MIX CHALLENGE - MC067 July 2020 - Winners announced

[MemphisB]

Hi All

great song to mix and some challenges . I liked the band Anteros that was referenced and went for a mix between that and a bit more poppy dance as an idea. I also wanted to make it a bit anthem like especially at the end. There are a lot of tracks and making them fit is always a problem for me so a spent some time finding there shine parts and tone fundamentals so i could eq and mix other stuff out of the way

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

I like to get the drums sounding live so i always start with drums then bass.

Kick & snare slight limiter (Loudmax)to level out-SGA1566 to add some depth -waves basic EQ to tone shape. Transpire shaper on snare to lengthen the body. mixed the pairs to get a nice solid sound.
Kick & snare sent to parallel with leveller la-2a style hard compressed & driven but 10ms attack to let some hit through
Toms pretty much au naturale
Hi hat gated and eq
OH's Waves standard EQ & SGA1566 to add some colour and bring up snare length and accent toms
Rooms waves standard EQ to again accent toms & snare with CA-2A to level out the top ends
All bussed to a drum buss with SLAX compressor on Fat with SN03 to add some tape saturation and a bit of EQ & Bump.
Room verb was Oril and set to vocal pre-delay with a few tweaks which to me gives a nice room sound.

Bass-SGA1566 for tone and some eq to shape , sent to a parallel track with headcrusher cutting the lows and driving the mids to make it stand out especially in the last disco stylee ending
Bussed with pultec PTEx controlling the power and slax again fat mode nice and steady

Guitars all EQ , some SGA1566 on cleaner ones , some reverb and balancing but not a lot. split into a lead and rythem buss so i could ride any parts .Buss had compressor and SNO3 to tone

Keys -a lot of eq and balancing , some side-chaining to make them work but also bussed to the rythem guitar buss so they all worked together. Used a True verb millennium verb to make them modern dance sounding but not too much.

Vocals- SGA1566 to tone the lows and give her voice some added depth -EQ-CA-2A-Rvox-TDR Nova & Kramer tape to shape and control. Split into two tracks for verse chorus using a TG12345 on chorus on vintage vocal to make it up front. Had a separate Parallel channel Using Scheppes style pultec trick which seem to level it out a lot .Split lead and backing to two separate busses I used some room reverb and REC-140 plate with Waves trueverb to get that modern pop sound.

Main Buss just SN01 with a couple DB and Kramer tape as just ticking over and TDR Nova to frequency control and give some movement.

i didn't think i would use so many plugins but most of them are doing a tiny bit. There is some automation but not a lot and i suppose most of the hard work was Eq based and SN03 on most busses as tape tone control.

I set drums bass and vocals to get them hopefully right and then brought the guitars and keys in etc to try and not overpower them
ps those out of tune bells haunt me lol

Keep on movin

Pete

[lackplayback]

Project organization and plugins used:
Drums > bx_cleansweep Pro > I Heart NY >> -19.0dB reverb send
|__Kick > Waves SSLChannel
| |__Kick In
| |__Kick Out
|__Snare > Waves SSLChannel
| |__Snr Top
| |__Snr Bot
|__Hi Hat > Eddie Kramer Drums > bx_cleansweep V2
|__OH > Eddie Kramer Drums
|__Room > Eddie Kramer Drums
|__Crush Room > bx_cleansweep Pro
|__Toms > bx_cleansweep Pro > Devil-Loc
| |__Tom 1 > C1 Gate
| |__Tom 2 > C1 Gate
| |__Tom 1 Dub > C1 Gate
| |__Tom 2 Dub > C1 Gate
| |__Tom 3 Dub > C1 Gate
Bass > bx_cleansweep Pro > VLA-2A
Guitar > bx_cleansweep_Pro >> -22.6dB reverb send
|__Vrse Cab1 > VEQ3
|__Vrse Cab2 > VEQ3
|__Lead Cab > VEQ3
|__P Chrs Cab > VEQ3 > C1 Comp
|__Chrs Cab1 > bx_cleansweep V2
|__Chrs Cab2 > bx_cleansweep V2
|__Crunch 1 > Little MicroShift
|__Crunch 2 > Little MicroShift
|__Crunch 3 > VEQ3
|__Crunch 4 > VEQ3
|__Funky Cab > VEQ3
Keys > bx_cleansweep V2
|__Lead Keys
|__Rhodes > bx_cleansweep V2
|__Pad > bx_cleansweep V2
|__Build and Swell > bx_cleansweep V2
Vocals > bx_cleansweep V2 > Waves DeEsser > RCompressor >> -13.4 reverb send
|__Lead Vocal > VPRE-73 > VLA-2A
|__Soft LV1
|__Soft LV2
|__Low LV > Devil-Loc > H-Delay Stereo >> -20.5 reverb send
|__Crunch LV > bx_cleansweep V2
|__BGV 1
|__BGV 2
|__Ahh > Little Microshift
Reverb > Abbey Road Plate

