MIX CHALLENGE - MC072 December 2020 - Winners announced

[Blang]

Hi all,

Here is the link to my mix:

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

To enhance the flow of the story and keep the listener engaged I wanted some more contrast between the different parts (verse, pre, chorus). A lot of this is already done in the arrangement by adding a new instrument for each section. I focused on these new elements by giving them a distinctive tone (with EQ and saturation) and ducking or muting ‘older’ elements.
The arrangement of the pre-chorus and chorus is not only harmonically dense, but also rhythmically. Because of this and that the band is looking for “naturalness” I chose not to use any of the doubled tracks; Only a slight vocal double everywhere but the verses. I felt there is plenty going on so we don’t need any more filling out.

Electric Rhythm Guitars. For these I reduce the top- and low-end, then give it some J37 tape saturation to regain some excitement and get more sustain.

The piano needed a lot of high frequency boost to be heard through this mix (6dB hi-shelf at 2.3k) and it still doesn’t sound very bright.

For the acoustic guitar I only used the mic, because I have a severe DI allergy. To even out the high frequency transients I prefer to use tape saturation before compression, so I don't have to compress that much.

The lo-mids were cluttering up a bit in the denser parts. After addressing some individual tracks I put a dynamic EQ on the ‘harmonic bus’ (= everything except drums, percussion and bass). Dynamically reducing 270Hz Q0.6 about 2dB at most.

Lead Vocal. In the chorus the vocal sounds a tad pinched. I assessed this by putting a dynamic EQ TDR Nova (667Hz Q 0.68 -2dB max) on it before my main compression. In the verses the TDR Nova wasn’t doing anything. I wanted the vocals quite up close so I used time effects very sparingly: convolution of a 2s Swede Plate and a slapback and dotted 8th note echo I made myself in Max for Live.

Mixbuss: bx_saturator for veeeery subtle hi-end excitement. Ableton Live’s Glue compressor doing 1.5dB of GR at most, attack on 30ms to enhance punch.

Cheerio!

[TomImmon]

First of all, many thanks to the song provider for this great pop / rock song and to Mr. Fox for hosting the contest. It was really a pleasure to work with the well-recorded tracks.
I hope you like the result.

Mix: 48khz, 24Bit
https://www.dropbox.com/s/abvsfn841gb0e ... n.wav?dl=0

Preparation:
I worked in Studio One, loaded all tracks, sorted them by instrument and marked them in color. Groups, busses and standard effects created.
The standard effects include: Stereo Slap Delay (70ms and 140ms), Drumroom (MZConvolution), Mainroom (Phoenix), EMT140 Plate, Vocal Plate (waves Epic).
Everything was monitored with bx_meters and Youlean.

Drums:
Overheads were set at 9 and 3 p.m. Center at 12 and everything leveled so that the snare is in the middle. In addition, the snare phase has been optimized.
The snare track has been duplicated for a gate trigger that removes bleed.
In addition to the usual EQ and compression (CLA76), the snare got a little more body with the old trick of placing a tone generator with a small sine sweep underneath and adjusting it with a gate. A little PinkNoise was also placed underneath using the same method to have a little more snare carpet.
Transgessor to optimize attacks and sustain.
Dyn compression with Waves C6
Kick was provided with EQ and compressor (CLA-76). Saturation from Waves Abbey Road.
OH got a little EQ and with MS a little wider stereo image.
Since there was no drum room, I simulated one for snare and kick, sent a signal delayed by 25ms to a reverb and compressed the output a bit.
The drum bus ran over a tape simulator (soft tube) and was made thicker using parallel compression

Bass was edited with waves CLA Bass

The acoustic guitars did some work, I filtered out a lot of the resonances and worked with the Vitalizer and Air on the highs. The guitar is duplicated using Haas Delay and set hard to the right and left in the panorama.
The electric guitars only got a little HPF, a little EQ and some compression. It was positioned in the virtual space with the standard effects.
Organ and piano were provided with HPF and the highs were boosted.

Background vocals were individually optimized and grouped with Nectar. Compressed with waves R-Vox

I used the main vocals 1 and only mixed the second track to double it in a few places. The main vocals were optimized with Nectar, and also compressed with CLA-76 and Hill. With Nova dyn EQ, some resonances were softened. De-essing with Waves Siblance.

