MIX CHALLENGE - MC37 October 2017 - Winners announced

[shoma]

Hello everybody!

after a long compulsory break I finally have time to participate in this mix contest. This is a really beautiful song, which Fese put us here to the task and I had a lot of fun with the mixing!

So then....here is my contribution:

mp3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wf7ie48fucxw7 ... a.mp3?dl=0


wav
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dh7f9uuk6seep ... a.wav?dl=0

DAW: Cubsae 9

Plugins I used: a whole bunch
- Slate Digital: VMR, VCC, VBC... (FG-Grey on master buss, just kissing the needle. This one is more a kind of a soundshaping tool, because it does
something nice to the mix, even when it's not compressing at all)
- Softube: Tape
- Black Rooster Audio: VLA-2A, VLA-3A
- Oeksound Soothe
- Plugin Alliance: DSM V2, bx_bassdude, bx_control v2 (gentle widening, center bass frequencies)
- Liquid Sonics Reverberate, Seventh Heaven
- PSP: PSP 2445
- sknote: Rev250
- Sonible: SmartEQ
- Tokyo Dawn: Nova
- HoRNet: VU Meter MK3 (just for gainstaging)
- Ploytec : Aroma (master buss)
- Kush Audio: Clariphonic (master buss), Deflector, Novatron
- Prime Studio: Charly (Summing Amp for the master buss)
- Eventide /Newfangled Audio: Equivocate
- Waves: MaxxVolume
- Izotope: Ozone Imager

No analog equipment has been harmed during the process...

I took every track "as is" with the execption of the slide guitar, where I have chosen the D.I.version, because I had a different sound in mind...I was looking for a more "gilmorish" sound which I think fits better to feses style of playing on this recording...( at least in my opinion..)
I cleaned the tracks only when necessary..I like some dirt on the recording, because it adds some life...
Hope you like it



Edit: forgot/mistyped some plugins...corrected

Added links for direct download:

mp3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wf7ie48fucxw7 ... a.mp3?dl=1


wav
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dh7f9uuk6seep ... a.wav?dl=1

[Mister Fox]

Welcome back, shoma. It's been a while!



That's the second time I read about Soothe now. I should take another look at this plugin

Also... Prime Studio Charlie... if I'm not mistaken, that was an EMI TG12345 Preamp... interesting choice as summing bus...

Did you use Reverberate or "Reverberate: Seventh Heaven" (well, basically both can use the Bricasti IRs), or did you do something more with it?

[shoma]

thank you

Soothe is definetely worth a deeper look. Though it's quite similar to Plugin Alliances DSM V2 or Tokyo Dawns OD DeEdger (which I'll have to buy someday...), you'll get different results with any of these.

Charly is a free plugin you can get if you subscribe to the newsletter at https://primestudio.at/magento2/index.p ... e-mix.html (scroll down entirely) But I don't know what this is modelled after Think, i have to google this again....

I used "Seventh Heaven"(not the Pro version) as well as Revereberate 2 with the Fusion IR of the Bricasti M7 (mostly Studio Rooms...for the sake of some realism..well...sort of )



Edit: Found some info about Charly in an article about this plugin @bedroomproducersblog, just down below in the comment section

"Hardware unit is modded Tube Tech SSA http://www.tube-tech.com/ssa-2b-stereo- ... er-26.html"

https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2016/0 ... arly-free/

[Mister Fox]

hm... my mistake - need to dive into the Tube Tech specs then. I think I picked it up ages ago, but personally I'm not a fan of the ACQUA engine.

Will definitely take a closer look at "Soothe", though I think it's not comparable to OD DeEdger. But this would go into OT now.


In fact, I pulled this too much into OT territory already.

[Ungifted]

Hello,

I wanted to do some more gain riding ...but I find, it already sounds great ...so here is my mix (maybe I'll do some gain rides later and update the mix).

DAW: Studio One 3.5 Pro

I prepared all tracks in iZotope RX, cleaned up the bass track (de-clipped, de-crackled), and upsampled all tracks to 48kHz (because I like to have a 48kHz workflow).

My goal was to use minimal effects and have a good soundstage glue via parallax-audio Virtual Sound Stage (early reflections, panning etc.) and use only one single plate reverb (acoustica-audio Ebony) for all together. I wanted the main vocal to sound very intim and near, so there is heavy eq'ing.

So on every track is:
brainworx bx_console N
Ebony EQ
Ebony Compressor (most tracks)
Virtual Sound stage

Digital summing into busses with Softube Tape.

