Mix Challenge

Such nice mixes guys! And its amazing how everyone has his own vision. Keep it up! Now i think i made snare sticking out too much

Great blues song to work on this time around. It was fun!
Here's my submission: Good luck to everyone.

MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CrHmk ... v6uzHFNJAj
WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bVTPa ... bI31QGehfS

Here's my process:

Drums:
I had a really difficult time getting enough transients and punch out them on the whole. I went around in circles for a while with them trying to figure out what to do, and I finally ended up with this. (I've played with it too much now, and I can't tell if it sounds good or not anymore ! )

OH:
EQ, Orbit transient designer to get more cymbal clang, and waves S1 stereo imager to push OH wider.
Snare:
I copied the snare top to separate mids and low frequencies to compress heavy on the bottom, but retain transients in mids/highs. (I tried a multiband compresser at 1st, but I didn't like it). Used orbit transient designer on the mids/highs to get more crack. Snare bus had 1176 comp and Softube saturation knob to get a little more crispy attack.
Kick:
I created a kick sample to blend with original kick for a little more low end. Eq'd to make room for bass.
Hihats:
Carved out everything under 800 Hz and cut snare frequencies.
Room:
Eq and API 2500 comp
Drum Bus:
I used "Basslane" (a great free plugin) to get everything under 300 Hz centered on the drum buss, which I felt helped the stereo spread. I also used TDR Nova multiband comp on the drum buss.

Bass:
I blended in an impulse response from an Eden 4x10 cabinet with the original track. I copied the original bass track and cut all but the high mids and applied a tube distortion. Used just a little to add a little grit underneath. bass tracks were bussed and I sidechained a compressor to duck the kick about 6 dbs and I applied an eq last to make more room for kick frequencies.

Guitars:
Just eq to push rhythm guitar back a little behind lead guitar, and added a little bit of compression. Added a tape emulator to drive more grit into them. Panned guitars opposite each other.

Vox:
Used waves Vocal rider to smooth it out, Anteres Mic Mod to add saturation, 1176 comp w/faster attack to tame peaks, eq, and just a little tiny bit of a slow attack SSL comp at the end.

FX:
Delay send:
Tempo synced - same delay used for guitars and vocals. Guitar delays were panned opposite each other to help with stereo spread and to leave more room in the center for Vox. Vox delay was centered.
Reverb send:
decay time and predelay was syncd with tempo. I used the same verb for vox and guitars. Not a lot of verb used. Pan centered verb on both.

Mix Buss:
Tape emulator, a little eq, and a tickle of SSL comp for glue.

[Edited to remove links. Round 1 is over.]

General Philosophy
As far as the late 60's/early 70's go, I like Pink Floyd and - especially - Led Zeppelin. I'm not leaving the era with this mix, just taking the blues and adding something a little heavier to it like they did. However, I am doing it my own way. Analog, hard hitting, but fairly clean. I'd rather not completely avoid the new technologies.
In general I wanted heavy bass and drums (particularly kicks and snares). I want vocals with low power and no high frequency hissiness. And guitars must sit alongside vocals without either feeling weak.

General Technical Notes
I used only Waves plugins.

For cleanup:
F6 EQ - dynamic subtractive bell EQ
Vitamin - mix low frequencies down to mono

The workhorses:
Smack Attack - increase/decrease attack and sustain
SSL-E Channel - EQ boosting, HP/LP filtering, compression, expansion

For vibe:
SSL-G Master Buss Compressor - vocals parallel comp and master buss (1dB reduction)
NLS Channel/Buss - "Mike" setting emulates Dark Side of the Moon console
J37 Tape - last plugin on every track
H-Delay - subtle fake vocal doubling, rhythm guitar atmosphere
H-Reverb - vocals only

I used only the original recordings. No replacements or enhancements.

I left the build up in the beginning and the outro with the quiet room sounds. I figure you want that stuff or you would have edited it out. If you want it out, let me know.

I left wow and flutter on the tape because I like it. Tiny bit of noise.

The recordings already have a roomy sound. No extra reverb was necessary on the instruments but I gave some to the vocals for a cool vibe.

I used the sample mix as my loudness guideline. I also listened to what the artist said about present snare transients and no fast compressors (unless SSL stuff is considered fast).

Mix Details
Room and Overheads had their low frequencies (below 60 or so) mixed to mono.