I automated almost all tracks and varied volume, effect send and panorama.
All instruments (except drums) and vocals were routed via a rearbus with Lindell 354E and some saturation (according to the Scheps method).

On the master bus there was only a Townhill Compressor for the glue and an MS EQ to distribute the bass more in the middle and treble more to the sidebands.

Of course, no drum samples were used. However, I have repaired four failed snare hits with copies of other hits.

Mixed to -16.2 LUFS (INT), -6.35dbTP (checked with Expose)

Cheers
Tom

[odistdan]

Thanks for sharing this track. I kinda struggled a lot with this track given that the guitars in mixed version are different but it has been a good learning experience for me.

I started off with gain staging using VU meter on all tracks making sure everything is -18db rms.



Drums:


Eq and subtle compression on intro snares with extreme panning.

CLA2A on egg shaker with extreme high cut at 20 khz and a gentle dip at 15 khz.

Scooped the mids of ‘kick in’ to get rid of the thin click sound and add more punch.

I used sub simulator on ‘kick out’ for more punch and cut through.

Added more shrill on snare to make it sound fuller and cut through, sent it through plate and reverb send.


Tom2 and Tom3 are muted as they are not adding anything substantial to the mix and there’s a drum parallel compression on entire drum.

Bass:

Compression, eq and side-chain with kick and vocals



Acoustic Guitars:


Took me a lot of time to get these right although I am still not sure.
EQ on both the channels and their bus. 
1.5db gentle overall side boost.
 CLA guitars turned the treble down, added gentle compression and reverb.
 API 560 Eq followed by neutron elements with selective midhigh compression after 1.6khz and slight saturation followed by more eq and reverb send.
The idea was to make them as smooth and clean as possible.



Electric Guitar:

Few different EQs (pro-Q3, pultec) and compression. 



Backing Vocals:
Melodyne, EQ, Bus compression and FX

Vocals:

Vocals were a little tricky in the mid highs mostly. I used a compressor, Si-Q, saturator, MJUC jr, to make them vocals little upfront and controlled. Fresh breath for air and then de esser. Volume Automation.



FX:
I have 9 FX buses of Reverb (Room, Hall, Chamber, Plate)and Delay (Tape, Slap, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8).


I through tracks in them as per my taste. 



-1.6 dbFS peak

I request the Mix Challenge team and the community to please provide me with the feedback.

Thank you

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

[alphoc]

Hi forum!

Here’s my mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fJFiyh ... sp=sharing

Details:

DAW: Reaper 6
Plugins: Stock plugins, Airwindows, Waves.

Mix:
My mix strategy is pretty simple. It is based on the stock plugin.
As I always do, my first steps in this mix are; phase issues, gain staging. Other steps; spme basic cleaning cuts, gentle compressions and parallel compression for drums, automated leveling, polishing and echos and panning for the stage atmopshere.
Since we do not mastering by rules, only main bus has gentle glue compression.

[SDB_12]

Hi all,

Thanks for the song this month, it was fun!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ermzzef13190r ... 2.wav?dl=0

I recently picked up a bunch of new tools during the sales for Black Friday, so wanted to put them to the test with this contest. I decided to mostly focus on trying out the Metric Halo Channel strip on most all of the channels, new features in Pro Tools 2020.11 like Heat, some of the new izotope stuff, etc.

Anyway, some details:

Mixbus: Acustica Audio Ultramarine 4 (Fairchild Comp)...BARELY tickling the needle. Just used it for tone mostly. It seemed to glue and widen somehow. Into UA ATR 102 tape machine for a bit more glue and saturation.

Vocals: Melodyne (I went through and tuned up spots that needed it). Crave EQ (slight dip at 377hz), MH strip for shaping, compression and gating, UA 1176AE into Acustica Audio El Ray for compression, UA ATR Ampex 102 for saturation, and izotope Nector 3 for a bit of DeEssing, more saturation and some subtle Delay. Vocals also sent to a spring reverb (UA AKG Bx20) and a wide longer delay (the new CLA EchoSphere).