Screenshot:
https://profi-satz.box.com/s/k6m7ocv18u ... 9l860q01co

MC37_WhatTomorrowBrings_Ungifted_320CBR.MP3:
https://profi-satz.box.com/s/2zhoixqu3f ... g61anj09k9

MC37_WhatTomorrowBrings_Ungifted_24Bit48kHz.WAV:
https://profi-satz.box.com/s/uvldbb6k7f ... aace7cdkhq

A mastered version:
https://profi-satz.box.com/s/7eswfj9tas ... 8faqtkruv6

Updated Oct 14 - the promised gain rides

Cheers from Hamburg,
Bianca (Ungifted)

[Photonic]

Hello,

What a wonderfull track to work with! I like the overall mood of this track, the arrangement, the chord progression and melody very much. Great job Formfish

I did no pitch correction like others, but I heard some timing problems. So here is what I did:
I did some time corrections on the bass and on the backing vocals, to synchronize them to the lead vocal.
On the lead vocal there are some "s" sounding like a "f", like there was too much de-essing used. I automated an EQ at around 6kHz to bring back the missing frequencies.
I did not use the DI-tracks. Mixed in Reaper v5.33.

MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vpqrerur64tcq ... c.mp3?dl=1
WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5vymtphe5wahn ... c.wav?dl=1

Shaker and Tambourine: ReaEQ for high pass at 1.3kHz and some boost at 10kHz. Tambourine got a slight compression with ReaComp
Bass: Low pass at 2.3kHz, -2dB cut at 200Hz, Thrillseeker VBL for compression and re-amping
Piano: ReaEQ to high pass at 100Hz, lower 2 dB at 200Hz-500Hz, boosting 6 dB at 10kHz
Acoustic Guitar: ReaEQ for high pass at 100Hz, cut -4dB at 200Hz and -3dB at 500Hz, highshelf +2dB above 2 kHz, ReaComp with fast setting to reduce peaks and DIM sixtyfive for slow compression
Acoustic Solo: ReaEQ for high pass at 100Hz, bosst +2dB at 800Hz, highshelf +2dB above 2 kHz, ReaComp with fast setting to reduce peaks and DIM sixtyfive for slow compression, NastyDLA for stereo delays
EGuitarSlide: ReaEQ for high pass at 200Hz, boost +4dB at 1.6kHz, low pass at 6kHz, ReaComp
EGuitarPick: ReaEQ for high pass at 200Hz, boost +1dB at 800Hz, low pass at 8kHz, ReaComp, ClassicChorus by Kjaerhus Audio
EGuitarChorus: ReaEQ for high pass at 300Hz, cut -3dB at 700Hz, boost +3dB at 5kHz, low pass at 8kHz
Main Vocals: ReaComp with fast setting to reduce peaks and S.LAX for slow compression, ReaEQ for high pass at 80Hz, bosst +1dB at 200Hz, cut -2dB at 650Hz, highshelf +2 dB above 4kHz, second ReaEQ for atomation at 6kHz, TDRNova for de-essing
Back-Bus: ReaEQ for high pass at 150Hz, cut -4dB at 350Hz, boost +2dB at 5kHz, low pass at 10kHz
All BgVoc: S.LAX for compression, femal vocal got Transpire to reduce transients

Master: MQ57, TDR-Kotelnikov, Satin, SPAN
3 reverb settings used, all Acon Digital Verberate.

[MFTWC]

Here is my mix.

Wav: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6ipA ... khsdy0zbTg

Mp3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6ipA ... 1l3cXhSNWc

Cubase Pro 9

Toneboosters Plugins

Klanghelm MJUC on Main Vocals

Sonic Anomaly Vola 2 on Background Vocals

ValhallaVintageVerb & ValhallaRoom as Send FX

[B4Lasers]

well i guess the time is now or never.
so here is my first mix on mix challenge form fish and mikejw i appreciate being able to mix this and i put some love into it.
completely ITB

