MIX CHALLENGE - MC102 February 2025 - Mix Round 1 in evaluation

[SDB_12]

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/x5jfojl4 ... ulflc&dl=0

Well, wow….what a song. So much emotion. One of my favorites I’ve had the pleasure of working on…ever really. I LOVE the lead singers voice. The melodies, the harmonies, the arrangement, everything was great.

I’d like to first give props to whoever produced and/or organized the session. The levels of each track were spot on, exactly how I like to see them come up. Really well done.

That said, here is my mix submission. I mixed on Audeze MM-500 headphones, Dynaudio LYD 48 Monitors with 18s Sub, NS-10’s with an HSU sub, and checked on my trusty little Sony MDR-V150’s as I know them really well.

The provider asked that we talk about the mood we wanted to achieve, so here goes:

I wanted this mix to be big, wide and dynamic and focus around the vocals…the transition from verse to chorus is excellent in the arrangement and song writing…so I wanted to make sure I kept that, and enhanced it. I typically HATE working with digital amp sims on guitars….but…these were some of the easiest and coolest guitars I’ve worked with…they just seemed to work and didn’t have any of that digital mush, and harshness, all baked into one…well done!

As for the mood, like I said I love the vocals so was immediately drawn to them, and the melody he is singing. Often I will go a little drier in the verse for vocals, and more effects in the chorus…but in this song I really wanted a special sound. I wanted the vocals intimate and clear, in my face…but also with a swimming/floating or roomy vibe going on behind him. So I tried to create that. While the verse is slightly drier than the chorus, it’s not quite as drastic as I sometimes will go. I did dry things up a little bit in the bridge to create a new landscape and bring us into reality for just a second, then back to the fantasy world when the band kicks back in.

The mood for me was a mix of sadness, loneliness, but also triumphant. I tried to capture a bit of all of them.

I guess I’ll talk mostly about the vocals then. To create the intimate, in your face sound with the space behind him….I did some processing on the vocal to compress and make it cut…but didn’t go too far. This was on the lead vocal audio track…which also sends to the effects. However, I then bussed the vocal to an aux which had an SSL EQ to really enhance it more. So the effects stay a bit darker, as they do not send to this aux track with further EQ (which was brightening the vocal more and making it cut). So I thought it worked nice to create an in your face vocal, but also have some darker effects going on in the background.

The vocal was processed mostly with hardware (Heritage Audio HA-81 Pre/EQ->Audioscape 1176 Bluestripe->SSL 611 EQ->SSL B-DYN).

I did several passes of volume automation to bring out certain things in certain sections.

The entire mix is being summed through my Rascal Audio Analogue Tone Buss summing mixer…It sounds beautiful. That goes into an Alan Smart C1LA compressor barely tapping and printed back into Pro Tools.

Again, thanks for the amazing song to work on! Good luck everyone!

SB

[cpsmusic]

Hi Everyone,

Here's my entry for Mix Challenge 102.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-3maTU ... sp=sharing

Thanks to the song provider and thanks to the challenge organizers.

For this mix I wanted to create a 90s/00s "commercial" sounding mix that would potentially sound good on FM or digital radio. Over the past couple of months I've been putting together an "Andy Wallace-style" Mix Template in Studio One so I thought this song would be a good opportunity to give it a workout. From the instruments I wanted to maintain and hopefully enhance the transient punch of the drums and the power of the bass. For the chorus guitars I looked to create a "wall of sound" along the lines of the Cranberries' Zombie or Garbage's I'm Only Happy When It Rains. I tried to keep the vocal fairly bare to enhance the sense of loneliness present in the lyrics, especially in the breakdown section.

The song was mixed primarily on Sennheiser HD650 headphones equalized to the Harman Curve using ToneBoosters TB Equalizer 4 and processed with dearVR Monitor using the Analytic Dry preset. I also used Yamaha HD625 monitors with ARC 3 room correction. The mix was checked with Beyer DT770 Pros (great for showing up sibilance) and Apple Ear Buds (2nd Generation). My room is untreated.

Mixbus was as follows:

SPL Vitalizer Jack (Hardware)
Warm Audio WA273-EQ (Hardware)
Oxford EQ
Bassroom (Rock Profile)
Inflator
A1StereoControl (120% Width)

The observant among you will notice something missing from my mixbus - yes, there's no compressor. Even though I have a nice DBX 162SL compressor and far too many plug-in compressors, in the end I preferred the dynamic punchiness of the mix without a compressor - who'd have thought it, lol! The Vitalizer was across the mixbus from the start, while the Warm, Oxford and Bassroom came in at the end when I was trying to fine-tune the overall tonal balance.

