Hello everyone. I’ve known about Mix Challenge for a long time and I’ve really enjoyed listening to everyone’s different mixes on lots of previous challenges, but this is my first time actually taking part. Thanks to Javier and the band for submitting the track, I really like it and I’ve been singing it to myself for a few days in mangled Spanish.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7x83gj6dir7zs ... 4.wav?dl=0
SESSION PREP
Firstly, I listened through to the song a few times while I prepared my Logic session (track order, colour coding, routing, all that jazz.) I then looped the whole song and listened through a few more times (whilst also checking the two reference tracks) and created a static mix using just the faders and the pan pots.
DRUMS
I started with the drums. The kick has a tiny bit of distortion, about 5db of gain reduction with a 1176 plugin, a low shelf boost at 60hz and a high shelf boost at 12khz with a 1073 plugin, it is also gated to reduce the length of the kick and to reduce the bleed. The snare also has some distortion and some broad eq with a 1073. The kick and snare are both being sent to a parallel compression aux (dbx 160) and a ‘thick tape’ aux (Airwindows ToTape5) which helped to fill out the snare a bit more. The snare is also being sent to a very short reverb (Valhalla VintageVerb), again, just to thicken the sound slightly. I copied and pasted a snare to replace some mishit snares (around bar 81 and bar 131). Not much was done to the overheads or hihats, just some eq to remove some low end and add some top end. All the tom tracks were muted apart from the single tom hit.
The drum bus has a few dB of compression with the bx_townhouse, some mid/side eq with a 1073, and some limiting with Loudmax to catch some of the louder snare hits.
PERCUSSION
Most of the percussion tracks have been high-passed and compressed with a dbx160 plugin and are then being sent to some reverb (Valhalla VintageVerb and Logic’s Spring Box guitar pedal) and an exciter. I never quite know where to place a mono shaker, so I used the iZotope Vocal Doubler on the egg shaker to add some width.
BASS
I split the bass into two. I used Waves’ MaxxVolume to level out the volume on the lower bass track, and the higher bass track has been eq’ed, compressed with a dbx-160 plugin, and distorted with a PSA1000 to emphasise some plucky string noise. The bass bus has a Decapitator for some more saturation, some more eq to remove some lower mids, and a bit of limiting for consistency.
GUITARS
The guitars are generally high-passed around 100hz, most have been eq’ed to carve out some space for each other, some have some light saturation with the Decapitator, the slide guitar has some very slow panning tremolo, and the solo guitar has some panning, delay, and saturation using the Soundtoys Effect Rack (Panman, Primal Tap, Crystallizer). The acoustic tracks were panned, compressed with a 1176, and saturated using the Waves Kramer Tape.
All the guitars are going through a bus which has a Soundtoys Devil-Loc, Decapitator, Echoboy, and an LA-2A plugin. The entire bus is being sent to the room reverb.
KEYS
The piano was low-passed to remove the hiss and I used a transient designer to boost the transients and reduce the sustain. The piano was sent to the exciter and a 1/4 and 1/8 stereo note delay. The organ was compressed with an LA2A plugin, eq’ed to remove some low end and boost the top, and also has some light tremolo.
LEAD VOCALS
There is quite a lot of stuff on the lead vocals. The track is going through a 1073 for the high-pass and to add some top end (12khz shelf), it is being saturated with the Kramer Tape. Next there is a Waves RVox, an 1176, and a de-esser. Finally, there is a stereo delay, this is automated to only come in during the vocal outro. The lead vocal is being sent to a number of auxes; a 1176 with about 10db of GR, an exciter, a plate reverb (Arturia Rev Plate 140), a slap delay (Kramer), a microshift, and an Echoboy 1/16th note delay.
BACKING VOCALS
I used the iZotope Vocal Doubler on each individual BV track. Then the BV bus was high-passed, saturated with the Kramer Tape, compressed with RVox and an LA2A, and de-essed. The BVs are also being sent to the vocal reverb aux, an exciter, and a microshift aux.
MIX BUS
Everything except the drums is also being sent to a parallel 1176. I’m quite new to this rear bus technique (so I’m probably using it in a relatively heavy-handed way), but I’m enjoying how it instantly thickens up the entire mix. I automated lots of elements of the song. The snare was automated for volume consistency, guitar and keys tracks were automated to emphasise certain riffs/parts and to get slightly wider on the choruses. The guitar solo has some panning automation, and the vocals have a lot of volume and delay mix automation too. The mix bus consists of a high-pass at 30hz, the bx_townhouse compressor (slowest attack, auto release, around 2db of gain reduction), the Kramer Tape for some slight saturation, and a very broad Pultec eq which I mix into from the very start. I used Ozone 8 to flick between the reference tracks and also to get within the right loudness range before bouncing.
LUFS integrated: -17.6
