MIX CHALLENGE - MC101 December 2024 - Mix Round 1 in evaluation

[DIVESPANNER]

Hi thanks to Mr Fox and Mellow Brown for this month's competition very much appreciated.
Link to my mix.https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ox4oq177 ... cepza&dl=0

This genre of music is well out of my wheelhouse, so I'm sorry for any and all discrepancies in the finer points of tonal characteristics. That said, I had a lot of fun mixing this song.

FX chain
Vocal Waves vocal Bender Presonus pro eq Bx Opto compressor
Music Ne Old warble, Big AL . Vertigo VSM-3 , Sonible Gate, Bx Refinement Presonus Binural pan

I started with a pre-mix getting everything as good as I could with no plugins then carried out filtering and EQ cuts with Presus stock EQ
Added compression and saturation to individual tracks as I felt necessary then bussed instrument groups to respective busses
Then due to lack of CPU by then carried out the transform to rendered audio option in the daw
I used various compressors and EQ's mainly from the plugin alliance pack and also Klanghelm DC80 also a lot of instances of Bx Dynamic Eq was used to give the 808 and vocals some space and try to curb the mud I was getting
Then I automated as much as I felt appropriate to try to get some movement going
I hope you enjoy my effort all the best and good luck to everyone

[LCM!]

This is my entry for this month:

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

Thanks to the people who make this possible, our host MisterFox and this month provider, Mellow Browne. Great to mix something in German, it adds even more agressiveness, more gansta feeling.
Some spots to shred light on:
I did use the given references. That has been my approach: not too much reverb, and a solid beat.
Master. I've been tinkering with a multiband comp.
A modest effect at the required 2'09'' point: reverse reverb for the voice, and everything out but the bass and kick (and the voice).
Instruments aren't panned; just narrowed by different amounts.
Drums. A 3dB boost on the Bass at 100Hz. Pingpong effect on Hi Hats to give more movement.
Bass. Kick dynamic eq.
Synths. Saturation and stereo enhancement. Clear Bells has another pingpong effect. Same reason.
Vocals. I did use the -1 octave trick suggested by our host and the provided vocoder track. With some reverse reverb. Radiophonic eq for the backing vocals, in different degrees.

Good luck everybody!

[DIVESPANNER]

Hi
Here are my system specks.
Computer.
Apple Mac Book Pro 2015.
DAW.
Presonus Studio One 5 Pro.
Headphones.
Audio-Technica ATX-M40x.
Correction Software.
Desonic Realphones.
Metering.
Sonible Truebalance.
Sonible True level.
Spl Hawkeye.
Metric AB.
Presonus Spectrum meter.
Presonus Phase meter.
Presonus Level meter .
Again many thanks for the opportunity enjoy

[Rockincher]

Hello everyone,

Here is my participation for this month.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S77Eoc ... drive_link

Regarding the mix: I worked a lot on the voice to give it breadth. For the rest, EQ, and compression for what needed it. Some reverbs. A passage of the master bus in a comp. SSL and in a virtual tape of Slate to finish in a Pro-L2 to set the sound to -1Dbtp. The LUFS and at about -16, as recommended.

Good listening

[javipablos]

Hi everyone!

Thanks Mr Fox and Mellow Brown for this month's challenge. I really enjoyed mixing this song.
Here my mix:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6tj3si7l ... o25y2&dl=0

I didn't do a lot of processing as they are high quality tracks.

- Dry Voices except the hook with a hair of delay. Avalon preamp and H-comp. A little de-esser. Same for choir and BKG vocals.
- Drums and Perc: Avalon preamp and a little EQ for sitting in the mix.
- BASS: split in two tracks for treating clean and distorted separately. Compression and distortion S_AMP for distorted one; SSL Sub-gen and EQ for clean one.
- Keys and Shinths: Vintage Saturation plugging from UAD + EQ for sitting in their place. Room reverb for spatial feeling.
- FX: Just room reverb for including them in the same room.
- MIX BUSS: Glue comp, EQ for general tone and a bit of tape saturation. Multiband comp for fine tune balancing.
- Mix Conditions: Eve SC207 (+Adam TS10 Sub) + VSX headfones. Both of them with Sonarworks SoundID Reference in a small room treated with foam panels.

Good Luck to everyone!

[artisan.au]

Hello people,

This is my first time working on a Trap/Hip-Pop song: courtesy of @Mellow Browne.
I mixed on Salnotes IEMs.

Being the first time mixing Hip-Pop I went for clarity/ transparency while targeting the dry feel you were looking for.
Majorly focused on EQ mainly to tighten the vocals, and let the kick cut through better, channel compression, and widening synth.
After balancing everything I did master bus compression, eq, saturation, and slight limiting

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/utev0i5m ... 0buei&dl=0

[Cadence Soundlabs]

Good morning!

