MIX CHALLENGE - MC063 March 2020 - Winners announced

[DennisBastioni]

Hi everyone, happy to participate to this mixing challenge and thanks to the band that gives to us their track. Hope you like my mix and my perspective of this song. Here is a description about what i use for the mixing process:

Drums group: Saturn (warm tape mode)
Kick: MV2
Snare Top: ProQ2. SSLGChannel
Snare Bottom: ProQ2
Hi Hat: ProC2
Toms Group: Pultec, ProC2 (non link mode)
Over Heads: ProQ2, API2500, Aphex (in the mono tracks grouped into stereo)
Room: ProQ2, Tan, ProQ2, ProC2 (as for the Over Heads)
Bass: Saturn (warm tube mode separate in low and hi band), NLS (nevo mode), MV2, Cla3A
Acoustic Guitars: I pan and group them, than i apply process in the group bus (ProQ2, Aphex, API2500-in non link mode-)
Main Acoustic Guitar: ProQ2, FrontDaw, Cla76
Gutar Amp A and B: hard left and right and just a tuch of eq
Guitar Amp C: ProQ2, ProC
Guitar Amp Drive: i did NOTHING! (it sounds great to me)
Guitar Amp Riff: Saturn (a bit of "warm tape" and turn up a little dit the sustain with the "dynamics" knob
Synth: ProQ2 (open up a bit the highs)
Lead Vocal: ProQ2, RVox, MVR, Saturn, De-Esser, ProC2
Background Vocals: ProQ2, Cla76, De-Esser (all vocals panned and grouped and processing only the group bus)

Here are all the parallel processing as compression, reverbs and delays:

SSLComp: All the drums
API2500: All the guitars
CLA76: Main vocal and BGVocals
CLA76: Bass
Tube Delay: BGVocals and Guitars
Valhalla Room: All the drums
IR-L: Main vocal
TrueVerb Mono: Main vocal
Valhalla Plate: Acoustic guitars

At the end of the mix i decide to put a bit of coloration and saturation and enhance the mood and the vibes using on the master bus:

TAN, Saturn, SSLComp (the glue), Saphira.

Hope you find this description useful but most important you like the track.



Here is the link to download the wav file: https://drive.google.com/open?id=175sAD ... Gv_v9cYEp7


Regards.

DennisBastioni

[Actikz]

I give up.... I can't make it sound good. Deessing and working with vocals is above my skills,I don't even own any pitch correction, I never worked with vocals and didn't think it's so hard to mix them.... and overall I found "real" mixing is a lot harder that I expected. Or maybe this song was pretty hard IDK. Anyway, I will post my entry, maybe someone will learn what to avoid xD

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zCE4V ... 2bZJiLj90H

Short documentation:
DAW - Bitwig 1
Drums - I used build in gate to cut unwanted things in kick and snare, boosted them, EQ with TRD Nova, and compressed with SphereComp
Bass - Neutrol Elements for EQ and Compression
Acustic Guitars - Only TDR Nova and panning
Electric Guitars - Nova for EQ, panning, little more distortion from Ravage lite only for one side
Synth - Nova, mostly cut lows
Vocals - oh boi oh boi, whatever I tried to do here it only sounded worse, but I used Nova as deesser (wtf?) and Neutron for EQ and compression.
FX bus - H Reverb
Master - metering only, SPAN, Sleepy-TIme(?) Stereo Channel.

That's it, plz don't laught xD. As always, any feedback would be great.

Good luck everyone.

[nicores]

Drums

Drums bus:
Inserts: waves nsl channel, waves ssl comp, ReeLight (tape emulation)
Sends: EMpty 250 reverb, api 2500 parallel compression, Cla 76 parallel comrpession

OH:
inserts: waves c4, ssl cannel strip, c6 sidechain.
sends: Ssl chanel strip (parallel compresión)

Bass drum:
inserts: fab filter pro q 3, ssl cannel strip
sends: bx_yellowdrive

Snare:
insters: fab filter pro q 3, ssl cannel strip, another ssl channel strip, camelcrusher, Smack Attack.
sends: bx_yellowdrive, TR5CSRPlate.

