Mix Challenge

Hi
Here is my mix.
it's an analog mix on a ZED r16 desk.
My DAW is Cubase 10.
I cleaned the tracks (frequencies and noise), correct parts of the lead voice.
The lead voice passed true an AD2022 preamp and a tla 100 compressor, the piano the bass and the drum are compressed also.
Other instruments (guitar ,violons ...) are not.
all is routed to a glue verb.

The mp3 :https://www.dropbox.com/s/rkd9x24wwfgdh ... l.mp3?dl=0
The Wav : https://www.dropbox.com/s/1zbgeqsbsmhxh ... l.wav?dl=0

Musically,
SirCool


Forgive my English, I am French

Hello everyone! I just found this site a few days ago and decided to join and submit a mix so I can try out a bunch of new plugins. I loved working on this track.

Edits:
No samples were used, no additional pitch correction, and no cut/paste of parts to change the structure. I removed a few pops and clicks on some channels. I also duplicated the background vocals as noted below to allow me to pan them around the lead vocal.

Overview:
I read through the notes provided in the project zip file and tried to address everything mentioned. In particular: "take a care of the high
frequencies and the harshness" and "the entire mix of instruments is fighting in the frequencies around 170 - 300 hz". Obviously this is my interpretation and a brand new mix, but hopefully I nailed it.

On a side note I took this as an opportunity to try a lot of new plugins purchased this week. I used DMG Equilibrium on nearly everything, a few instances of DMG TrackComp set to SSL channel comp, the Waves CLA 76, 2A and PuigChild compressors, Waves Vitamin and the Eiosis DeEsser. All were new and did a great job.

Details:
See the screenshot linked below for a visual.

Drums: They were in great shape from the start. I used a bunch of DMG Equilibrium eqs and a little SSL channel (not bus) compression from DMG Track Comp on K, St, Sb and drum bus. UAD Lexicon 480L for verb. The parallel bus (NYC) has CLA76 set to all buttons mode and DMG Eq.

Bass: DMG Eq, CLA 2a and added Decapitator to fill out the sound. When tucked into the track it moves pretty nice for keyboard bass.

Piano: DMG Eq to remove some low mids and a tiny bit of Waves PuigChild to get the sound I wanted.

Orch: Really cool ear candy. Used DMG Eq to tighten up the low end. I rode the volume to keep it from becoming a distraction in the middle of the song but really let it shine at the end.

Strings: Nothing on the tracks. See the bus below.

Piano/String/Orch bus: DMG Eq and a tiny bit of Reverb directly on the bus.

Acst gtr: The core sound is the mic'ed guitars, they have DMG EQ to get them to slice the way I like for this type of production. The goal was to make them serve a purpose (rhythmic movement) but leave space for the cool string parts and piano. Most of the sound processing is on the bus, see below.

Solo Acoustic: I did a lot of volume riding. This has DMG TrackComp set to SSL channel, DMG EQ and EchoBoy set to quarter note delay.

Gtr Group: PuigChild just barely moving the needle but its sounds 'right'. 2 DMG Eq's: 1 is always on to get the guitars to sit in the main mix and the other is only on for the intro and ending to warm up the sound. Waves Vitamin was used to put a little sparkle and width on the acoustics. It's a new plugin so I had to try it. Finally some Little Plate right on the bus to keep guitars out of drum and vocal verbs. This touch of reverb is subtle and a "set and forget" thing so I'm fine dropping it directly on the bus.

Lead Vox: DMG Eq, Eiosis DeEsser, CLA-76 into CLA-2A. The Eiosis did a good job!

Background Vox: Duplicated the track, panned one left and one right to surrund the lead vocal. Same processing as Lead vocal.

Vox Verb: DMG Eq and UAD Lexicon 224.

Vox Fx: UAD Eventide H910 and EchoBoy.

