MIX CHALLENGE - MC098 June 2024 - Mix Round 1 in evaluation

[Emelowsky]

Hello again
Here is my mix:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ag9l-SD7wzmSjcY_lP6 ... g?e=lYKNjc


WAV, 44kHz, 24bit
-16.5 LUFS
-6.4 dbTP



I started the whole process by align time the tracks of the chorus vocals to follow the main vocals.



Then, on the master bus, I started by adding emulation of the preamp (Acustica Cream), then the whole thing goes into a compressor (Acustica Taupe) with 2-3 db attenuation with a slow attack and medium release. The next treatment was adding a high middle (5k) and top (9k) to the whole (Acustica Magenta).




At this point I got down to the vocals. Generally recorded very well with some shortcomings - far too much treble, I also lacked a base and some bottom to give them more warmth.
So I started by removing the resonances in the treble from the 8k (Soothe) and a slight de-esser from 8k up (Nectar). Only now does the whole thing go into into the channel strip SSl4000G where the vocals have been lightly compressed (2:1) to 3db with a fast attack and release. Later EQ where I added 4db for 200Hz, 3db for 900Hz Q=1.5, 2db for 2.3k Q=1 at the end of the whole thing lightening everything slightly by 4db from 9.7k. The next step was compression (UAD 1176LN) where with a 4:1 ratio, medium attack and fast release I was catching bars up to 3db max. The final cut was equalizing the whole thing with an opto-style compressor (UAD LA-2A Grey) which worked in the 1-3db range.
The same effects chain was used on all vocals as on the lead vocals adjusting the parameters to the source material.




The next step was the drums.
On the bass drum I have strapped an SSL4000G where I cut the treble to 5k using filters and subjected it to light compression with a fast release (0.24s) and a 5:1 ratio with attenuation down to 3db. On the EQ I added 8db for 100Hz to emphasize the base, pulled down 6db for 280Hz with a wide Q=0.5 to get rid of the muck and what surprised me added 4db for 900Hz Q=1 (I mostly remove this frequency because there is a cardboard sound there, but this time it worked to my advantage). Finally, a slight saturation from the strip. The whole thing goes into Pultec's EQ (UAD EQP-1A), where the 30Hz boost and atten frequency set to about 6 which gave a nice "bullet" on the low frequencies from 10k truncation set around 7 on the scale. Despite all the treatments limiting the top of the bass drum further it had too much attack which I mastered with a transient control plugin (Oxford TransMod).

Stick. Here there is not too much going on. SSL4000G with a slight compression to 3db and a boost of 290Hz at 3.7db Q=1.5 and 800Hz 3db at Q=1.

Snare. SSL4000G, compression to 3db with a 3k boost of 6db Q=1.5 for a slight highlighting of the attack.
Hi-hat. SSL4000G. I cut everything above 12k with a filter because in my opinion it was too bright and subjected to medium compression with fast attack and release and a 5:1 ratio getting up to 6db attenuation. On the EQ a light shelf at -5.3db from 8k.
Toms. SSL4000G with light compression to 3db with fast release time and saturation from strip. A slight boost of 3db around 200Hz.
Crash. No processing on individual tracks.

All drums went into a separate group where they went into a solid-stage Zener type compressor (Acustica Cream) with 1-2db attenuation. This compressor adds musical glue by saturating the whole thing with harmonics, and was mainly used there to add naturalness to the samples. Then another Pultec-style EQ (Bettermaker EQ232D) with the bottom set at 30Hz boosting and attenuating at the same time which added even more nice bottom end to the whole set. Then a strong 16k boost to 7 on the scale which added brightness to the whole kit. Next fastened a clipper to reduce the peaks for more control. Finally everything went into the Maag EQ EQ4 in which I boosted 40k to add even more air to the whole.




Bass. Ampeg SVTVR amp emulation keyed with a kick from the drums to make more space for it in the overall mix - so as not to lose the pulse.