The vast majority of the mix processing was done with the Sonnox EQ and Dynamics with help from the SSL Channel Strip 2. Even though these are fairly lightweight plug-ins the final mix still proved a bit too much for my aging Mac Mini so I opted to print stems of the mix groups (drums, bass, etc.) and then bounce the stems down for the final mix.


Specs:

24-bit/44.1 kHz
-16.1 LUFS (int.)
-2.6 dBTP

Good luck to all contestants and once again thanks to everyone involved in the challenge.

Cheers!

[eccentric]

I really enjoyed mixing this Song, although i was in a not so very good mood. Mixing always helps me to focus and take my head away from everyday struggles. I think this was one of the best songs in order to achieve just that.

What I did:

I usually tend to treat every mix in a analogue, live mixing style, so i basically used Slate Virtual Mix Rack with the SSL Style Preamp setting.

Specifics:

DRUMS
I use a very specific Routing Setup for my Drumbus, Bassdrum and Snare are routed to 2 parallel sub-busses, 1 with heavy compression, 1 with a slight distortion, all drums are routed to another sub-bus with slight compression, all 3 busses then gently into the Main Drumbus.

All track have correctional eqs on it, from the bassdrum i decreased some 150Hzish and added more sub in the area of 50Hz, the snare had a bad ringing around 200Hz, which i removed very carefully from all tracks as it was very close to its fundamental. Both, bassdrum and snare are treated with a clipper afterwards to maintain energy for all single hits.

On the Drumbus itself there´s basically only compression going on and slight saturation via Sonnox Inflator, which helped to stabilize the drumbus energy.

BASS
carefully balanced all 3 tracks, on the bus the is a eq dip around 150Hz, 60 Hz increased, compressed with a LA-2A, Ducking the lows up until 200Hz side-chained to the bassdrum

GUITARS
Nothing special going on, Low-Cut at around 80-100Hz, dip at around 250Hz, the main fuzz guitar was i little too bright, dip between 2000-3000Hz, slight 1176 compression

ACCOUSTIC GUITAR
Basically the same, the track had too much Low-Mids... no compression to keep the organic feeling send softly through a chorus

STRINGS
some eq, lowering the highs a bit, sidechained to the vocals so they better cut through

PADS
Low-Cut at 80 HZ, no EQ, no compression

VOCALS
correctional eq, dip at around 300Hz, lowering the highs as from 2Khz upwards, sent through a LA2A, a 1176, De-essed with a 902

AUTOMATION
Automation was done only at the drumbus to keep it steady between stages of the song. The mainbus got some treatment, increasing the loudness of the chorus parts by 1db

EFFECTS
Close-Room IR on all tracks to create some depth; Plate Reverb mainly on strings, pads and vocals; PingPong H-Delay on vocals for which i decreased the stereo field, and a very dirty 8th delay which is added very subtly

MIXBUS/MASTER

I usually mix to a mixbus and another submix in parallel, into which all non-percussive elements are fed into with a very soft 1176 style compression.Both busses feed into the master bus.

The mixbus itself contains a correctional linear eq with a low-cut at around 30Hz, some slight saturation from Waves Vitamin, which can also be used to widen the stereo field as needed.

The bus is hit with -18db 0VU. On the master bus all dynamics are placed, which are Softubes British Console Compressor, ProAudio DSP DSM V3 which is basically the most transparent compressor i can think of; and a SPL Iron Tube Compressor to give it some warmth. All 3 compressors are very carefully tweaked so they barely hit the needle and the maximum compression is around -4db.

All is fed into a UAD Ampex ATR-102 Tape Emulation to give it a little shine. I really love this one

Thats it. If you have questions, feel free to ask. Hope you enjoy!

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/8kmt1fl0 ... ijb2f&dl=0

[jaThum]

Here's my latest entry.

https://www.dropbox.com/home?preview=MC ... JaThum.wav

Thank you so kindly for a truly stellar submission. This is exactly the kind of track i like learning with.

I went simply for the clearest effort. Still very green, but a little happier with this one. I tried to keep the music a bit more in the back and have the singer alone in the front. There is NO compression used aside from a little bit earlier on the kick drum. I wanted it to sound room like, but maybe next time... I would have gone for something a bit congested; claustrophobic. I also am loathe to alter too much the tones carefully designed by the artist, but the guitars in the sides could not be helped. I went pretty much for a studio mix. Next time - much much more character...

Bass just added a little Amp to..

Drumming all cleaned. I like the sound of the overheads and ambience here. Not much more than cleaning. I like rich dynamics so tried best to keep that...

