MIX CHALLENGE - MC085 April 2022 - Winners announced

[Christoph_K]

The song was really fun to mix, a big thank you for providing it to the mix challenge!

Here’s my entry: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3wv7jlsh3h24p ... K.wav?dl=0

The tracks sounded a bit „digital“ to my ears so I used saturation where it would fit (mostly tape saturation with the Studer 800). After the levels were set it took me some time to find the right pocket for each of the tracks. I used the Pultec for the vocals and the kick, SSL X-EQ2 and FabFilter Q3 for the surgical stuff.

From left to right:

Kick and Snare have a dbx160 in parallel. The rest ist EQ, Saturation with Decapitator and some multi band compression on the loops to accentuate certain elements. I used a reverb on the crash to make it longer and blend it into the track more. On the whole group I used the UA Manley EQ to add some top end. Did I say I love Roto Toms?

After EQing the bass to sound less muddy it lacked impact. I added some super lows with PA sub filter and side chained it with the kick in the chorusses.

I duplicated the funk guitar track with the fender tweed amp from UAD and blended to taste. 1176 to rule them all (plus the L2 to catch some transients)

Some synths are treated with RC-20 and Dragon Fire. The pumping pad has automated saturation in the top end so it cuts through the mix better.

The pizzicatos needed control in the low-end and low mids. I used the Waves F6 and C6 to get there. For more crisp top end I ended up using the Gem Dopamine. I used the good old D-Verb to put the synth in the same space as the strings.

The piano lives in the UA ocean way space, compressed with MacDSP retro compressor.

The vocals got me some headaches. In the original mix they sounded quite unnatural and I couldn’t connect well with the singer. So I went for more natural sounding vocals. I used Melodyne to tune them. I copied the FX idea in the verses from the original mix because I didn’t find anything that convinced me otherwise. Maybe the song also would work without it. I just added some echo on the flanged parts. I turned down some transients with clip gain and used the Techivation Deesser (great plugin) to tame the sibilance.

FX section: UA224, Seventh Heaven, Echoboy, UA RMS, Microsoft and ADAFlanger.

On my mixbus lives the UA SSL comp, Pultec, AMEK200 for widening the chorusses and the ATR102 to get some overall glue. The newfangled elevate for safety reasons.

Mixed with ProTools.

[LowlandsWave]

This song was a lot of fun to mix! Thanx to mr. Fox and the song provider for this month's Mix Challenge.

Here's my mix: MC085_LowlandsWave_Danser

I tried to give the digital instruments some "live".

Drums:
Used Izotope's neutron's Sculptor on the separate drums. EQ cut at 350Hz. Used Split EQ to cut the low end tonal and boost the transient.
Kick got a boost at 4 kHz
Claps added Neoverb reverb
Drums send to drumbus with SSL channel strip and Softube tape

Bass:
EQ boost at 800 Hz
PA Blackbox saturation to add some character

Vocals:
Tuning with Melodyne
Even out the amplitude with Melodyne
Nectar vocal chain
Vocalsynth (bend in: PolyVox, Talkbox and Biovox) automated the mixed in amount
Blackbox for some saturation
Helix for distortion, autofilter and Deluxe Phaser (automated to bypass elements throughout the song)
Maag EQ4 to get som air
Split EQ to cut the high freq transient
McDSP EC 300 tape delay
Send to Neoverb Aux channel
Vocals send to vocal bus with SSL channel strip and Softube Tape

Guitars:
Send to Guitar bus with SSL channelstrip and Softube Tape

Piano:
Split EQ to lower the attack of the notes, tonal shelf 1kHz 2db, tonal boost at 110Hz and a transient Cut at 110Hz

Synth's:
Pretty much untouched, EQ boost high end and high pass filter

MixBus:
SSL buscompressor
SPL IRON compressor

[onecake2]

I have a kind request for all the partecipants.
Please, can you specify your EQ settings in depth?
I am learning, and if you say: "pro-q on bass" I can't learn.
Instead, if you say"proq3 on bass with hpf at 20hz. dip at 50hz and boost at 1k" I can learn more.

