MIX CHALLENGE - MC062 February 2020 - Winners announced

[Coiled_Ear]

Hi to All and thanks to the author for getting this opportunity to mix it.
The mixing was a bit tricky especially in area with Drum loops, some transient designers and compressor and fx made the work.
I mixed this in Ableton live and used Fabfilter Proq3, Denise Perfect Room as main reverb (but there was already pretty much reverb on the track so I used it for gluing drums and something). And others plugins came from Ableton, Drum Buss as transient designer, EQ eight, compressor and glue compressor. I used the last one on the master buss for just catching 1-2 db and nothing else more.
I mixed this track using only mobile rig (laptop) and mobile monitoring - kiss moded Sennheiser hd650 + ToneBoosters morphit correction (Harman response target). Never check this mix on my monitors just to stay curious how this can translate. Of course I prepared this setup pretty much before and compared to the monitors how LowMidHigh sound, how much scene is wide or narrow and etc. Also I checked the mixed with TonalBalance control 2 from Izotope just to be sure that everything sits ok in the reference region (bass heavy). Have a nice day guys!

MP3 - https://www.dropbox.com/s/67i7r4wqhz3wy ... r.mp3?dl=0
WAV - https://www.dropbox.com/s/iqe6wkfe6v3wy ... r.wav?dl=0

[qhtrvw425]

Hello everyone, this is my mix challenge submission.
WAV - https://www.dropbox.com/s/bpd6yu4ohltu6 ... 5.wav?dl=0

I focused on clarity of whole mix.
Mainly used plugins - VMR(Especially Audified U73b), VTM, Eiosis air EQ, Fabfilter Pro-G
On the bus - VBC, Clariphonic, Fabfilter Saturn
Reverb/Delay - Lexicon, Crystalizer, VSC
Thank you!

[Waleed Morris]

Hello everyone,
Very beautiful piece of music, Epic, Cinematic .. so the dynamic range here maybe a bit different! so what I did here is a bit focused on the epic melody moment made it a bit bigger and vibe, I hope you like it.
-First things first, working with the loops! it's a most inconvenient way to mix (to me) but I must work as it gets. so 3 loops going to individuals splitter aux tracks split the signal to low, mid, high and working from there.
No fancy things for the rest of the mix. used eq and compression (wisely) to glue everything together, saturation, Reverb, and dealy.

-Loudness: -17.0 LUFS, TP Max -1.4 dBTP (By NUGEN), any comments or feedback are most welcome.

My submission.

MC062_GaryRegnier_Counting On A Hero_Wizzo.wav
MC062_GaryRegnier_Counting On A Hero_Wizzo.mp3

Cheers!

[loupi]

thanks for the opportunity, i enjoyed mixing this. i tried to emphasize the groove a little more than in the reference-mix, as i liked the rhytmic interaction between the parts. As there was a lot of low-end most of the work went in to managing it, whilst retaining a maximum. Besides eq-ing i tried to separate things in the low-end by adding even vs. uneven distortion to different parts. Besides that i gave most of the high-end space (10k+) to a limited amount of tracks (fe. the vocals) so these would sit easy on top of the mix. i also tried to give the synths some analogue grind and tried to create some depth in the mix. hope you enjoy!

wav: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9vpjazoglxgnh ... i.wav?dl=0

[jpanderson80]

Hi everyone,
First time contest participant here. Thanks for doing this. I was in between projects and really appreciated having this available. And... I don't get to always mix, so it's excellent to have good practice and reminders on keeping the important things important!

Question about the process: What is the thinking behind hosting a second round? Is this a limited round of participation? Thanks for feedback.

Good luck to all.

Overall Approach (including plugins):
Clean up/de-resonate/Iron&Pink3Pre - Edit the tracks for any start/stop pops and fades; de-res the tracks using Nova GE and/or subtractive EQ to clean up the mush; True Iron and Pink3 Pre amp used across tracks. The biggest challenge to me was cleaning up the mid/low mid across the tracks. So much overlap in frequencies made for a mushy mix.

