MIX CHALLENGE - MC102 February 2025 - Submissions until 21-FEB-2025 23:59 UTC+1/CET

[scottfitz]

Drums: Basically the Drums were directed to 4 buses, Kick, snare, toms and Resto where I already have some processes in my template like compression and saturation, in turn these go to the Drum bus, where I have a hornet vu meter so that the drums always hit at -6 peak to the processes that follow, back box, tr5 comprexxor, coffeepun, and a soft Clipper, also some parallel processes like distortion, parallel compression and reverse. There is automation in the volume of the overheads in the striillo to give it more emotion and also in some of the parallel processes.

Bass: I adjust the volumes of the 3 bass tracks, and send everything to a bus where I compress everything very strongly, equalize, also some parallel processes like compression, some early reflections to give it some depth, and distortion.

Electric guitars: use high and low pass filters at about 120 and 8k, use some boosts to emulate cabinets, Crunch, Dist L and Dist R I send them to a bus where I cut around 400hz to give them clarity and add a waves metafilter that increases 0. 5db in the strong beats and in some weak beats to give it movement, it is very subtle, for just use studio one pedalboard and add a couple of pedals to give it more presence on the sides use a chorus pedal, reverb and a delay in 1/8, the GTR Tremolo, it has an automation in the panning, I increased it about 5db in 3k so that it overdrives on that side and I put it at a fairly low volume, wha gtr, has an Autopan at 30% and I put a limiter that I really do not remember why I did it, in the guitars there is a lot of automation of volumes because between verse and chorus sometimes they were in a plane that seemed to me that it was not the right one,

Keys: I equalized them more than anything to take them out of the middle of the guitars, to leave as much space as possible for them, in the keys bus, I filtered the sides to 227, the phase meter of studio one gave me phase problems, I put a tape emulation of ik multimedia to remove a little digital color, compressed with idx, and put a high pass filter at 10k.

BG Vocals: I only compressed them very hard with bx opto, in BG Verse as in the lead voice, there were some consonants with too pronounced transients, I tried many ways to control them and finally I ended up smoothing them with a transient designer, in the BG bus I used a bus compressor, an ott, denise bad tape to give it color and I controlled it a little with dynamic eq.

Lead: the lead vocal I divided it in 2 tracks, one for the verse and another for the chorus, to save me some automation, but basically the 2 are the same, what changes are the parallel processes, the 2 are compressed and equalized in the same way, only the chorus has an increase in the 200k zone, the parallel processes are enough, there is parallel compression but by bands, there is chorus, 3 types of reverb, 3 delays, and a lot of automation in the lead vocal bus, I tweaked a little the eq and added tape saturation.

All this goes to 4 buses, Drum mix, Bass Mix, Musica Mix, and Vocals Mix, in which I gave some eq tweaks, that goes to the mix bus and 2 different types of parallel compression, in the mixbus there is a compressor bus, a multiband compressor, use hornet thrust to clean up peaks and increase the overall loudness, and I think nothing else.

I would like if some charitable soul could give me a feed back, especially of the bad things to have a reference for a next time because so far I have never been selected, I leave you my mix below ---> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W6q-3X ... VxVj2/view

I think you've done a great job. Maybe the lead vox are a bit high? your mix sounds very clean, almost too clean! I think if I were you I'd sneak up the guitars + keys on the chorus, but maybe not as high as I put them on mine! Listening to yours I think my issues with congestion on the chorus were because I had too much of a fight over the midrange. Anyway, great job and good luck

[i-dont-like-mixing]

My mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ELkRo1 ... sp=sharing

Drums: sidechain saturation, compression, gate, EQ, parallel comp
Bass: gate, heavy saturation
Guitar: slight EQ, heavy saturation
VOX: parametric EQ

[floodo]

Drums: Basically the Drums were directed to 4 buses, Kick, snare, toms and Resto where I already have some processes in my template like compression and saturation, in turn these go to the Drum bus, where I have a hornet vu meter so that the drums always hit at -6 peak to the processes that follow, back box, tr5 comprexxor, coffeepun, and a soft Clipper, also some parallel processes like distortion, parallel compression and reverse. There is automation in the volume of the overheads in the striillo to give it more emotion and also in some of the parallel processes.

Bass: I adjust the volumes of the 3 bass tracks, and send everything to a bus where I compress everything very strongly, equalize, also some parallel processes like compression, some early reflections to give it some depth, and distortion.

