Mix Challenge

Here is my entry for MC050.

I had very short timeline of less than day to complete this, so it turned out to be quite a challenge. Part of the song sound very good, and some parts are very loose in places.

If I am picked for round two, I would like to fix some more of the timing issues.

I am on a mission not to use drum replacement, and these drums were definitely a challenge. Eq on Eq on Eq.....

I haven't listened to any entries yet, but I will be interested in how others made the drums sound that did not replace.

I will post more info on my mix shortly, but trying to first beat the deadline.

Drums: Drum Leveler, ProQ3, ProQ3, ProQ3 again! Trying out my new Softube FET comp and Transient Designer on these, too.

Bass: Eden/Harmonics combo.

Electric Gtrs: API 550a, and Softube FET comp

Acoustic: LA3A/LA2A

VOX: vocal rider, UBK-1, Spectre, Summit Grand Channel

BGV: LA3A, H910D


Gary, Thanks for the music!

Jetwolf (Kevin)

WAV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1arJNYD ... sp=sharing

MP3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hmUDyJ ... sp=sharing

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mi2w4e1ikgxpm ... r.mp3?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xe9u759x0uetc ... r.wav?dl=0

Mixing Challenge MC050
Zack Lozier
Lewshwa Music
Logic Pro X
iMac
Focusrite Liquid 56

FIXES:

1. Guit Bad Chord @ 3:18
2. Replace Toms
3. Acoustic Guit Early hit @ 3:05
4. Bass Fix 4:08, 2:30 and 2:15
5. Drums at 2:18
6. Snare hit at 4L08

(screenshots in dropbox folder)

PROCESS:


Import, organize, color, group, GAINSTAGE
Balance Guitars, add reference tracks,

KIK: H-EQ, Bark of Dog, DOUBLE with software kid
SNARE: VMR
—NLS SSL on all audio channels —
VOX: CLA-2A, H-EQ , de-esser- 3 CLA-2As and 1 LA-1176 - CRUNCH SEND - PLATE SEND
BVOX: de-esser
TREM GUIT: PS SPREAD
AG: MAAG EQ4, la-76, Elysia filter
EG1 & 2: VMR
OHs: VMR
LD GUIT: LA-76 - CRUNCH SEND
PAD 1: H-Delay
Pad2: Repeater

Verb Suite for all
NY compression on VOX, DRUMS and BAND using VEQ4 and CLA-1176

THNKS for LISTENING!

It is the 22nd December 2018, 1:10am GMT+1/CET - the first Mix Round has officially ended

A very warm welcome to all new participants. And 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.


Statistics will be edited in later (I'm running on a backlog). We have no submissions after the deadline.

POSSIBLE DELAY IN EVALUATION / START OF MIX ROUND 2:
Pleas keep in mind, that due to the Winter Holidays, the evaluation could be postponed longer than usual. Please have an eye on this thread (you can subscribe directly to it) and/or check our Social Media accounts.



Please check all if your links again, make them downloadable(!, 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 16 (SWC16) is still in full swing.
The deadline is 24th December 2018, 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST - so far there have been 3 entries - let's really try to exceed 7 bar minimum (ideally 10-15!).

Please spread the word!

s&f wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 21, 2018 14:17 CET

any chance u can share the project so I can study what u did? if u can't I totally understand. good job!!!

Thanks a lot, s&f! I will dig out the session file from my studio computer once this christmas thing has faded a bit and post it. Do you have Pro Tools? If not, it won't be of any use to you.

Thanks, Mork, for your drum comment

Mork wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 21, 2018 22:38 CET

The rest is pretty standard. EQ (ProQ2 and Harrison), Compression (Oxford, MJUC [on LV]

Are you using Harrison Mixbus as your DAW? And are you using the OXFORD DYNAMICS compressor on the lead vocal?

I only have (and just got) the Oxford Inflator and I feel I should have acquired a lot more Sonnox tools a long time ago. They seem to work really well!

Hey all!
I wanted to pop in and say WOW!!! - so many great mixes of my song. I've been trying to narrow the field for the 2nd round, and it is NOT an easy task!
Thanks for all who participated - all 53 entries!!!

