R2 Mix:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k7q8zdj05ehz4 ... 2.wav?dl=0
Hey all!
I'll echo what others have said and first say thank you so much to the song provider for truly listening through our mixes, giving great feedback, and of course for selecting my mix to go on to Round 2!
To be honest, I was in the middle of demoing a bunch of new plugins for Black Friday while doing my first mix, which was the main reason I wanted to enter the contest! After reading the feedback from the song provider and going back to really listen and compare my first mix with commercial mixes...you were right! Strings were too loud, too much verb, and the thing that really struck me was the comment about the mids being a mess...I agree completely. It's weird b/c my mixes don't usually sound that cluttered...I'm pretty sure I was having too much fun with the new plugins and going crazy! haha!
I could be wrong, but based on the comments I saw for all mixes including mine...I was under the impression that my mix needed a lot of work to really get some attention for this 2nd round. Contributing to the mess was a lot of the effects and processing I was using all over the tracks. So, I went in and started making tweaks based on the feedback, and every move I made would reveal more and more problems. So, I saved that mix, and did the bold move of just "pulling all the faders down" and having another go! This time, I focused on being more musical in my processing and getting rid of a lot of the things that were just making a mess of the mix. My goal for this 2nd mix was to keep the vibe and vision of my first mix...but really dig in and clean it up, make it punch and sound more modern.
I removed a lot of plugins that didn't need to be there as I was re balancing everything...trying to keep the mix more focused, punchy and clear...but still vibey in a way. In the end...95% of my tracks only had some of the Acustica Audio plugins on them that I mentioned in my first post, and everything got tweaked. A lot of Gold 3 preamps and eq, Pink 3 API style compression/eq, Taupe (tape emulation)..and Magenta (Manley stuff) on tracks and the mixbus. I recreated a lot of the reverbs and delays using Lemon (acustica audio delay) and some new IR samples from Past to Future Reverbs I used within the Space convolution reverb plugin. Then made sure they were more subtle this time and not over powering the song.
In the end, a lot of plugins were removed...eq, compression, effects and balance were all re-tweaked, and I think this new mix is way better. It has far less processing, and more of a modern sound to me. I know it's a bit bold for a 2nd revision mix, and I typically would not go so far on a revision...but it's what I felt I really needed to do in order to give it my best shot. Thank you for the great feedback! I hope you like the new mixes from everyone!
Good luck to all the contestants!