Electric guitars: use high and low pass filters at about 120 and 8k, use some boosts to emulate cabinets, Crunch, Dist L and Dist R I send them to a bus where I cut around 400hz to give them clarity and add a waves metafilter that increases 0. 5db in the strong beats and in some weak beats to give it movement, it is very subtle, for just use studio one pedalboard and add a couple of pedals to give it more presence on the sides use a chorus pedal, reverb and a delay in 1/8, the GTR Tremolo, it has an automation in the panning, I increased it about 5db in 3k so that it overdrives on that side and I put it at a fairly low volume, wha gtr, has an Autopan at 30% and I put a limiter that I really do not remember why I did it, in the guitars there is a lot of automation of volumes because between verse and chorus sometimes they were in a plane that seemed to me that it was not the right one,

Keys: I equalized them more than anything to take them out of the middle of the guitars, to leave as much space as possible for them, in the keys bus, I filtered the sides to 227, the phase meter of studio one gave me phase problems, I put a tape emulation of ik multimedia to remove a little digital color, compressed with idx, and put a high pass filter at 10k.

BG Vocals: I only compressed them very hard with bx opto, in BG Verse as in the lead voice, there were some consonants with too pronounced transients, I tried many ways to control them and finally I ended up smoothing them with a transient designer, in the BG bus I used a bus compressor, an ott, denise bad tape to give it color and I controlled it a little with dynamic eq.

Lead: the lead vocal I divided it in 2 tracks, one for the verse and another for the chorus, to save me some automation, but basically the 2 are the same, what changes are the parallel processes, the 2 are compressed and equalized in the same way, only the chorus has an increase in the 200k zone, the parallel processes are enough, there is parallel compression but by bands, there is chorus, 3 types of reverb, 3 delays, and a lot of automation in the lead vocal bus, I tweaked a little the eq and added tape saturation.

All this goes to 4 buses, Drum mix, Bass Mix, Musica Mix, and Vocals Mix, in which I gave some eq tweaks, that goes to the mix bus and 2 different types of parallel compression, in the mixbus there is a compressor bus, a multiband compressor, use hornet thrust to clean up peaks and increase the overall loudness, and I think nothing else.

I would like if some charitable soul could give me a feed back, especially of the bad things to have a reference for a next time because so far I have never been selected, I leave you my mix below ---> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W6q-3X ... VxVj2/view

I think you've done a great job. Maybe the lead vox are a bit high? your mix sounds very clean, almost too clean! I think if I were you I'd sneak up the guitars + keys on the chorus, but maybe not as high as I put them on mine! Listening to yours I think my issues with congestion on the chorus were because I had too much of a fight over the midrange. Anyway, great job and good luck

Thanks for your comments scottfitz, from the beginning I wanted to make a very clean mix, and yes, at the last moment I decided to lower the volume of the guitars and synthes and raise the vocals (foolishly), I deviated from my path probably because of tired ears, and I got a mix more than an indie rock, an indie pop rock, with the vocals in your face, now listening to it again from time to time I feel like I used as reference some song by the weeknd, by the way I always liked your mixes, it's one of the mixes I always download to compare them with mine in expose, and again thanks a lot for your comments.

[MemphisB]

Drums: Basically the Drums were directed to 4 buses, Kick, snare, toms and Resto where I already have some processes in my template like compression and saturation, in turn these go to the Drum bus, where I have a hornet vu meter so that the drums always hit at -6 peak to the processes that follow, back box, tr5 comprexxor, coffeepun, and a soft Clipper, also some parallel processes like distortion, parallel compression and reverse. There is automation in the volume of the overheads in the striillo to give it more emotion and also in some of the parallel processes.

Bass: I adjust the volumes of the 3 bass tracks, and send everything to a bus where I compress everything very strongly, equalize, also some parallel processes like compression, some early reflections to give it some depth, and distortion.

Electric guitars: use high and low pass filters at about 120 and 8k, use some boosts to emulate cabinets, Crunch, Dist L and Dist R I send them to a bus where I cut around 400hz to give them clarity and add a waves metafilter that increases 0. 5db in the strong beats and in some weak beats to give it movement, it is very subtle, for just use studio one pedalboard and add a couple of pedals to give it more presence on the sides use a chorus pedal, reverb and a delay in 1/8, the GTR Tremolo, it has an automation in the panning, I increased it about 5db in 3k so that it overdrives on that side and I put it at a fairly low volume, wha gtr, has an Autopan at 30% and I put a limiter that I really do not remember why I did it, in the guitars there is a lot of automation of volumes because between verse and chorus sometimes they were in a plane that seemed to me that it was not the right one,

Keys: I equalized them more than anything to take them out of the middle of the guitars, to leave as much space as possible for them, in the keys bus, I filtered the sides to 227, the phase meter of studio one gave me phase problems, I put a tape emulation of ik multimedia to remove a little digital color, compressed with idx, and put a high pass filter at 10k.

