Mix Challenge

Quick Question. I have been working quite a bit on this song for my first ever mixing challenge. Before I submit, I'd like some clarification, if possible.

With the song structure intact, (no arrangement, timing or key changes), I've taken clips of various drum hits and manipulated them using plugins and the DAW's native functions. For instance, I took a single snare and tambourine hit, pitched down with a long reverb tail to give specific snare hits a little more character. Additionally, I used a part of the backing vocals in another section of the song. Is this sort of thing welcome?

EDIT: ALL add-ons are from the source material, no 3rd party samples used.

Chriswilson83 wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 05, 2019 10:19 CEST

Hi bluesation,

I am the song provider for this months track. Thank you for your rather untoned comments but may I kindly ask that you withdraw from further comments if you are not participating in this challenge.

If you do decide to contribute please do and I would very much look forward to seeing what your experience has to offer in a mix.

I have been staying up till 4am the last few nights working on this cool song. Even if no one likes my mix, I LOVE this song. The lyrics!!
Wanted to say thanks. Followed you guy's on FB n' stuff. Cheers!

Hi guys!

.WAV
.MP3

Whereas I really liked the arrangement, mixing was tough for me.
Tried my best to clean things up and make stuff a little more exciting.

With this mix I took a top-down approach. I've got lots of processing on subbusses and groups (EQ, serial compression, and quite a bit of tape simulation), and the so-called rear-bus as well.

Each individual channel only has bx_console focusrite, and occasionally Pro-Q for additional filtering and resonance removal.

The most processed part was the lead vocal. The notable addition was SKnote Soundbrigade which helped to dynamically tame all resonances while sounding quite natural (at least to me).

Cheers!

I dig the song quite a bit!

I am a new comer to the mixing game. I have had somewhat of a home studio for 18 years now. Only recently have I been getting serious. I know for sure my workflow and use of effects need work, bass response might be off (working in a small room, treated with a sub, but basically a boxy room), however; I am pleased with the result.

Enough about me...

The song has several timing issues that I couldn't ignore, so I went down that rabbit hole.
Major timing edits happened on the bass track with the drums a close second. Only a few timing edits to the guitar tracks. I didn't get them all, though.

Volume edits were made on weak snare and kick hits to get consistency without having to rely on over compression.
Additionally, parts of the backing vocals were brought up prior to effect processing.

Room reverb bus with Verbsuite Classics was used on mostly everything. I used Slate Digital's Virtual Mix Rack on most tracks. Notably the FG-Stress, FG-N, FG-116, FG-401, Drum Gate, and Revival.

Guitars: Used all tracks with volume automation.
Eiosis E2 Deesser
Slate VMR
Guitar FX Bus:
Eiosis E2 Deesser (to catch the rest of the squeaks)
Eiosis AirEQ
KHs Transient Shaper
Slate VerbSuite Classics (room)

Bass: Duplicated the D112 bass with one crushed and distorted in parallel. Used the Di bass for sub frequencies.
Slate VMR
Eiosis AirEQ
RedlightDist (on 2nd D112 bass)

Drums:
Kick: Slate VMR
Snare: (Dupe track of 57 pitched for more body)Slate VMR, Lustrious Plates, AIR Saturation Filter
Overheads: (Dupe Track in paralell) Slate VMR, Khs Stereo, Eiosis AirEQ, AIR Saturation Filter
Tambourine: Slate VMR, Lustrious Plates
Drum Buss: Slate VMR (for glue)

Keys: Slate VMR, AIR StereoWidth, Verbsuite Classics (hall), OxfordInflator, FX Bus (room)
KHs Mixtap for the stuttering effect.