Every track (with the exception of the kicks) received dynamic subtractive EQ. I'm not listing every little move (exact frequencies, threshold numbers, etc.) I generally lowered tracks a few dB around 80, 250, 300, and 350Hz.

Every drum track and the room track received Smack Attack. Increased attack on the Kicks, Snares, Overheads, Room. Increased sustain on snares. Decreased sustain on Kicks and HH.

Every track received SSL-E Channel. Most of these numbers are approximate because I don't pay much attention to them. I intentionally look away once I have a control selected, then tweak. The exception would be the 10kHz boost on vocals. I did that for the vintage feel.
HP filtering on every track. LP on bass.
Vocals received a low boost for power and a 10kHz bell boost.
Guitars have high mids/highs emphasized.
200Hz boost on snare bottom, 5kHz on top.
Bell boosts on kicks (60 or 80) and bass (40 or 50).
Compression on every track except the kicks and snares.
Expansion on hats and overheads for additional cleanup.

Vocals were sent to a parallel compression buss (SSL-G) with HP and LP filtering in front.
Vocals were sent to H-Delay with a very short delay and no feedback. HP and LP filtering.
Vocals received light delay throws (J37) on certain phrases. For example, the first time the singer says, "I'm alright."
Vocals were sent to H-Reverb. Short predelay so the vocals didn't get washed out. A less than 3 second tail. A less than 10% send at all times. The send was increased a bit during certain phrases to let them linger. The built in EQ was used. Low cut and 1kHz cut. High boost.

Left guitar had approximately 8th note J37 delay (approximately because the song is not to a click). This guitar received a tiny amount of tape saturation.
Right guitar sent to H-Delay, approximately 60 ms. This guitar received a tiny amount of NLS drive.

Volume automation was used every once in a while on the drum tracks and guitars. Sometimes to cut, sometimes to boost. Nothing too drastic.
Volume automation on vocals in a couple spots. No more than a 0.5dB change.

Every track was finished up with NLS (on a "Mike" setting), followed by J37 tape (early 70's formula).

Master chain: NLS Buss, SSL-G (about 1 dB of reduction during loudest moments), J37 tape.

The recording was great.
Here´s my mix:
WAV:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wd9lx9bm05odp ... o.wav?dl=0
MP3:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c9ucmcg7ncovn ... o.mp3?dl=0

And this is what I did:
Drums:
I started with the OH and Room mics to get a natural sound. Eqed and added a chamber reverb to get a bigger room.
Then started adding the close mics. Eqed most of them and shaped the Kick Out mic a little bit with a transient designer.
I added a sampled snare just to get more bottom.
Then compressed the drum bus (in parallel) to glue them all together.
Bass:
I hi passed the very low frequencies and used a multiband compressor to get an even low end.
Guitars:
The guitars where panned left and right to get more space for the vocals (but no hard panning). I liked the sound of the lead guitar. Just added a delay on the opposite side.
I reamped the rythm guitar because it sounded too clean to me. Just a little saturation from the amp to make it sit better on the mix.
Vocals:
I hi passed the Vocals and used two compressors to control the fast and slow transients. Then added a desser and boosted the hi end. I finally sent the vocals to a couple of reverbs and a slap delay.
Mix Bus:
Added top end, light compression on bass frequencies and tape saturation.
Loved the song! Thanks for sharing!
Giancarlo

Hi,

this is my first post and let me say thank you to the forum to give us an opportunity to learn and discover new things/genres. This is a nice place!

Wow, I have to say there are some great mixes and it´s nice to see you guys giving some inside of what you have done to/with your mix.

So, let me explain what is was looking for. I wanted a clean mix without any „old-fashioned tape emulation“ on the sum, this is a matter of taste and I want the mastering engineer/artist/client/your name here… to make a decision on this one. I am used to mix hip hop and R&B so at the end I wanted to feel the same „aura“ (punchy drums and round bass).


I started several times with a new mix before I was „ happy“ with the result. At the beginning I had problems with peaks and dynamics on all tracks, so things needed to be adjusted on every track/instrument on some parts by hand to tame the overall dynamics (sort of „gain rider“) so the compressor would not have to work so hard. This made things so much easier. Especially the bass guitar was very loud in the solo section, but also the snare poke out a bit to hard here and there.