Snare rimshot:
inserts: fab filter pro q 3, ssl channel strip
sends: bx_yellowdrive

Toms:
inserts: fab filter pro q 3, ssl cannel strip, Cla drums, camelcrusher

Rooms:
inserts: cla 76 (all butons in), fabfilter pro q 3


Bass:
inserts: amplitube 4, nls channel, fab filter pro q 3, studio one gate.
sends: h delay, MaxxVolume (parallel compression), Cla 76 (parallel compression)


Electric guitars:
Inserts: Nls channel, fab filter pro q 3, cla 76.
Sends: h delay, cla 76 (parallel compression)

Acustic guitars:
inserts: channel, fab filter pro q 3, c6 sidechain
sends: Brauer motion, cla 76 (parallel compression)


Synth:
inserts: fab filter pro q 3
sends: Brauer motion, cla 76 (parallel compression), empty250 reverb


Vocal:

vocal verse:
inserts: fab filter pro q 3, waves de esser, cla 2A, Cla 76, mcdsp ml4000, waves puigtec, fab filter ds, studio one gate, nls channel, smack attack
sends: compressor mv2, soundtoys microshift, Empty250 reverb, echoboy, cla 76

Vocal chorus:
inserts: fab filter pro q 3, cla 2A, Cla 76, waves puigtec, fab filter ds, studio one gate, nls channel, smack attack
sends: h delay, ultrapitch 3 voices, soundtoys microshift, Empty250 reverb, echoboy, cla 76

Master bus: ssl comp, tr5 Dyna-mu, puigtec, bc_digital v3, puigchild, bx_rooms.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/16Y6bFg ... sp=sharing

[Spinum]

Here is my submission. I took a different approach to the song compared to the released version (no sense in just copying). There's a greater emphasis on the electric guitars and less on the acoustic and synth.

WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Fg67q ... 7--TOAwT9L
-18.6 LUFS integrated, 9.4 LRA and -3 dbTP

Screen shot: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1fvtok ... MFtx4ojE5N

Drum and bass was straightforward processing and committed once the basic mix was done. On Kick & Snare, I use Scheps 73 EQ along with parallel MJUC (kick) and parallel API-2500 (snare) compression. Bass EQ is Bass Professor Mk2 with parallel CLA-76 compression.

The guitar plugins are shown in the accompanying screen shot. 2 of 4 EGtr parts used the DI tracks through an amp sim. A light amount of limiting was used to control periodic peaks.

The vocals busses were processed using Nectar 3.

The plugins on the summing busses are shown. The mix buss has Softube Tape and Ozone9 (since it is on my template). Ozone is only used as a safety limiter for this mix.

The main output buss has a variety of analysis plugins that are used during mixing.

[Skible]

Hi! First time taking part in these.

WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=14oRC4 ... 6OfJZqY9kE

Screenshots:

Mixer: https://drive.google.com/open?id=17vlNl ... cXthgDMaTi
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vvXxR ... 6FfTXnD_6u
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1D6a64 ... SocrKdnS-D

Automations: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1E8iLG ... Dsgu77KALv
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BdnqE ... ecPXiIXvEW

Long description of what I did:

Notes:

After I got the tracks in my DAW (Logic Pro X), I routed them to busses and gave them nice colors.

I also summed the OH and Room tracks to stereo tracks. I noticed the snare wasn’t in the middle in either the OH or the Room tracks so I gave them a slight panning.

I started the actual mixing by finding some raw balance and then I focused on the vocal sound. I gave the vocals a slight EQing, just couple of dBs here and there and 1dB high shelf at 6k. Then I used two compressors, other 1176 styled and the other LA-2A styled. At the loudest parts the both compressors get about 5dB of gain reduction.

I wanted to keep the vocals up front and I thought it sounded great without any reverb. Instead I gave it some delay and chorus (Little Microshift) to create some ”space”. I also had a little bit of formant shifting and tuning from a Little Alterboy to create doubling kind of effect. I kept it quiet but I felt that it added something good to the sound.

Next I focused on the second most important element of the song: acoustic guitars. I EQed out some resonances and added a CLA-3A and then another EQ and compressor in the Acoustic guitar bus. From the bus I had sends to a reverb and a chorus. I didn’t want to over do it with the chorus, i just wanted to add some width. I used a convoltuion reverb with an impulse I have recorded myself from an entrance hall of my old school building.

The other acoustics had just the same bus processing on them.

On drum bus I had an EQ cutting little bit from the lower midrange, a compressor that gives a couple of dB reduction on kick and snare hits, a tape emulation and a send to reverb.

I didn’t find the hihat channel adding much to the mix, so I left it out. The individual drum tracks got some gates and compressors here and there. I think the drums were recorded very well. Great sounds and not much of bleed.

The bass I gave an amp and some compression. And little bit of reverb .