No master bus processing despite temptation

Approach summary:
Overall
- process at the bus level first then process individual instruments as needed
Drums
- remove rumble from instruments and bus
- process individual pieces of kit as needed
- gate the toms to remove excess noise
- add devil loc for some mild compression and character to all toms
- add NY compression to the drums bus for glue and pop
Bass
- remove low freqs that fight with other instruments
- level dynamics and add saturation with the LA2A
Guitar
- remove low freqs and accent the important freqs with eq boost
- add microshift to cruch guitars to get them a little "wider"
Keys
- clean up high and low freqs where needed
- keep the original sound design as much as possible
- automate volume on pads to increase impact during chorus endings
Vocals
- commit to ahhs sub-mix straight away to reduce all tracks to one fader
- clean all unwanted frequencies
- de-ess and compress at bus level to remove freq buildup from all vocal tracks
- classic neve 1073 and la2a combo on lead vocals
- find a spot for low lv! use delay and reverb to try and give it a place to live
- automate 2dB boost during the final two sections of the song to compete with the rest of the mix

Mastering The Mix - Expose Reports:
-20.6 LUFS INT
-3.36 dBTP

Thanks to all involved for a great song that was both fun and challenging to mix.

MC067__Paint_Me_In_Colour__Me_Without_You__lackplayback

[Mister Fox]

I noticed that there are elements in the rough mix that aren't present in the files given (like the countermelody in the chorus) - I assume all parties involved in this challenge are aware, but I wanted to point it out just in case!

I'd like to address this concern in a short information:

I've reached out to the song provider via mail, and also triple checked all files. It is true that the "Demo Mix" (notice the name!) slightly differs from the provided multi-tracks. However, there is no content missing..

The mix package contains the most recent iteration of the production. The "Demo Mix" was created way before the Integrity Check for this production was handled.

As the name implies, it is a "demo" (in case of MC067 - even just a mere preview) - you do not need to recreate or get there "1:1" during the competitions. The Mix Challenge is all about hearing your personal spin on a provided mix, as in "your mix" (not your "recreation" of the mix and arrangement changes - the latter being not allowed), based upon the material that has been given to you.



I will address the recurring question/concern regarding "the demo differing from the multi-tracks" in the Rules and Guidelines by Mix Challenge 068.

[TomImmon]

First of all: Great song and a very good recording of all the tracks. Guys, i love your music a lot and i even love the band Anteros (which i did not know before, but now i bought a lot of their music )

Mixed with Presonus Studio One 4.5 on Visaton NF400 and AKG K702

Mix 44.1k/32bit .wav
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wol33w299bc11 ... n.wav?dl=0

Of course all the tracks where organized in groups, all instruments go to an instrumental bus to have a reference for vocal riding, which i used on the main vocals.

Drums
Kick, Toms and Snare were gated.
Kick in and out get a basic eq (remove resonances), add some saturation from Abbey Road Saturation (ARS) and compressed the whole sound with SPL Iron and added some eq with SSL Channel from waves.

Snare bottom and top got a basic eq (remove resonances), add some saturation from Abbey Road Saturation (ARS), compressed with Major Tom, EQ with Omnichannel, pushed the transients with TS1. Small plate, a little bit gated reverb and a drum room from Abbey Road Chambers.

hiHat got SSL EQ and some Saturation from ARS.

Toms got Omnichannel EQ and some Saturation from MSaturation. I used a NLR Reverb from Phoenix. Same for the overdub toms, but more aggresive.

Room was compressed with „i hear NY“ and Pulsar Smasher.

OH were phase aligned to snare. Some basic EQ.


Keys. Just some EQ here and there, but a lot of MS work to got everything wider.