Vox Group: DMG Eq

Altiverb bus: Altiverb 7 and a little Ozone Imager to widen the result. Every instrument bus is feeding this Altiverb bus to some extent to provide space. It's super subtle but I like it, if you turn this up a few more db it will ruin the mix, yet where it is set now improves the mix. As David St. Hubbins said: It's such a fine line between stupid and clever.

Master bus: Only 3 plugins and one is a VU Meter! The UAD ATR-102 tape emulation and the UAD Maag EQ4 are both providing a little glue and air (as they say) that finish the mix but leave plenty for mastering to do. I start with the master bus at -0.5 and bump it to 0.0 for the last chorus. 1 db was too obvious and .5 felt right. It's more felt than heard, but I like it.

Files:
MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/98v5kio847s60 ... x.mp3?dl=0

Wav: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jg2sqko16eu90 ... x.wav?dl=0

Screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5oifql4ho2zo8 ... x.png?dl=0


I hope you dig it!

-Mat (letsmix)

Wonderful voice and wonderful song! Hopefully my mix is on the same level.

These were the guidelines for my mixinig process:
- Singers voice must come through naturally without artificial effects.
- No instrument is allowed to compete with her, to take a focus out of her.
- Band’s groove must be in a right energy level to support the song correct way. Band’s and singers energy level must match.

For this task I was after Alison Krauss’ style: smooth vocal sound and band members know exactly their role. Alison Krauss was my only sonical reference.

First I made a rough mix without plugins.

VOXES
After that I started with the main vox.

I first fixed ess-problems. Esses were quite distractive. Most of them were fixed with two instances of dynamic EQ, and some parts needed manual editing.

I mainly used basic EQ settings to bring up her inherent tonal character.
I used parallel compression, ”Sun” style tape delay and two plates.

Backing vox got pretty similar treatment. Bonus treatment was haas-effect created with short-delay. It allowed the bg-vox to be loud enough and out of center.

DRUMS
I was after natural not too energetic sound. I didn’t want the drummer to be rock drummer. I think the size of the sound should be the same as the size of the song’s story.
I didn’t use hi-hat track
Parallel-compression with kick and top-snare
Faux room to kick and top-snare

BASS
I ran it through PM-Basspeg amp plugin.
Parallel compression and saturation

GUITARS
Rhythm guitars: very little treatment
Solo guitar: delay + two reverbs

PIANO
Three reverbs and some eq. I wanted it to be smooth like piano in ”Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water” (but not in so big space).

STRINGS
Almost no treatment, except cello thorugh distortion plugin

MASTER BUSS
Two eqs


MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZsBmT ... nRQomV3bjJ

WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BLay3 ... z_ToU5oTug

I like the song very much, especially the use of the percussion. Most tracks were recorded well, so no surgical operations were necessary. To my joy vox and back vox have only a few tracks, not a bunch.

I used just standard tools like one param. EQ, one gluing comp, one universal comp and one LA2/3 type comp. Further a IR true stereo reverb and an oldschool delay. For shortening the percussion tail I used a gate.

The original mix was quite good, but all in all, I found the mix should be a bit brighter and wider than the original mix, so i did the setup.

bluesation proudly presents:

wav: https://my.hidrive.com/lnk/Bhm4Drj8

mp3: https://my.hidrive.com/lnk/9Pm4Dcqg

Hey!

Here is my entry!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pbzhbo1lfasbo ... k.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/etlz545s0x0cp ... k.wav?dl=0


Had Console 1 on every channel and used it to taste, EQ on every channel, comp where needed, I think on the shells, bass, piano and vocals. Some additional saturation to make things pop, especially the voice and the guitar solo. Shifted the drums into phase to make them more focused.

Drums, Piano and Strings have an altiverb concert hall, the vocals got Valhalla room on them and are widened a bit by microshift and adt. I shifted some notes that were strange to me via Melodyne. the second vocals are widened via DUO to fit the mix better. The guitars have some Valhalla delay with the diffusion turned up, so a mix between delay and verb. The Bass has a sans amp on to give it at least some girth and life. Dynamic EQ on the 2bus by Ozone.

