Hi all!
First post here, just registered today. What a great community!
Below is my entry. The song to me, needed to sound big and atmospheric, mysterious and longing...a little dark but punchy...with a driving bass. I picture some fog, dark streets, alleys, etc. while working on this
Really fun!
So we are supposed to talk about our process a little...so here goes:
I always start by importing all the tracks and balancing/panning to try and match the rough, or get close. I'm not diving into EQ or crazy things, just balance. Then from here I want to improve it.
Next I'll address any issues. I'll go through and check phase on drums, bass tracks, etc. to make sure it's all good. On this particular song I thought the Overhead mics were picking up a nasty clicking sound from the ride...so I ran them through a deClicker plugin by izotope RX to smooth it out on those sections. I also moved a few kick/snare hits to be more in time, but not too many. Overall the drums should have the same feel, just a few edits here and there for timing.
For this track, overall, I put the Console 1 Neve emulation across all the tracks...so a lot of my main eq and compression (mostly in parallel) was used with this plugin. It's emulating a Neve desk...and the eq is really smooth and musical...the compressor also...very smooth and musical. I thought it would fit this song well.
I like to simplify things, so at this point I probably imported my mix template. It's just a bunch of auxes to assign tracks to so I can make sense of stuff. So I'll go through and route it all where it needs to go. I probably started with drums for this song...trying to figure out what they should be doing. The biggest challenge for me was getting the kick super big and full, but not too boomy and overpowering. I used a transient designer, and a gentle gate/expander to tame some of the kick tail. Then quite a bit of eq to shape it into the track. The real kick and sample they provided were bussed to one fader that I mainly worked from.
For drum compression, I mostly rely on parallel compressors on auxes. The whole kit was sent to a Chandler Zener (UAD plugin) that was mixed in under the main drums, and also I like to send kick and snare to a dbx 160 (softube/native instruments) for more impact...also mixed in parallel. Some of the drums were sent to a room reverb, and the snare to a couple rooms as well as a spring for some vibe. I'll often work on the entire drum master fader for overall shaping as well, if needed.
For perc I wanted a bit of width and vibe, so I added some delays, devil loc to crush it, some lofi, eq, and also sent it to my parallel Aphex (Waves)...for a bit more bite.
Looks like for bass, I used the DI for the full bass sound and low end...and the amp mic to filter out the sub bass and add a bit of distortion. Both of these were then bussed to my main bass aux...where I did quite a bit of EQ, and a little compression with an 1176 (UAD). I also wanted some really low sub bass in this track to give it that longing, mysterious vibe...so I added a pitch shifter, knocked the bass down a full octave...then blended that in at about 20%...immediately following that I put on the bx_subfilter to boost some of that extreme low end for growl. The bass also went to the Aphex a bit...for more bite.
Next were acoustics...I chose the best mics for each...so the intro has 2 mics, and the rest of the song had 2 mics total (1 mic per take)...panned left and right. I got rid of the doubles as I didn't feel the song needed them. The intro is a stereo guitar so sounds more narrow, then it opens up to the two panned separate takes when the band kicks in. Overall, some deEssing on the guitars to get rid of finger noise and nasty stuff, then some Neve eq, a little parallel compression, added Kramer Tape to the right guitar, a little dynamic eq and then the Helios EQ from UAD to really give each track it's sound. I then put some dVerb on each guitar track as an insert set to a really short room and blended low, to push them back a bit and put some air around them. They were then also sent a bit to another room reverb, and a little spring for vibe.
Piano just has a bit of eq, some parallel compression (from the Neve emulation), then sent to a room verb, and a hall to separate it in the mix a bit and sustain the notes. Nothing crazy.
For vocals, the main track had a bit of eq, and parallel compression (Neve emulation)..then that is sent to a parallel compressor (in this case the Zener Limiter from UAD won out)...then both of those tracks go to a main lead vocal aux...where I did more processing. I tried this new Resonator plugin I got from the Slate bundle...that gave the vocal a cool vibe when mixed in really low. So that's on there, followed by Decapitator for grit, a little EQ7 in pro tools to notch out a few spots, then into a DeEsser and a tape plugin (Softube Tape). The vocal then sent to the Aphex, a chamber, a spring, the EP34 delay from UAD, and a plate (Lustrous Plates from Slate). All blended to taste.
BGV's all had a bit of individual EQ, then bussed to a main aux with an La2a (UAD) and a dynamic eq (Waves F6). Some of the individual tracks were then sent to a bit of the spring, chamber, plate, and EP34.
Overall, everything except for drums and bass are also sent to a stereo unlinked 1176 compressor and blended in under the full mix. Gives it some movement and presence. This is something I picked up from Andrew Scheps, called the Rear Bus technique. I also have 4 other buses (Bottom, Guitars, Air, Wide). Bottom collects drums/bass...Guitars is all guitars, Air is keyboards (and other things like strings, horns, etc. when I have them)...Wide is for all BGVs and Effects and has the bx_2098 EQ on it set to M/S and stereo widening to 150%). Lead vocals go straight to mixbus.
On the Bottom bus, I had the Deflector compressor by Kush/Slyfi (distressor emulation). On Guitars I had the AR-1 compressor that just came out by Kush Audio. Nothing on the Air bus this time since it's just the one piano.
All of these, including the 1176's are all sent to the mixbus where I had the bx_Townhouse (plugin alliance) compressor, the Curve Bender (UAD), bx-digital eq, and Softube Tape.
I hope that makes sense and isn't too long! Was just going to submit with a brief description, but then I read we are supposed to explain what we did in detail...
24 Bit 48khz WAV
https://www.dropbox.com/s/le5ccfixwenip ... 2.wav?dl=0
16 Bit 48khz MP3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gsseoe6sbzg6y ... 2.mp3?dl=0
Oh ok, I did 'skim' the rules but yeah I see it's literally a 'MIX CHALLENGE' (the clue is in the title I suppose) so understand that my mix doesn't meet the rules.
