Mix Challenge

Thank you very much @GmfSongs for your detailed revisions.

I totally agree with your statement,

I didn’t want to colour my perception because it’s the result, not the tools that ultimately matter.

Here is my R2:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ejkoGy ... sp=sharing

Good piano weight and intimacy with the intro vocal. Intro piano chorusing is a bit pitchy though, the detuning or modulation depth is a bit too deep.

Decreased modulation on verb used.

Transients on the electric piano @:30 sounds like a small dense tiled room verb. The attack comes across as smeared and noisy. Doesn’t really sit in with the bass attack.

Decreased chorus effect.

Flutter section acoustics feel a little brittle. More high mid body than pick strum and resonance. Needs weight. Warmth.

Removed hi-shelf boost and low-mid cut; introduced rbass to add a little body

Mix mids in general need attention. 600hz-3.5k instrument range needs more clarity and punch. Feels hollow and a touch harsh in places.

Corrected.

70’s drums come across a papery. I hear a big scoop out of lower mids. It creates space but maybe just cutting has gone too far. The saturation is making the kit smaller, not bigger in this case.

Reduced saturation/transformer; pulled back low-mid scoop; introduced rbass to add a subtle weight.

Chorus vocals too narrow & too thin. Missing the same impact and feels smaller and less important compared to verse vocals.

Panned tracks further out; adjusted eq for additional body.

Chorus Acoustic guitar in mono lacks good transients and is very hollow sounding. Phasing I guess.

I checked and phase is okay; adjusted eq to bring out transients and added a touch of body; volume up a little.

The verse vocal really hugs you - can you make the chorus vocals do that too? Then make the instruments support and hug the voice. Many elements seem to be in different acoustic spaces.

I hope I succeeded... :-)

There great potential here though...
Kill it.

Killed it... hopefully. :-D

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xM-0y8 ... sp=sharing

Round One Notes: Feedback was great! So basically I just removed nearly all processing that I had used. haha. I see most of my problems were with fx (specifically compression, eq, and reverb). So I just reset the faders to 0 and leveled with none of these. I rebalanced the mix to match levels of my first submission, just without the processing. I tried to focus this time around using volume automation instead of compression and scrapped all external reverbs in favor of the submitted fx tracks (per recommendation) blended with automation. Acoustics were made less boomy in the chorus with an eq dip in the low end. 70s drums were reworked to support the mix instead of getting lost. No scooped sound anymore making them feel thin. @2:53 decreased volume for this section for contrast. Hopefully now everything is breathing better without the compressors chomping down.

Here's the link to the R2 Mix and thanks for the constructive comments they were very helpful. Cheers.

https://signalflowau-my.sharepoint.com/ ... g?e=8mL54G

Revision 2

Fixed LUFS and TP
Added more sub to Bass


Intro piano is a bit boxy - took out some 400Hz

Very nice vocal sound! Maybe a touch more of 6 or 12K. - Added a smidge 8K

Chorus vocals are a touch muddy. ~300-600hz Removed the muddy sound and reduced the Reverb levels

Could I hear a little more pick attack on the acoustic guitar, or less boom around 400hz in the flutter & wow section? - Took out boom and added sparkle


70s Kick feels just a bit loud and clicky. Too much point. Very Talking Heads in the 80’s if you know what I mean.

Took out the click and made it more thwacky (I was a child of the 80's which maybe the reason I choose 80s kicks )

Bottom end in chorus kicks is a little undefined and too round. Think less beach ball, more chest thump. - Defined bottom end using some Preamp Drive (Scheps OMNI CHannel)


Original Mix

- Used Rear Buss Parallel Mix compression (Abbey Road Compressor)

- EQ and Bus compression on Mix Bus 1.5:1 Max 2 db gain reduction

- Parallel Vox and BVox Compression 1176

- L Vox - Used Aphex exciter and automated volume and different FX in the different sections to highlight sections

- Keys used Rotor FX and Piano room reverbs and to widen but also used MS EQ to carve space for Vocals

- Pushed low frequencies in Stomp Section and used Timpani to carry the low end as well as large Hall Reverb.

- Flanged Reverb/Delay in the instrumental section to help carry that section

- Used Scheps Omni Channel Strips on 60 percent of the channels for filters gates and compressors.

A friendly reminder:
We're in the final 24 hours to submit your edit for Mix Round 2.

Sorry but I won't make it to R2 - too much work right now! I hope I can take part again once everything settles down around here. wish you guys good Luck!

Thank you @GmfSongs for careful listening, feedback and picking to round 2.
I addressed all things mentioned in feedback. There is a bit more low-mids weight on snare, some more hall reverb to
the piano, some unwanted noises removed as well. Added additional gentle compression for chorus parts only in order
to emphasize the sound. Some volume balances corrected between the lead and harmonic vocals as well.

entry for round 2:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wrni2dj9iao1v ... 2.wav?dl=0

Hi Endicott,

I tried to adjust the mix more to your liking/comments.

Endicott wrote:Whole mix just little wild regarding the balances.