So here is what I did:

Compression and eq on kick and snare, little cleaning on Hihat,OH and room mics >>>> building drum buss.

Drums are going through UAD Neve 1073 Preamp to give them more punch and depth but also to cut some of the very first transients, so I didn´t need compression here.

I reamped both guitars (UAD Marshall Plexi Classic, bounced in place) and bass guitar (Guitar Rig) to get more excitement and punch (and bottom end for the bass where I also added a cabinet sound to get it „wider“ in the mix), compression first, then eq. Both guitars building a stack with buss compression and eq , clipping for the very first transients.

Vocals were first printed with Neve Preamp (again, bounced in place to save some DSP) to give it more shine, presence and depth, then compression, again a UAD Preamp (UA 610-B) to add even more presence and clarity but also punch. Little polishing and LA-2A for the finish.

Guitars and vocals are sharing the same slap delay.

I added a flanger to one guitar and a tremolo fx to the other to get more „separation“ between them while mixing in mono and panned them slightly to the left and the right.

For the hip hop vibe I used the New York Compression trick on the drum buss and bass guitar, this glues the whole low end and makes it round.


Only tool on the stereo output is a gain plugin to raise the overall volume (since it´s not a mastering challenge).


So, this was really a mix challenge and it took me 24+ hours to get the job done. Can´t wait to get my hands on the next one!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1SZdbR ... ia2eFbxL2V

sto wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 11, 2018 10:49 CET

OctopusOnFire wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 04, 2018 21:59 CET

Here's my mix, I went for a natural sound with plenty of character and weight. I tried to take the best things of the performance and let them shine naturally.

MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1f12th ... P6G2etSGPB

Hi! Your mix sounds to me as if the band was playing in a different room (or behind a thick curtain). IMO it needs some more work on the overall frequency and volume balance.

Turn the volume up then

I agree there's a healthy amount of low end on that kick, but it was intended, and not that noticeable if you don't compare it to other entries. From what I've heard, people tend to abuse the mid range a lot (and I probably tend to abuse it much less than I should). When the song provider matches loudness levels, I'm confident that the actual differences will show up.

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



Please also check out the Songwriting Competition and do spread the word.

Hi, this is my submission for this contest:

Moe Joe - I'm Alright (Ramón Pankow aka vitaminx Mix) wav
Moe Joe - I'm Alright (Ramón Pankow aka vitaminx Mix) mp3

I really like old Blues recordings, so my goal was to come as close as possible to a 60s vintage sound, maybe resembling a live session, so I tried not to use too modern mixing techniques.
Of course no pitch or timing correction either.

First I applied Satin Tape emulator with vintage settings on all tracks, followed by a TesslaPro MKII console emulation. This already gives some saturation and warmth.
After the gain staging I added a hipass EQ on vocals and guitars, mainly to keep lows and low mids clean.
I also noticed some kick drum ringing 149Hz, which I suppressed with a dynamic EQ (Nova).
Then I added an extra bus for the hihat and overheads where I added some sparkle with a high shelf EQ.
There's also some parallel compression on the whole drum bus bus.
Some compression is used on bass, guitars and vox and EQ on most tracks.
Also I added delay and reverb to drums, guitar and vox.

I took a song by B.B. King as my main reference: B.B. King - The Thrill Is Gone

The main challenge for me was to control the low and high ends: the kick produced way to much lows for my taste and I tried to work around harshness from the crash and hihats.

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Hello everyone!

Here is my submission:
https://soundcloud.com/maxovrdrive/mc04 ... ez/s-zHKjS

I kept it as simple sounding as possible, although making the over-all vibe a bit more contemporary.

MASTER BUS
- compression for glue
- parallel EQ for clarity
DRM BUS
- compression for spank
- EQ for shaping
BASS BUS
- EQ for shaping
GTR BUS
- compression for glue
- EQ for shaping
VOX BUS
- compression for glue
- EQ for shaping
KICK
- eq
- compression
- parallel compression
SNARE
- eq
- compression
- transient designer
- plate
HH/OH/ROOM
- eq
- imaging
BASS
- compression
- eq
- saturation
- parallel compression
GTR1
- eq
- imaging
- room
GTR2
- eq
- compression
- imaging
- room
- ddl
VOX
- eq
- compression
- parallel eq for clarity/top end
- saturation
- ddl
- reverb
- imaging