Mix Challenge

Good afternoon everyone and good luck in the contest!

I have tuned the voice using melodyne trying to do it in a subtle way so that the Autotune effect is not noticeable, which in particular is something that I do not like in music. It's also compressed with an optical compressor, and I've been looking to get a good timbre using EQ.

I have used parallel compression on the snare and kick drum, with an attack time of about 40ms, and a strong ratio, in order to achieve a more defined attack. The rest of the battery elements are isolated with a noise gate, and equalized to get the timbre that I liked the most.

Bass dynamics are shaped with an expander and compressor, to avoid too much sub-bass ball.

The guitars and keyboards are stabilized using an optical compressor, and equalized to get the timbre I like and find their space in the mix. The entire set is compressed using the voice as the Side Chain input, to reduce 1.5dB to make room for the voice.

Access to the song is as follows:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uPoTD9 ... sp=sharing

Hi all,

Fun track to mix! Thanks for sharing.
Here is my interpretation - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FM_UdA ... sp=sharing

Some of the more interesting aspects to my mix:

The drum kit needed a lot of time aligning to get the phase in check, a couple of examples, 360 samples on the kick, 430 samples on the snare!
The Kick drum needed a lot of work to get clean and punchy, used two different transient shapers to increase attack and reduce sustain, also a gate, and some fairly drastic EQ to give it some punch. But after a lot of trial and error, I'm prtty pleased with the Kick tone.

Overheads had quite a drastic EQ too, cut everything below 450Hz, as the kick drum was problematic here too, also gently filtered above 8kHz as the cymbals were too splashy and hi-fi. I also used the Oeksound Soothe to clean up the cymbals

Added some distortion to the Acoustic Guitar 1 so that it fit with the heaviness of the overall track, and sat nicer stereo panned opposite to the electric rhythm guitar
Hammond had a healthy dose of distortion to give it some more attitude.
All Rhyttm section instruments were sent to a roomy reverb, for a more live performance vibe.

The lead guitar has had a lot of the fizzier top end reined in with Soothe, and automates in some RBass in the solo sections to give it some balls! The level is also automated to fall back when the vocal should be the focal point. In certain sections of the solos, there is an additional long reverb for a more epic sound.

The vocal has quite a lot of saturation on it in the end, I wanted it in your face and agressive, maybe Strokes'y type of sound. It's got Lo-Fi, Kelvin and Kramer Master Tape on there!

Vocals and BVs have been lightly tuned. Some of the guitar parts have been moved backwards or forwards a bit to help with timing.

The intro sample has had Dear Vr Micro added to it, for binarual placement, it supposed to sound like it's behind the listener and slightly to the right. This only really works on headphones though. But a cool effect.

Thanks again and I hope you like my mix.

Cheers,
James

Hi everyone.

Another newbie here - my first ever mix competition. First up, thanks to Buddy and the band for the tune - it rocks - to Mister Fox for the organising, and to everyone else who's entered - I've really enjoyed listening to submissions and hearing how you've all dealt with things. Given me some ideas for future mixes too, so thanks for that.

Here's my mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x0IFrv ... sp=sharing

Here's a brief rundown of my approach:

I'm working in Samplitude Pro X 6. Started by cleaning and gain staging the tracks.

Drums
Kick - took one listen, realised a gate wasn't going to cut it, got in there and started editing by hand. That had more of a positive effect on the quality of the sound than anything else I did over the mix. Other than that it's just EQ and compression.
Snare, HH, Toms - just EQ and compression.
OH - EQ, compression, saturation.
The drum buss has a wee bit of tape saturation on it to help tame the fizzy highs a bit.

Percussion - compression on each track, sent to a buss with another compressor and a bit of reverb. It's all quite low in the mix though, as things get a bit busy towards the end and there are some timing issues.

Bass - EQ, compression and saturation on the main track. I made a parallel track just in the chorus that's got the bottom end EQ-ed out and with a bit of chorus on it to help it cut through a wee bit.

