Mix Challenge

Thanks @Johnny_Fingers for the great song, and thanks @Mister Fox for hosting.
Another fun track to mix! Here's my interpretation - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OSvfjY ... sp=sharing

My thoughts on this track, as it is a sparse arrangement, was to build in some dynamics by changing the amount of 'atmosphere' with each section of the song. To try and achieve this I have kept the performance quite close and intimate at the start of the song, and then as the song progresses, the length and level of the reverbs change, so that the atmosphere grows throughout the song.

With the acoustic, I have made a blend of the two mic options, and put straight up the middle. The vocal double has a doubler and some other effects to give some stereo width, I have also time aligned with the lead vocal. The bass has had some subs added and touch of chorus. I have used a load of spring reverb on the lead guitar, some delay and subtle chorus on the harmonics guitar. I have played with the panning possiotns of these guitar parts over time to create some stereo interest

I think those are the more interesting things to mention, besides this, it's just the usual compression, EQ, reverb, saturation etc.

Hope you like the direction I've taken the song. Can't wait to hear everyone else's mixes!

Cheers,
JamesMusic

Good morning, thanks for the interesting and intimate song.
One small question: are there small mismatches in time between the first and second voice. Can I correct them or does this involve disqualification? (it is editing, not mixing ...) Of course I can postpone it, but it would be a shame to have to limit the 2nd voice to hide these small defects ...
Can I please adjust it? Thanks.
G.

As mentioned in the first post and second post, time alignment is allowed. You have to use all 7 tracks.

Mix →

Acoustic guitar
Amp Room for some EQ, peak compression and reverb. Some dynamic EQ to tame the low end and low mids.
Sent to room reverb which was panned to the opposite and to some spring reverb.

Bass
Amp Room to make the sound more mellow using a cab and EQ. STA Level comp with quick attack and release. Some more EQ to reduce muddiness and clashing

Lead guitar
Re-amped with Amp Room and compressed with LA2A-style comp. I think re-amping added character and energy while preserving the overall feel. It still feels dreamy, but more intimate.

Guitar harmonic
Tried to make it background filler. Hard panned, killed the transients. Send to a heavily compressed Spring reverb, panned opposite.

Lead vocal
Some level automation. Then EQ to shape the tone and kill resonances. Some subtle saturators, SSL desk comp with fast attack doing just a a db or two, ACME Comp with slow settings. Some deessers (feels like not enough). Sent to microshift for widening, low-volume stereo delay, room and spring reverbs. Also added a last-minute dynamic EQ cut at around 700hz.

Backgroud vocal
Some manual, not perfect alignment. Made it sit slightly behind the lead vocal, but not too much.

Mixbus
Boosted sides with Goodhertz Midside, compressed the mid-channel with STA Level, rolled off some lows and highs, and saturated with a tape plugin and Inflator.

Hi !

Here is my submission :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/70xd799xo6c4f ... t.wav?dl=0

I hope that you will like it. I made my best to get it nice even if I think this could be recorded again and edited in a better way :-) But I know sometimes we can't !

I tried to get a balance between intimate close sound and an open large space, therefore it should have required more quality of the originial tracks to get a pretty close and present sound so my mix goes a little more in the way of open sound but still, I tried to be subtle.

I spent a little more time on the vocals. I had to correct the pitch withe WaveTuneat certain moments cause it was not ok at all, although I tried to make it very soft, and localised. First thing in the processing is a little de-essing with FabFilter Pro-DS, then getting very little bottom and sweet highs with Wave PuigTec EQP-1A, followed by FabFilterPro Q3 to cut the low noises under 95 Hz, adding some low midrange around 300Hz, cutting at 1,1kHz, and adding some presence around 3.2kHz. This is followed by two compressors : CLA-2A that reduces peaks by 2-4 dBs and FabFilter Pro-C2 in Opto Mode with very low ratio, reducing by 0-3dB and set to att=7ms rel=450ms.
I finally inserted a fast wide stereo delay (70ms with feedback) SoundToys Echoboy to firstly add a kind of stereo thickness to the voice.

The voice is sended (with automation) to a Plate Reverb (Liquidsonics Seventh Heaven, 1.95s, EQed to enhance the highs a little) and to another Echoboy (Dual Echo, 1/16th, with a little feedback) which is sent also to the Plate.



Best Regards,

Etienne

Hello.

Intimate and dynamic made most sense to me.

Therefore I choose to keep the integral dynamics fully. It made zero sense to create a lifeless and static track. It plays fairly well as is and creates its own life. No automation, except the fadeout. Soundshaping was by means of eq and reverb. I did not find anything in particular that needed to be fixed or that sounded wrong.

