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

[Michael_K]

Hey everyone.
Great song, arrangement, and performance! Congratulations to the song provider!
So:
Kick: eq, api comp.
Snare: eq, 1176 in parallel compression, 
Toms: eq, api compression
overheads, ambience, percussion: eq, dbx style comp.
Bass: the three tracks treated as separate instruments all of then have eq,opto compression with different settings on each one.
All guitars go through eq, c2 compressor in classic mode
Keyboards: eq, c2 compressor in clean mode
Lead Vocals: 1176, eq, slight de-esser
Backing vocals: opto comp, eq, de esser
Mix Bus: c2 compressor in bus mode in a 50/50 dry wet setting.
Mixed mainly on Genelec 8030, referenced in Barefoot Micromains, and beyer headphones. The room is treated.
My Mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q0H7dj ... MLKIk/view

Good luck to everyone!

[Tony Black]

Helloooooo!!!

Another great song to mix. What a pleasure!
Thanks guys, we really appreciate.

This is my link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pEacZv ... sp=sharing

Nothing exotic for this style of music. My approach is always classic and simple.

Mixed ITB, my main channels setup is
- Softube SSL4000
- Fabilter Pro Q (just in case i need more eq bands)

Mixbus:
- Softube Harmonics
- Vertigo VSC2
- Leapwing Audio StageOne

How i mixed it:

Drums: Eq
Bass: 1176, Eq
Rooms are also used to drive the drums reverb.

Lead Vox: 1176, Eq
H910 + 20ms mono delay no feedback + Brigade stereo delay 1/8 + 1/8 dotted mono delay (only some sections) + 1/8 mono with 20ms stereo spread delay (only some sections).
Plate Reverb (driven by 1/16 mono delay).

Background vocals: 1176, Eq.
Plate Reverb (driven by 1/16 mono delay).

Guitars: 1176, Eq
Mono or stereo 1/4 delay on some of them.

All the rest: 1176, Eq

I did some volune automation but only a couple on moves.

Enjoy

[Christian M.]

Hello, first of all, great song, well recorded. I chose to give it a more modern mix.
I simply used the following tools:

Drums mics: Eq, Comp,
Parallel comp for kick and snare
Reverb for the snare
Drum Bus : Eq, Comp

Bass : Eq, Comp

El Gtrs : Eq, Comp
Tremolo Gtr Eq, comp Reverb and delay
Solo Gtr: Eq, comp Reverb and delay

Acc Gtr : Eq, Comp Reverb

Keys/Synth: Eq, Comp

Ld: Eq, Comp, Parallel comp, Reverb, Delay

BG: Eq, Comp, Reverb

Mixed 100% ITB with Pro Tools

Best,


https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/x7qmlohd ... au&dl=0rrr

[Stfh]

Hey alltogether hereinafter my entry.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HQEJa6 ... p=drivesdk

I used some very long Reverbs (iq-Reberb) on Voice and Guitars trying to generate a kind of dreamy, big backround.

In my Guitar group (all guitars were routed in it) i use some form of ducking (via side chain from voice channel) on 100 and 1000 Hz (only).

Snare top and bottom are routed together and were Send to a plate hall effect. The dry sumsignal of Snare is is shaped via a Transient sharper. It's sound seems to be most likely very soft im my mix.

Voice channels recived a bit of saturation (Cubase standard)

The Fade out is automated via VCA Fader on all Subgroups (Instrument, Voice, Drums...). As well guitar Wahwah and the pianobacking are grouped an Controlled by this method.

I used alle 3 bass tracks in ome group which is controlled by cubase standard compressor.

All single chanels were equalized in some minor form.

I tryed not to compress the song to heavy and preserve some dynamic.

I hope the sound is not to bad ^^ .... i kinda like it.

Song is great I really enjoyed listen to and in it on this deep level.

[asiohead]

Ey,

thanks to Mix Challenge & @Edling (The Last Hours) for the opportunity to mix this song. Pretty solid material to work with, the recordings are great !

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rfpnK0 ... sp=sharing

I mixed the song in Studio One.

- play the song a couple of times, figure out the arrangement and where changes happen, similar for the lyrics.
- grouping all similar instruments/vocals together to bus channels
- gain staging and panning
- cleaning up tracks if needed, not a lot of work with this song
- listening to individual tracks, figure out what the essential sound is and what isn't and EQ
- similar for dynamic range and compress if needed

drums
- Studio One's Pro EQ is all over them, all over most tracks tbh. This built in plugin just works.
- hats, tamb ,shaker and the overheads went through a room reverb. (subtle)

bass
- ProEQ & my favorite comp for drums & bass, PSP VintageWarmer 2

acoustic guitar
- ProEQ, some compression and a bit of Juno 106 chorus

electric guitar
- mostly just ProEQ and panning

keys
- same as electric guitar,
- added Objeq Delay on the intro bit on the "Key_Noise" track as a creative effect

vocals
- spent the most time on the vocals, to get the balance between lead, lead_dub & backing right because I think they were beautifully recorded, great harmony. And I wanted to hear them complementing each other and fairly wide.

subtle bus compression to tie it all together


greetz

[Dudeism]

Wow, the drums really sound super crisp, i guess the feeling for that comes with territory of actually playing them What kind of saturation do you use?