Guitar lick tracks got nothing more than a little EQ. To guitar riff tracks I added some distortion to give some more bite. I thought the channels 22 and 23 lacked some clarity, so I blended in the DI track with an amp sim.

The synths got a little bit of saturation and stereo delay, nothing else.

All the processing for the backing vocals happens in the bus. EQ, compressor, DeEsser and some tape. And sends to reverb and delay. I wanted to keep the main vocals as the center of the attention so I used pretty hard DeEssing to reduce the consonant sounds from the backing vocals.

On a second listen I wasn’t happy with the vocal sound, so I ended up changing the EQ settings and I also added a parallel compressor and a Waves Vocal rider to keep the vocals more upfront. I also thought there were few spots that needed little something so I created a new delay to fill those spots. I tried to give the new delay some distinct character with little bit of saturation and formant shifting. And to make it even more interesting, I added Tremolo effect to pan the delay from left to right.

Other thing I wasn’t happy with was the snare. I routed the snare channels to a new bus, added gate, EQ and little bit of parallel compressor. I ended up bypassing the gate from the beggining so those nice side sticks get trough.

On a third listen I felt like the mix was getting together quite well. I made some small adjustments to balance, added some automations, gave the guitar licks little compression and used sidechaining to make the drive guitars in the part before the solo to give a bit more room for the vocals. I made the solo to stand out by sending it to the lead vocal FXs.

I gave it a fourth listen and I ended up adding a little bit reverb on the vocals and turning drums a little louder. I made the toms to stand out a bit more with little compression and tried to glue things together by sending drums, bass and guitars to a bus with tape emulation. I also gave some tracks a little bit more reverb.

[s&f]

hi, here's my submission:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4ghlqai14a62h ... F.mp3?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/97nkkdtxohvzd ... F.wav?dl=0

my computer is old, so I had to print a lot of tracks or freeze. I also am having electrical problems so 50% of the mix was done on monitors and 50% on my laptop speaker (sorry if there is a really big mistake in the song). if anyone want the project just ask, it's a logic project.

my most used plugins were the glue, sir audio tools, tdr limiter 6 (in a lot of tracks) and logic compressor. there is also the nenbrini audio Marshall plugin, but I don't know the name. I ran out of time due to electricity problems (it causes hum in my system).

I think the song is good, and it deserves a re production. mixing was very hard because this kind of song needs drum samples, and it s not allowed. I also think quantizing did more harm than good in several tracks, so I didn't do any quantizing. I removed some guitar tracks too.

a little bit different than the original I think. hope you enjoy it! thank u for letting me mix ur song!

[wmac]

First of all, I'd like to congratulate and thank "CeZar" for the beautiful song and the opportunity given to mix it.
What I did on this mix:

DRUMS

Kick
Straight send to Magma Rack with EQ, Devel touch(Tube Compressor) and Devil Boost
Parallel compression to crush and a little bit of UAD Fatso mixed to taste

Snare
The bottom has a phase inverted
The top has arouser, EQ, SSL 4K and HOFA compressor to gert some more bite on the snare
Parallel compression to crush send to fatso and reverb

Toms
EQ, UAD Pultec EQP1A, Transient Designer, an L2 Limit and then send to a reverb

HH
EQ, and SSL 4K

OH and Romm where send to a drum bus
EQ, L2 Limiter
Parallel send to a compressor to crush and UAD Fatso

BASS

HOFA EQ, CLA bass, Saturator and L2 Limiter

ACOUSTIC GUITAR
All AC guitars were grouped for a simple process and a lot of automation.

EQ, and CLA guitar

EL GUITAR

The same as the acoustic, they were grouped then
EQ, CLA guitar and L2 Limiter

SYNTH
EQ, CLA Unplugged and L2 Limiter

Lead Vox
EQ for a filter, then EQ+compressor+RVox
Pultec+CLA2A+Pultec
Desser, L2 Limiter
Parallel vocal crush, rearbuss, Aphex and UAD Lexicon L480

Give the same treatment to the BGVS

MIX BUS
Desser, buss compressor, UAD Oxford Limiter

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e7jbl0tsw860x ... c.wav?dl=0

[SDB_12]

Hey all!

First off, I hope everyone is doing well with everything going on right now. Crazy times!
Second, thank you Cezar for letting us mix such a fun song! Well done!

Ok, here is my entry. Below some details:

wav:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cez6rpbrzvhvr ... 2.wav?dl=0
mp3:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pkvnhin5j59nt ... 2.mp3?dl=0

My main goal was to make this song really rock, pump and bring more excitement. I noticed in the rough mix that the chorus gets smaller when it hits…I wanted it to get bigger. So, hopefully I’ve achieved some of that.