Thats all I guess!

Thanks for doing this once again!

Cheers, Phil

Hi Everyone,

This is my first Mix Challenge entry.

My goal was to make something with a "modern pop" sound but that retained the sense of "acoustic musicians playing together in a room"!

File: 24-Bit/48kHz
-18.5 LUFS Integrated
-3.5 dBTP

Processing:

Drums:
Kick - MH Thump, Burnley 73
Snare Top/Bottom - BitterSweet Pro SS
Snare Bus - Burnley 73, VLA-FET, OvertoneDSP RVB
Drum Bus - MJUC, Vertigo VSM-3, Burnley 73

Bass:
Bass was split into three parts:
1. Recorded bass
2. Sub bass - Waves Submarine
3. Grit bass - Vertigo VSM-3
Bass Bus - TB ReelBus, Flux PureCompressor, SPL Vitalizer, LoudMax, Waves C6 (ducking)

Piano:
Proximity EQ
Flux Epure
Black Rooster VLA-3A
Polyverse Wider

Acoustic Rhythm Guitars:
Didn't use DI-ed guitars
Three tracks routed to bus using:
Proximity EQ
Black Rooster VLA-3A
SPL TwinTube
Eventide H3000 Factory

Acoustic Lead Guitar:
Proximity EQ
Black Rooster Blackface SC-5
Burnley 73
Eventide H3000 Factory
SPL TwinTube

Strings:
Three tracks routed to bus using:
Burnley 73
Vertigo VSM-3
D16 Fazortan
SPL Vitalizer

Vocals:
Both vocals used the same chain:
ERA 4 Voice Leveler
Proximity EQ
Waves Sibilance
SDRR2

Main vocal uses something like Michael White's reverb setup - Waves TrueVerb for ERs, then into Transatlantic Plate for the "reverb" and then into H-Delay for echo. The output of this goes through a Lindell 254E compressor and then into an SPL Vitalizer.

Mix Bus:

TB BusCompressor - 2-3 dB of GR just to hold everything together.
Vertigo VSM-3 - the "Hi-Fi" preset (what else :-) ).
Nugen Stereoizer - I prefer to mix into the Stereoizer as it changes how I set levels. Probably could have left this off.
Pro Audio DSP - Dynamic Spectrum Mapper V2 - Using this primarily for its tone-shaping. Not using the Limiter section.

Meterieng - YouLean LM, SPAN

Also used Presonus CTC-1 for a hint of crosstalk.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hZqQs ... jRpuCOO3Ds

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qFppD ... Bwlj-keoy_

Cheers!

Chris

Hello,

This was a pleasure mixing this song and it did provide some challenges.

My mix breakdown is as follows:

Lead vocal: Channel strip (Gold 3), De-esser, copied the vocal track and separated and compressed the top end to recombine with the vocal track.

Male vocal: Channel strip (Gold 3), De-esser
Stereo reverb and delay for both tracks.

Drums: Tape emulation on drum buss as well as SSL compressor plugin, gated the high hat to remove snare bleed, IK 76 compressor on overheads which were combined into a stereo track. Also used slight distortion on drum buss.

Bass: Waves Masarite B72, Crave EQ, Opto compressor. Parrallel sknote Disto-S compressor.

Piano: Gold 3 channel strip, slight pull from the mid.

Acoustic Guitars: SonEQPro, grouped Mic and Direct to Amethyst 3 channel strip.

Strings: Navy2 Channel strip, SonEq Pro, Stereo widener on string buss.

Orchestra Percussion: Crave Eq, True Iron, IK 76 Compressor, Subfilter. Split the stereo track to two mono tracks, panned left and right with slight delay in second track.

Master Buss: True Iron, IK Tape Emulation, EQ, and SSL compressor ( less than 2 db reduction).

MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CKPJQ ... UEHy2rCEHo

Wave: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FB13F ... BdFgoE1MXf

Hello everyone,

Here is my version.

Wav
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ajdqb02csdbtu ... g.wav?dl=0

Mp3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3z8mkur6n3ad1 ... g.mp3?dl=0

Had an idea to make it sound a kind of retro.
There are plate type reverbs (UVI plate) and Waves Reel ADT
used in few tracks. There is also Slate Virtual Console on
channels and Acustica Audio Sand pre-amp on groups.
Guitars: all guitar tracks are used in the mix.
Mic and Line guitars are grouped, then Reel ADT added. Virtual Acoustic has
some stereo widening by mid/side balancing technique.
Solo guitar has a bit harmonizer effect mixed in.
Bass: tube style distortion and compression sidechained
with the kick.
Drums: the most processed one is the kick which has UAD studer800
turned into pretty strong distortion, then goes to the DBX style
compression, fancy parametric eq curve as well. All the drums bus has
another Acustica Audio Pink compressor. There are some narrow Q
eq cutoffs on snare and OH tracks. The hihat has tape saturation
with low speed and some old flange settings for effect.
Strings and main vocal have longer decay plate, piano has
shorter room style plate.
Also the background vocal and the piano got Reel ADT effects.
There is some eq on every track.
There are Sand preamp, Sand compressor,
Pultec style Purple EQ (all Acustica Audio) and UAD Ampex atr-102
on the main bus.

Thanks!

Hi all,

Realy nice song. Great to hear some different language!
I fighted a little bit with the male backing voice. Not only because of the audible pre-processing. It was as a single voice to less for me for good backings. So I tried to make this track sounding as there are more than one backing voice. But not only by using a chorus or similar. More like reversing the usual fixing of a voice track.I copied the track two times to get 3 backing tracks . Than I used randomly strech markes to remove the lip sync of those tracks, pitched them differently and used some formant shifting too. Now they sound like 3 separate recordings for the male voice.

I left the single male backing only for the verse. I used the above mentioned processing only for the chorus. So I got an additional difference between verse and chorus too.

WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/393rw2eu1nmu1 ... c.wav?dl=1
MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jhyc2hmvwm1fg ... c.mp3?dl=1

Mixed in Reaper. All reverbs are Acon Digital Verberate.
Drum-Bus: Presswerk (drum compressor mode), TDR VOS SlickEQ
Kick and Snare: ReaEQ, ReaComp
all other drums: ReaEQ
Additional drum room: ReaEQ, ReaComp, Acon Digital Verberate
Orch Perc.: ReaEQ, ThrillseekerVBL
Bass: ReaEQ, Bass ProfessorII
Piano: ReaEQ, ThrillseekerXTC, TDR VOS SlickEQ
ACG Intro: ReaEQ,TDR VOS SlickEQ, Presswerk (limiter mode), NastyDLA
ACG 1 and 2: ReaEQ,TDR VOS SlickEQ, ReaComp
ACG Solo:ReaEQ, Presswerk (limiter mode), NastyDLA
ACG virtual: ReaEQ, ReaComp
Violine: ReaEQ, ReaComp, TDR VOS SlickEQ, NastyDLA
Violas: ReaEQ, TDR VOS SlickEQ
Chello: ReaEQ, ReaComp
Lead Vocal: ReaEQ, TDR Nova, Presswerk (vocal mode), DeadDuck De-Esser
Male Back: ReaEQ, Presswerk, ReaDelay, ReaPitch

Mix-Bus: MQ57, Presswerk, SPAN

Hi!

Really enjoyed this month's challenge. Great production, especially the drums and vocals.

Been prioritizing gain staging and automation in mixing, satisfied with the balance and dynamics here. Also tried to add clarity—a lot of the instruments are sitting in the same range. Added saturation and parallel compression on groups.

wav: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dG-_EA ... sp=sharing
mp3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J49dCA ... sp=sharing
picture: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kgUCtV ... sp=sharing