Piano. Channel strip SSL4000E (more punchy than the G version) in which using 4:1 compression, slow attack and release around 0.2s I got about 5-6db of attenuation then in EQ reducing the bottom from 100Hz by about 6db and 900Hz by 2db with a narrow Q=2.5. I also boosted by 6db the area around 4.5k with Q=1 and the top (bell type) at 9k by 6db. The whole thing gave me a brighter, more piercing piano sound that plays the basic accompaniment line in the song along with the guitar.




Guitar. I used the line from the Boss. The guitar itself was already clear enough that I decided that the 4000G model would be more suitable through its smoother eq. Here we have filters set at 200Hz for HPF and 8k for LPF. Compression of 3-5db, a ratio of 8:1 and a very fast release. On the EQ, a slight boost to the bottom around 150Hz by 2db and attenuations at 300Hz, 3k and 8k of about 2-3db each. Finally, a lot of saturation from the strip channel.




After mastering the individual tracks and drum group, I returned to the master bus where after EQ (Magenta) I strapped the Black Box saturator in mid-side mode adding more saturation to the mid track than to the side, but I set the output volume the other way around (side louder) so we have a solid, saturated mid part with a clear and spacious side component. I'll add that the side component also has a mode that adds more frequency in the top end (air amount mode).
Then we have the mastering-style EQ (EQ200) which sounds simply brilliant giving a lot of possibilities in shaping the bands. He also works in mid-side mode gently boosting the bands that were missing from the whole, viz: 300Hz, 820Hz and 11k in such a way that for 300Hz we have more boost for mid than for side, for 820Hz it's more or less equal and for 11k we have more boost for the side component than for mid. We are talking about boosts in the 4-6db range. I also added harmonics and set everything below 100Hz in mono.

The last tool is a noise removal plugin, which was created by using multiple emulations of analog devices. This noise is removed only at the moment of silence at the beginning of the song before the instruments enter, after that it does not work.




Spatial effects:
Drums sent to a room-type reverb (SP2016)
Vocals and the rest of the instruments sent to a plate-type reverb (SuperPlate)
Vocals sent to a delay with keying designed to bring them down when singing and bring them forward during the silence to not obscure them.

That's all.
I hope you enjoy
Pleasant listening

[Piranha]

Having the track a organic music feel, my main focus was to make all the tracks sound coherent sounding, especially to make the various percussive samples sound like real drums.
To do this I dosed compression, eq, transient shapers and room verbs to give cohesion to everything.
A virtual amp, distortion and some denoise were added to the bass.
Guitar and piano have been equalized and compressed. The guitar was sent to a reverb room.
The voice was equalized, compressed, and was sent to a tape delay and a chamber reverb. Some vocal and choir tracks have been filtered and distorted as if to simulate the passage through a small speaker.

My mix

[Drannob]

Hi guys,

This is my first time here

My mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iZEt0T ... drive_link

my intention on this mix was to give it space, more width, depth and life.

After a first balance, I first started with the drums as usual where I did a lot of EQ (Pro-Q3) and a little compression (Fircomp 2, VCA mode) more for the purpose to give "life" than to control differences in levels. Here I used two reverbs, the UAD Sound City Studio and a flat one (2445) on the rimshot/snare and the toms. I sent everything into a bus on which a tube EQ (Lindell TE-100), a tape (UAD Studer A800) and a light compression to glue everything together (PSP Flare).

Then I attacked the bass with a little (a lot) of EQ then optical compression (Kiive KC-1).

After that I decided to move on to lead vocals before guitar and piano because these two elements were causing me problems.

On the voice I first de-essed then a little EQ to remove the 500/600hz that I didn't like. Then I put in the Vocal Shaper plugin which I really like because it offers some nice options. Here I used it to remove some resonances, a little more esses, and a little of the "air" function. After that I put a distressor (UAD) followed by a CL1B (Kiive KC-1) which gives a bit the same thing as a 1176/LA2A. I added a little reverb (plate type with the Sonsig REV-A)

Then I brought up the piano fader...I had a hard time placing it and to be honest I'm not happy with what I did. A little EQ and compression (Pro-Q3 and KC-1 again), and a little reverb (2445 again).