Lead Vocals: Dupes galore for pseudo stereo on some lines, and parallel effect automation.
Main Vocal: Eiosis E2 Deesser, VMR, OxfordInflator
Main Vocal FX Busses (4): Verbsuite Classics (Bus1&2 room/plate), 3 D16 Repeater (slap), 4 KHs Delay
Dupe Vocal 1: VMR, AIR MultiDelay, Verbsuite, Ozone Imager, OxfordInflator, Bused to room
Dupe Vocal 2: Chopped and used on specific lines using Nectar3 (Harmony), VMR, D16 Repeater, AIR MultiChorus, Bused to room
Dupe Vocal 3-4: Chopped and used on specific lines using Nectar3, VMR, D16 Repeater, AIR MultiChorus, Bused to room

Backing Vocals: Chopped and used in various parts.
VMR, AIR MultiChorus, Nectar3
FX Bus: Eiosis AirEQ, Verbsuites Classics (Hall)

Edits:
Bass timing, Kick/Snare timing
Kick Hit Pitched down for boom
Snare Hit pitched down whip/crack sound
Tambourine Hit pitched down
Cymbal ending reversed for swell
Guitar tail reversed for swell
Piano Note reversed for swell
Male backing vocal clip processed with Nectar3 to create 5th harmony, short drone hit.
Overheads clip filtered/sweep for Verse 2 dynamics
Guitar track filtered for Verse 2 dynamics

4 nights staying up till 4am and multiple beers were drank mixing this song and enjoying the hell out of my home studio. This was a great learning experience!

Folder: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1iQa6S ... ambYlq364x
MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cgbUv ... CUjbKVlDMa
WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1lpXih ... skKBUiCZYM

Hello everyone,

Wav
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uilvkzwescz6u ... g.wav?dl=0

Mp3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rp3osf594yvri ... g.mp3?dl=0

All ITB.

I've decided to edit the drums timing in many places , also the guitars in couple places.

Overall freq balance (when dry, without eq) seemed go get much focus somewhere at 180-200 Hz.

Drums: the included kick sample is most prominent, the other one (D112) was used to add some roomy
space through short verb. There is also UAD tape used in kicks for some distortion.
Snare(s) havig additional send to the gated plate type verb. OH has multiband compress/limiter and
some widening fx added. All drums go to group that has Aquamarine4 compressor, EQ, limiter.

Bass: had no idea, finally decided to divide into 2 separate tracks: one playing higher frequencies and has more
attack, second having more lows and is more compressed. There is also Vertigo3 in bass for saturation.
Also eq and limiter. Probably should have more attack...

Piano: pretty much compression. Not much EQ. And Lexicon plate as insert.

Vocals: main vocal is first compressed by Tubetech CL 1B, some EQ (cut 3Khz,6Khz), then going to the
vocals group which has mild RVox compresson, Pultec style EQ and limiter. Main vocal also having
a little amount fx send to reverbs: plate and delay. And variable amount of Eventide Blackhole long
reverb is used in main vocal.

Guitars: all 4 tracks are used. Panned, EQed, limited by multiband limiter, all grouped, then
some widening effect, Honey3 compressor. And a little bit UAD EMT250 reverb (short) as insert.

Used Soothe VST (kind of dynamic/multiband eq for mids and highs) as addition to usual EQ in main vocal,
drums OH and guitars.

Some volume automation in almost every track.

Main bus having Honey3 compressor and Lime EQ from Acustica Audio , then RoundTone tape.

DAW: Cubase 10

Thanks!

