Mix Challenge

Hi There
Just a few days of work to mix, equalize and edit the tracks. I use Native plugin of Cubase and I tried to bring out the best in them.
Few Dynamic Processors and many automations to not to destroy the dynamics of the song
This is my first mix contest I hope you enjoy my job
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EeqlYo ... SI8dW/view

Nice song. Thank you Cezar!

My goal was to achieve tonal balance, dynamics, clarity, and expressiveness suited (in my opinion) to the song style. I used both processed and DI tracks. Extensive automation was used to meticulously balance levels, increase instrumentation clarity, and to apply various plugin responses, panning, etc. A good amount of time was done cleaning up lead vocal sibilance. As usual, the stereo field was important. There’s a quite a bit going in this song so care was taken to carve out spaces for the various instrument parts to create a sonically pleasing and balanced stereo image. Master Bus plugins: VU, gain utility, glued compressor, tape emulation, analogue summing, and stereo/mono reference. This is on the edge of the guidelines (but within them) as I feel it leaves plenty of area for mastering. LUFS/dB levels are also within an acceptable range for mastering standards.

DAW: Studio One 4 Professional
Plugins: Various including Waves, FabFilter, Softube, Acon Digital, Cytomic, Blue Cat, Klanghelm, Noise Ash, Presonus, and Matthew Lane.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/595g9ersynsb3 ... L.wav?dl=0

Hi ! I hope everyone is feeling good

Here is my take on this song: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uHe3BM ... sp=sharing

It was really cool to work on this track

For the intro I wanted a nice stereo guitare so I used two different acoustic mic track to pan them left and right (and add some delay to only one to make it sound wide)
Some normal processing for the rest of the elements

For me the big work was to enhance the transition between verse and chorus, so I used a lot of automations for that

The other issue was the drum sound on the chorus, I used a little trick to make the snare punchier and wider:
Duplicate the overhead track, put a reverb room on it (40% or more) and then lot of compression, Eq, and finally a gate with the sidechain enable triggered by the snare track
The vocal track on the chorus had a lot of problem frequencies, I used a multiband compressor to really control those mids

Finally some normal bus compression on the master to make the track move like I wanted too and a smilly EQ curve

Greetings to all,
I hope everybody is keeping safe and healthy.
Please find below my mix. Many thanks to the Mix Challenge team and to Cezar for providing this nice track.
Good luck to all participants!
Pablo

DAW = Cubase 10.0.50 Build 301
Integrated LUFS = -14.8
True Peak = -3.1 dB

Download link -> Wave file, 44100 kHz

Mix Preparation
Preliminary raw balance: setting levels, panning mono recordings, ...
High-pass filtering on most tracks
Route individual mic channels to single mixer channel (on drums, guitars and vocals)
Polarity and phase check
Applied Cubase’s silence stripping tool + deleted unwanted artefacts on vocal, synths and guitars
Manually deleting spill on toms

Drums
Kick: EQ for compatibility with bass guitar, low-ratio tube compression to keep dynamics. On the top of that, a side-chain gate helped to reduce unwanted spill signals.
Snare: Routed top and bottom mic channels to single mixer channel. Phase inversion for the top snare. A bit of EQ and tube compression, distorsion for richer harmonics and a touch of reverb. On the top of that, a side-chain gate helped to reduce unwanted spill signals.
HH: HPF low end, tape saturation, de-esser and plate reverb
Toms: Routed rack, tom 1 & 2 mic channels to single mixer channel. Applied tube compressor, tape saturation and plate reverb for space
OH: Routed left and right mic channels to single mixer channel, tape saturation. Stereo enhancer for space
Room: Routed left, right and center mic channels to single mixer channel. A bit of tape saturation.