plugins used
Omega 458A on every channel
Slate VMR on my Busses for VCC Set to Brit N
Slate VMR for Eq work on Acoustics
Slate VMR of EGuit for if i remember correctly eq and saturation
Eq3-7 Band on Lead Acoustic still shaping
Waves F6 on Acoustics EGuit Bus Drum Bus Lead Vocals Bus Bgv Bus just controlling frequencies instead of cutting them so i can obtain clarity but keep the sound very natural and open
T-racks Quad Image on Acoustics besides from panning i wanted a mono stereo imager and the s1 isn't capable of that. i wanted to just open up the image a tad more. some people may argue but the quad imager is a multi band mono/stereo imager and in this situation it did exactly what i wanted it just opened up the panning and made the acoustics guitars feel smoothed over the sound field instead of just relying on reverb or delay and without it feeling oh its just panned over there.
after i froze all my tracks i felt the acoustic need just a little more low mids so what better the a Scheps 73 just a touch maybe 1.2 db
Bass following the omega and i was hitting that really hard to get situation i cleaned it up with a SSLEq from waves then controlling it with an API 2500 i like the push of that compressor following that the sknote DolA using it to really open up the top end of that bass and pop out some of those wonderful harmonics up there smh i love that thing following that newfangled audio Eq just controlling so resonance peaks and bringing out some of the beautiful tones of the bass.
only the omega 458a on the the Eguit tracks and i was driving them hard for distortion following that i busses all eGuit and treated then with the Waves F6 as i stated earlier then the Plugin alliance Black Box Analog for some wonderful color really brought it alive then Slate VMR which i stated earlier
only Omega 458a's on the Percussions Hitting them hard for situation and controlling of the initial transients because they really needed to be smoothed out busses all percs followed with waves F6 like i stated earlier same with Slate WMR then Slate VTM controlling some of of the transients and giving some color then a Wave S1 adding to the stereo image
lead vocals treated with Omega458a driving it hard for color and BCPatwork which houses my favorite chain a FF-Q 2 into a Softube CL1-b then two FF- DS cleaning up the 2-3k range and 5-12k range
parallel bus is same as lead vocals but i added the Slate VMR which is doing heavy compression and some 1073 saturation for nice color and warmth
all bgv treated with omega458a and scheps73 eq's to taste in mono so they all sat well together well this whole track was mixed in mono until the very end i always do that so i can obtain a full mouth of clarity in the end.
Lead vocals bus includes Claraphonics MK2 bringing clarity and focus the an Waves F6 Controlling the soundscape
BGV bus hace a desser a waves F6 a Cla-2a and a S1 Imager opening up that soundscape for a big lush bgv sound
now only 3 fx sends here 2 mono reverbs panned hard L/R using different setting on each on to create a huge and i mean HUGE sound field that wass done with Waves abey plates the a repeater delay on the acoustic solo to give it some depth both of the sends are auto mated though the entire song
next 3 more busses housing my all music all vocals and all effects here i only ran omega458a's for a bit more color and depth then the Slate VMR VCC all set to Brit N i also added a touch of eq and a fgbomber on my all vocals for a bit more control and depth then the all effects buss received a S1 imager just to widen that soundstage a bit more before the 2bus
then my 2bus houses a Slate VMR with London VTC and a VCC mix buss set to Rc-Tube for some smooth top end and thicks mids also it gave me that more loft sound i wanted but i still needed clarity before that then i hit the EQP-1a then a Slate VBC using only 1-2 db of compression withe FgGrey and i have the Fg Mu on only for the color it added to the midrange then a BlackBoxAnalong for a little saturation and density it helps pull it all together then finally the Slate VTM for some Color and soothing of the sound field also that helped me bring back that rolled off warm thick sound form fish had before i started but now theres much more clarity and openness and to top it off a BlueCat Audio Gain 3 so i could do automation rides thoughoutthe entire song it give it motion of vibe really build the tension in those bridge and hook parts also strave the listen a tad during the verses but its so subtle you probably don't notice lol and thats it phew what a mfkn list and ADMIN's if a photo is still needed just let me know

MP3
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxXcP ... E01T2pWWGc

[B4Lasers]

[kevin gobin]

Hello!

Beautiful!


I found that I should mix this one in a Pink Floyd style, so kept that color in mind the whole mixing stage.

I begun with the Acc Guitars: EQ/LA3A/Tone2 Warmverb Muti FX for space, both tracks sent to a BUS with more highs.

I added the lead vocal, with EQ/LA3A/EQ, and a send to the marvelous Tone2 Warmverb Muti FX for space.

I worked the back vocals the same way, then the BUS EQ made room for the lead, and backed off some highs.

I chose a piano color to fit between, using just EQ.

Then I worked the electric guitars with stereo enhancing, LA2A/EQ and... Tone2 Warmverb Muti FX for space placement!!!

I tried to find a good balance with just those elements and automated.

Then I add the bass (LA3A/EQ) and the percs (little send to a dBx 160), and perfected my automation to "tell the story".

The whole tracks went into a stereo BUS with a pultec EQ on it, and that's it.

See you soon everybody.


https://soundcloud.com/kevin-gobin/mc03 ... gobin-flac

https://soundcloud.com/kevin-gobin/mc03 ... -gobin-mp3