I’m currently trying out new tools, which is what I generally use these mix contests for….this time…I’m testing out Acustica Audio’s “Lime 2” that just got updated. It’s based on some Neve consoles, I mainly used console “B” which is their Neve 88R emulation

First thing I did was check all phase on drums and flip things in and out until I got a combination that sounded punchy. Then a quick balance of everything.

From there, I put Lime 2 on pretty much every channel. I generally start with drums and this was no different I got the kick and snare punching a bit, then went to my stereo bus and added Comp C from Lime 2. I also put their Bus summing emulation, “Mix Bus B” setting from Lime 2 on the master. I set the master compressor to fastest attack and release, 4:1 ratio and medium knee. Got it pumping a bit and then mixed through it. At the end of the mix, I decided the whole mix needed a touch of eq…so I put on Lime 2 EQ, 88R setting B and took out a little of the mud, and boosted just a hair of punchy low end.

FX Auxes:
1. Room- Acustica Audio Ultramarine 4REV Spring set to really short.
2. Tail- TL Space IR from Past to Future Reverbs (Lexicon 480 Plate)
3. Short Dly- TL Space IR from Past to Future Reverbs set to Ursa Major Dly
4. Long Dly- Acustica Audio Lemon. PCM 42 setting. Stereo 1/4 notes set slightly off tempo
5. Widening- Soundtoys Micropitch with Ozone Imager widening and filtering
6. Chorus- Soundtoys Crystalizer with Ozone Imager widening and filtering

DRUMS:
Lime 2 (EQ B and Comps), Scheps Omni channel, Crave EQ, Digi EQ7, Slate VMR Gate.

The kick got Lime 2 EQ. At the end of the mix, I wanted it more exciting so I put on Scheps Omni channel for some saturation and a bit of parallel comp.

Snare got Lime 2 EQ, into Lime 2 compressor, then Omni channel for Saturation and gating. I automated the gate so that it turned on after the side sticking during vs 1.

Hi Hat got a bit of Lime 2 EQ.

Toms got Slate VMR gate, Lime 2 EQ, then Omni channel for some saturation.

OH’s got Lime 2 EQ, Crave EQ, then a bit of Digi 7 EQ…just notching as I went.

Rooms got the same as OH’s.

All drums sent to a bit of a room reverb.
Toms also sent a bit to my tail verb.

BASS:
Lime 2 EQ, into Lime 2 compressor, then Scheps Omni channel for saturation. It sent to a small amount of Chorus…which was Soundtoys Crystalizer with some widening and filtering.

ACOUSTICS:
I picked my 2 favorite from the 4 mono mics that were there…and muted the other two. Each acoustic got a bit of Lime 2 EQ and that’s it.

The stereo acoustic got Lime 2 EQ and a bit of Lime 2 compressor…as it had some jumpy spots. It sent to my room reverb.

ELECTRICS:
All electrics got Lime 2 EQ and that’s it. With the exception of the right side picking guitar…which also got a bit of Lime 2 compressor to keep it in check a bit.

All guitar sent a little to my room reverb.
The short solo guitar also sent to my short dly and chorus sends.

SYNTHS:
Both got Lime 2 EQ and Decapitator for saturation.

LEAD VOCALS:
Lime 2 EQ, Lime 2 Compressor, Slate DeEsser.

Kept it simple…both verse and chorus vocal channels sent to my room reverb, short delay, and tail reverb. I threw a couple lines from the verse vocal into my long delay aux.

Additionally, the chorus vocal sent to my long delay, and widener.

BGVS:
Lime 2 EQ, Lime 2 Compressor and Digi DeEsser on every channel. The right channel of each pair also got a little pitch shifting.

These went to a subgroup where I notched out a bit of low mids using Crave EQ.

They all sent to my room reverb and tail reverb.


Hope that all makes sense! Had a lot of fun!

Seth

[TPR]

Snare rimshot:
inserts: fab filter pro q 3, ssl channel strip
sends: bx_yellowdrive

What do you mean by Snare rimshot?

[Studio Saturn]

Hello Ladies and Gents. It has been a long time since I participated. Moving to another country is not an easy job to settle in. Anyways, I have mixed the song using a headphone. I don't know if it translate on speaker because I haven't setup a speaker yet. Let me know how you find the mix. Take care.

I used Studio One 4 to mix the song.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/25lkpe816oy7x ... n.wav?dl=0