Megalomaniacs are wild-charactered people!

Cheers,
FP

https://www.dropbox.com/s/074yznsqq2r2v ... 2.wav?dl=0

Hi everyone,
Hope you´re doing well!

Thank you Mister Fox for creating these challenges and all the efforts involved.
And thank you Endicott for providing this insane jigsaw and a very exciting ride, and being the artist you are !!

The link for the mix Round 2:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5a5wv0p0ciic7 ... 2.wav?dl=0

Here is an overall description of the changes and issues adressed, that we're solicited in @GmfSongs feedback, and the corrections within mix rules:

- Mix is within loudness specs; the duplicated 808's were removed

Adressing the mix mids, opening up the top end and extending the low end:

MIX BUS
- Low shelf 1.5dB at 34Hz / High shelf 1.5dB at 3K
- Inflator - Curve up 10 points
- Added Soundtoys Radiator mix 15% / Bass and Treble - each 1.5dB

VOCALS
- on the Lead Vocal: High shelf at 7.3K and readjusted dyn. eq in mids; removed Devil-loc and replaced it with Audio Venn Freeclip; brought up DDL and Reverbs, and lots fine tuning adjustments all around
- on Chorus Vocals: Low shelf at 100Hz / High shelf at 8K

DRUMS
- Drum bus: Low shelf - changed from 30Hz to 60Hz
- Kick: added R-bass 46Hz at -18
- Snare: 0.5dB at 7K
- OH: 6dB wide bell at 8K

BASS
- added R-bass 60Hz at -11

OVERALL
Piano, Electric Piano, Acoustic gtrs etc. : Backed-off the Hi-pass and opened up the top a little

LOTS OF AUTOMATION especially on Mix Bus and Lead vocal; Chorus vocals and other instruments.

Specific issues:

All mentioned by @GmfSongs were hopefuly adressed, and are mostly described above (except maybe the snare tail in the bridge: i shortened the decay of the reverb, but notched up the return a little)

Thanxxx again
Best wishes to all

Greetings to @GmfSongs, very happy to be part of this!

Thanks for your remarks, here is my update:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GV0FUe ... sp=sharing

Your detailed suggestions were also a great learning motivation.
All remarks were addressed one way or the other, so I don't repeat them here. I tried to stay very subtle in most cases.

The following points took a second thought:

The general approach is to describe the character who the song is about, with some "pop-art" effects and sound shapes. Some parts should sound really spooky, but you seemed to dislike one of the more spooky effects so I tuned it down quite a lot, so it should be practically inaudible but still create some feel.

PIANO - well to me, the ideal of a grand piano for a 70ies hommage would be the sound of a) Elton John in Pinball Wizard (movie), b) Keith Emerson in his earlier releases.
So, we don't have this kind of production available, then I also remembered John Lennon, and I resorted to a sound that resembles more like an upright piano in the back corner of the stage.
Still, I reduced the mid-range and gave it some attack with "SPL-Attacker", which is very subtle but for me hits the nail. Also improved automation.
My recommendation is truly to get rid of that bright "digital" sound.

VERSE
I created a special consonants and transients extraction track, by using limiters, lowpass+cancellation, gating, etc. and printed that.
Then, I reshaped the sound of that to fit into the mix, and automated it according to what was missing, and to overcome some "lilting" sounds.
The reason is that the general vocal effects and dynamic EQ did distort the sibilance too much, and a normal de-esser (I use SPL) did not heal that.
Thus, some engineering to push through the direct sound of the sibilants in a very controlled way.

About the vocal effects, I created a harmonizer stack the way Warren Huart described (8 tracks pitched +/- 3,6,9,12 cent), printed that, and automated it into the verse vocals.
This is to show how it sounds, when we try to get the sound of the verse vocals closer to the big MEGA chorus. I hope it comes a bit closer to the idea you stated.
I also introduced another reverb, the FreezeVerb demo from that Turkish plugin company. It has a very long and pristine tail, that brings some brightness into the game.
As you said, the mix sounded a bit dark. Another brightness killer was a bit too much mid-range in the LittlePlate.

CHORUS
Gang vocals softly intensified with a Trash2 vocal preset, mix-factor around 50 percent, volume reduced a bit.
As everyone did something like that, I also inserted a delay effect from the Nebula multi-effect plugin, at that certain point in the song. It is just a second.
There were some muddy masking effects, that I addressed with a few EQ adjustments. I made the subsonic thump a bit longer, because that one was created from the duplicated "04 808 V2 RAW STEM" with a short gate.
I also adjusted the stereo bus compressor, and made the attack longer, to keep stronger transients.

SNARE
I think we leave the 70ies when we make it too wide-banded, but I had a lowpass there, and I set that a bit higher, and boosted some treble and presence area.
I use the aux reverb for a number of other sounds too, but I automated the stereo width so it becomes smaller only when the snare is playing.

Please enjoy and give it a try!

Great work and improvement by everyone.

(addendum: 48k-rendered version available!)