Vocals could use alot of work. One area I haven't really explored much.

Got here a little late (as usual) so missed out on ALL automation I might have employed

Thanks again. This was a real treat.

[Emelowsky]

Hello again!
Below is the link to my version of the mix:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-0XVu ... p=drive_fs

After listening to the tracks and the rough mix version, I decided that I wanted to give the song a modern feel with a clearly defined kick, snare, bass, and vocals to bring more energy to the track. In the end, I think it turned out well — we have a solid low end, a strong midrange, and a clear but not overly sharp high end. The track has become solid and dynamic — and that was the goal!
The entire mix was done in the computer using plugins. My main DA converter is the Apogee Symphony, and my main monitoring setup consists of a pair of APS Aeon monitors, slightly supported by a JBL LSR310S subwoofer, as the APS monitors have difficulty reproducing the lowest frequencies. The control room is calibrated using the Sonarworks SoundID system, and the mix is also checked on Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro headphones, small Logitech speakers (I don't remember the model), in the car, and on phone speakers.


So...

I started by aligning the phase of the drum tracks and timing corrections on the backing vocals. The backing vocals also received pitch correction using Melodyne.


Drums:
All tracks were sent to a group where the main processing took place. Additionally, a bus was created to receive the signal from this group (pre-fader and post-FX), where saturation and transient enhancement were applied. This group is then mixed back into the overall sound.

Kick:
EQ correction (Pultec) was applied, boosting and cutting the low end around 60Hz, and enhancing the "click" around 8kHz, with a cut above 10kHz. Then, it was processed with 1176 compression (UAD) at a 4:1 ratio with a slow attack and fast release. Reduction of 2-3dB. Next, it went through an SSL 4000E channel strip with gentle compression (2dB, 3:1 ratio) and a slight boost in the high end (8kHz) by 3dB.

Snare:
Resonance at 380Hz was cut using dynamic EQ (Kirchhoff) by 3dB. Pultec EQ was applied with a boost and cut at 100Hz to add weight, with a slight boost at 10kHz for brightness. Compression was applied with the 1176, using a slow attack and fast release to bring out transients (3-4dB, 4:1 ratio).

Snare bottom:
SSL 4000E – cut the low end below 200Hz and the high end above 12kHz, with a slight boost of 3dB around 3.5kHz. Compression with 1176 at a 20:1 ratio to control and enhance the snare spring.

Tom 1:
SSL 4000E – cut below 80Hz, boosted the high end around 8kHz and 4.5kHz by 3dB, and cut a "boxy" frequency around 900Hz. Light compression using SSL 4000E (3:1 ratio with fast release) to bring out transients.

Tom 2:
SSL 4000E – cut below 60Hz, boosted the high end at 8kHz by 9dB and 4.5kHz by 6dB, and cut the boxiness at 900Hz. Light compression using SSL 4000E (3:1 ratio with fast release) to bring out transients. Light gating to catch the muddy tail.

Hi-hat:
SSL 4000E – low end cut and boost around 7-8kHz.

Tambourine:
Similar to the hi-hat.

Shaker:
Similar to the hi-hat with light 2:1 compression.

Overhead:
SSL 4000E – light compression (2:1 ratio, 2-3dB reduction) and a boost at 10kHz by 6dB. Then, 1176 with a fast attack and medium release, 4:1 ratio with a 4-5dB reduction.

Amb mono:
SSL 4000E – light compression (4:1 ratio, 3-4dB reduction) and a boost at 10kHz by 3dB, with a cut around 950Hz by 3dB. Then, 1176 with a fast attack and medium release, 4:1 ratio with up to 7dB reduction.

Amb stereo:
SSL 4000E – cut below 8kHz and a shelf EQ cut at 10kHz by 3dB, with a 3dB cut at 900Hz. Compression with 3-4dB reduction and medium release. 1176 like on the mono ambient.

All tracks are sent to a group where preliminary tonal correction is applied. Then, a Buss Compressor is used with a 10ms attack, auto release, and a reduction of up to 2dB. Then, an Amek EQ200 emulation performs the main tonal processing with light movements up to 1-1.5dB.
As mentioned earlier, the drum group goes to another bus where saturation and transient enhancement are applied, and this is mixed into the overall sound.




Bass:
Bass DI:
High end cut above 200Hz with EQ (Kirchhoff), then processed with LA-2A compression. This track controls the actual low-end weight and presence in the mix.

Bass Amp:
Low end cut above 200Hz with EQ (Kirchhoff), followed by an SSL 4000E EQ where the high end above 7kHz is cut, and a 1.5kHz boost with light compression (2-3dB). This track provides clarity of the bass in the mix.