Drums: Kick mics were blended to one track, with Lofi, Purple 3, Bx SSL 9000, MH Strip, and Maxim (pro tools limiter) on it. Same for snare except no Purple 3, I used Crave EQ instead. I use lofi to give me .1 of saturation to soften transients, and a bit of distortion. Purple was used to fill out the low end of the kick, a slight bit of EQ using SSL 9000...mostly used the gate on this...sound shaping with Metric Halo strip, and maxim just to take off a bit more of the transients.

The tom just had BX console on it for EQ and I manually chopped out everything except for the tom hit on this track.

Hi hat had just MH Strip for a little filtering and shaping with EQ.

OH's had Lofi on it for saturation and distortion, just a bit to soften it. Then MH Strip and Maxim for shaping and more control.

I then sent the whole drum mix to a bit of room using UA Ocean Way. Very subtle.

Overall my goal for the drums was to keep them nice and punchy, but to soften some of the transients a bit so it sounded more analog.

Percussion: I just used MH Strip and some Lofi to shape and take off the harsh transients (especially the triangle). These also sent to the room verb.

Bass: Started with some Crave EQ to shape it, then into the UA Distressor for distortion and control. MH Strip for more shaping and compression, then more Crave EQ and Gullfoss to help it sit in the track. I wanted the bass to fill out the recording but also be heard in spots, it was a bunch of back and forth, twiddling and massaging things until it felt right with the groove.

Acoustics: The mic'd acoustic just got some MH Strip and Crave EQ to shape it. The DI acoustic I put on an IR using Past to Future (a Martin D18 IR). I panned them hard L and R to help widen things out a bit. It also got MH strip for EQ.

Electrics: All of the electrics mostly got MH Strip and Crave EQ for gentle EQ, some of them got Lofi as well for subtle saturation and distortion. On the guitar bus, I wanted to widen things out a bit so I put on Ozone Imager, Gullfoss EQ to help smooth it out, then the UA Fatso Jr for gentle compression and saturation. Some of the leads sent to the spring and room.

Piano: Only had MH Strip on it for EQ and compression. I brightened it up a bit and made it punch a bit more.

Organ: I delayed one side to widen, and also added Ozone Imager. I wanted to clear out the middle and make it float around the track a bit. I used MH strip for EQ to bring out more upper mids and clear out mud.

BGVs: All sent to a bus with just some MH strip to brighten and control. Sent to the spring a touch.

Edit:
Also, I forgot to mention I summed through Avid Heat in Pro Tools!

Thanks all!

[d8bflup]

Great song, really enjoyed this one.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/c09vee601qcx9 ... p.wav?dl=0

As usual, mixed on my Soundtracs CM4400, with Studio one mainly as a player and some light automation

breakdown:

I used the "Recorder man" tracks as basis of the drum sound, little to no EQ, just a balance between the three tracks, this was augmented with some heavy precessed close miked tracks
Kick, started out with a mix of the coles and the D112, great sound on the Coles. However, once in the mix, I skipped the Coles and used the D112 with some heavy EQ (Softube Console One, desk EQ, Lindell PEX-500) and some dbx 510 to add subharmonics. No compression (seldom use compression on kick)
Snare, no EQ, UREI LA-22 on the top mic
HiH, cut the lows, boost the highs
Tom, desk EQ and a SPL Transient Designer to get a little more punch
Snare brushes and percussion, just some desk EQ
I added some Yamaha SPX 990 plate reverb on the Snare, snare brushes and Toms

Bass, a little saturation (free softube plugin), some EQ on the desk and compressed using a dbx 560

electric and slide Guitars, desk EQ and some automation in Studio One to make room in the mix (the hardest part for me in this song)

Accoustic Guitar, I mainly used the mic track (panned to the right) and a hint of the line track (panned to the left) both went to a chorus effect (TC 1210 plugin) some automation

Piano and organ just got some ligt EQ on the desk

Backing vocals, grouped to a stereo buss in Studio One and then EQed on the desk. Some light automation in Studio One

Lead Vocals, I mainly used the second option. Very subtle EQ on the desk, compressed using a 76-KT an a UREI LA-22 as de-esser. A touch of reverb with the TC Electronic DVR250 plugin and a hint of a long delay with the TC Electronic D-Two

Focusrite Mixmaster, using only the three band compressor (1 to 2 dB GR) on the master.

