OH
I left these in the center, and just turned them down some.

DrumKit Overhead
I duplicated the overhead track and panned them left and right, at 60 each. I gave them some non linear reverb and then EQ'd them the same with a high pass filter at 112.5Hz, a little lmf scoop at 248.8Hz subtracting 6.7dB, and then a sharp middle frequency scoop taking away 18dB of gain.

Triangle
I made the triangle quiet since it cuts through the mix well. I gave it a lot of hall reverb and some plate reverb. Since it is very quiet, it was not overkill.

Egg
I also cranked up the hall reverb for this one. It is also quiet, and sounds like it is in the back, but it is there. I mean you can hear it very well when there is not a lot going on, but when other instruments start playing, the egg naturally takes a backseat in the mix.

Bass
EQ lmf cut at 135Hz by 10dB, and a low pass filter at 712.4Hz

Piano
Most importantly, I got rid of the clicks and pops. It sounded like a converter issue.
EQ MF boost at 698.4hz with a 5.2dB boost. High pass at 64.5hz and low pass at 1.55. I know- I chopped the legs off the piano. Crazy. I think it sounds great though, and it leaves more room for the other instruments. I gave the piano a lot of large hall reverb and a tiny bit of echo. Lastly, I put the Crystallizer "Wet Pad" plugin on the piano track. It is not obvious in the mix just like a lot of the stuff I do, but I think it adds a certain richness to the mix that is more felt than heard. Panning was left and right at 70 each.

Organ
I left this alone. Panning was same as piano- left and right at 70 each.

Guitar
I didn't need or want to touch this either. The guitar player used their own effects and got a great sound.

Guitar Tremelo
I just gave this some large hall reverb and a little bit of echo.

Guitar Stereo (L+R)
EQ mid scoop and some hp/lp. Panning was left and right at 20 each.

Guitar 2 Stereo (L+R)
EQ high pass at 145.6hz. LMF at 309.5hz with -7.5dB gain. MF 802.6hz with a gain boost of 8.7dB. HMF 2.12kHz with a gain boost 5 dB. HF at 9.41kHz with a gain boost of 3dB. Panning was 45 left and right.

Guitar Solo
This was fun to manipulate. I put a highness filter on it to get rid of some unwanted low-end from the recording. I boosted the EQ at 4000hz exactly. Then I put an envelope filter on it that I set up so that it barely touched the tone, but it does enough so that you can hear it in the mix, and I think it was the cherry on top of the tone for the solo. I have it panned 20 to the left.

Slide
Shoutout to the band for using this. I wanted it to sound very vintage, so I used a lot of high and low pass and then boosted the middle frequencies. Then I gave it a lot of hall and plate reverb. It sounds like it is coming from the back of the mix, but since there is not a lot going on while the slide is playing, it is very easily heard.

Acoustic Guitar
This track was crazy bright, so I brought down the HF at 9.98kHz almost all the way. Same with 2kHz. Then it sounded a lot more warm and inviting to me. I gave it a very small amount of hall and plate reverb, as well as a small amount of echo.

Lead Vocal
I think I did most work on this- trying things out and seeing what worked and what didn't. First, I put autotune on it. Anytime I use autotune, I try not to make it obvious of course. So, hopefully I accomplished that. Next, I put a gate on the track because when solo'd, you could hear the band in the background. I'm sure vocals were overdubbed, and the singer was singing along to his headphone mix. The gate worked like a charm. The EQ was easy on this one. I took out the low end which eliminated the unwanted puffs of air. Then I made a very small boost from 1000hz all the way to 10,000hz. Next, I used a plugin called sugar to boost the very high frequencies to give the singer that "airy" pop vocal sound. I rode the vocals to keep them from getting too loud or too soft in the mix. I gave him a little hall reverb and then quite a bit of small plate reverb. Lastly, I duplicated this track and panned them left and right at 51. I think the result is fantastic. The untouched vocals were very good. A lot of good things about them. I just wanted to try to make them even better since I believe that was requested from the artist. Now they sound like butter on pancakes.