Acoustic guitars
EQ (HPF and gentle high shelving filter), tube compression and reverb

Electric guitars
Type 1: Tube compressor, a bit of distortion and acoustic echo processor (Echoboy)
Type 2: Vintage and tube compressors, heavy distortion
Type 3: Tube compressor and acoustic echo processor (Echoboy)

Bass
Double-checked kick and bass relationship and some small EQ manipulations
Added a bit of distortion for bulk
At the end of the processing chain, added RBass for nicer harmonics and body

Synthesizers
Synth 1: plate reverb and stereo enhancer
Synth 2: distortion and panning L/R with gusto

Vocals
Lead A: EQ for increasing body and reducing nasal + sibilance, gentle tube compressor, distortion, de-esser + parallel tape saturation for taste and gentle reverb
Lead B: characterful compressor, distortion and de-esser
Background: tube compressor and characterful reverb

Main Mix Buss
Gentle tube compressor for gluing the mix together

Waveform showing the track dynamic range and headroom
Spectrogram (all channels mixed)

Hi there!

Heres my mix wav on Google drive : https://drive.google.com/open?id=12Iuqk ... PG6OmLzBfW

Screenshot(4k): https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Qa5IN ... 1XpfK3VMUv

I love this song, so I mixed with good feelings.

Not put much reverb and delays on a mix, just using a Console1 of Softube mainly. It always makes me more fast and great mixes.

Thank you for sharing this song on Mix Challenge Cezar! Hope you guys enjoy this mix

Hi,

nice song with a very good arrangement, I find. Another great thing, song provider did not make to much restrictions and supported DI tracks. I used the DI tracks for Bass and guitars. For bass I did a DI track and a reamped one. All the e-guitars were reamped too with TH-U. The kick got some bottom with MH Thump. The reverbs came from Valhalla and the delays from D16, so the chorus. All in all not a complicated task to mix, more a matter of taste. I had great fun, hope the provider enjoys it too.

wah: bluesation mix

Hi all,
this is my attempt to mix:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5eb244f1tkfsc ... m.wav?dl=0

For all track are used:
- Waves Q10;
- Waves C4;
- Db ProComp.

AUX Effect;
- Waves TrueVerb;
- Waves SuperTap;

Good luck to all.
VasDim

Excellent track and fantastic recording.

Here is my mix, tried to create modern pop-rock sound with plenty of space in the mix for all elements.

Wav: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3quqxedp6uxoo ... n.wav?dl=0

Mixed in Logic Pro X in stages. First stage was to apply soothe plugin on most tracks to tackle resonances. Vocal was levelled, de-essed and compressed and all processed tracks bounced.

Second stage involved balancing and panning with more precise EQs and compression together with reverbs and delays.

Good luck to all participants and stay safe!

Hi there!


Wav:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sxjnbb4dk3l3m ... n.wav?dl=0

So this time, everyone noticed the well recording tracks, drums, we all know especially the snare needs a very nice understanding of gate effect, middle release and ready to go, but my little touch on these are the toms, i tend to replicate those abbey's toms and i am really happy with the result.

Bass is turned analog instead of smelling very organic.

Vocals with just deessers and warmth, though if i burn the tonality, it will give more scar.

Burnt elec guitars, so sad.

The rest are for making the mix more full

Main mix: more rock in chorus, more calm in verse, but less is more and technical stuffs are boring sometimes. Thus, final vision is to wipe the scars into space. Yes, i made it more stellar but not too much.

Thanks!

Hi there, very good quality tracks and music performance!

Drums:

Honey by AA on BD and Snare plus a pitched down smashed snare track that triggers a plate rev.
Gate and transient shaper on Toms
Decapitator and Devil Lock on Rooms with a Plus 10db Compressor on the group

Bass:

Some eq
Parallel track with Goliath

TRD Nova for Mid Control
Fet Compressor

AC Guitars:

Honey strip on Group
Echoboy with slapback


GTRs:

Celestial by AA
Decapitator
Big Ceil by AA for eq
Fet Compressor

Room Reverb

Synths:

Crystalizer delay
Radiator and EQ on group

Lead VOX:

EQs
Goliath parallel track
Little Plate reverb

Deesser and Honey comp on Group

Back VOX:

EQs
Microshift on A e B
Echoboy delay

Deesser and Honey comp on Group

Master:

Tape by Softube
Molot for Buss Comp

Here it is:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2mswphxqn8sup ... e.wav?dl=0