Stems/Busses into shape - Organize into busses and work those busses until they are working together as one. Every buss has TrueIron Here’s my organization and plugins:
Vox - Omega, MJUC,Sie-Q mid lift, Coral Baxter high shelf, lush Verbs - Valhalla Room and Little Plate
Music - Sie-Q - 1.0 dB bumps on low, high and saturation
Bass - EQ and Saturation Knob to help it cut; MJUC
Drums - loads of work… Lots of cutting EQ; Pink3 EQ for boosts; API 550A; Pink3 Comp; Stillwell Rocket and Elysia Karacter for crush parallel channels; Buss gets Coral Baxter, Slate Grey, Pink3 EQ; Kotelnikov to reign in the low end; Vertigo VSM-3; Burnley73 for that neve thickness down low; Deveil-loc for the crush WAR drums channel;
Synths - MJUC; API 550 B for sculpting
Strings - Omega and MJUC and a touch of widener
FX - Valhalla Room (can’t stop won’t stop) and Little Plate for verbs; Ping Pong Pan - new one for me but used to get some interesting movement and separation on the war drums -
Rear - being fed by Music Buss only - Rocket and Elysia Karacter

Hardware - each stem is run through separately and printed back to project:
Tube stage for warmth and separation of L & R; Pultec clones for slight EQ - mostly bottom and top end plus tubes and transformers; 500 Colour - tape, Transformers, API OP amp; Custom Transformer box (Cinemag Steel)… my transformer theme should be plain to see by now.

Final Touches - edits to the printed tracks are basically just cutting all the dead space to avoid any potential noise build up, as would noticeable during mastering; Automation took place on Vox, Music, Synths, Strings, Rear and the mix buss.

Mix Buss - used from the beginning to help give broad strokes to the project. I’m a big fan of Graham Cochrane's “top-down” style of approaching mix buss processing: working backwards from mix buss to individual tracks. (Actually, I'm not sure if that's his term or not. I just heard it from him first.)
True Iron, Vertigo VSM-3, Celestial MB for texture, slight but broad strokes on low shelf EQ’s and some of that all important high frequency taming; FG-Mu for brightness 0-1dB GR, Pink3Comp 0-1.5 dB GR for color and tightness. I usually choose the Kotelnikov GE comp for mix buss duty, but it didn’t make the cut this time, and as the intention is to not have loudness come into play, it seemed like a good idea to omit it.

Overall Notes:
I thought that this track suffered from the digital sheen quite a bit and I tried to manage that with some more organic girth. The vocal effects and strings were wonderful and with automation brought a good amount of lift to the track, especially at the climax. I envisioned the movie being edited with this musical lift helping to accentuate the emotion of the post-battle victory. The stems responded tremendously to the hardware treatment and really helped provide spread and overall depth and was not present ITB. I love the war drums and the strings. Excellent choice in those two elements.

Thanks again.

WAV:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hi6Ri ... kFjUKYQAdC

SCREENSHOTS:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=12KUjM ... kgMY4O9uWZ
https://drive.google.com/open?id=130ni8 ... rejej-TDdd

[Clueless]

Many thanks to Mister Fox and Gary for the mix challenge and the track to mix.

Mixed in Reaper using Airwindows and assorted freeware, using HiFi speakers and tested on a small sonivox speaker, which showed some speaker judder
So, anyway
The effects which included Single-Ended Triode which works as a de-reverb only on drums though
An assortment of delays set up like a binson along with a selection of 32 bit synthedit effects and reaper EQ, and Airwindows reverbs, for space and thickness.
Master, I did use Qrange,Tape, set to 0.00 and buttercomp, and channel6 dark along with youlean and Span.