I understand that it requires an effort but I'd appreciate it a lot.

Thank you in advace

[scottfitz]

Hi onecake2
I appreciate it's useful to have detailed EQ, however please note that our monitoring is so different to each others that it can be that one mixer says this cut is needed and another says it isn't. Who is correct? Neither because there is no 'correct' and both because to their ears and their monitoring it sounds 'needed'. If we were all in fantastic acoustic spaces and using very similar equipment and had similar heads, ear shapes and musical preferences then it would be more certain the argument over what kinds of EQ were the best options.

I've not submitted my mix yet, but I've listened through everyone else's and have referenced vs them to compare the general tonal balance and style to my own. I think that is the best way to learn is listen and ask yourself the question how could I get my vocal to sound more like that? etc Then experiment with some ideas

Hope that helps
Scott

[nealgiedd]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/km5mghyct39w1 ... d.wav?dl=0


First off, thank you for the opportunity to mix this song. I had never mixed French pop before this. I'm glad to have had the experience, and it made me curious about French culture in general. Neat!

The original mix was good but I wanted to bring out some different characteristics with my mix. The two prominent ideas I wanted to emphasize in my mix were movement and transitions.

For movement, I wanted some percussion loops and synths to swirl around with autopanning and I wanted the piano to pump during parts of the song. I used volume automation on the Synth-Perc-Rhythm track to help accentuate some of its movement to help with the groove. I used the Waves OneKnob Pumper to allow the punch of the piano notes to be heard and then to dip out. But I automated this effect off/on when I did/didn't need it.

For transitions, I did a few different things.
I wanted the accentuate the differences between sections of the song. One way was through automating the stereo spread on my Master Bus with the Abbey Road TG Mastering Channel. The song begins with -5 stereo spread and flips to +5 at the first chorus. V2 drops to -1.6 and then back out on the chorus. The funk guitar break shrinks to +3 for the first half, and then full out again on the second half. Then the instrumental bridge shrinks back to -1.8, fading back out to +5 on the chorus.
On that instrumental break, I automated a lpf to create some movement and lead into that chorus.
The Master Bus volume had some minor adjustments to help with some of these transitions as well.

A major difference between my mix and the original is obvious in the ending. Rather than trying to mimic the auto-tune/flanged sound, I chose to fade out the synth and change the vocal reverb to something more intimate and basically bring the dream of reunion to a close into the reality that the relationship is over. I pictured the singer waking up from his dream and realizing he was alone in his room, so it ends with piano and solo vocals. I think it's a different take on the content without really cutting anything.

Another difference is that I chose not to utilize a flanger on certain words. Instead, used a delay on come select phrases. And I think some of the delays helped lead into the choruses.

As far as individual channel fx chains, I'll just point to a few channels, as there weren't a ton added to each track.

All major instrument groups were run through Waves NLS on the SSL-style console.

Vocals:
I chose the Brighter Formant takes.
Vocal bus did the heavy lifting for processing.

SSL Channel strip:
HPF 120Hz
High shelf 8.8kHz boosted 4dB
High Mid bump of 1dB at 3.5kHz
1.5:1 comp with 3dB reduction; slow attack, fast release.

CLA-76:
4:1
~1-2db reduction; fast attack, fast release

CLA-2A:
~2dB reduction

TDR Nova dynamic EQ:
HP: 84 Hz, 6dB/oct
-2.5dB at 250 Hz
+1.5dB High Shelf at 2.6kHz
Active EQ band at 9.34khz for de-essing; threshold set to -12dB with 6:1 ratio.

Individual vocal channels all had:
ReaTune for tuning
Rcomp with medium-slow attack and medium release at 1.5:1 for around 2.5dB reduction.
I added this in after the vocal bus processing to tighten up all the channels feeding the bus.