This month's mix was very difficult from many perspectives. The first was the drum kit. From the original mix I could hear the kit being pushed really forward and a really big sound, so I used two different types of parallel compression. One had the "usual" transparent, open sound. Maybe what you'd find on an acoustic record. The second was a really distorted, mushy low end like "when the levee breaks" by zeppelin or "Mighty High" by Govt' Mule. I mixed between the two and hid some unwanted artifacts by automation. The snare I made a gated white noise reverb and then took it a bit further by using some old out board gear to re-record the snare sound after analog processing. The kicks were also gated to get the cymbals out of the signal. IThe kicks got something similar to the snare but instead of using white noise I used a sine wave and supported the kick. Then blended them both and re-recorded through the same outboard gear set slightly different. All this seems like a lot of processing but the original recording needed the extra attention.
The second most challenging aspect was the acoustic guitars. From the recording there seemed to be a a sense of "big" but when I brought them into the mix there was all this rhythmic confusion and they seemed to go all over the place. I first tried to compress them into submission. This helped controlling the rhythm but did little to separate them overall. I used a slight (1-2ms @100%) delay to the guitar busses. Then released the compressors differently. This technique is also handy whenever things in a mix just too congested when dynamics and frequency have been established.
The bass has some distortion added to keep it up in up the mix. This also helped because of the artifacts on the recorded tracks. There are two bass sounds one is the distorted and the other is more sub frequencies.
My only complaint was the lack of midi data for the keys. Would of liked to find a more focused, dramatic, modern sound. I did my best to find a good place for them. There is some spread on one of the two piano busses.
Thanks as always for sharing. I enjoy mixing all music however, I really like mixing songs/groups that are different or sonically unique because it opens up whole dimensions using of bizarre effects and really doing something different to keep the uniqueness and originality of the group.
Thanks!

Screen Shots:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1nxv4a4r2tmc ... E14Aa?dl=0

mp3:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qo6jxqm2ft4hx ... e.mp3?dl=0

wav:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4341h8tzqg8fb ... e.wav?dl=0

bpackard wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 12, 2019 06:08 CEST

With the song structure intact, (no arrangement, timing or key changes), I've taken clips of various drum hits and manipulated them using plugins and the DAW's native functions. For instance, I took a single snare and tambourine hit, pitched down with a long reverb tail to give specific snare hits a little more character. Additionally, I used a part of the backing vocals in another section of the song. Is this sort of thing welcome?

EDIT: ALL add-ons are from the source material, no 3rd party samples used.

If it's for added effect, then it's ultimately up for the song provider to decide. If it's supposed to work as "additional drum triggering" and/or adding to the production, then don't do it. If there are vocals in places where they weren't before, don't do it.

If you compare the tuned and non-tuned vocals, you have about 10 vocals tracks to work with for doubling purposes. At this point, you should really ask yourself "do you need to go there?".

A lot also comes down to gut instinct. Good luck.

Mister Fox wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 13, 2019 01:43 CEST

bpackard wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 12, 2019 06:08 CEST

With the song structure intact, (no arrangement, timing or key changes), I've taken clips of various drum hits and manipulated them using plugins and the DAW's native functions. For instance, I took a single snare and tambourine hit, pitched down with a long reverb tail to give specific snare hits a little more character. Additionally, I used a part of the backing vocals in another section of the song. Is this sort of thing welcome?

EDIT: ALL add-ons are from the source material, no 3rd party samples used.

If it's for added effect, then it's ultimately up for the song provider to decide. If it's supposed to work as "additional drum triggering" and/or adding to the production, then don't do it. If there are vocals in places where they weren't before, don't do it.

If you compare the tuned and non-tuned vocals, you have about 10 vocals tracks to work with for doubling purposes. At this point, you should really ask yourself "do you need to go there?".

A lot also comes down to gut instinct. Good luck.

Thanks! I think I'm okay. If not, it was a fun endeavor, anyway as I am really happy with the result. My submission is a few posts before this one.

Hi peeps,

Just letting you know everything up to here has been listened too and notes made on. Trying my best to keep the submission windows as tight as possible :-)

good song with a nice build-up and a good climax and resolution. thanks for the opportunity mixing it.

felt the guitars to be the strongest part so made them quite prominent in the mix after the vocals. i started by using 2 of the four tracks, panned them hard left/right and added a third track along the way to help with the build up. the bass i mixed in support of them and gave it the bottom end of the mix. tightened up the drumparts with some gating and compression, used the kicksample without it's attack and tail. For the vocals i went for a warm, tape-like sound to take some harshness out of the recording (i used the unprocessed track). in general i went for a organic, warm mix whilst giving the separate elements their place. i didn't feel the song needed too much distraction from the mainvocal and it's message. hope you enjoy!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hqidsdkyjs2d7 ... i.wav?dl=0