Then I had the guitar left which I placed on the left as in the original mix. Here also a little EQ and compression then a little tap to calm the transients then I added a reverb on the opposite side to give stereo and above all to make it less alone on the left.

Finally I added the backs with a little EQ and reverb to place them slightly behind the lead vocal in terms of space.

Once all that was done, I probably came back a little on the balance but above all I found that there was a lack of coherence in the overall space and I therefore decided to send all my elements to the Sound City reverb just to put everyone in the same room and I was relatively happy with the result.

I was still missing a little something I don't know what so I tried to pass everything through the Satson A-Console and N-Console just to see what it gave and it didn't work for me, I left it like that .

I didn't specify but I always mix using a few plugins already present on my bus master, the P455 from Pulsar and the Michelangelo from Tone Projects). I also have a few ready to go compressors and here I used the PSP Flare. I hesitated with the new Mu-66 from Lindell tested on my bus and my SSL 4000 DIY (hardware) but I preferred Flare.

There you go, I think I'm forgetting things but the essential seems to me to be there.

[sthauge]

Hi

Thanks to @Arnwyn and the band for the opportunity to mix this song and thanks to Mister Fox for doing the work with the competition.

I'm using SSL/Harrison Mixbus 10 Pro on Linux for mixing and mastering. The DAW have almost everything needed in the channel strips, busses and provided plugins, so very little 3 party plugins are needed.

I'm not gonna go through EQ settings and compressor settings, but I like to emphasis two things.

1. I'm using a lot of parallel compression to not kill the dept in the mix.

2. The challenge with this song was the vocals. The already mentioned ''eee'' and some harshness.

To fix this I did 3 things:

1. Saturation on the vocal tracks and vocal busses
2. Notching out couple of freq that was annoying
3. Last but not least, I used de-essers to soften the ''eee'' sounds

This means that I used the de-essers on other freq that's normal for de-essing. By this the de-esser functioned as a dynamic EQ in the freq bands that needed to be controlled.

I'm not very satisfied with the overall outcome, but this is what I managed to achieve this time.

The attached file is 44.1 kHz/24 bit and 3.23 long
16.1 LUFS
-3.8 dBTP

MC098__Arnwyn__Robot_Baby__sthauge

[unclesnuggles]

hi
Mixing done ITB with cubase pro10.5, FocalCMS40.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F052Uq ... sp=sharing

Great song, I really enjoyed mixing this song, great voice! well done!
The recording is a little "hard", I tried to find a little contrast with the male choirs, I chose to put them forward a little.
I also aligned the voices at the start of the mix, gain stagging. Little compression on this mix.

good listening!

[Atelier174]

Hi,
Here is my mix proposal, thanks to the song provider and the Mix challenge.
I listened carefully to the different pieces in solo mode and made various corrections mainly on the vocal lead which sounds quite harsh and a lot of sibilants as well.
I tried to mix it quite darkly and added delay and vocoder effects to different parts of the song.
I mainly used the following plugins, Fabfilter pro Q3, Fabfilter Timeless 3, Fabfilter Pro-R2, Fabfilter Pro-C2, Softube Deess, Acustica El Rey2, Fabfilter Pro-L2, Studio One 6 original plugins, SSL Fusion, STL Tones Controlhub (Bus and Mix Bus, SSL emulation, comp)

file in 24bits 44.1khz

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

Greeting
John

[Herbalizer]

Here's my mix:)

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/fptc1kad ... m20h4&dl=0

I started mixing this track in mono and tried to make nice separation between instruments and get a feeling about the song.
I mostly used SSL channel strip 2, SSL vocal strip and SSL flexVerb and UAD LA-2 and -76 compressors.
I tried to make this song as soft sounding as possible without being too muddy.
I made some volume automation between instrument to create some more dynamics to the song.
Stereo bus was treaded with Softube Bus Prosessor with needle barely moving to add a little glue to the mix and also added a small amount of stereo width with the same plugin
I was fairly happy with the tracks but I was a little bit missing some mic bleed and room sound for the drums:)
Guitar was made blending cosm to the original signal.
Nice and sad song:)