Bass Fuzz:
Similar to the amp signal, but EQ is tweaked to enhance the fuzz character with a 3.7kHz boost, helping it cut through the mix.




Guitars:
Solo:
SSL 4000E – low end cut below 200Hz, high end cut above 8kHz, slight dip around 3kHz by 2dB. Light compression (2:1, 3dB reduction) to even out the dynamics.

Wha:
SSL 4000E – low end cut below 200Hz, high end cut above 7kHz. Slight high end dip at 8kHz by 3dB. Light compression (2:1, 3dB reduction) to even out the dynamics.

Dist:
SSL 4000E – low end cut below 200Hz, high end cut above 8kHz. High end boost at 8kHz by 5dB, and a 3dB boost around 1kHz and 5kHz to highlight them in the mix. Light compression (2:1, 3dB reduction) to even out the dynamics.

Acoustic:
SSL 4000E – low end cut below 150Hz, high end cut above 12kHz. High end boost at 13kHz by 5dB, with additional cuts of 3dB around 300Hz and 5kHz to sit the guitar better in the mix. A slight boost at 100Hz by 3dB to add depth. Light compression (3:1, 2-3dB reduction) to smooth out the dynamics.

Crunch:
SSL 4000E – low end cut below 200Hz, high end cut above 5kHz. High end boost at 8kHz by 1dB, with 2dB boosts around 1kHz and 4.5kHz. Light compression (3:1, 2dB reduction) to even out the dynamics.

All guitar tracks go to a common group where final processing takes place with SSL 4000E, boosting 3dB at 1kHz, 2dB at 4.5kHz, and 8dB at 8kHz. Finally, they are processed through the Elysia Phils Cascade plugin for the final colorization of the guitars.




Keys:
Noise:
Added subharmonics using the bx_subsynth plugin, creating a powerful low end that gives a unique effect in the intro.

Strings/String_dub/Mellotron/Lead/Pad/Pad_dub:
SSL 4000E – light low and high end cuts (below 200Hz and above 9kHz). Light compression (2:1) with a slower attack time, reducing 2dB.




Vocals:
Lead:
SSL 4000E – low end cut below 100Hz, high pass filter at 100Hz -3dB, high end boost at 8kHz by 6dB. Compression (3:1, 2-3dB reduction) with medium release. Then, 1176 (revision A) with a fast attack and release, 4:1 ratio, 5dB reduction, to control dynamics and give character. Finally, LA-2A with 2-3dB reduction to smooth out the dynamics. A de-esser at the end to tame the high end.

BG_Verse:
Similar chain to the lead vocal.

Lead_dub L/R and BG_chorus L/R:
All backing vocals treated as one group with prior pitch correction. An SSL 4000E strip is applied with 8:1 compression and medium release, reducing 3-4dB. Low end cut below 100Hz, high end boost at 8kHz by 2dB, and a slight dip around 3kHz by 3-4dB to create space for the lead vocal.




Next, there are 4 effect buses:
1. Reverb for instruments (SP2016) in Stereo Room mode with a 2s decay and 12ms pre-delay. Drums, guitars, and keys are sent to this bus.
2. Reverb for vocals (SP2016) in Plate mode with a 4.5s decay and 23ms pre-delay. Lead vocals, backing vocals, and acoustic guitar part are sent here.
3. Doubler bus with the Eventide H3000 processor. Primarily guitars and vocals are sent here. The effect is subtle but adds width and depth.
4. Delay with ducking (EC300) where only the lead vocal and bg_verse are sent. The ducking is set to avoid delay from overlapping the vocals and only triggers during pauses, with high and low-end filtering to keep it as a pleasant background texture.




Everything is routed to the Master bus for final processing:
1. Preliminary EQ (Kirchhoff) with a low end cut below 30Hz, a slight boost around 100Hz by 2dB, and a high-end boost at 7.8kHz by 1.5dB.
2. Bus compression (Sand4 from Acustica Audio) with a 4:1 ratio, 8ms attack, and auto-release. 2-3dB reduction, with up to 4dB on the loudest parts.
3. Final EQ coloration (Magenta 5 from Acustica Audio), boosting the low end at 50Hz by 3dB, and high-end at 16kHz by 3dB, with a 2.5dB boost at 580Hz.
4. Multiband compression to balance the dynamics between frequency bands, with no more than 2dB of attenuation. Compensated on the output to ensure no perceived loss in loudness.



Lastly, I focused on automating the levels of individual elements to ensure the track is dynamic and doesn’t sound static.