Sorry its not a massive list, I'm just not near my computer now and my memory is terrible, if this is any good and you have any questions, please ask, I will do my best to answer
I'll try and add more detail, just a bit

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/49288jiaipxl ... ueless.wav

This is the link, hope it works

[EchoOread]

Hello. Thank you for the music. I enjoyed mixing it. I wanted to have it a little open, spacey, and distant with the backdrop of the imagery provided. I used to listened to Enya; and this song reminded me of it. I have an EQ and a compressor across all tracks. The EQs are mainly used to notch out regions of frequencies where I thought instruments were fighting. I cut out most of the low end on the strings and the pads for the bass+kick. The voices were strapped with a delay and paralleled to bring up the body and help cut thru the dense pad+strings. I mainly used the compressor to shave the tail end of instruments I thought had too much reverb built in and then inject my own in to create the space I wanted. The war drums was tough to tame since it drove the segment forward but with tons of rumbles. I HP the low end and gave it some mid to help it cut thru the mix. I also strapped a distortion behind it to bring up some higher harmonics to help it peak out a bit. Again, thanks for the music. It was awesome!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1LkWZO ... dP38XxxFCL

[tomigoi]

Hi all

Below is my submission for Counting On A Hero

Mixing notes:
- Daw: Logix Pro X
- I want to stick with simplicity and use very basic mixing techniques to give the piece its clear message.
- Low cut and high cut automation for the drum track is used around 2:00
- All the EQ and Dynamic plug-ins for each tracks are from Logic native plug-ins
- Added reverb for Vox and BGV are FabFilter Pro-R, routing through busses.
- Delay for Vox is Wave's Tape Delay J37

Best regards,

[White Punk OD]

echoread can u plz post a WAV?

[beyondthemind]

This is my second try, and i think this went a lot better than last time. Really liked the song, was a lot of fun making everything work together. There where a lot of different sounds and instruments, and making every single one heard was a bit struggling, but i think i managed.

MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XhWvE ... yhlBDVPCCi
WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1o4CVK ... 1qvMZICsvR

Pictures:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WhCDC ... -5X4_9-2Uw
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1imDAU ... 2Q2TnZAQfK

Drums: Just the normal stuff like EQ, compression when needed and some panning. The Azure-drums also got a bit of Native Instrument Supercharger on it to make in punchier och fuller, and also has some highpass to make it less muddy. The hats got a some stereo expander and panned to right, and the shaker a tiny tiny bit of phaser and panned to the left. The Snare a big reverb, snare field som wide reverb.

Bass: The Omni-bass first got a bit of waveshaping, compression and EQing. Shortnoise-bass got some cleaning with transient control, EQing, and then i actually went against all the rules and added compression after the EQ, i just wanted it to sound like that. Finally stereo expander to make it wide. My goal was making the Omni-bass in the middle playing the deep bass, and Shortnoise-bass wide with focus on midbass.

The 80's synths just got some EQing and panning.

Vocals: C pad and harmony got some compression, EQing and stereo expansion. To make it stand out a little bit and be more noticeable i added some stereo delay.
The Ethera i tried to make be further back in the mix with some EQing and big reverb. DoPahTeh got quite a bit of compression and then EQ. No panning.

Retro Synths: Wanted them do be clearly heard without taking over. Retro 1 got a lot added around 3,5khz and a bit panned to right, and Retro 2 added at 2khz and a bit panned to left. Also some transient control on Retro 2 to make it a bit cleaner.

The Strings i wanted really wide and big. Only needed to do some EQing, and panned "strings and sopranos" a lot to the left and "symphony" a lot to the right. In a real orchestra this isn't correct of course, but yeah... i think you get it :-)

Music Box: EQing only.
Stylus riser: EQ, a bit of phaser and a wide reverb.
Wind: EQ, stereo expander and big wide reverb.
Vocalise intro: EQ, stereo expander, a lot of delay and reverb.

My goal was to make it wide and big, but with some parts dry and some parts with a lot of reverb.
The master got just a slight bit of Native Instruments buss compression to glue the mix together a bit. No mastering.