MIX CHALLENGE - MC058 September 2019 - Winners announced

[Jerze]

Hello all
Here is my mix… I’m not sure I hit the mark, but fun song to mix. I handled the M/S mic by copying the side track and flipping the phase. The playing was good no tuning of the vocals or fixing some of the acoustic things.

MP3 https://www.dropbox.com/s/pgda7yomljn4g ... e.mp3?dl=0

Wav https://www.dropbox.com/s/g5h8lwlvapvnr ... e.wav?dl=0




Drums Not sure how to handle them tried to push them back some

Matt and David’s Acoustics went to their own sub track where they received some eqing and compression then off to the acoustic buss where they got some eq sat and compression also sent to a verb aux

Bow tracks went to a buss where I used a lot of soundtoy plugins to pan it some a try and move it to the back ground

Strings low and hi part. I tried to pitch shift and add a stereo delay to the hi part as for the low tried to bring out the low notes with some eq.

Vocals got some eqing compression along with an another track that has devil loc and primal tap on it to add width and sat along with some automation

The biggest thing I learned is to not have a eq on my monitor fx chain where I have my metering tools
I must have been checking something and left the eq on and mixed almost all the way tell the end big mistake.

Anyway if you have any questions or thoughts let me know!
Jerze

[Lastdegree]

Hello,

Here is my mix:

Wav : https://www.dropbox.com/s/67mw1smtaokk6 ... v.wav?dl=0


notes:

filters, eq, compression,dynamic eq, mulltiband distortion and multiband parrallell compression on every tracks

gated kick and snare tracks

plugins used : voxengo msed, acon equalize, waves c1, tdr nova, isotope trash, clipmax, audiodamage dubstation, eventide ultrareverb, acon multiply

bus reverb, bus short delay, bus delay 1/4, bus compressor, bus chorus
300-800 hp and 5-6k lp on these buses before the effect and compression after.

[Franz]

Hello everyone,

Here is a very strange title and interesting at the same time. Indeed, we could make 2 see 3
different mixes while keeping the voices each time. The title can be broken down into 4 elements :
the "melody" with the guitars, the “rhythm part” with the drums and the incredible shaker,
the part "continues" with the violins and to finish the song.

I opted for a rather military version. In the background we find the military drum with the bass drum
supported by the violins, at front we find the guitars present and the voices in a rather agonizing atmosphere.

Musically speaking, there are still a few small dissonances between guitars and violins but finally
little audible in my mix. Two things that were the subject of a special treatment from the original :
the shot on the tom at the end was turned into a cannon shot and the addition in the part without singing
(from 2'18 to 2'42) with the duplicated track violins in a rather ponderous sound.

Otherwise normal work with equalizations and especially a search with different reverb
so that all have consistency (without glue ...).

Thank you David Paul Paige and Mister Fox for offering us this very interesting title and good luck to all.

WAV : https://www.dropbox.com/s/jyl7yt3cx1sh4 ... v.wav?dl=0

Cheers

Franz

p.s.: no replacement, no samples, only the original tracks

[ArneB]

Hi Folks,

thanks to David Paul Paige for letting us mix this song! It was a pleasure for me!

My contribution: WAV

Here are my mix notes:
* I actually didn't use all the tracks. After listening to all the tracks and decoding the ms signals, I decided to keep only the mid signal of the guitars and of the vox. I even did not use the kick far and the snare bottom.
* Mixed completely in the box with ProTools.
* PlugIns used are: FabFilter Q3 & Pro R, Decapitor, ProTools Stock BF-76, DeEsser, EQ and Compressor and Delay.
* Stripped silence for all channels.

Drums:
* Did some heavy eq on kick and snare, tried to reduce the ring of the snare.
* Used much more of the side than the mid from the room signal (ms decoding done old school with doubling side signal and phase revert)
* Since Tom was only used once at the end for a "shot", it got some extra reverb.
* Decapitator on kick, tom and shaker.

