Mix Challenge

Hi everyone,

the mix file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11G8hWV ... sp=sharing

Mixed in REAPER 6.14

First, all tracks were processed through waves NLS channel (different mixer emulation for every instrument section).

Master Buss:
NLS Buss Stereo (Waves) (ssl)
SSLComp Stereo (Waves)
J37 Stereo (Waves)
Vitamin Stereo (Waves) Just for get mono bass below 100Hz. No other process added


Drum Buss:

CLA-76 (Waves) Two mono instances
NLS Channel Stereo (Waves)
TDR Nova (Tokyo Dawn Labs) For tame dynamically 150-200Hz range

Drum Compressor Buss: (is routed to Drum buss)
Here, come the signal of kick, snare and toms busses
NLS Channel Stereo (Waves)
H-Comp Stereo (Waves)

Bass Buss:
bx_console SSL 4000 G
NLS Channel Stereo (Waves)
TDR Nova (Tokyo Dawn Labs)

Guit Buss:
PuigChild 670 Stereo (Waves)
NLS Channel Stereo (Waves)

Guit Heavy Buss:
TAN (Acqua)
PuigTec EQP1A Stereo (Waves)
H-EQ Stereo (Waves) process in M/S mode.
NLS Channel Stereo
TDR Nova (Tokyo Dawn Labs)

Backing Vocals Buss:
Tape Cassette 2 (Caelum Audio)
VComp Stereo (Waves)
NLS Channel Stereo (Waves)

Lead Vocal Buss:
NLS Channel Stereo (Waves)


DRUM:
kick’s channels summed to one buss for signal processing with
bx_console SSL 4000 G, (EQ and Gate) and a radical cut in 130Hz with another EQ for eliminate resonance.

Snare’s channel summed to one buss for signal processing with
bx_console SSL 4000 G (EQ, Gate and compression)and complementary eq with reaper stock eq.
Snare buss is sends to reverb bright short plate effect.

Overheads and toms processed with bx_console SSL 4000 G.

No use of hi hat, ride and crash channels.

I just used the M/S room signal heavily compressed and eq


BASS:

DI channel used for chorus Effect (JS: Ze Big Chorus)
blended with the other channels

GUITS:
None of the DI channels were used.
For every guitar section (GTR.DIRTY.CHORDS, GTR.INTRO.CHRS…etc)
all channel in the section were sended to a buss processed with bx_console SSL 4000 G

GTR.DIRTY.CHORDS: was used as the overall guitar sound. mostly the room channel, although all the channels provided for this guitar were used.

GTR.INTRO.CHRS:
channels used:
GTR.INTRO.CHRS.RIV.57
GTR.INTRO.CHRS.MS.ROOM.RIV
GTR.INTRO.CHRS.MEJ.419

GTR.VRS
channels used:
GTR.VRS.RIV.609
GTR.VRS.RIV.MS.ROOM RIV
GTR.VRS.MEJ.419

GTR.HVY
channels used (in each side L/R)
GTR.HVY.RIV.SM57
GTR.HVY.MEJ.D112

these two channels were sended to a buss for each side processed with:
Tube Saturator Vintage (Wave Arts)
bx_console SSL 4000 G

And then, these busses went to another buss, inserted with:
Scheps 73 Stereo (Waves)
API-550B Stereo (Waves)

VOX:
lead vocal:
RDeEsser Mono (Waves)
bx_console SSL 4000 G
CLA-76 Mono (Waves)
CLA-2A Mono (Waves)
TDR Nova

Lead vocal reverb:
Two mono instances of ConvologyXT with a Roland Echo sim, panned L-R

Harmony vocals:
Each channel processed with AudioTrack Mono (Waves).
for eq and heavy compression

Harmony vocals Reverb:
ValhallaSupermassive
ReaEQ
HeadCrusherFree (Audio-Assault). For a more mid range tone

Automation mostly on Vocals.

Hello, here is my mix.
Regards
Hybrid mix using Cubase 10.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wklb2yp62yxxt ... S.wav?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2pztdz3fy1sg3 ... 5.png?dl=0

Thank you, Ady and Cheap Flights for providing this month's challenge.
Thank you Mister Fox for managing the contest.

This is my take on the song Waterfall.

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

/////

Phasing issues tackled first!