Bass runs through CLA Bass and Bx_opto

Guitar tracks got SPL Iron for clean sound and Acme Optical for crunsh sound. Just Lead cab got some EQ.

Main Vocals: Basic EQ with Nectar Elements, Tape Saturation and Abbey Road saturation, compressed with SPL Iron and a limiter to catch just some peaks. Main EQ with Milennia NSEQ-2.

BG Vocals heavy compressed and saturated.

Vocal bus got some sparkle with Celestial MX.

FX: Used Echo Boy for vocals and guitars (simple slap for postion, complex echos for depth). Small EMT140 plate for vocals. Phoenix Verb (rear Hall dark) for everything, to let the band play in the same room.

Main bus some glue from bx_townhouse. A bit of MS EQ to get LF more in the center and HF more to the sides. Some very light limiting just to catch some very nasty peaks.

Lot of volume automation and some paning.
LUFS -16.9 INT, -6.44 dbTP (checked with Expose from Mastering the Mix)

Cheers!

[SuC76]

Hello, everybody


Here is my mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ggTrC4 ... sp=sharing


DAW: Ableton Live

Drums:
Kick - split into 3 tracks, stock eq (sub, mid, higs), grouped and all treated with FG-401, FG-N and FG-Bomber with touch of TSAR-1R reverb
Snare - split into 3 tracks (sub, mid, printed reverb from outboard SPX900), grouped and treated with FG-401, FG-N, light fader aut. through the song

Bass:
Split into 4 tracks (Sub,DI, DI+BOD, printed SPX900 light chorus), grouped and treated with FG-116 and FG-N, light fader aut. through the song

Guitars:
Split into two tracks (one of them printed in mono and little added to stereo track) grouped, low-pass and hi-pass with stock eq, added little top with FG-S
light fader aut.through the song

Keys:
Grouped together, low-pass and hi-pass with stock eq, treated with FG-116 and FG-S, added slap delay, long delay and TSAR-1R plate
light fader aut. through the song

Vocals:
Lead - Ekramer VC with touch of comp. ,bass and treble eq, slap and verb, added slap delay, automated long delay and touch of TSAR-1R plate
Back - all treated the same
Grouped together, low-pass and hi-pass with stock eq, slightly removed low-mids, light fader aut. through the song

Mixbus:
VTM Brit-N, UAD-Pultec, VTM





Bye.
SuC76

[UprightJoe]

Such a fun song to mix! Thanks for providing it!

wav: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nlczq1vt50war ... e.wav?dl=0
mp3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ln39kyxfyywbo ... e.mp3?dl=0

DAW: Digital Performer

General approach:
Because the sample file was not actually a mix and was dry, I didn't use it as a reference. I did listen to the provided references a bit but I mostly just followed my ears on this one and did what felt right to me. That seemed to be in line with the song provider's guidance. I mixed it fully in the box, if I mention a piece of analog gear, I am actually referring to a plugin (likely a Universal Audio plugin). Generally speaking, any parts which are doubled are completely hard panned out to the sides (with the exception of Crunch 3/4, I pulled them in a little bit, maybe 9:00 and 3:00)

Vocals:
I used the low lead vocal in a couple of places where I felt it was really cool but I muted it for big swaths of the song where it wasn't quite working for me. I bussed the vocals into multiple groups for ease in processing them and automation. My primary vocal chain was UAD 1176->UAD LA2A->FF Pro Q2->soothe. I also did some parallel compression of the final vocal bus using a UAD Distressor. I also automated some filters on the vocals, there's one obvious telephone effect in the second verse but I also thinned out the vocals more subtly in a couple of places to emphasize certain phrases. I used a room reverb for the lead vocals an a plate for some of the backing vocals.

Drums:
I used the API Vision channel strip for gating and EQ on the kick and snare. I used H-Comp on the snare and toms. There were a couple of room modes ringing on the overhead and room tracks, I notched those out with Fabfilter. I bussed the drums together and compressed them a bit with the API 2500 compressor. Lastly, I bussed them together with the bass and applied a hair more compression with a UAD Distressor to glue them together. The snare has a bit of nonlinear reverb applied.