Guitars:
* Tried to create some three dimensional space with the guitars.
* Made the guitars wide by using only mid signal and panning that to different locations.
* Used two different reverbs for solo and rhythm guitars to create some depth.
* EQ and compression on each channel, decapitator on the guitar bus.

Vocals:
* Used EQ, Compression, DeEsser and Decapitator.
* Used Melodyne to make some small corrections, mainly for background harmonies.
* Beside reverb I used just a tiny bit of delay on the lead Vox and on the "hargh" bg-vox.

Strings and E Bow:
* Almost no procession, slight notch on the e bow 2 and a bit of decapitator on the strings.

Screenshots and further explanations can be delivered on demand.

Hope you like my mix!

Cheers,
Arne

[Mork]

Hi,

when I first heard the Soundcloud preview I already decided to mix this one in Mixbus (32 C). Someone mentioned it last time and I once bought it on sale, tried to work with it and gave up after a few songs. Now I remember why...
All major eqing and some compression is done with the channel processing of Mixbus. It sounds really good, that's why I bought it (especially the EQs). There are no parallel busses because I ran out of "Mixbusses" (there are 12) and Auxes are not delay compensated in this DAW. It crashed randomly, Waves GUIs seem to freeze at first, but after a while they worked (maybe the engines had to warm up) and the whole DAW felt very slow from time to time

Since this is not your average track I used the original as orientation and thought "big and open" as requested
The vocal has such a nice character on it's own, I build everything else around it. There's not much processing on it to retain the character. DeEsser and Channel EQ on the individual tracks, dynamic EQ to catch harsh peaks, Oxford Dynamics for a little control and Pultec for a little hifi on the bus. Both mics are used in almost the default balance.

Reverbs are UAD 224 for drums, 224 again for Instruments, Transatlantic Plate for Vocals and UAD BX 20 on bow and Resos (inline). I really wanted to go Seventh Heaven (Bricasti emulation) but Mixbus doesn't know what a VST3 is. That's how good it is...

I decoded the side signals with the free MSED.

WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zZV2S ... KtFr8nF07G
MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1oOQVv ... 3ZmKqkN3aC

Cheers
Mork

[RING_LOUD]

Henlo,

When I first listened to the original mix I immediately felt the lost opportunity to approach drums as gunshots fired off in the distance. While approaching the song i tried to minimise the "radio" factor and keep the melancholic feel which comes with long legato's of the vocals. To build and eq the mix i used bx_ssl4000e, because i really like the efficiency and sound that i get out of it.

WAV 96/24
MP3 44/16

1. Drums
At first i decided to give bass and snare a quite a bit of plate reverb to emphasize the idea of echoing gunshots, but as i was building a static mix i was absolutely amused by kick_far track and instead decided to give the whole kit similar reverb, that i created with Lexicon MPX which i threw on room track, with about 43% wet ratio. In terms of other processing i did barely anything, other than panning and doing parallel compression and preamp grit with the CLA MixHub Lite.

2. Guitars
In my vision of a song guitars and vocals are a center piece of the whole mix. Acoustic guitar is mostly on the percussive side, while reso guitar is more controlled and mellowed out to preserve the melody in the track. Nothing crazy was done to process them, just usual balancing, eq'ing and slapping a good ol' CLA-3A on each guitar. After i was happy with the sound i decided to put a de-esser on the guitar bus to control excessive harshness.

3. Vocals
Again, nothing unusual was done to the vocals. I decided not to go with adding a lot of highs, lows, or extreme low-mid cuts. Just pure, natural vox with nice detail. Other then that i used a bit of reverb, delay and stereo spreading inside CLA Vocals just to give leads a bit more dreaminess and improve on melancholic/depressive tone of the song and and Infected Mushrooms' Spreader to make Vox_C even more dramatic.