That's all

I hope you like the mix, and I’m looking forward to your feedback!


Best regards,
Emelowsky!

[bluesation]

One of the best songs here.

I wanted the mix to sound more open as the original mix. I did this using panning and reverb. Further, I tried to avoid the instruments masking each other. How? Via EQ.
Every instrument group is separated in a group folder, guitars, bass, drums, key, vox and backing. Each group is treated with a compressor, taking away 1 or 1,5 db.
EQ is used to take away unwanted frequencies. For this task i used a stock parametric EQ. For sound shaping I used SlickEQ from TDR. for track compression I only use stock compressor, on the groups I used Supercharger GT, which is outstanding for this task.
Drums have their own reverb, room and plate for the snare and toms. All the instruments go into an ambience and a room reverb with different send levels. The lead vocals go into a plate and a delay. the backings have a hall as reverb.

On master I used a limiter, which doesnt limit at all. Just to get more output gain level. In front of the limiter, I used the Supercharger to take about 2 Db away.

here the link: https://my.hidrive.com/lnk/Q0GlbS94K

[kylewdb]

Mixing is a service, not an existential experience. I just followed the notes and treated the mix as if the clients were in the room with me.

Cheers,
Kyle

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CxAM1S ... p=drivesdk

[MartialFromentin]

Hello everyone!

Here is the link to my mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W_HcAU ... sp=sharing

It's the last day to post the mixes and I don't have a lot of time, I will bring more details in a next post later, probably on monday (sorry for that).

Mixed with Cakewalk, Native Instrument Komplete audio interface, Presonus Eris E4.5 + sub8, small room, no treatment.

[Miha]

hello, I would also join this contest as I love the song and enjoyed mixing and experimenting a lot. I mix in reaper and mainly use stock plugins, a little toucan, uad and valhala.

with this song I wanted to create a lot of energy and thus create a kind of paradox between an energetic song and sad lyrics. I also tried to put the vocals more in the foreground and tried to keep the words distinct.

My process:

1. drums: comp and eq on individual channels and then parallel compression on the bus and limiter, all of this sent to another bus, where I removed the low end and compressed harder and blended with drumbus

2. bass: eq, comp, saturation

3. vocals: eq, saturation, comp, pitchshift, reverb, delay

4. guitars: comp, eq, reverb, delay

5. Keys: eq and comp on the bus

on the master bus I have another compressor as glue, eq and bassroom for a little more lowend and a limiter

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wEUOw4 ... sp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fI0BDS ... sp=sharing (stats)

[Vanilla Puff]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aSzKDY ... sp=sharing
-16.3 LUFS, -1.1 dBTP, 24 bit, 44.1 kHz.

Very nice song this month. On the first listening session I focused on finding places that I could improve on from personal taste and the way that song speaks to me emotionally. On many occasions I went back to previous saves, finding out that that emotion that I was aiming towards was changing. It was quite a journey. I learned a lot, lots of learning is still ahead. I will share some general things that I've done and my thought process.

After reading that this song is from early 2000's I was surprised. For some reason it didn't sound to me like that early. But I still wanted to make it sound a bit old in some ways, giving some nostalgic notes. On top of that I was aiming towards more dynamic range and wider frequency range. My vision was to create a uniform mix with an emotion in mind and some storytelling on my part.
I started by mixing drums, bass and vocals to get the general groove going. Drums went to snappy compression send that is then saturated to round off the transients, giving it that older vibe and preserving the body that I liked. Then it goes back to a bus with original signal and gets saturated more. Compressed drums and original ones are sent to short reverb send that doesn't get go back to same drum bus that is being saturated. Although this is a lot of parralel processing, I felt that I needed it to achieve the drum sound that I wanted. Bass is saturated and shaped with some EQ. Lead vocal is compressed and saturated before and after reverb.
Guitars and keys were hard to manage since there are a lot of sounds playing at the same time and in same register. As I wanted to make something that sounds more dynamic and open, instead of compressing a lot of sounds and creating a sound wall, I used expansion on a lot of instruments to give them an opportunity to poke through and catch a breath. For lead guitars I wanted to do something special without doing too much, making it simple yet elegant. I was aiming towards an "electric" sound, whatever that means. It goes to two different saturators. One is multiband working up to 1.5k, the other one is for whole sound.
Whole mix is sent to a larger reverb that is compressed from the original input. It makes whole mix a bit more uniform and creates a dream like layer, that gets opened up at the end of the song with wider dynamic range.

Song was mixed on corrected AKG 712pro and Audeze LCD-X 2021