..oh, just remembered, a really small amount of waves silk vocal to the lead vox to tame some harshness

DAW:Logic Pro X
Speakers: Yamaha NS10 and HiFi fullrange
Headphones: Audio Technika ATH-M50 and AKG K 240 DF

[kRisnadiza]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wGB0zv ... sp=sharing

all tracks : eq, compression, reverb. + de essing on vocals :

[VolTheProducer]

It's been a while since I last entered so it's great to be back in the mix and it was a really interesting song to boot!

Mixed ITB in Pro Tools.

All tracks: NEOLD V76U73 Pre-amps and less than 1db compression just to touch the circuitry

Drums: EQ with bx_console N & some fabfilter pro-Q2/Q3 for more precise stuff as well as the following
Kick: bx_limiter & D3 CL for some compression/limiting & change the tone of the kick
Stick/Rimshot: bx_limiter, D3 CL & Unfiltered Audio Indent 2 for some compression/limiting & change the tone of the stick
Hats & Cymbals: BF-2A
Toms: Used some SPL Transient designer to bring out the body a little bit

Bass: EQ with Console-N, Mixmaster Bassrooom & SPL Passeq (post compression). Used Waves bass Rider to level out the take, D3 CL for compression

Piano: EQ with Console N & Fabfilter Pro Q2. Some saturation and EQ with SPL Vitilizer & Knif Audio Soma. Compression with NEOLD U17 & dynamic EQ with soothe2 to remove some harshness.

Guitars: EQ with Channel N, Pro Q2 & Pultec MEQ5. Compression with D3 CL & dynamic eq with soothe2.

Vox: EQ with Lindell TE100, Maag EQ4. Compression with Purple Audio MC 77, Acme Opticom XLA-3 & RVox. Controlled the level with Vocal Rider, used SPL-Desser (LVox only) & soothe 2 to remove some harshness.

Added 3 delays: 1 very short almost slapback but with the highs rolled off. 2nd is 1/8T that just comes in outside of the "robot baby" sections. 3rd is longer and used for flourishes at the end of some lines.

Also used a tiny bit of AIR Chorus on the BVox.

N.B I couldn't find a way to remove the harshness from the last 2 "Robot Baby" harmonies to sound good without changing the vowel from 'bay-bee' to something more like 'beh-buh' so I vocal comped the same harmonies from other parts of the song.

Some parallel compression on vox, guitar, piano, kick & snare.

Light Reverb on all tracks. Snare specific reverb.

Light EQ and comp on submix busses (vocals, drums + bass, guitar & piano) using PassEQ & bx_townhouse buss compressor

Mix buss: AMEK EQ 250 for some minor touches, Lindell 354E multiband compression, THE OVEN for saturation.

Small bit of automation to emphasise instruments/vox at certain points.

TP -1.36dB
I -16.4 LUFS

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/g4a9enoh ... 7ytih&dl=0

[zed999]

Many thanks to Mr Fox and Arnwyn for running this site and providing this song to mix. So nice to hear a song that's actually about something!

Nothing special here but I did try to make it sound as if it was behind and between the speakers and that the instruments were the right "size" for what they were. Different to most I narrowed the piano and placed it. Same for the guitar, both tracks used equally, one nudged into time with the other then panned.
Drums I tried to make sound like a kit.
Bass I thought was too "fretless". I like that sound and the playing but it was a little distracting so I thickened up the low end with an amp/cab sim.
Overall I went for a darker folky mix with quite prominent guitar, that hopefully just sounds bigger when loud rather than tiring.
The crazed robot bit at the end is shaperbox on the end harmony vocals.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/nozztnbk ... ozz1z&dl=0

Good luck to all.