Background Vocals
I used all the same stuff that I put on the lead vocals except for the gate- it wasn't needed. Also I didn't ride the background vocals on the faders. I panned the two highest pitched tracks to the left and right at 65. Then the two lower pitched tracks I panned at 55 left and right.

Arglo Vocal
I'm not sure what Arglo means but it only appears for a moment in the song. I put a lot of hall reverb and plate on it. I used the same EQ as the other Vox and left it panned in the center.


Well, that's it! Sorry if I said way too much. I just wanted to make sure that I was very detailed in case the artist/band cared to know. I hope you enjoy my mix! I worked hard on it!!!

Here is the google drive link.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XwNW1S ... sp=sharing

[J.R.]

"I summed all frequencies below 200 Hz to mono."

How is this done?

I really liked your mix!

-J.R.

[J.R.]

Oops, that was meant for another contestant. I'm still learning how to use this message board.

[PGPMixing]

"I summed all frequencies below 200 Hz to mono."

How is this done?

I really liked your mix!

-J.R.

Hello J.R.,

I think you related to my post. If this is true, thank you very much for your feedback.

There are several ways top "sum up" specific frequency ranges of a stereo signal to mono. One of the most common ways is to use a M/S-EQ and filter out the frequency range in the side signal. Another way is to split the signal with a standard EQ on two busses and set the corresponding bus to mono.
There are also many plugins that offer a "stereo separation" option for specific frequency bands, i.e. FL's Maximus. That's usually my way to do it.

Be aware that the filtering and EQing of stereo signals (especially M/S-treatment) can cause phase issues.

Please correct me if I am wrong with my statements.

Regards,
PGPMixing

[yethu]

Mingalaba

I'm Ye` Thu from Myanmar. This is my first time participating in Mix Challenge. Firstly, I would like to say thank for this beautiful song, I really like it.

I mixed with MAGIX Sequoia 15.

I used Plugin Alliance Lindell 80 Channel on kick, snare, tom, bass, guitar stereo, piano, solo guitar, vocal and bg vox bus. Lindell 80 Bus on drum bus and guitar bus. Kazrog True Dynamic and True Iron on solo guitar. IK Multimedia TR5 Master EQ-432 on stereo master bus for adding some air. Then, I added TR5 Tape Machine 24 on every tracks and export all tracks individually.

Next, I built another project for effect processing and 2-bus processing. I used 8 aux buses, one for drum parallel compression with TR5 Precision Comp/Lim. Other one for early reflection and next one for reverb tail with Exponential Audio R4. As predelay for reverb tail, I like to create depth with predelay. Therefore, I used 3 aux buses with 3 Waves SuperTap 2-Taps, with different delay time, no direct signal, output only delay, and send it to reverb tail bus. Next, I used u-he Satin as tape delay for vocal and solo guitar. Last one, plate reverb for vocal with R4, but, I didn't use it in final mix.

On audio tracks, I inserted Waves Bass Rider on bass track for bass consistent. Brainworx bx_stereomaker and Fabfilter Pro Q3 with mid channel high shelf dynamic eq on egg and triangle for stereo movement. And I made automation for a bit manually for vocal, bg vox and solo guitar. For lead vocal, I choose 02-LEAD VOX (SECOND OPTION).wav for final mix.

On submix buses, bx_saturator V2 on instrument bus for stereo widening and bx_refinement on vox bus for control harshness and sibilance. On effect bus, I like to emulate ambience from live music concert. So, I inserted Lindell 80 Bus for console emulation and Wavesfactory Spectre for harmonic enhancement.

On master bus, for mixing with glue together and saturating, I used IK Multimedia TR5 Master EQ-432, TR5 Dyna-Mu compressor and TR5 Tape Machine 99.

Here is my mix,

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hxdHqV ... p=drivesdk

and screenshots,

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iAdtma ... p=drivesdk

Integrated Loudness: -21.0 LUFS
Momentary Loudness Max: -18.0 LUFS
LRA: 6.0 LU
True Peak Max: -6.2 dBTP

I'm looking forward to any feedback and comments.

Best Regards,

Ye` Thu

[J.R.]

"I summed all frequencies below 200 Hz to mono."

How is this done?

I really liked your mix!

-J.R.