4. Synths and bows
These are the instruments that i decided to leave alone as much as i could, as i found myself just undoing everything i did, because i kept loosing the vibe of the song. The only thing i did that helped me out was using CLA Bass on lower strings to make the bottom end sit well in the mix; and filtering out the bow_2's annoying frequencies.

Thank you to the David Paul Paige for giving the opportunity to mix such unusual song. While i did use the decoded tracks I kept everything original in the tracking provided, nothing added or taken out.

Have a good day,
Ilya.

[Miha]

Hey everyone,

here is my submission :
Mp3 : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AZMfV ... XdzMPtn9cE
Wav : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yRU8x ... -itUpeaqY0

I mixed The civil War Song in Reaper with TDR Slick EQ and American Class A (API style channel strip) on every track.

I used four busses to layer things out :
- the first for lead vocal and the two reso guitars
- the second for back vocals and the electric and acoustic guitars
- the third for drums and the shaker
- the fourth for ebows and synths
On those channels I put TDR Nova dynamic EQ and extra compressors : Summit Audio TLA-100A for vocals and synths or an SSL Bus compressor for guitars and drums.

I used a lot of parallel compression for this song : on lead vocal, on slide Reso Guitar, on Back Vocals and Drums. But there is very little automation going on, only on the lead vocal to keep it over the top.

I used two instances of Slate Digital Verbsuite Classic for a short and a long reverb and a medium stereo delay synced on triplets in order create depth.

On the masterbus, there is a tape simulator to add color followed by Heritage Audio Sucessor (2dB of compression for glue) and then a sligh amount of MS processing to add space.

Cheers.
Miha

[Nick Watson]

Hi all, here is my submission. It's my first mix challenge so will be interesting to get some feedback from the forum. I didn't get much time to mix it but am fairly happy with the result, would have rather had a bit more time on it but i didn't know this website existed till Wednesday!

Track https://drive.google.com/open?id=1lLP43 ... adaEXpN6i9
Screenshot 1 https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZOp7H ... KVOfQsL_QD
Screenshot 2 https://drive.google.com/open?id=19XqV6 ... -DBuukrQXp

I used reason for this project, all the plugins were from my vast freeware library that I have built up over years. Mixing mostly on headphones using Mackie CR3's for reference. Not the best setup i know but am just getting back into mixing after having two kids so all the good mixing gear got sold

Cheers

Nick

[GB Real]

mp3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11bqKzx ... sp=sharing
wav: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18yt-0Y ... sp=sharing

picture: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ru2py- ... sp=sharing

Hope you enjoy,

GB REAL

[Blang]

Hi fellows,

Here is the mix I made:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KWit2 ... UOSST0OOiS

Process

The drums are pretty atypical in sound and function in this song vs a pop song, so I decided the focal point should be the vocals and acoustic guitars.
The resonator guitar was a bit in front timing wise so i pushed it back 10-20ms in a few spots

Vocals:
Went for the u47; This one sounded more 'full' and cut better through the mix.
Some parallel 1176 comp. attenuating some harsh freqs (2.8k and 3.8) and some lo mids (340, 440Hz). The 100ms slap (Echoboy: Echoplex) gives it some more vibe

Guitars:
Waves j37 tape sat. > -6dB around 800Hz > bit of peak limiting with Waves PuigChild670 and a tiny bit of devil-loc blended in for sustain.

Drums:
Mostly used the room mics: big 660Hz cut for clarity.
Kick room sample: this one I beefed up with devil loc (dist. and comp). added a gate so it wouldnt clutter the rest.

I varispeed stretched the floortom so I sounds lower.

Bass:
I split this in High and Low at 120Hz with a 12dB/oct slope since it has two function bass and sonic texture.
For the upper part I added some distortion and a doubler. The volume of this one is automated throughout the song (more in choruses)

Strings & Ebows:
I felt like these shouldn't be clean but haunting. I used PT Recti-Fi (in parallel) for some disturbing distorion effects.

Hope you dig it!