Guitars
The rhythm guitar has a small amount of compression, mainly this was about the EQ to tame those scratchy high mids.
I split the lead guitar in two. The solos are through the middle and sounding nice and warm. The panned lead guitar has a lot of volume automation (well, strictly speaking it's Samplitude's Object Editor at work, but the effect is the same) to bring out the lead phrases and to make room for other instruments in the chorus. Just some EQ otherwise.
The main acoustic is quietly padding out the centre most of the time, although I've got it turned up and panned left with a Tube Screamer plugin on it during the solos to balance the rhythm guitar. The chorus acoustics are panned hard left and right, but providing ambience more than anything. The acoustics are all sent to a buss with EQ, compression, saturation and a touch of chorus.

Hammond - I've split the chorus parts to a separate track and widened the stereo image to make space for the vocals and bass, and just to make the chorus feel wider than the verses. I've gone the other way the rest of the time and made the hammond mono where I think it sits quite nicely. Both tracks have the same Tube Screamer plugin as the acoustic guitar to give them a bit of grit, Jon Lord stylee.

Synth - I didn't really touch apart from turning down the very first noise as it was a bit distracting.

Vocals
Melodyne for a bit of tuning, Waves R-Vox for some levelling. Twice in the case of the lead. Just some EQ otherwise, especially in the high mids of the lead to get it cutting through.

Aux Sends
Room EQ for ambience, saturation and compression for a bit of glue, and a plate reverb for the lead voice and instruments.

It's been fun! I hope you all like the mix.

Al

A very challenging mix!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lpntV9 ... sp=sharing

The drums have a lot of eq, compression, parallel compression, distortion, gating and clipping. Used rbass on the snare at times to give it thickness. Ended up doing a lot of processing.
The guitars didn't need much other than some eq and compression.
I put the lead guitar through some tape saturation so that it wasn't too piercing.
Tried experimenting with the acoustic guitars. Added a chorus and flanger.
For the bass I used an amp sim and rbass along with eq and compression.
I didn't do much to the keys just some eq and reverb.
I used some melodyne to tune the vocals and then some eq and compression.
Most of the things went to reverb return tracks.

Hi,
this is my first time in the mix challenge.

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

Here are a few notes from my mix:

I guess my focus was on the main vocals, lead guitar and snares.

- Vocals: did not do any tuning, boosted a little around 3k, used LX480 Essential for reverb
- Drums: Used gates, compression on most tracks
- Snare: had a bit of a hard time with the sound, also gate and compression, Used Saturation Knob to bring bit of character
- Lead Guitar: Slight EQ to reduce bit of harshness on the highend, Flexverb

Used bit of eq and compression on various tracks.

Hello everyone, here is my mix.

This time I won't stick to describing exactly what I did on all instruments, I'll give an overview and some details that were unusual for my traditional workflow.

All EQ was done on the BX_SSL 9000J, basically adding a lot (9db or more) high and mid high, all channels received EQ. All channels were compressed with the same plugin's compressor, fast attack and pre eq.

Lexicon PCM reverbs, Room for drums and percussion, Chamber for some guitars, Random Hall for Hammond and Plate for vocals. PCM Dual Delay for vocals and lead guitar, Eventide H3000 in Micropitchshift preset for Hammond and backing vocals.

I used the Sound Radix Drum leveler on the snare and kick, I don't normally use it.

The plan was to make everything as polished as possible (considering the tuning and timing errors I didn't correct) and with more emotion.

Hope you like it.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PlV8Vd ... sp=sharing

Hi, All!
Here's my Mix: https://www.dropbox.com/s/a4kklw85febtm ... 0.wav?dl=0

First Thx to The Buddy Blake Band for the Time Capsule and return to the '80s.
Thx Mister Fox.

Drums: Console SSL sent to parallel comp.
Bass: Doubled First Track eq, Ampeg SVX, 1176. Second Track Dist, eq.
Acc Gtr: Eq, Opto comp, Saturation.
Lead Gtr: Eq, dbx comp, Widener, Saturation, Long Delay, Short Delay, Chorus, Phaser, Flanger.
(Tried recreating '80s Guitar chain)
Rhythm Gtr: Comp, eq, Saturation.
Keys: Eq, Opto comp.
Vox: Eq, cl 2a comp, SSL 4000e, De-Esser, Dyneq, Limiter. Set to Plate and Delay.
BGV: Widener, Opto comp, eq. Set to Plate.
Master: Saturation, Bus Comp, Pultec, Limiter.