Bass:
I split the bass into two tracks. One is used for the majority of the song. It's going through Oxide for a bit of tape saturation followed by an 1176 and Fabfilter. The other track is used for the four on the floor part at the end. During that section I side chained the bass to the kick and I couldn't quite get it to pump with the settings I was using for the rest of the song. I used GTR to fatten up the bass sound a bit, applied two 1176's each taking a few db's out. Fabfilter again for EQ and then finally I used the compressor that ships with my DAW to side chain the bass to the kick.

Guitars:
I didn't do a ton of processing to the guitars. Many of them are completely unaltered other than being bussed to a common bus with a UAD Fairchild applying a couple of db of compression. I did apply a little EQ here and there with fabfilter. I also applied soothe to the funk guitar and the verse guitar.

Rhodes:
No processing but hard panned opposite the other keys (at the expense of the stereo effect but it worked better for me hard panned)

Lead Keys
I rolled of a bit of high end with Fabfilter. Not so much that it lost it's sparkle but without EQ it was cutting through everything even when it was at an extremely low volume. I wanted to bring up the volume a bit without it dominating everything.

Pads, Swell, Built, etc:
No processing other than volume rides.

Master Bus:
I put the UAD Studer emulation first on the master bus for a bit of tape-like glue and saturation. I followed it with the UAD Fairchild bouncing between 0-1 dB of gain reduction.

I think that's about it! Thanks again for the song!

[Franz]

Hi,

I do not understand. Do new arrivals read the posts ?

In his post # 36 of July 10 (it was not long ago), Mister Fox made (again)
it clear that the max level should not exceed -16 LUFS and a True Peak at -1 dBTP .

Our friend "suC76" again made me jump when listening to his mix: it is - 12.8 LUFS and 0.0 dBTP.

I will no longer post, it is a waste of time, each doing what he wants.

Franz

[Miłosz]

Hi,

Here is my mix:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lh8185edglz5l ... z.wav?dl=0

About my mix:

kick - ssl type channel strip : gate, eq, compressor
snare - ssl channel strip, fet compressor
toms, overheads - ssl eq
room - eq, API comp, reverb

vocals- ssl channel, fet comp, ssl eq, sends: stereo chorus, lexicon delay stereo, plate verb

bass- subbas compression, ssl eq, fet comp, stereo chorus
guitars - eq, limiter
keys - eq, comp

master bus: ssl comp 4db reduction, auto release, limiter 0,5 db reduction a few times.

[Mister Fox]

I do not understand.

There is nothing to understand or even further comment on.

I'll say it one final time for the current running Mix Challenge 067.

⚠	Moderation Message from Mister Fox
	To everyone being new to the forum, but also the longtime users, before you join the competition, please get acquainted with the well established and official Rules and Guidelines for the Mix Challenge. This is not to annoy you, but to create a common ground for every involved participant. You can always find the links to the rules in the first two posts of each game. We now also have a dedicated Rule Books section, where all rules and addenda are collected in one place. This is a pure mixing competition, not mixing and mastering. Please also double-check your files again before submitting. Maybe you did a render error (wrong bitrate, wrong sample rate), or forgot something prior to rendering. Your submission is final. Please document your edits. Make the files downloadable. You do not need to upload a MP3 file. Failing to adhering to the Rules and Guidelines will put you at risk of a disqualification without any further comment.

Please try to look further than the rim of your platter. The Mix Challenge community is about "learning from experience", and one of the (simulated) "experiences" is to provide your edits within given boundaries.

Including today, there are 9 days left to submit your edit.

[SEEL Mixing Farm]

Hi everyone, this is my mix! Beautiful song supported by the tracks recorded very well, it already sounded well in flat ! .. it was not difficult or problematic to mix everything .. Below the link to my mix and some screenshots of my work. Hope you like it.

Daw used: Presonus Studio One 4.5
Plugins used: Slate Bundle Suite, Izotope, Presonus

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fejnx7f2lxiy0 ... m.wav?dl=0

www.dropbox.com/s/osf0pimne4vc44x/Bus%2 ... %20.png?dl

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e024rzoj2rd8a ... 201.png?dl

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yx9jmpvxx056p ... 202.png?dl

]https://www.dropbox.com/s/p610wwyvfn7bf ... 203.png?dl

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ba1pr114pdlv1 ... 204.png?dl

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xwvzgx6nwh24p ... %20.png?dl

https://www.dropbox.com/s/d7nfsvv7okmgb ... ect.PNG?dl

(Edit: Pictures were unavaiable in the reply, hope it's right now)