Hello J.R.,

I think you related to my post. If this is true, thank you very much for your feedback.

There are several ways top "sum up" specific frequency ranges of a stereo signal to mono. One of the most common ways is to use a M/S-EQ and filter out the frequency range in the side signal. Another way is to split the signal with a standard EQ on two busses and set the corresponding bus to mono.
There are also many plugins that offer a "stereo separation" option for specific frequency bands, i.e. FL's Maximus. That's usually my way to do it.

Be aware that the filtering and EQing of stereo signals (especially M/S-treatment) can cause phase issues.

Please correct me if I am wrong with my statements.

Regards,
PGPMixing

Ya, I was talking to you. Thank you for explaining!

[bluesation]

First of all, I combined individual takes such as guitars, piano, organ, brush into tracks. The aim was not to have as many individual tracks in the mixer. While listening through the tracks, I noticed the groove of the song. I then worked this out. The egg and the triangle played an important role.

Every instrument group got their own buss (drums, guitars, keys, lead vox and back vox.

I use reverb, delays and chorus for the guitars as effects. The drum group has two reverbs, plate and ambience. I then mix these together in the drum sum. Then there is a reverb for all instruments and one for all vocals. The guitars are still running through a send to the chorus.

The drum recordings are pretty good. Therefore I only EQed the individual tracks, nothing special, just to work better together. A compressor is only used in the drum buss and for the kick.

Bass: EQed to get rid of the low muddyness, compressed to about 7db reduction to get a almost constant gain level.

The guitars are panned left and right. A bit of EQ is used. Only the acoustic guitars have a mild compressor to cut peaks and even the level a bit. So the electric guitars that play rhythm. Sole and Slide guitar have no compression. The solo guitar got some 1/8 delay.

Same the keys, some Equing with a mild compressor in the buss track.

The lead vocals are good. No idea why there were mentioned in the briefing. The back vocals are panned almost left and right. The back vocals got more reverb the the lead vocals. Both have more reverb in the Chorus sections, via automation. Lead voclas have cut out some of the mids,boosted some low end the air frequencies. As compressor I used a L2A type of thing. So the back vocals.

The master bus has a gluing compressor with just cuts 2 - 2.5 db, followed by a console emulation to warm up the mix a bit.

Here is my result: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7g9gl86c46nba ... n.wav?dl=0

[LughSenderson]

Hello everyone

It was fun to mix this song. This time I did it differently, I used the BX SSL 4000E instead of the usual SSL Native or BX SSL 9000J. All my equalization and compression was done on this plugin, on all tracks I had the HF knob at maximum gain (+ 15dB), shelf at 5Khz for percussion and bass, 8Khz for guitars and keys and 10Khz for vocals. Compression on all tracks too, fast attack and release, 6 dB reduction in percussion, 10-20 in other instruments.

In the bus out I used Vertigo Vsc-2, ratio 4: 1, attack 10 release auto, 3-4 reduction. Effects I used 4 Relab Lx480 reverbs, Large Wood Room for percussives, Thin Plate for guitars, Jazz RHall for keys and A Plate for vocals, with little modification in the default settings. It also had two PSP42 in ¼ and 1/8 and an Eventide H3000 Factory for additional delays, and another for micro pitch shift. I used the second main vocal option to create a fold in a few moments. The only track I didn't use was the guitar.

Besides that:

Kick: I took a lot in the 200Hz region.

Snare: I added 15db at approximately 150Hz.

Tom: I took a little midrange around 400Hz.


Guitar: I took a little bit of 100Hz down.

Slide guitar: In addition to Thin Plate, I sent it to Jazz RHall and all delays.

Piano: I took a little at 600Hz.

Vocals: I took a lot of 150Hz down and added almost the maximum around 5Khz. I sent it to A Plate and PSP42. Backing vocals and “dobra”, I sent for micro pitch shift too.



Here is the result.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12gJs8l ... sp=sharing

[White Punk OD]

Mingalaba
I'm Ye` Thu from Myanmar. This is my first time participating in Mix Challenge. Firstly, I would like to say thank for this beautiful song, I really like it.

very nice to see you here!!
great job!
hope you'll get many comments after our deadline.