Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC40 February 2018 - Winners announced

[3ee]

^ well, the other fader tip is when you feel like you're always mixing something too low in volume what needs to be louder you can try the opposite... bring it louder and then lower volume slowly until it feels just about right.

as simple as these tips are, they will sure help, at least I was very surprised how effective they are and how I underestimated their effect.
These are usual suspects at least for me: kick, bass, snare, vocals, any other main/lead instrument

and finally, a mix of the two, where you find out the volume range where you can mix something
Try to see broad eq bands as volume faders too, EQ is basically a 'multi-band' volume control

[Coiled_Ear]

Thats great to be at the podium now) I choose Metric Halo Transient Control.

[Henrik Hjortnaes]

@Henrik - Your mix was my first choice too. I loved what you did with the bass especially. Can you please elaborate what you did, will surely help us.

Thanks a lot, satyatunes. Wait a minute ... you are the guy with the Melda skins? Woah!

The bass, sure. I was demoing the new saturation plugin Goliath from Tone Empire and found a good setting to make the bass poke through.
I followed up with bx_subfilter from brainworx to get some sub frequencies back.
Then Slate FG-Grey to make it a bit more defined and with more heft.
Then followed by the biggest no-no - iZotope Imager to stereorize it completely
And finally Waves F6 to duck the bass in the 70 Hz region, triggered by the kick.

TL;DR
I made a youtube video for you to see. Much easier that way. (Please note that the Waves F6 doesn't work in the video and I don't know why. It worked when I was mixing the song. I'm on a new Pro Tools build right now, and it may have a bug. Also, I don't have a Goliath license yet, so I perform a Freeze track to avoid random noise during the video).

phpBB [media]

[Mister Fox]

@Henrik - Your mix was my first choice too. I loved what you did with the bass especially. Can you please elaborate what you did, will surely help us.

Thanks a lot, satyatunes. Wait a minute ... you are the guy with the Melda skins? Woah!

Not only that, he's a Honorary Member - as he was/is one of the three core members from early Mix Challenge days.
(but that's just a side note)

I followed up with bx_subfilter from brainworx to get some sub frequencies back.

I must admit, bx_subfilter is not my cup of tea. It's basically a HPF (lowcut) with different Q settings.

I recently used it's big brother bx_subsynth (which started out as a dbx 120XP - something I've never seen before) for a Trap mix (that will be part of an advertisement real soon). Didn't expect it to be that versatile and so humongous in the bass range (if you found the right settings that is). A bit hard to control/blend with other tools though.

I might pick it up if Plugin Alliance has their usual <60% sales and I need a super, super low bass that I can't create otherwise (read: it's a really special device). Either that, or I manage to build such a device with free tools and MuTools MUX

[Henrik Hjortnaes]

(but that's just a side note)

Let me see if I can top that small font size of yours ... I COULD!

I recently used it's big brother bx_subsynth (which started out as a dbx 120XP - something I've never seen before) for a Trap mix (that will be part of an advertisement real soon).

I'm looing into it as we speak. I see it's $79 at the moment (from $149). I'm not a bass head and will probably not need it, but it's interesting to hear what crazy things it can do to the low end.

[Waleed Morris]

Thank you Henrik great one

[Photonic]

Hi all,

First let me congratulate Henrik Hjortnaes and Coiled Ear!
Both mixes are realy great and worth the top places.

A big Thank You to 3ee for choosing me for 3rd place. I was not sure if you like my additional ideas of automation and filtering. So I am happy to see it worked. Your question about my mix level: yes, I mix at a quite low level and I do most of the mix with headphones. That may be the reason why I mixed the kick too dominant.

For the prize: nothing for me, thankx!

[satyatunes]

@Henrik - Thank you so much for creating that video. Very very helpful. Appreciate it.