Mix Challenge

I think I'm one minute late, SORRY.

Here's my Mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZeLja5 ... sp=sharing

and my notes:
Below is the process I had for this mix. I tried to be as detailed as I could.

*Mixed in Logic Pro X*

-General cleaning and prep: I cut away all silences and added fades to the beginning and end of each clip. I color coded all of the tracks so I could see the arrangement (SFX, flutes/guitars or leads, “basses” [metal bass, bass effect, bass], percussion, and “drum kit”.

-Found a general balance for all tracks.

-Assessed the “alternate takes” and what I might use them for. I ended up keeping Bass dry, opting for Guitar Dune over Guitar Dry, and keeping the lower flute track.

-Gentle EQ (Logic stock EQ) on every track to manage sub build-up and generally give everything it’s own space. I automated the bass on Percussion 1’s EQ at the end of the track to get that heavy drum groove.

-I doubled the lead guitars, Metal Bass, and Bass Effect. Then I hard panned them all and delayed one side forward or back a hair.

-I didn’t use any compression (whoa) besides parallel comp (Sknote’s “Disto-S”) on the “drum kit” sum.

-Everything got a little bit of the Waves NLS Channel using the “Nevo” setting.

-I sent all tracks to a reverb sending where I had Soundspots “Oracle”, which I particularly like for electronic tracks.

-The Metal Bass is sent to an aux track with Brauer Motion. I automated the mix setting so that the

-The “Bass Dry” is sent to an aux with some heavy Waves H-Delay. That’s what you hear in the beginning.

-The main snare track is sent to some Valhalla Shimmer that is ramped up for the snare hit after the “drop” or whatever.

-Besides that, I had some Valhalla Vintage Verb’s here and there that I automated or let run. LOTS of automation on this track, especially Pad Synth Comby at the end. I just sent it to Bass Dry’s H-delay send. Love that plugin.

It is the 22nd March 2019, 11:45am GMT+1/CET - the first Mix Round has officially ended

A very warm welcome to all new participants. And once more a huge thank you to everyone that is spreading the word about the Mix Challenge. Please keep doing so, we need way more participants for the Songwriting Competition(s), and more audio content (those that recently reached out, I'll get back to you ASAP).


STATISTICS:

• If I didn't miscount, we have 41 submissions this month. That is 29 submissions less than last month and 19 entries more compared to last year.
• We have 1 submission after the deadline - since it was 1min over, I see it as "server glitch" (please try to prevent that in the future)
• We had 2 submissions through SoundCloud only
• I had to address the Rules and Guidelines 3 times

Please check all if your links again, make them downloadable(!, IMPORTANT: updated rules on SoundCloud links). Those that uploaded MP3s only, please take note: providing a FLAC (on low bandwidth)/WAV (on DSL and higher) file is mandatory. Please also update your posts with documentation for others to learn from (see Rules & Guidelines).


I now open the field for everyone to give each other feedback (highly encouraged). This will be independent to the client feedback however.


Please watch this spot for the client feedback and Mix Round 2 participant announcement.

Good luck to all participants.






The Songwriting Competition 19 (SWC19) is still in full swing.
The deadline is 24th March 2019, 11:59pm GMT+1/CET - so far there have been 7 entries - let's try to exceed 10 this month again.

Please spread the word!

take_01.wav wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 21, 2019 00:35 CET

Atmuse wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 21, 2019 00:05 CET

screenshotsHi guys

First of all great track to work with. Thanks olly audio for the opportunity.

This is what I made of it just on time



screenshots

one of the screenschot's is a foto of where I open all the plugins I used on the kick. If you want more channels showen just ask. The only reason there not all in there is because of my lack of time. sorry

I used almost only Fl studio standerd plugins like the multiband EQ, Fruity compressor, Fruity panOmatic, Fruity reverb, Fruity delay 2, Fruity blood overdrive, Fruity balance and the Fruity limiter(but only to use the sidechain function). I also used a DC8C3 compressor, HY-TP2, camelcrusher and a ambient reverb.

Hope everting works out is a hoped, it's my first post on this forum.

greatzzzz

Love your kick sound!

Thanks!!!

The blood overdrive plugin on Fl studio is a great plugin to round your kick a bit more, I really love him

I want to thank all the students. So many interesting mixes. I think it will be difficult to determine the winners. I want to wish everyone success.

...meanwhile, we can all discuss about the mix.

For example, I have a question for all.... how loud do you each think the kick/bass/sub/low freqs in general are leveled in your mix? I mean, the original/rough mix was no short than ' beyond extreme' IMO in that respect. When I was working on my mix, I was always very conservative with the low end level and I still think there probably (a bit) more than enough in my mix for example. I just installed the Ozone 8 advanced trial version and the "tone balance control" feature under "bass heavy" profile showed that I was occasionally going over with the bass level.

What are everybody's thoughts or encounters about mixing bass heavy music? ... also the experience with this particular mix

Hi 3ee.

I think the low end of that one is the sonic challenge.

I mostly cleaned it up, but tried hard to keep the feeling of being enveloped by the bass, which is the feeling I have had with the original.

I have no recipe to share with bass heavy music, it always depends on the source material for me.

Metering plugins are useful but I sometime dare being disrespectful with them.

3ee wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 28, 2019 22:05 CET

...meanwhile, we can all discuss about the mix.

For example, I have a question for all.... how loud do you each think the kick/bass/sub/low freqs in general are leveled in your mix? I mean, the original/rough mix was no short than ' beyond extreme' IMO in that respect. When I was working on my mix, I was always very conservative with the low end level and I still think there probably (a bit) more than enough in my mix for example. I just installed the Ozone 8 advanced trial version and the "tone balance control" feature under "bass heavy" profile showed that I was occasionally going over with the bass level.

What are everybody's thoughts or encounters about mixing bass heavy music? ... also the experience with this particular mix

Good discussion opening. I had exactly the same feelings. I didn’t find any references with so heavy low end that was in preview mix. But I was a coward and didn’t dare to follow my instinct. So I made my mix a bit more low heavy than what I thought it should be.

3ee wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 28, 2019 22:05 CET

I just installed the Ozone 8 advanced trial version and the "tone balance control" feature under "bass heavy" profile showed that I was occasionally going over with the bass level.

What are everybody's thoughts or encounters about mixing bass heavy music? ... also the experience with this particular mix

I think TBC gives you a good reference point, but ... in my experience, with this genre you can (should?) go a bit higher with the low-end (on the bass heavy setting), but never so that the level indicator crosses the reference barrier. It's all about tonal balance really, so if the bass frequencies are audibly overwhelming the rest, then there is no tonal balance, and you end up with a "bad" sounding mix. So good monitoring is key. There is some kind of general norm where too much bass is just that, I think. Referencing other tracks and listening on other speakers in different environments is a great tool for me too. A good mix starts with a good arrangement/sound design that distributes frequency ranges evenly though. My 2 cents

I think TBC gives you a good..

^ TBC*

-----
I guess that every engineer has something that they are best at, but also something that is their weakest strength. For me for some reason, I think my weakest is not referencing (almost) at all.. so this tone balance control thing seems really really cool to me as simple as it seems... the best part is that one can create their own curves from tracks/albums.

Wasn't sure what to do with the bass either. It seemed to overwhelm the original mix and it was hard to tone that down a lot and still have enough elements in the song to carry it.