I just mixed this without putting myself all over it, other than my ears and very careful adjustments based upon their information given.


https://www.dropbox.com/s/itery3b0rilmm ... s.wav?dl=0

Best
Patrik

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 14 days left to submit your mix.



An additional quick one-time reminder for everyone:

Please be aware that documentation of your mix is an integral part of the overall learning experience of this community. You always have the option to go as detailed as you want. However at bar minimum, please focus on one particular sound you enjoyed shaping/creating.

Example: "I created this particular guitar sound by doing ABC, then blended it with XYZ, using tools GHI. My idea was to create <insert your personal reason here> and opted for a more loose feeling rather than surgical quantization".


There is no argument for "nobody cares", it is part of the rule book (most notably post #6). Don't risk a disadvantage by just posting your entry and moving on. Should you have posted your entry already, please update your forum message. If you are new to the forum, please check in with previous games how things usually work.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d44SGO ... sp=sharing

For this mix the first thing was to clean everything with Rx9 other things with Spectralayers 8, bass and vocals were tuned with Melodyne 5

Then took both acoustic guitar tracks, used MautoAlign and grouped to a stereo group, they are panned 40 L 40 R.
the plugins used are Izotope Sculptor, Bx console N, Mauto dynamic eq to clean some resonances, Mcompresor used as it was an Mv2 with up and downward compression, ozone 9 spectral shaper to clean some hi frequencies, and at the end Kilohearts Haas to create some stereo feel.

Bass: used Difix from united plugins just to make it sound with more life, Mbandpass to eliminate some hi frequencies, MturboEQ kind of an Api, Mbassador to make the bass sound bigger Tr5 Comprexxor and Mv2.

Melody lead guitar: Mtransient to eliminate some aggressive transients bx console N and Tape Pro as a delay.

Guitar harmonics: it has the same as the main guitars Izotope Sculptor, Bx console N, Mauto dynamic eq to clean some resonances, Mcompresor used as it was an Mv2 with up and downward compression, ozone 9 spectral shaper to clean some hi frequencies, and at the end Kilohearts Haas to create some stereo feel.

Vocals: neutron sculptor, nectar 3 nothing complex because the vocals already sounded good, they have some small automated delay in some parts with the Tape Pro.

Vocal 2: it has the Acon Digital denoise 2, Mconvolution simulating a megaphone, and a leslie by Ik Multimedia, all tracks were routed to a master reverb using the Mconvolution.

On the stereo output lives the Tape by Softube, bx townhouse Endlessmile used at the end as a reverb and Newfangled Audio Elevate just 0.4 of limiting and a small tweak at the low frequencies.

Hi,

As we all - I did it my way.
First I synced doubles in revoice pro.
Then I used Scheops mono upmix to get some 3d feel in ftont-back position.
All compresion on tracks was Slate MO-TT,
On a acoustic guitar I used Gulfoss to get some livness from SM57 version. There is send in chorus and after in Lustrus plates 100% wet.
On a bass again MO-TT, soothe to get evennes on low end.
Same on vocals except soothe was de-essing.
To get stereo separation/definition I send each track to Virtual Sound Stage 2 and give them position in there. So no panning on DAW pan.
For reverb I used Sonsig-a and for delay SSl Delay.
On a mix buss there is just Shadow hills class A compressor to give a bit of "Steel transformer" character.
And general I use Avid heat on mix. Drive -1, brightness +1

That is all in general.
My mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gle0Hb ... sp=sharing

Thanks Johnny Fingers for a beautiful song. Here is my entry - hope you enjoy it.

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

I tried make the mix direct/intimate but still have the open space feeling. Some notes on the processing below:

Vocals - I used a fair amount of MJUC compression to bring it forward. I settled with 7th heaven reverb for the lushness. Some cleaning up with RX.

Vocal Chorus - I was unsure how to use this, but blended this in a way so it's not distracting the lead. I reduced the lows and highs and blended in Abbey Road Chambers for some character.

Acoustic Guitars - cut some lower mids to enhance the vocals. SSL9000 to add colour to the transients. The guitars were creating the movement.

Harm Guitar - Saturation for some colour. I saw this a bit more of the spacial element. I used timeless delay 3 to add more texture, the in-built ducking effect enhancing some of the louder notes.

Mel Guitar - Maag4 eq for air and more focus. I wanted this to shine, but still wanted the harm guitar to be featured with it since it was also playing melodic parts at one point. Abbey Road Chambers verb for character.

Bass - MJUC compressor. I had a subtle dynamic eq to bring out the upper notes when it's doing the slidy thing.

Volume Automation - Some on the vocal to even it out more. I reduced the acoustic guitars to give more focus to the vocals/mel guitar at some points.

Mixbus - bx_townhouse comp (used this to create the fade at end too) , Saturn 2 subtle transformer for some warmth/glue.

Thanks, gl all!