Thank you for the opprtunity

Philippe

[White Punk OD]

Hello Vanagloria, Mr. Fox, and all the comrades here,

this is a song I like very much, and great and sympathetic band!
Here is my mix for you, I did my best, and I hope you love it a lot!

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

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing Screen Shots


It was no mistake that I had listened to Maria Elisa Ayerbe a couple of weeks before, with a very intense Latin music mixing session.
I use very different tools, but from her I understand better about intention and ideas what to do.
I did not grid-lock the timing (as she does), edited only a couple of small events, eg. vocals, a syllable was very off.

DRUMS
I wanted a "Latin" snare, but either it was hollow and dull, or it became too bright and dominant.
The current status seems not so bad but complicated.
I processed the top mic with the Lindell X compressor and EQ, which is extremely powerful for this type.
The bottom (carpet) ended up with the compressor coming with the BX 4000G, which prolonged the sound a bit.
The boom of the snare comes in with a resonant hipass at 135.
Kick + Sn bussed together have the old Ariesverb alpha demo as an insert. Strong, warped ambience stuff.

Now it became quirky. There were boxy "room modes".
I threw the TDR Nova GE analysis algorithm on it, and then tweaked all 6 bands that it had discovered, which also mitigates the big variations in the playing.
But it deletes the "Latin" sound, unless we reduce the compression a lot. So it became more a light but high-Q attenuation, and less of a compression.
I had to boost the typical "ringing" sounds with the 4000G after this.

Later on, I decided to repair the bleeding in the top snare mic, this turned out to have great influence.
I loaded it into good old Cool Edit,
took a noise foot print of the hihat, and then, hit by hit edited out its sound from that track.
Took quite a while, and I only reduced for something like 4-6 dB, else artifacts would become too audible.
Then, it became possible to throw another saturator on the kick+snare bus, now the drums are coming more steady and clear, and some lack of high frequency might find improvement by this.

Brush snares got nothing but a Haas delay.

OH GROUP
Snare and floor tom were panned a little bit left and right.
Center mic was doubled. One got the mpressor to fatten things up, the other got a delayed convo impulse that simulates a neutral room and sounds a bit dark.
This was bussed and mixed with a BX Console N. Basically a very clean treble boost and a sharp mid cut. Finished with a Klanghelm tape sat.


KEYBOARDS
Piano is totally revamped with NSEQ-1.21 (a mixed-phase additive EQ with extreme color), Phil's Cascade (brilliance), Airwindows ADT (used this like 10 times in the project as a Haas delay with different delay settings), Morph-Verb (total game-changer, adds the fattening grand-piano hall reverb), elysia nvelope (occurs 3 times in the project because some instruments had too much sustain and too little attack which killed all punchiness of everything in the whole mix, compare some other mixes in that regard..), and then tinyQ for surgical corrections.
Organ got a bit hipassed, and a soft townhouse comp. One phrase was automated louder.


GUITARS
Acc Git also has a very long chain, most crucial is the multiband with the Lindell 354, and also mixing in the DI track with very low level. It has also my nonlinear convo impulse, which operates like a slap-back, typically for latin stuff.

The solo guitar got a remarkable upgrade with the Waves Tube Saturator Vintage (free!!), convolution nonlin reverb, and the Lagrange fractal delay.


VOCALS
Waves Tube Saturator Vintage played also a major role in the main vocal track, I did not add it to the "doubling" take.
Lead Vc 1 and 2 each got a printed SUBSPACE A - reverb track to mix in. The 1-reverb got also a saturator. Now that's an ambience, isn't it? haha..
The subspace prints needed also a couple of surgical anti-ringing-notches.
There is also a self-made nonlinear convolution impulse at the end of the lead voc chain.
The stem bus of the ld voc has Nova GE as an anti-ringing/anti-room device, another Nova as a "shouting-suppressor" that improves articulation, Console N as the main mixing tool, a stack of parallel compressors (they are coming absolutely tight), and the SPL DeEsser.

The doubled vocal track got a brute-force deesser with ReaGate. I lowpass the side-chain signal, so it does not open with sibilants, and set the threshold and envelope timing accordingly. So, it does not sound like two people singing. Some syllables were outside the timing grid, and I had to align them. Still could do more.
Finally, I put the Luftikus air band EQ on the vocals. It seems as good as the Maag by PA.