Funky Guitar:
SSL Channel Strip:
+6dB 8kHz High Shelf
+1.4dB 3kHz bell, wide q
-2.4dB 240Hz bell, tight q

Comp: 3:1
fast attack, medium/slow release
~6dB GR

Sent to Waves H-Delay with 1/8 note ping-pong delay and the Left Side out of phase; fb at 27; band-passed to make it more lo-fi.

Drums-2nd and Kick and Snare were the drums/percussion channels with the most processing:

Drums-2nd:
SSL Channel Strip:
HP: 40Hz
LP: 11kHz

+8dB 3.3kHz High Shelf
+3dB 1kHz
-3dB 280Hz
+3dB 89Hz Low Shelf

Comp:
3:1
Fast Attack, fast-med release
~3dB GR

ReaEQ:
HP: 55Hz
-2.2dB 121Hz

TDR Nova:
HP: 30Hz 6db/oct
Active EQ 77Hz 3:1, slower attack
~4-6dB GR

Scheps 73:
Drive: -25M
HP: 50Hz
Low: +2.5dB 60Hz

Kick:
ReaEQ:
HP: 43 Hz with a tight q to get a resonance boost
L: +4dB 74hz
LM: -7dB 178Hz
LM: -12dB 450Hz
HM: +3dB 2.6Khz
HM: +10dB 8kHz

CLA-76:
20:1
Fast Attack and Release
~7-8dB GR

R-Bass:
Harmonics starting from 55Hz; left original low-end in.
Intensity -6.3dB
Output Gain -1.6dB

Snare:
SSL Channel Strip:
HPF: 70Hz
+8dB 8kHz High Shelf
+9db 1.5kHz wide bell
+3dB 250Hz Low Shelf

Comp:
2:1
Slow Attack, Fastest Release
~3dB GR

L2:
~4dB GR

ReaPitch:
Formant Shift of 2 semitones to brighten the snare a little more without eq boosting.

Sent to an MPG Snare Verb preset within H-Reverb. I think I reduced the RT from 4+s to 0.72s. Not sure what other tweaks I may have done. The RVB return is turned down 10.6dB.

Drums Bus:
SSL Comp:
Slow attack, fastest release
2:1
~3dB GR

Bass:
F6 Active EQ:
Slight Active boost of 3dB at 70Hz

ReaComp:
Side-chain comp from Kick to let the Kick through.

F6:
+2dB 53 Hz
-4dB 3kHz

CLA-3A:
~10dB GR

Rbass:
Harmonics start at 50Hz
Original low end out
Intensity -5.4
Output Gain -2.0dB


Master Bus:

SSL Comp:
Slowest Attack, Fastest Release
2:1
~3dB GR

Abbey Road TG Mastering Chain:
Tape EQ set to 7.5
EQ:
+1.15dB 16kHz High Shelf
-1dB 181 Hz Blunt
+2dB 45 Hz Sharp
Limiter:
Limit Mode
Recovery 2
24.4:1
Mixed at 15%
Using SC Filters:
LP: 10kHz
HP:130Hz
Filter:
LP: High
Presence: +1dB 800Hz
HP: Low

ReaLimit:
Threshold: -1.2dB
Brickwall Ceiling: -2.1dB
- rarely, if ever providing any GR

[Haplos]

hey everyone, i'm new here, looking for experience and hope to learn things

Thanks to Tom for sharing his song, wich i really apreciate to work on !

Here's my contribution :

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

As i am french too, i guess this was the best time for me to enter this forum

The hard work for me was on drums and vocals, hope for round 2 to work harder !

I'm a rock n' roll guy, so i used the links Tom gave us to get a direction, as i know the band Baby Brunes.

Hope my registration is registered and tha i didn't forget something in the contest process(?)

Have fun everyone, feel free to discuss my mix

Can't wait to read you all !

Cheers

Hap'

[turnpark]

Fast Mixdown, no plugins, Har-bal eq that took an hour to mix. reduced 10hz with a bell, increased at 20 khz with bell, level eq with a slope on the peak eq.