I know this was a nightmare to fix, in that it was not recorded (or performed) all that well. I really appreciate the time you put in to come up with your versions. It's amazing how many different, creative options there are. It has brought new life to a song that I gave up on many moons ago. Thanks for that!!

I should have a list of my top favorites to move on to the 2nd round soon. This is harder than I thought it would be, so bear with me.

The way I am judging is as follows:
I've uploaded all files into reaper into seperate tracks and aligned them the best that I could.
I've inserted Youlean loudness meter on each track, and ran the songs thru to check the LUFS reading.
I then adjusted the faders of each track so that each version has the same LUFS.
So - It does allow me to judge without any volume bias and compare all the tracks equally.

I'll keep you posted!

Thanks again,
Gary

GGermaine wrote: ↑

Thu Dec 27, 2018 18:08 CET

The way I am judging is as follows:
I've uploaded all files into reaper into seperate tracks and aligned them the best that I could.
I've inserted Youlean loudness meter on each track, and ran the songs thru to check the LUFS reading.
I then adjusted the faders of each track so that each version has the same LUFS.
So - It does allow me to judge without any volume bias and compare all the tracks equally.

I'll keep you posted!

Thanks again,
Gary

You know reaper can normalize to lufs

https://audiosex.pro/threads/tips-trick ... ded.33433/

Jonssin Musiikki wrote: ↑

Thu Dec 27, 2018 18:42 CET

GGermaine wrote: ↑

Thu Dec 27, 2018 18:08 CET

The way I am judging is as follows:
I've uploaded all files into reaper into seperate tracks and aligned them the best that I could.
I've inserted Youlean loudness meter on each track, and ran the songs thru to check the LUFS reading.
I then adjusted the faders of each track so that each version has the same LUFS.
So - It does allow me to judge without any volume bias and compare all the tracks equally.

I'll keep you posted!

Thanks again,
Gary

You know reaper can normalize to lufs

https://audiosex.pro/threads/tips-trick ... ded.33433/

No I did not know that!!!
Thats cool!
Thanks for the tip

Henrik Hjortnaes wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 26, 2018 14:31 CET

Are you using Harrison Mixbus as your DAW? And are you using the OXFORD DYNAMICS compressor on the lead vocal?

I only have (and just got) the Oxford Inflator and I feel I should have acquired a lot more Sonnox tools a long time ago. They seem to work really well!

That's a double yes!
There is also MJUC Type 2 on the vocal for some tone, the Oxford is handling the dynamics.
I made good use of the recent Sonnox sale. At first I also just wanted to buy the Inflator, but then I got weak... the discount increases the more plugins you order... I am such a sheeple, or sherson, or sheperson
The more modern pendant would be Fabfilter I think, being super clean, but the Sonnox stuff is just easier to dial in for how I hear it. But then again I am being pretty nostalgic, because I used Sonnox plugins a lot when I started using DAWs (when Logic was still on Windows), they just got burned into my brain. So in the end the extensive uTorrent demo period paid off for the developer Same with Waves.

Now Mixbus... wow, an emotional rollercoaster!
I did some testing and convinced myself that there is something to their summing emulation and I really think there is. The channel EQs are gorgeous (I use 32c), the dynamics usable (but you will use something better)... so sound wise I think they got it.
On the other hand the lack of certain features and quality is astonishing. The editor is great and I actually prefer it to Reapers because it's less cluttered, but as I wrote in my post above, simple things like mute automation on sends are just missing. You can do that on mixing desks from the 80s but not in this modern DAW. Also re-arranging tracks, routing, color coding... stuff like that feels unnecessarily complicated and cumbersome to me. Also the GUI is "debatable". The list goes on. I am always hoping that it will grow on me, then I hit the next wall.
Of course, that is only my opinion, maybe it suits your taste and style 100%. I will continue to use it but I am always on the verge of abandoning it and moving completely back to Reaper.

Hmm, maybe I really should give ProTools a try, if it just wasn't that expensive...

Cheers
Mork

Hi Mork,

Just wanna say that Mixbus really sounds incredible. It has a sound, every track thru it sounds better. I however could not do everything I want with it, either because I can't or I ignore.

So I figured out how to edit/fx with Reaper and mix thru Mixbus with rearoute, but it was a pain...

I still really like this software a lot, and I pray for Harrison to choose Reaper instead of Ardour to integrate with..