BG Vocals: I only compressed them very hard with bx opto, in BG Verse as in the lead voice, there were some consonants with too pronounced transients, I tried many ways to control them and finally I ended up smoothing them with a transient designer, in the BG bus I used a bus compressor, an ott, denise bad tape to give it color and I controlled it a little with dynamic eq.

Lead: the lead vocal I divided it in 2 tracks, one for the verse and another for the chorus, to save me some automation, but basically the 2 are the same, what changes are the parallel processes, the 2 are compressed and equalized in the same way, only the chorus has an increase in the 200k zone, the parallel processes are enough, there is parallel compression but by bands, there is chorus, 3 types of reverb, 3 delays, and a lot of automation in the lead vocal bus, I tweaked a little the eq and added tape saturation.

All this goes to 4 buses, Drum mix, Bass Mix, Musica Mix, and Vocals Mix, in which I gave some eq tweaks, that goes to the mix bus and 2 different types of parallel compression, in the mixbus there is a compressor bus, a multiband compressor, use hornet thrust to clean up peaks and increase the overall loudness, and I think nothing else.

I would like if some charitable soul could give me a feed back, especially of the bad things to have a reference for a next time because so far I have never been selected, I leave you my mix below ---> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W6q-3X ... VxVj2/view

Hi Great mix sounds really clear,

MB

[flik]

Hi everyone!

I finally found time for Mix Chalenge and mainly because of the song The lyrics are really quite depressing, but obviously for a reason. The original mix was also a stimulus, which was kind of harsh for the mood of the lyrics, the details are not audible, although they were probably recorded for a reason.

Although the theme of the text leads to suicide, I did not want to emphasize pathos but the struggle with oneself. Therefore, the dynamics are created exclusively by adding and removing instruments, which IMO, was the purpose of so many recording tracks.

I mixed in the Reaper DAW with UAD and WAVES plugins. Monitors are YAMAHA HS50 and some computer sub Double check on Gigabite computer speakers I had the most work with the kick, which is kind of poor quality, and with the bass, which I reamped with a UAD Ampeg SVT3 & 8x10 box. For the bass, I cut the Bass Amp line in the solo, because it was too powerful when the Fuzz comes on. For drums, I worked in subgroups, with an emphasis on OH and ROOM. There are also other subgroups mainly due to the addition of the Studer tape recorder. I put a medium plate reverb on the vocals to make them more distant, according to the content of the lyrics.

Because the song sucked me in, I made the mix myself in three hours and after a good night's sleep with minor level corrections and EQ settings for another hour. I hope the authors like it, regardless of the success achieved on the challenge.

Here is the MIX track: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z6vqpI ... drive_link

True Peak: -1,3
LUFS-I: -18,1

[Martial.Levesque]

Hello!

I really enjoyed working on this song and appreciated the excellent production, great job! The vocal performance is really impressive, i really like it!

You can download my mix version here:

https://ln5.sync.com/dl/63bd07d20#rczhe ... f-zhhyde7b

I mixed using Yamaha HS8 monitors with an HS8S subwoofer in a small treated room, which isn’t perfect. To double-check everything, I also used Sonarworks SoundID on a pair of HD650 headphones.

- My goal for this song was to create a clear mix without being to bright. I focused on balancing the lows and highs.
- I aimed for the vocals to sound warm and clear to maintain the intimate vibe.
- The distorted guitars in the chorus were used to create a punchy transition.
- For the acoustic guitar at the end, where it stands alone with the vocal, I enhanced it with reverb and low-mid presence to make it shine.
- I also adjust the overall balance to make sure that the mix translate well on a multiple of speakers.

Here’s an overview of what I did in the mix:

- Kick and Bass: I EQ’d the kick and bass and applied sidechain compression on the bass to create space for the kick.
- Snare: For this type of song, I prefer a brighter snare, not too heavy, so I EQ’d it accordingly.
- Room: I EQ’d it to reduce boominess, particularly in the kick.
- Overheads (OH): I worked on taming the harshness.
- Bass: I used the Bass_line track for the low end and blended the other two bass tracks for the mids and highs.
- Keys: I focused on leveling, volume automation, and EQ to ensure all the keys were audible without clashing with each other or other instruments.
- Lead Vocal: I reduced harshness in the highs and balanced the low mids and mids to achieve a warm, clear vocal without muddiness.
- Background Vocals (BGV): I blended the background vocals with the lead to ensure they didn’t overpower the main vocal.
- Mix Bus Compression: I applied subtle compression on the mix bus to glue everything together.

Cheers!