Bg Voc got elliptic hipass from "engineers filter", 420Hz, 4th order. This is really fun. Other filter curves don't deliver that separation without becoming harsh.
Then Thrillseeker LA comp with saturation to brighten up. Then, LEXOR chorus from the WOK family. Free and incredible. Finally, Klanghelm tape emulator IVGI2.
There is no real EQ on bg voc!


AUTOMATON
Finally about mixing, I cared for automation to fill out instrumental gaps, and with the acoustic guitar, to reduce it in the chorus etc.
I still want too fine-edit the kick intensity a bit, as usual some hits get lost, and more compression would kill the sound. A couple of hits got salvaged meanwhile.
The harmony vocals needed some boost with the "Grita", when it starts a line of text.
The intro needed several EQ automation tasks, because it seemed too bright. Later when full drums appear, brightness is welcome.

BUS: I asked ozone for a master EQ suggestion, to see if it works with this (no Maximizer!), then tweaked that a bit. Also there is Alpha comp and an exciter with some "mojo".
There is minimal limiting for a few overs. You won't see any brickwall.

I seem to end up with -16.4 LUFS integrated.

Thanks, and good luck to everyone.
Band, have a blissful flashback to a nice recording!

[CantusPro]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bhzj13hpo0lq7 ... o.wav?dl=0

Samplerate: 48 kHz
Bitrate: 24 Bit
dBTP: -2 dB
Integrated Loudness: -18 LUFS
Mix Length: 5:10

I watched the drum mic technique video, and used the 3 overhead mics for the main drum sound. I also used MAutoAlign for fine timing adjustments.
I used Q2 on each track.
I grouped the tracks into 15 instrument tracks and used Neutron on each group.
I added Neoverb for reverbs.

Thank you,
-Cantus

[bravadogrey]

Here is my mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12hXPhz ... sp=sharing

I took the challenge of the vocals quite seriously. The main vocal I used ended up being the second option because I felt it was more true to the tone and flow of the track. It also was a lovely blend with the background vocals, which I chose to widen and pan a bit using my Stereo imager. I compressed the vocal tracks using CLA Vocals and Ableton stock compressors, applied EQ with Ableton's stock EQ Eight, and Reverb with Voxengo's OldSkoolVerb.

This allowed for the background vocals to do what I believe they should do: support and provide extra flavor and depth to the vocal track. They're not the sauce; they're the seasoning and garnish that makes the sauce perfect.

As for instrumentation, I really focused on balancing the keys and the strings, since the organ and piano occupy so much of the frequency spectrum. I panned the organ, the louder of the two key instruments, further out so the ring wouldn't dampen the piano parts, and that allowed the higher end of the guitars (strumming, harmonics, etc.) to shine through.

[loupi]

thanks for the opportunity

https://www.dropbox.com/s/39759zpifz4e6 ... i.wav?dl=0

mix done in reaper,
drums: eq kicks (mud), eq snare (snap) with a bit of saturation knob, tamed the brushsnare quite a bt (eq)
and on the drumbus 2 compressors (ferrics and thrilseeker vbl) and a tilteq (elysia niveaufilter)
bass: shb1 ampsim, some chorus and thrillseekervbl (bit of sidechaincomp with kick d112)
electric guitars: some lowcuts on the tracks and vitamin c on the solotrack (slow attack fast release)
on the bus preampsim nebula3 alexb, and eq retro helio mid boosting 800
acoustic guitars: no line, double up the mictrack with ferrics comp on both with different settings to ceate some movement.
bus: preamp nebula alexb tonydemary and thrillseeker xtc (to get some more topend-shine)
piano: la2a y antress, eq, izotope vinyl on old.
organ: saturration know and boosted 40 and 40k with luftikus
mainvocal: compressors(mjuc fast, dc1a3 slow, vola medium)
backing vocals: the anvil ampsim cutting some low and high and boosting the mid a bit
expanderbus: dc1a2 in expander mode. several tracks went into that (mainly kick, snare acc guitar and mainvocal)
delay and reverbs: nastydlamii on rockman! mode, old plate by acoustica and hall also by acoustica
mainbus: channel7 and to tape5 by airwindows, tdrslickeqM (a little widening and separation) and flux bittersweet (center sweet a little)

hope you enjoy!