/////

DRM GRP: eq-comp-saturation
..SNR:.eq
..........AUX:.plate
..HATS:.lowpass
..OH:.lowpass
..RIDE:.lowpass
..HANG TOM:.eq
..FLOOR TOM:.eq

BASS GRP:.dynamic eq-comp-multiband-transformer-declicker
..BASS DI:.distortion
...........sub-harmonic synth

GTR INTRO GRP:.eq-comp-spring-transformer-imaging

GTR VERSE GRP:.eq-comp-spring-transformer-imaging

GTR ARP GRP:.eq-comp-transformer-imaging

GTR HEAVY GRP:.eq-comp-transformer-imaging

GTR DIRTY GRP:.eq-comp-spring-transformer-imaging

BGV GRP:.eq-comp-chorus-imaging-transformer
..BG CHANNEL:.comp on individual track
..........AUX:.room

LV GRP:.eq-dynamic eq-imaging-transformer
..LV CHANNEL:.dynamic eq-eq-comp-deesser
..........AUX:.saturation
...............room
...............long verb

MASTER:
...............tape saturation
...............eq
...............transformer

Hi Guys, once again thank you for another mixing challenge, allways a lot of fun.

On my mix I have commited to use all of the tracks provided.

Drums: Listened the ref track back and forth and tryied to reach for similar sound and vibe. To achieve that I used EQ, Compression and Saturation on kick, snare and drums bus. Also used a low end enhancer on the snare to beef up the low mids. Aplied very litte reverb on kick and snare and a bit more on the cymbals. Side chain compression on Bass/Kick and on Ride/Ride Overdubs. Used the room mics for light parallell compression.

Bass: I have applied a chorus effect similar to the one represented on the reference track. Also added a SansAmp on the bass amp track to add saturantion to the high frequencies and used the bass DI for the low end. I have used EQ and compression to get closer to the reference track and applied a bit more saturation on the bass bus.

Guitars: I have used all the tracks provided as I thought that every track added something to each other. Also added a SansAmp to the DI guitars and used them to bring more clarity to the notes, mainly on the "lead" guitar. Did some heavy EQ on the guitars to put them where I wanted to put them on the spectrum. Subtractive EQ on resonances and on areas where they where competing with vocals and bass, and additive EQ to sit them on they best frequency pocket. Reverb to put them a litte behind the vocals.

Vocals: Lots of editing on the volumes, EQ and compression. I wanted to make as even as possible throughout the whole track. Also added a bit of saturation to beef up a little bit and added Slap back Delay with good amount of reverb and subtractive EQ.

Hope you enjoy it. Heres my submission
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sOl4gP ... sp=sharing

Thanks

Ok guys

I've finished the mix some time ago, but I didn't really have the time to post about it yet. but here it goes!


Mix link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DF8BnM ... sp=sharing

Drums:
I wanted some hard hitting drums, with a smooth and hollow kick, a low and boxy snare, very bright cymbals and dry reverb and compression on it.

I grouped the kick tracks togheter, flipped the phase on the AKG mic and applied sidechain to the bass.
Grouped the Snare drums togheter, flipped the phase on the snare bottom one(so it doesn't hurt my low end) and mostly used it only to give that rattle to it. Most of the Snare comes from the Snare top track, overhead and room mics.

Normal mixing on Overheads/Hi-hats(Used the C1 mic for it).
Then I grouped the Room tracks togheter and EQ's them all togheter on the bus.
Grouped the overdubs togheter, applied a very long and bright shimmer effect and used it to give a lot more of depth and brightness to the mix, without really hurting that "dragged" dark, and maybe even gloomy feel the song had to have.

For the bass I used the DI track and I thought it was the one which sounded best taking in consideration we had to use a chorus effect on it. Applied a bit of saturation as well to get those harmonics up to match the tone to the reference.

For the Vocals it was pretty basic.
Main Vox on the center, in front of everyone. A fast and low cutoff, high feedback delay on it so the notes have a much higher release. To contribute to the overall "feel" I thought the song needed.
A reverb channel for the all the vox was created. I used the darkest reverb I could find and compressed the signal before it went to the reverb. This way the depth or space of the song remains constant when the vocalist releases her soul to it and I didn't need to compress the dry vocals. Applied a very gentle d-esser to the main vox as well.
Main Harmor is in the center.
Harmor 2 is automated for the panning.
Harmor 3 is on the Left
And Harmor 4 is on the right.