For the saturation, I only really use two plugins - PSP Vintage Warmer and Waves Kramer Tape. Vintage Warmer is amazing when you just push the Knee knob up a bit and turn the speed down, it starts to fuzz-up the material in a very pleasing way; I've used this in varying amounts across a few of the tracks (room mono, kick, backing vocals). I had Kramer Tape on the master channel just giving a little push too. I don't really like to use a lot of saturation as it starts to destroy the transients and everything ends up mushy and distorted but a little bit is quite pleasing; also with Kramer Tape you get an excitation of the high frequencies, which adds some air to the mix.

Interestingly, your question prompted me to look into just exactly what is Kramer Tape doing to the overall frequency response. This is a graph in Pro Q3 showing how the spectral profile of the mix changes when the plugin is added - you can see the audible high boost but interestingly there's also quite a considerable cut of the sub-bass.

Thanks for the in depth explanation and even going all the way to analyizing the whole thing. Thoroughly appreciate the info!

[yotemix]

Hi friends!
Here is my mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wkMXwd ... share_link

How I did it?
All tracks to Logic Pro.
I use SSL EV2 Channel on every channel i have in the mix (mono or stereo plugin).
I start on drum overheads, panning each one L or R as needed and routed into a stereo aux bus. Then a huge compression with SSL EV2 to make kick, snare and cymbals sound same volume.
Then i go with kick, and snare, making a nice drum kit.
After that I routed bass tracks (DI and amp) into a mono bus and applied boosting EQ on 800 and 3k and cut at 50 hz to make room for kick lows. Also hpf at 20hz and lpf at 8k.
Then I mixed distored guitars (Guit_dist_L and Guit_dist_R) 100% panned on a stereo bus and SSL EV2 making 6db cut at 1k and 3db boost at 3k and 8k (shelf).
Then I go with the main voice: hpf at 70hz and 6db shelf cut at 200hz, also 6db boost at 1.5k and 3db shelf boost at 8k. Also a fast attack compression ratio 5 to 1.

When all this works I added the rest: keys, strings, rest of the guitars, pads, shakers, etc with no more work than some hpf and volumes adjust. But not much more than this (yeeees, with the SSL again).

As the song has many tracks (specially pads and strings) that make a tight mix I needed to parallel compress drums (kick, snare and toms) using the Good Cop - Bad Cop Pooch Van Druten technique, but I use limiters instead of compressors for doing this.
Then I just did some parallel compression (using compressors) to main voice.

Finally I did a little edit on main bus:
My special sauce: As you've seen I've not used reverb at all... but I start my main bus with Abbey Road Plates, adjusting long predelay at 50ms and only 5% dry/wet. Plate selector C (my choice....) and bass cut at 2.
This may be strange, but helps me to have all tracks in the same room.
I also applied hpf at 40hz with 48db/oct and lpf at 16.5khz brickwall.
After that an SSL Comp at 1ms attack and 1.2 ms release and 1:10 ratio. Threshold adjusted to only pick several main bus fast peaks.
I checked all (LUFS and true peak with Youlean Loudness meter).

And thats all...... i hope you enjoy my mix!!
Thanks!

[Zsolt]

Hi
Here is my mix: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ijt6zu4y ... 49hei&dl=0

I mixed the song in Pro Tools

Drums: Kick - I used SSL e-channel, compressor dbx-160
Snare - SSL e channel, compressor dbx-160
Snare bus - API-550A for eq
Toms - PuigTecEqP1A, compressor Kramer PIE
Overheads - Eoisis E2De-esser
Drums Aux - Compressor Chandler Limited, PuigChild670
Drum Bus - SSL e-channel, Phoenix II
Bass: Bass - SSL 9000J, Low Control
Bass Bus - Kramer HLS, SSL e-channel, Pulsar 1178
Guitars: SSL e-channel, Compressor CLA-3A, Phoenix II
Main Vocal: SSLEV2 channel, Phoenix II, CLA-76, Reverb: LX480 short reverb, Transatlantic Plate Reverb for long reverb, Slap BBD delay
Backing Vocals: Q3, Phoenix II, CLA-76, Reverb: LX480 short reverb, Transatlantic Plate Reverb for long reverb, Slap BBD delay, Spread - H910
Keys: Focusrite SC
Strings: SSL -E channel
Mix Bus: SSL comp, PuigTecEq, Virtual Tape Machine

Cheers,
Zsolt.

[Mister Fox]

Could both @Tony Black and @Christian M. please please check their filename?
There are white-spaces in them. Either use NameName or Name_Name.

This is a 1-time information.

[Stormstudiogbg]

Hi, here comes my mix of the song. It was a well recorded track, I enjoyed to mix it. The hardest part was to get the wall of sound and still hear all the elements. This is the first mix I do in the new studio so I don't know the room yet, so reference listen on so many different spekers and headphones I could.

Started with a ruff mix to get panning and volume right. Overall I use SSL 4K E channelstip for the whole mix and for surgical moves toneboosters Pro EQ. Distortion on the lead vocals to get some vibe, and used a analog delay pedal for the main delay.

I work in a treated room (need some work more) and I use sonarworks as well.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MoN7Cj ... sp=sharing