Mix Challenge

Mork wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 16, 2018 17:38 CEST

But the "magic" behind it is really quite simple: It's a buss, where everything runs through except the snare roll and maybe the noises (but the main, squeeky riser does). The buss is filtered by a moogy filter (suggested to me by a user here, dave or dodgingrain I think) followed by an H-Delay on 1/8D to give it some depth. That's it. Give the drop the volume that's needed and you're there. All in all this production needed not a lot of processing on it.

Cheers again
Mork again

I liked your mix and I have a couple of questions, please.

1)Is the delay mono or stereo?
2)do you bussed also the sub bass bass kick and cymbals into the delay buss?
3)what is a moogy filter? Do you have a link?

Thank you and congrats.

SRmix

Hi SRmix!

I just opened the session and had a look, so here we go:

Is the delay mono or stereo?
It's a stereo H-Delay on the 1/8D PingPong setting. The whole "FilterBuss" is also send to a Slate 480 on Thin Plate, to wash it out. Apparently the mix control of the H-Delay is automated to make everyone scream towards the end of the break.

do you bussed also the sub bass bass kick and cymbals into the delay buss?
Only the Strings Low, Piano, Brass and Riser are send to the FilterBuss. The kick came with some kind of filter sweep already. All sends are mute automated, so that the FilterBuss is only receiving stuff during the break. The moment the drop hits everything goes back to normal.

what is a moogy filter? Do you have a link?
It's a filter plugin by Plug & Mix that's inspired by analog moog filters. http://www.plugandmix.com/products/p1690-Moogy-Filter/

Here's a little image:



Edit: I really don't know why the image isn't shown... Can you guys see it? I can only see the word "Image"
SUCCESS

Cheers
Mork

Jorgeelalto wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 15, 2018 20:43 CEST

Hi,

So, finally the wait is over! I'm sorry about the delay but I couldn't really work on this until now (just finished a final exam). Here are the final reviews:


Marc clement: It’s a pity because the pianos and melodies sound great, but there seems to be more than one plane to the depth of the song, I will try to explain: In the trance part, the clap sounds out of the space in which the rest of the elements are. I think it’s a mix of volume and lack of reverb/compression, but I’m not sure about it. The tempo transition is much better, I like it a lot now, I can’t really figure out where it is



The final podium is:

1st - Mork
2nd - Marc clement
3rd - Nonlinear

Congratulations to Nonlinear, Marc clement and Mork for the win; VasDim, MOA22, Dwic and Nonlinear for the finals, and thanks a lot SRMix, Dodgingrain, Giri IS, Kevin Gobin, KevinWhite, Piranha, Saras, Wizzo and Davidpaulpaige for participating! See you around soon

Hi Jorge,
Thanks for taking the time to listen to all those mixes......Sorry about the hats I misinterpreted what you meant.

Congrats to All.....As for claiming a prize I`m happy to let Nonlinear have what they want.

All the best, see you next time around

Marc Clement

Thank you, Jorge, for selecting my mix as one of the finalists! Congratulations to Mork and Marc for the top spots as well as everyone else who put their time and talents into this contest.

Jorgeelalto wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 15, 2018 20:43 CEST

Still, the whole mix sounds a bit squashed - did you use a compressor in the master buss? I normalized all the tracks to 0 LU (automatically by Reaper SWS) and the peak volume is lower than in the rest of the submissions. It’s a pity because it loses a bit of punchiness and dynamics.

I worked this mix entirely on headphones (Senn HD280s) so I probably am not hearing everything the same way you would on proper monitors. Usually I tend to undercompress so I'm not sure what happened but it sounds good to me.

In keeping with contest rules I did not use any "mastering" processing on the 2-buss but I did use a lot of automation, compression and saturation on individual tracks - especially percussion, claps, etc. - to control transients for a relatively loud mix. In spite of that my mix sits around -10LUFS which is low for EDM. I pulled it down further to keep peaks below -1dBTP for the mp3 version.

I am interested to know how you mastered your mix so loud (around -7LUFS) while still maintaining the punch you desire? Please tell us!

I would very much appreciate a copy of Acon Digital's "DeVerberate" plugin as my prize.

Thank you!

Hi Marc Clement, it's OK, I try to not give very technical feedback (instructions on how to fix the "problems" I hear) so we can simulate a true client-mixing engineer situation. If I'm a client that want my track mixed by someone else, then I shouldn't know how to mix, or that's how I understand this challenge. If I were too "generic", broad or non-technical please let me know!

Nonlinear, thank you for participating. I have to say I don't have "proper" monitors (read: professional enough ones) but just comparing the audio to my own mix and the rest of the participants' it sounded like that. Not a big effect but noticeable nonetheless, probably the saturation and compression really helped to get more loudness out of individual elements. In my tracks I lately try not to use much compression, and when I do it's always in parallel (with the TDR Kotelnikov one, amazingly nice). I also use transient designers for the drums when I need more/less attack or release, and sometimes I even limit some individual drum tracks if the transient is too much. In the master buss usually I have light multiband compression (which gives more presence to every part of the spectrum without squashing anything), then another parallel bus compressor and finally the limiter. I'm now aiming for -14 LUFS, although this track was made some more time ago and I don't remember exactly the settings. The punchyness in this kind of genres usually comes from the kick, and kick/clap combination, paired with some heavy pumping. That last element is pretty critical since you can keep both the drums and the rest of the big sounds at pretty high levels while having the full dynamics of the kick there. It's the mix really, mastering is just squashing a bit more the mix. That's my method though...