Finally! For the guittars!
I grouped them like this: intro, verse, bridge, "finale" and chords.
Used the same reverb for all the parts.
Tried to get the most reverb on the DI tracks as they had really clean high mids I could boost and make them sound "heavenly", on amp'ed tracks they would get me too much distortion and make the mix sound thin (which would be absolutely horrible for this song), but i still used them panned of course.
On the tracks I didn't pan I applied a very subtle, slow auto-pan.(around 0.10-0.20Hz with a 40-60% width) to provide some movement on it. It was the first time i tried that approach and i loved the result, you don't really get that static sound to it but the listener can't really tell for sure what's happening.
The "lead" guittars are more on the high end and the chords are more on the low end. They are pretty loud and giving that dragged kind of feel to the song, but they don't really stand out. I mixed them blended togheter with the bass so it doesn't become muddy.

Not really much more to it.
I Had a lot of fun doing it and I hope to make it even better for round 2.

Best regards from Portugal!
Eduardo

Thanks for that awesome opportunity to mix a beautiful song!
I like the initial vibe however I just like did something more clean, spatial and big, also with "waterfall" effect ;-)
So for the drums additional track I choose simple overheads and than add some valhallroom on the drumbus. I don't very much like initial room recording (don't know why, tested a lot of times) but there was mess around with direct channels which I prefer more. So I end drum bus with some eq, glue compressor in ableton and that's it. By the way my main tools for the mix were PSPinfinistrip and Fabfilter pro-q3 as vst and eq eight and compressor sometimes built-in ableton live.
Bass also got a lot of experimentations and I ended with Soundtoys chorus (wow I forgot the name!!!) then put mono bass utility from ableton and also bring some heavy compression to make two tracks of bass (I muted the third one) sit nicely in low region of the mix.
Vocals is a bit tricky too. I do some manual automation for the volume, some PSPinfinistrip stuff like analog like eq and compression and then slightly changing some frequencies in Fab EQ. I don't like an initial idea to make it 1khz heavy just because I liked how singer done her job! Very smooth. Oh yeh, and the last (don't know why, just intentionally) Fabfilter DS for deessing around 10khz.
Guitars are not so tricky due to a lot of channels and yeah mixing them together brought 80 percents of results and 20 done by small amount of compression and eq too.
And on the master bus just a little bit of glue ssl compression to bring things together. And forgot to mention I didn't use reverbs (valhalla room and vintage verb) on aux busses because I'd like to experiment with different places on the each buss. So I ended around 20 to 35 percent of wet signal of all of them.

So here are results and thank you again and good luck for everyone!
MP3 - https://www.dropbox.com/s/j6lo7mzelwz39 ... r.mp3?dl=0
WAV - https://www.dropbox.com/s/66wx0huru7ntm ... r.wav?dl=0

Hi,
thx for the contest and the band for the stuff.

First of all, I haven't heard the original or the sound references.

I use only the originaltracks no DI.

Actually i don't really like this kind of music, i come from the progmetal corner.
Anyway, it has to be fun and here is my mix

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kb-xVd ... sp=sharing

I created a Walktrough with the most steps i do.
To read this is certainly fun, because my English is just as good as I can do PowerPoint presentations. ;-)

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

I wish everyone the best of luck!

Greetings from Germoney
Hoschi
P.S i havent master the track. Is only the endmix.

Hey there.

I started with the drums, mixed their volume, used some eq and compression, then i grouped them to a bus where they got processed by a bus compressor, a Pultec-style eq and some tape saturation.

Bass: I added some distortion (BOD Bass Overdrive) to the DI witch I used as the fundamental, then I used the two other tracks as left and right with a chorus effect.

Vocals: used the bx opto plugin on the individual tracks, some dynamic eq cut (TDR Nova GE) on the mid on the main vocal and some tuning here and there.

Guitars: cut some lows on some tracks, added the tracks that i thought sounded the best together, then compressed them together.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AO7Rsv ... sp=sharing

Hey!

Here is my mix - loved mixing this track - really dig it! Thanks to the band and Ady and all involved for the opportunity!

Thanks

Ross

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

At frist, i found the song a bit weird. I think it was because of the mix provided here. After exploring the single tracks I recognised the potential the song has. I like how the song gets more dramatic to the end. But I wanted the song not so dark as the original mix. I wanted a more open sound, were all the little details in the playing become more alive. Great Guitars, great drums.

So, a lot of clean up I did. Most with EQ. Guitars and Bass I also have the DI tracks online. Beside the EQ the drums were cleaned up in muting parts of tracks to reduce bleeds. For example the HiHat is muted when it is not playing, just bleeds on the track. Also the Toms. A lot of automation is done to get the right amount of volume at the right time with Guitars and Bass. The Guitars got FX like Delay, Chorus and Vibe. The Guitars are panned a bit, not much, except the heavy one.

Here is the result: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rw9slhzrafrkt ... n.wav?dl=0