Mixdown: https://replay.dropbox.com/share/hgdBC3ybwN7MrndE

[scottfitz]

Hi all,
Great track, it’s got so much energy and also emotion in the song. Thanks to Dirk and Tom for offering us the chance to work on your music.

The original mix is very nice, I spent the first week trying to ‘beat it’ thinking that was the challenge. Later I saw Dirk’s post saying that he wants creativity and not so much something like his mix.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

I did this mix mostly on Audeze LCD-X(2021) as my room in Australia is acoustically poor. I used EVE SC203 desktop monitors to review my work.

My approach to the track in the end was that I wanted to stretch it as far as possible away from Tom+Dirk’s version while preserving the driving spirit and the emotional style. I’ve used a lot of digital delay which means a lot of clutter to what was a clean and punchy track. To find room for all the activated subdivisions caused by the delays what I have done is broken up the long piano chords to some extent and effectively EQ’d a good amount out of the bass track. With all that low-mid and mid energy gone, I’ve then filled it with delays and distortion to the point where it’s at times almost a smooth sound such is the density of all the delays, reverb and distortion. I hope that the drums can still provide enough punch together with the accents which form out of the other parts where they line up or resonate.

Some specific notes on the choices, plugins and settings used in the mix:

Drums + percussion
Parallel drum bus with dotted delay, this gives the groove ghost notes
Parallel compression on kick/snare/clap for extra punch
DRUMS-2nd - 2dB cut at 120Hz, fairly heavy compression
PERC - Lo-Fi preset “trash bass”
Kick - PUIGTEC “kick101” preset

Bass
BASS-1 - CLA Bass preset “Lion” then straight into JJP Bass preset “SUB BASS2” into Scheps Omni for side chain compression from the kick targeted at 80Hz to clear space for the kick into RComp taking around 1dB. NB I am aware it’s not expected to use two Bass presets in series like this, when the designers are expecting to take an unprocessed sound as input, however in experimentation I discovered this combo seemed to work for what I wanted.

Parallel bass channel has just the RComp but no other processes. This channel gives some of the mid and highs back. Waves InPhase used for phase correction vs the fatter sounding bass track.

Piano
PIANO - Compression into distortion into RVerb into MetaFilter preset “regroover” creating a polyrhythm with rest of track. Added automation to intro to create swells

Parallel piano channel (active from first chorus til the end of the song) - Fabfilter timeless “exploring filters” preset tweaked. This channel gives a hint of the original piano chords back to give some support the track but not to the extent that the old part used to.

pianoendFX - distortion + lofi delay, lowpass 3.8kHz, cut 2dB @150Hz

Synths
SYNTH-001 - just light compression + hp filter 100Hz

SYNTH-002 - Scheps Omni saturation into compressor into dotted delay with lofi, -1dB shelf 3kHz

SYNTH BLIP - compression into decapitator

PAD - SI imager for width, C6 “far pad” preset tweaked into diffusive reverb/delay on FabFilter Timeless. That delay brings different notes from the synth to play at the same time and this can bring some different colour to the chords.

SYNTH LEAD - MetaFilter “AutoWah” into decapitator into multitap delay

SYNTH (intro) - dotted delay

Guitars
GUIT-AC - sent to FX channel with Adaptiverb “Piano Pedal Simulator A” preset tweaked to lessen the effect

Funky guitar - “distorteddoublerecho” echoboy preset

Pizz Strings

SI imager used to straighten up the stereo image, then panned narrow centre as I want this instrument to be in front for intro

Smack Attack shortened the duration of the sustain slightly, attempt to clean up the rhythm just a touch

Slight compression as lower notes still jumping out a fair bit after smack attack.

Vox
I used the ‘Dry - brighter-formant’ vocals, I’ve gone for as natural a sound as I could.
Some pitch corrections in Waves Tune, performed separately on each of the doubled chorus Vox tracks and on each of the chorus BV tracks and on the verses.

