Mix Challenge

Hello everybody,

at first, I thought of a jazz tune with a walking bass, but since Esteve Corbera did a great tune in that style last month, it felt like a cheap knock-off. So I tried something different and went more into the direction of downtempo or chillout.

So here is my submission for this month:


The Wav is here:
Summer Evening Walk

Tools used:

Dear fellow challengers and Mister Fox.

First of all, I hope you are enjoying (or have already enjoyed) your summer vacation.
This month I based my theme on several samples (described below) and built a LO-FI Chillout type theme. I've been wanting to experiment with this genre for some time and I think it goes well with the theme proposed this month. The truth is that I mostly used samples and I used few instruments (only one), but I started mixing the samples and I liked what I came up with. I made them mine. So, I treated them with effects and here is the result of my work.

Thank you colleagues.

(translated with google)



Equipment:
DAW:
Reason 13.0.1d42

Reason Instruments:
ID8 Instrument Device

Reason Effects:
Reason Equalizer
RV7000 MkII Advanced Reverb
Audiomatic Retro Transformer
Ripley Space Delay

Reason Players:
Scales & Chords

Other effects outside of Reason:
Bedroom Producers Blog BPB Saturator
Kilohearts AB kHs Flanger
Arturia EFX REFRACT
Rob Papen RP-PAN
BABY Audio I Heart NY
Kilohearts AB kHs Limiter
Eventide Blackhole

Samples:
Ghosthack - Abstract Lo-Fi
Ghosthack - Advent Calendar 2020 Day04 Lo-Fi Kit
Slate Digital AURORA Lo-FI

Other tools:
Waves Vitamin Sonic Enhancer
iZotope Ozone 9 Standard
Plugin Alliance SPL HawkEye
Thenatan Clone
HoRNet Plugins HoRNet VHS

WAV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lYEYZt ... sp=sharing
FLAC: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kgESRQ ... sp=sharing
MP3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gn2w6w ... sp=sharing

I wanted to create a feeling when you walk alone in the late evening, drowned into your thoughts and troubles of your life. You look at the familiar streets of your hometown, it brings back memories from the past, the good old times you are missing.

I also used my new bass guitar for this song.

Instruments and techniques:

1. The drums are samples from the LinnDrum drum machine, overdubbed by the MT Power Drum kit cymbals;
2. The main bassline was recorded directly into the DAW and processed with ToneLib "GFX" (Bass amp, spring reverb and chorus);
3. The plucks are also recorded on the bass, processed with ToneLib "GFX" (Clean guitar amp, chorus and ping-pong delay);
4. The synth strings pad and lead parts are Full Bucket "Oxid";
5. The orchestra hit sample comes from FLEX;
6. The monophonic synth lead is TAL Bassline-101;
7. The synth keys are PG-8X;
8. All tracks processed with Wavesfactory "Cassette" tape emulation;
9. The rendered tracks are reversed and pitch shifted here and there.

Technical details:

About My Song
Since I looove cliche's, I thought I'd write a song about one. My inspiration from the photo was a guy being kicked out by his girlfriend, so he just starts walking away on a blacktop road with pretty much what he's wearing...and um...a goldfish....listen to the song :-).

This is a demo quality production and could be improved sonically, but, because it's a songwriting competition I'm focusing on well, the songwriting. Truth be told, about 75% through the recording/mixing, I could barely stand to listen to this song (LOL) as I generally write in a more indie style. But I'm a finisher. It was mentioned that the vocals were a bit buried in the guitars...I like rock mixes with vocals that are very settled into the mix as I feel it gives more energy than if the vocals are sitting on top of the mix ala Pop style. This vocal/guitar balance is perhaps one of the hardest things to get right in a final mix...buried but articulate.

Production Notes
1. The foley footsteps and ambience were created in elevenlabs AI online app. Try it, it's awesome and free.
2. I used one sampled drum loop and some fills. The drum timbre changed in the downbeat section after the solo - I used Waves Retro Fi.
3. The guitar I played was a Jansen Jazzmaster style guitar > DSM Homboldt Simplifier pedal > into my interface (no amp sims or amps used).
The bass I played was a Fender Squier 70s vibe > Sansamp BDDI > API Tranzformer GTR compressor pedal > my interface (no amp used).
I also played a some simple piano chords through a Korg electric piano to thicken things up a bit in the chorus.
4. The song format follows a fairly standard pop format of A B C A B C D E C.
5. Mix processing was simple - EQ, compression, and reverb/delay.
6. I sung through a Shure SM7b > JLM99v preamp > CL1b compressor > interface.
7. I'm happy to discuss anything else - just ask.


Finally, thanks for the opportunity.

THIS IS THE FINAL VERSION.

Please note that the bold text has been updated with more info about the process.

Lyrics added in the spoiler below

VCA-089 wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 23, 2024 18:31 CEST

WAV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lYEYZt ... sp=sharing
FLAC: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kgESRQ ... sp=sharing
MP3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gn2w6w ... sp=sharing

I wanted to create a feeling when you walk alone in the late evening, drowned into your thoughts and troubles of your life. You look at the familiar streets of your hometown, it brings back memories from the past, the good old times you are missing.

What a super PHAT track this is. I can actually picture myself walking along like I own the street. This would be a great movie soundtrack. Love it.

EsteveCorbera wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 22, 2024 17:43 CEST

Dear fellow challengers and Mister Fox.

First of all, I hope you are enjoying (or have already enjoyed) your summer vacation....

Chilled....n i c e.

A friendly reminder:
We're in the final 24 hours to submit your production.



Please get your production ready and submitted (through the forum) today.

To make it easier for me to create the collection post, please update your initial post with the appropriate links (final version), or explicitly mark your entry as "final entry". Please also don't forget to make your files accessible to download. Thank you.

If I didn't miscount, we have 08 very interesting entries so far.
I'm curious if we can exceed 12 or even 13 entries this month? This would be amazing.

TrojakEW wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 04, 2024 15:38 CEST

I was able to squeeze quick and simple track for this round. Just in few hour in one sitting, this is kind of record for me...2

I REALLY like how this song builds. The ethereal vocal at the start reminds me of a middle eastern vibe. An interesting blend of flavours.

For this competition, I began writing a cinematic/orchestral type of track-then I just didn't like how it was coming along. I started writing a different track that was chillout/ambient in nature-scrapped that project also. On the 13th of August, I began looking at the blues/jazz genre. Perhaps Esteve Corbera's track last month inspired my change of direction, as I really enjoyed listening to his composition. I realized I had never written music in that genre and did a deep-dive into researching the different chord progressions and "theory" behind it. I began composing different twelve-bar sections with a piano vsti, then layered acoustic bass, muted trumpet, saxophone, guitar, and drums. I threw in a descending 8-bar section towards the end to simulate nearing the end of the walk. I envisioned each twelve-bar section to be a different sight, smell, sound, touch that I encountered during the evening walk. For example, the section beginning around 2:06 represents the surreal sensations I personally experience around the "golden hour"(the time when the angle of the setting sun turns everything a golden yellow color).

Here's my submission:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/lf2rvo8d ... nu61b&dl=0

Here's the details:

Thanks to Mr. Fox, KVR, and all the participants! I really learned a lot this month!

Hello, I'm sorry, I have to withdraw my song from the competition as I will have no time to complete the voting process unfortunatelly.