Mix Challenge

-Gain staging
-Clearing the frenquencies
-Adding colour to the sounds
I try to get a country pop sound and seperate the frenquence fields. Good luck everyone

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

my mix and break down
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Hi everybody.

Thanks again. It was very fun to mix this song. Good band, good song, and very nice vocals.

The mix:

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

Screenshots:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

First time joining this competition so let me know if any formatting is off.

My entry: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Tvqo2H ... sp=sharing

What I did:
Started with the vocals. Mostly using a series of Reaper stock compressors/eq with some light pitch correction with GSnap. Tried to compress the various vocals tracks in series to make a really full sounding but cohesive vocal performance. Background "Ahs" have a really heavy pitch correction applied (T-Pain type effect) to help it stand out from the main track and give it a robotic quality.

Drums have some pretty standard compression. Used Ambience by Smart Electronix for reverb on snare. Snares also have some slightly timing correction. Passed the Room Drums though some light distortion to really crackle. Toms have a lot of panning automation to give a sense of movement. 

Guitars had a bit of EQ, compression, and reverb but fairly dry. I liked the original sound and felt it fit well in the mix.

Bass: Split up the bass between verse and hook, with the hook louder to drive the track. Some EQ (cutting the high end and boosting the upper-lows) and saturation on the bass to help it pop.

Keys have a heavy low shelf EQ to leave room for the bass to smack. They were also panned far from center with get the mix wide. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/h9ouoicuuc5pd ... 2.wav?dl=0

Hi all!

Phew, barely made it! Sorry for the last minute entry. Cool song and thank you for providing it for us!

Overall when I heard the song, I thought there were a lot of cool parts going on, lots of neat vocal things, but it seemed to all be happening all the time, which to me took away from the impact. So my idea was to mix this in a way that would create more movement and scene changes between sections. Since this song doesn't have that huge in your face very obvious chorus when it hits, I felt that I should try and help it with creating a change of scenery just a bit from each section and try to keep the song interesting to the ear throughout, so that we could feel a little more impact from the chorus. Anyway, here is what I did.

First I organized all the tracks in Pro Tools and did any level balancing using both clip gain, faders, and pans. I like to clip gain things that are really dynamic, like the vocals for example in this song. To me this was the biggest challenge, as it sounded like she was singing on and off the mic at times...her tone changes a bit throughout being more bright when she is singing into the mic, then gets a bit muffled when she pulls back or looks away. So I used a lot of clip gain up front to balance all of this out at least to start.

Once I have all the tracks balanced and I understand what is going on in the song, sometimes I'll go straight to my master bus and start tweaking, but in this case I went through the individual tracks first just a bit. I felt it was a good recording, which helps, but I wanted to get things sounding a little more "finished" before I did any overall balancing.

Mixed in Pro Tools through a Phoenix Audio Nicerizer Jr. 16 channel summing mixer.

Drums:
I started with the drum bus overall, and put the Acustica Audio Amber 3 plugin (I love this EQ). Just a bit of low end and top to give the drums a big sound. Then the bus went out to my hardware SSL 611EQ's. On individual channels I used a little Gold 3 EQ (Neve 1081) for kick and toms, and then some Crave EQ just for a little sculpting. Also looks like I used Digi Lofi on the toms. I sent drums to an AMS RMS 16 IR reverb set to Non Lin, and the toms also got a little Spring and Plate reverb. The overdub toms went through the drum bus, with just Crave EQ and the 3 reverb sends.

Bass:
Acustica Audio Viridian EQ (Helios Type 69 setting), Crave EQ, Viridian Comp (kinda like a Fairchild setting), Taupe (tape emulation) from Acustica.
I mainly wanted the bass sitting above the drum and sounding tight. Looks like a boosted around 100 and also some low mid stuff between 400-900hz.

Guitars:
They all got combinations of either Gold 3 (Neve), Sand 3 (SSL), Purple 3 (Pultec), and Viridian (Helios Type 69) EQ's. I like to mix them up a bit so each guitar has it's own sound just a bit. Also used Crave EQ for general sculpting. I don't think exact frequencies are important as it changes every mix...but I wanted the guitars to clean up just a bit, and have a nice balanced but forward midrange. Some of the guitars, like the Pre Chors and Chorus Cabs got a little plate. The pre chorus guitar also got the Non Lin verb as well as some delay on the opposite side. On the crunch guitar I put a bit more distortion to really try and make it aggressive sounding for it's short appearance in the song. The funky cab got a bit of limiting (Frontier limiter), Gold 3, Taupe and then HDly just to give it some length...it also went to the non lin and spring.