Main Vox bus has Scheps Omni Andrew Scheps “Vocal 3” tweaked - no pre stage (no saturation as I was finding the vox already seems to have this quality). EQ section reads +2dB bell @4kHz, +2dB @257Hz

EQ HP 143Hz 12dB/oct

Sent to 3 aux channels
- Adaptiverb “Deep Dream Verb”, it hangs for a long time and I liked how that alters the implied harmony with the parallel 5ths added. I felt that this helped to bring out that melancholy feeling in the vocals.
- Adaotiverb “general purpose adaptive verb 02”
- Multitap delay


BV similar Scheps +EQ and RVerb to save on CPU power, the idea is to give the lead vocal the extra enhancement and leave the bv more in the background.

Automation
Simple build to the last chorus

Swells on the regrooved piano in the intro
Long slow build on opening SYNTH in intro

PAD sound is automated to be slightly louder each time the chorus comes (reaching highest level on that final chorus) - so that the build to last chorus delivers the big sound promised.

PAD-END has a volume shape applied to make it sound like a delay triggered by the piano chords, so that it matches the dynamics of the piano better.

An FX channel consisting of Echoboy tweaked ‘chorus tank bouncer’ preset with PAD, vox, endpiano and endsynth all sent to this channel. This channel has automation to gradually rise towards the outro and then remain as an effect over that ending. The channel has lowpass 4kHz, highpass 50Hz and 3dB wide mid dip

Subtle rise and falls on funky guitar section so that this section has an extra interest and meets the build from a lower point

Mix Bus
API-2500 taking just over 1dB average, max 1.5dB with attack 30ms release time 0.2s. track pumping slightly with it.

My computer is crashing under the plugins so I take this as my cue to stop

Thanks very much for listening
Cheers all
Scott
PS sorry if I’ve broken the rules, this is my first time here. Wasn’t sure quite where the line is between what is a ‘change of arrangement’ and what is adding a parallel track etc.

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 7 days left to submit your mix.


To everyone new on the forum - a one time reminder:
Please properly document your edits, make sure that your files is easily accessible and can be associated to your user account (see provided filename template). Please double check your links (no re-uploads!).

[dnlptn]

Hi All,

Thank you dima for this month's track and Mr Fox for moderating. Really enjoyed the challenge.

Here is my entry.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gE0jPp ... sp=sharing

Went in a different direction to the original mix. I emphasised the top end for a washier, airier sound and highlighted the lead synths and the piano more. I also added more SC to control add a little more pumping effect. Hope you enjoy it. Here's what I did to some of the tracks.

Vocals
Went with more natural vocals, but still used Waves Tune to create some effect. Reverbs used were 7th Heaven, VVV, and RealVerb and Echoboy delay.
a bit of Soothe to smooth out the edge. There's some delay automation on a couple of words during the 2nd verse.

BGV
Saturated to make it crispy with alterboy-sketchcassette
I also used a couple of the formant vocals and panned it around
VOX BGV 001 has some ozone imager

Bass
Decapitator for some edge

Drums
Usually Saturn 2 to saturate the upper mids-top. Occasionally added a transient designer to shape the attack.
Kick has more upper mid for more excitement during the main sections
Snare has more emphasis on the highs. Reverb used was Pro R with saturation at the end, and EMT140. Automated to be brought out more during the chorus sections.
I experimented a bit with the Rototoms to create more edge. I used black box, sketch cassette.

Synths
I needed to resist adding reverb to some of these because there was already some space on the tracks. I used Saturn 2 to add more upper mid clarity.
Synth perc has brauer motion plugin - for some movement
I wanted the synth lead to be a feature - used 1176, Focusrite channelstrip, clipper for some bite.
I also duplicated this original track, used some izotope de-reverb, and blended this in for a little more forwardness.
Synth0001 has delay for more width.
Strings has saturn 2 for some tape. I also used a mono reverb to create a small room ambience.

Mix bus
bx_townhouse just tapping it very gently when the snare hits

Some volume/reverb automation was used to give some lift during the lead synth moments. Piano was automated in and out with the vocal.