Here is my mix for MC101:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IC7UQO ... sp=sharing

Thank you for the opportunity to mix this.

For this one, I put the Brainworx SSL 4000E Channel Strip on everything and gained everything up to hit the sweet spot. I also had the UAD Studer Tape Machine on the mix bus with the SSL Bus Compressor. The 808 and kick also had a Neve preamp before the SSL which I used to boost the lows before hitting the SSL compressor. There were various tracks that I wasn't getting enough gain from the SSL input section so I would either use the Brainworx Limiter for a volume boost (no actual limiting) or the Neve Preamp if I wanted to tweak EQ prior to the SSL.

I EQ'd where I felt necessary and added slight bits of compression or there. Nothing to crazy. The backing vocals, I ended up going with a telephone effect with the EQ and added the delay. And the main vocals, I bypassed the SSL compression and went with the blue 1176 compressors. I hard panned the Hook 2 & 3 channels and pitched one down -4 cents and +4 cents on the other to give it a little bit of separation and make it bigger sounding.

I cut the bandwidth way down and added distortion to the choir track because it felt like it was fighting too much with the flute track. Doing this gave the two space so they weren't competing.

I sent to instrument tracks to a parallel compression track and blended it to taste. I wrote a bunch of volume automation for most of the tracks. And at the very end, I had the mix going to what was basically a pre-mix bus which had a pre-fader send to an aux track with the Izotope Vinyl plugin and both of those tracks were routed to my mix bus. I did this so I could ride the main mix down while the Vinyl track came up resulting in the lofi sound at the end. It was similar to the automation idea at the end of the new reference mix that was provided.

As a reference when I monitor, I also have the Brainworx Cleansweep plugin on my mixbus. I have a few presets on it that I listen to my mix through just hear what it sounds like with a more limited bandwidth. For example, one preset is like a NS10 reference and it as HP and LP filters at 200 Hz and 4 kHz. Another preset is supposed to be more like an iPhone and rolls off around 400 Hz. And my third preset is a "regular" phone which is set to roll off at 800 Hz because all of the Android phones that I have had don't reproduce the low end as well as my wife's iPhone... lol. These are just approximations. It isn't set in stone. The point is to listen how your midrange is setting and how well your low end will translate to smaller speakers, etc. But like I said, that is just a reference tool that I use. I didn't print my mix with it.

That was about it. Thank you and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

[phildoc83]

Thanks to Mister Fox and MellowBrown for this project, for a trap mix trial.
Here’s the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y54GUE ... drive_link

System:

Monitors: NS10 and Mackie
DAW: Studio One
Control: Sonarworks, Tonal Balance 2

Drums: Filter to reduce some resonances, soft clipping, and 1176 Rev compression
Keyboard: Filter and saturation on piano
Vocals: 500 Hz attenuation, de-esser and compression, placement with Bricasti-style reverb

[Michael_K]

Hello everyone!
Great challenge, thank to Mr Fox and the song provider.

I had some trouble trying to decide the relationship between the 808 and the kick and how they should work together. In the end here is what I did:

Kick: 1176 fast compression, boost at 90, and 3K, dbx compression
808: 1176 fast compression, boost at 60, and 3K, dbx compression

The bells and all other synths have very little processing, hi-pass, tiny mid-low cut, tiny amount of delay and reverb.

Verse Vocals: 1176, de-esser, Hi-pass at 80, dbx compression, Fabfilter G expander, a little tight doubler.
Hook Vocals: hard panning L,M,R bussed to a stereo bus -> 1176, de-esser, Hi-pass at 80, dbx compression, Fabfilter G expander, no doubler

There is some automation on the Rizer to create the stutter effect.

Mix Bus: FF Pro MB, Pro C in Bus mode with SSL style settings, 10ms attack, auto release.

I have a treated room (rockwool in walls and ceiling) and I monitor through Barefoot MicroMains and Genelec 8030. I slao check on Beyer headphones. While the Barefoots are great to detail, I do most of the work on the Genelecs which I think are great for exposing problems that would make the mix not translate well in other systems. However it should be said that Genelecs can be really awful if the room is not treated!

My mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12swyR7 ... Cs_jz/view

Good luck to everyone

[siniq]

Here is my submission for the mix challenge:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EJS4Z6 ... sp=sharing

General treatments included enhancing and controlling ther space of the kick and bass, reverb and delays on vocals and other percussion elements.

Hook 1 was used to throw to an effects chain that included a sample delay, rotary plugin, and bit crusher. This was thrown to enhance specific phrases.

There is another vocal effect in the first zone where effects are permitted - a reverse summing throw that pulses to the beat and a bit deeper reverb.

The verse autotune was blended into an effect that is a reverby telephone effect.

Thanks for listening!