Keys/Rhodes/Pad/Swells:
These all basically got some sort of widening, either with the A1 plugin or Ozone Imager. I like to sneak a little distortion into some of these sounds as well, I used Kilohearts distortion on the build, decapitator on the Swell, and LoFi on the Keys...as far as saturation/distortion. EQ's were Gold 3, Waves API 550, and Crave EQ. Again, just using things that come to mind to make them fit. On the Build track, I put PanMan from Soundtoys so it kinda moves around randomly. The Rhodes, Swell, and Build also got some non lin, spring and plate.

Lead Vocals:
I had the most challenge with these. Again, it sounded like a lot of movement on the mic while recording or something. So getting the vocals consistent throughout was my challenge. I originally ran her through some hardware and printed, then realized it was the wrong sound. So, the final chain ended up being:
Waves F6- Waves MV2- Gulfoss EQ- Frontier D16 Limiter- Acustica Audio Tape- Sand 3 EQ (SSL)- Crave EQ- Waves F6 Again- Eiosis DeEsser- HARDWARE Bluestrip 1176.

I don't typically have this much going on, but I felt it needed it and everything was just doing a little hear and there...solving 1 or 2 problems each. For instance, the Sand 3 EQ I was using for the filters, and just a little bump in the mids and high end. The last F6 was only controlling the harsh top end around 8-12khz. The Frontier limiter was more for the sound...not limiting much just a bit on peaks. Last in the chain was my hardware bluestripe 1176 from Audioscape...I mixed into this. Love it on vocals.

Effects wise, it went to the non lin, spring, plate, a doubler in parts, and then an Ursa Major IR...for the really cool lush sounding verb in spots. Love that thing.

Crunch Vocals:
I used BF76, Digi EQ7, Crystalizer from Sound Toys and Phaser from Kilohearts. I wanted it to have more movement. I also automated it to come in and out more in certain sections, rather than leaving it static through pretty much the whole song. I felt this ads more interest to the vocals.

Low Vocal:
Digi EQ 7 and BF76. Again, mostly rides to bring it in and out to create more interest.

Soft Vocals L and R:
Hard panned, used some pitch shifting just a few cents on each side to create more width...then Gold 3 and Digi EQ. Also delayed one side a bit. Again, did rides to bring them in and out, up and down throughout the song to create more movement.

Backgrounds:
Purple 3 (Pultec eq), Crave Eq, Amber 3 Comp, and a bit of auto tune. A couple notes were bugging me, so I did a little tune nothing major. I wanted these to just blend nice and not stick out too much.

Ahhs:
They all got submixed to an aux that had some Purple 3 (pultec), Viridian Comp (set to Pie setting), Crave Eq, Vocal Doubler, Ozone Imager for widening, LoFi and Digi EQ7. They also went to the non lin, spring and plate. I tried to make this sound like a raw gang in a room.

Stereo/Mix bus:
Everything was summed out through my Nicerizer Jr. summing mixer. It has 2 outputs. On Out A I have a Heritage Audio 609A hardware comp (33609 clone). On Out B, I use Pulse Techniques Solid State hardware Pultecs, with the 16khz and 30hz bands cranked...and a bit of attenuation. I then blend this in under Out A. These both go back into pro tools through my Antelope Orion to two aux tracks, sometimes I'll slightly clip the converters as it gives it a nice saturation. The two auxes go to a main mix bus...where I have Erin Comp and Erin EQ (Acustica Audio)...and finally Gulfoss EQ.

There is no limiting or mastering going on anywhere. I believe my mix came out at -18LUFS average.

I hope this works and hope you enjoy the mix!

Thanks again

Hi! First time submitting here...
Thanks for the band it was fun to mix it and I had a great time! I'm more of a producer than a mixing engineer, so I wish I could contact the band to get to know more what they are going for. Anyway, this is my take on the song:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sVGj3V ... sp=sharing

I used Logic Pro X and started organizing everything into groups and busses, then EQing out everything that wasn't important for every track. Then I set the levels of each instrument/group and messed around with them until I had a good balance. Here are some specifics:

- Used mostly Fabfilter and Slate Digital for EQs and Compression.
- Duplicated the kick track and added a gate with a sine wave generator to get some low end attack.
- The bass had some low mid cuts to get it blended with the kick and make it more cohesive.
- Duplicated the verse guitar and added saturation (Fabfilter Saturn 2) and an ambience reverb to it to make them more crunchy/with wider sound.
- Vocals I used mostly Izotope Nectar and some heavy compression on the bus.
- Wavesfactory's Trackspacer was used on the bass/drums moderately. I did also used it heavily on some guitars/vocals at some parts.
- Wavesfactory Cassete on the synths and some busses to get a WOW/Flutter/Lo-fi vibe to them.
- Automation on gain/reverb on everything that I felt it was necessary.
- Some light compression with Slate Digital and Fabfilter's multi band compressor in the 2 Bus, and a limiter to get to the right levels.

If there's any questions about any specifics, let me know!

Thanks

Hey there,

I know I'm late. Here is my mix:

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

Will give you details about the mixing process asap

Hi everyone,

for me this month challange was hardest one from all previous I participate. Mostly due to busy arrangment of a song and MC rules to don't make any changes in arrangment (muting parts etc.). Still reallly fun song to mixing/listening. After a lot of time I found balance of tracks that I like with all tracks playing.

This month I was trying to obtain pop and clear sound of mix. I was also testing some plugins from Analog Obsession and using a lot of their compressor, but with small ratio/threshold. I had nothing on my master bus and still get -16.2 integral LUFS due amount of compressors that I used on single tracks and buses.

DRUMS:
I gated snare, kick for extra clarity and manually cut toms. With eq I take out the mudd and some highs freq from some other tracks. Few stages of comp on snare to make it snappy and in place + bit of volume automation during chorus and pre-chorus. HH track is buried underneeth other tracks, there is enough hi-hat on OH and ROOM in my mix. Hard comp on Room and OH. SweetDrums on my drumbus.

BASS:
Small cuts in eq on 150, 360 and 800. Multiband comp for consistant subbass.

GUITARS:
Too many AO plugins tested here, so hard to explain my workflow for guitars. Just moving all knobs I had to taste. Oh, and classic auto-filter on funky cab

SYNTHS AND KEYS:
Just controling mid and high freq with eq, nothing fancy here. TAL chorus on Keys and fast comp on Rhodes.

VOCALS:
Again some crazy testing of AO vst. Few stages of comp for lead, background and soft vocals to make them consistent through full track. Multiband comp to fight with some harshness which has show after comp. Small plate verb and slap back delay on Lead. Other reverbs for rest of the voices (without Low). Low treated with hard saturation and cut out of bass freq. Comp for glue on vocalbus.


Link with my mix: https://www.dropbox.com/s/x7pnpkihvih9k ... k.wav?dl=0

GL&HF

Hello Everyone,
This song was a pleasure to mix, I really enjoyed it! It was a challenge making space for all the elements, I hope I did it justice. Thanks to Sam and Paint Me in Colour for the opportunity. Best wishes to the band with their debut EP!

Here's my mix:
MC067__Paint_Me_In_Colour__Me_Without_You__john.wav

Mixed in Reaper 6
Heavy use of the following plugins:
• Pro Q3 EQ
• Klanghelm MJUC and DC8C3 Compressors, SDRR2 (saturation), and VUMT on every track.
• Reverbs: Arturia Plate-140 and IK Multimedia CSR Rooms
• Boz Digital: Imperial Delay (vocals and guitar) and Transgressor 2 (Transient Shaper on Kick and Snare)
• Scheps Omni Channel (Channel Strip)

Here is a session-by-session walkthrough of how I tackled mixing "Me Without You":
Session 1: "All the things an intern would do" - Import tracks into my mix template, organize, adjust gain, set panning and get a static balance. Rendered a "OO" mix for reference going forward.

Session 2: Vocal Pre-Processing, since there were a fairly large number of vocal tracks, I imported them all into a new empty Reaper project, for the purpose of tuning and basic leveling.
• Tuned using Melodyne
• Manually knocked down some of the peaks using "Pre-FX" volume automation in Reaper
• De-essed using Waves Sibillance
• Compressed just a couple dB using Klanghelm MJUC
• Rendered the processed vocal stems and imported them back into the main project.

Session 3: Processed the drum kit to get better isolation of the kick and snare using gates, sidechain compression. EQ, Compression and Saturation on drum elements as needed. I then continued to mix the final chorus and bridge (started with the "biggest" sections first)

Session 4: Finished mixing the remaining sections of the song and rendered Mix 01

Session 5: Went through arrangement with fine-tooth comb, prioritizing instruments/parts by section to determine what should be featured and where, what could be left out, etc. Rendered Mix 02.

Session 6: Revisiting mix 02, it seemed the guitars and keys could be better balanced, addressed that and Rendered Mix 03.

Session 7: Revisiting mix 03, decided I wanted to drums to be a bit more aggressive and thought the crunchy guitars in the bridge were masking to vocal. I paralleled Soundtoys' Devil-Loc with the snare, and used Track Spacer on those crunchy guitars, sidechained from the vocals so the gits would duck them a bit more.

Session 8: Final check, level adjustments to adhere to -16 LUFS/-1dB peak, etc. rendered Mix 04, for submission.

All the best!

-John

Reaper Power!! Yeahhhh!