Hi.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11Xk9Sx ... sp=sharing

This is my take on this, tried a weird approach. I didn't like how the instruments interacted with each others and the vocals when panned around (was like having lots of voices speaking at the same time from all directions) so I put most of the stuff in the middle and played with the stereo field during the song. Doing so sacrificed the single instruments and some clarity for the vocals but at the same time I think made the song less "busy". As far as processing goes its nothing weird or special (apart from the kick), a lot of automations.

Kick: a bit of eq for the low rumble, a bit of compression, multiband transient designer to fix it -----> bounced and the processed as a normal kick

Good luck guys!

Hello,

Thank you for this new mixing opportunity and thank you also to the supplier of the song.

My proposal is quite "classic rock", the sound quality is important to me (not just the mix) with well-chosen effects and maximum sound contrast, especially on the lead vocals with a megaphone sound in certain parts, this type of rock song is a lot harder to mix than you might think because a lot of frequencies overlap, but I humbly think I got a good result.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fAb541 ... sp=sharing

The technical part:

24 bit /44.1Khz , -18.36 RMS, TPL -2.80, DR 12.00

No compression and equalization on the mixing bus, ready for pre-mastering, the temptation is great to add effects but that is not required during the mixing phase...

I MAINTLY USED:

All tracks: N4 ACUSTICA "ALEXB R88 GE LINE PREAMP"

All tracks: ACUSTICA "FIRE FILTER"

All buses: N4 ACUSTICA "ALEXB R88 GE BUS PREAMP"

Mix Bus: N4 ACUSTICA "ALEXB R88 GE MIX PREAMP"

Parallel mix bus: PLUGIN ALLIANCE "SPL IRON"

DRUMS:

Phasing of the different elements: MELDA "MAUTO ALIGN"

Dynamics: GETGOODDRUMS "SMASH AND GRAB 2", SONIBLE "SMART COMP", XLN AUDIO "DRUM SHAPER", FABFILTER "GATE"

Eq: SOFTUBE WEISS "EQ MP", N4 ACUSTICA ALEXB "R88 EQ GE", FABFILTER "PRO Q3"

Reverb: MELDA PRODUCTION "TURBO REVERB", EASTWEST

BASS:

Dynamic: ACUSTICA "EL REY"

Eq: FABFILTER "PRO Q3

EL-GT:

Eq: SONIBLE "SMART EQ3", FABFILTER "PRO Q3

Dynamics: AOM FACTORY "NU COMPRESSOR"

Reverb: EASTWEST

ACC GT:

Eq & dynamics: SLATE DIGITAL "MIX RACK"

Reverb: EASTWEST

VOICES:

Tune: ANTARES "AUTOTUNE"

Eq & dynamics: SLATE DIGITAL "MIX RACK"

Reverb: MELDA PRODUCTION "TURBO REVERB", FABFILTER "TIMELESS 3"

Effect: "MEGAPHONE" AUDIOTHING

VARIOUS:

N4 ACUSTICA N4 "OLONGA KUSH CLARIPHONIC"

WAVES FACTORY "TRACKS SPACER"

DAW: PRESONUS STUDIO ONE 5.0 Monitors: AMPHION ONE 15, EVE AUDIO SC 208, AVANTONES

Mixed with pleasure in Brussels in Belgium, the country of surrealism...

Good listening to all,
Patrick

Hi all,

MC084__The_Buddy_Blake_Band __Time_Capsule_d8bflup

As usual, 95% of the mix was done OTB, on my aging Soundtracs CM4400, only a few things were done inside Studio One
All tracks were EQ'd on the Soundtracs, some only highpassed, others quite drastically

Kick and Snare were both run trough a SPL Transient Designer, the Kick was aside from the desk EQ, also run trough a Lindell Pultec style EQ. The snare was lightly compressed with a dbx 560.
For the first time ever (I think) I could not find a fitting drum reverb on the Yamaha SPX990, instead, I used the TC electronic DVR250 plugin on snare
HiH was only hipassed and panned to fit in the stereo image with the overheads
Toms were highpassed an run trough the Aphex exciter
Overheads recieved a generous Low Cut, no further processing

The drum buss as a whole was sent to the Master and via a sub group trough a ART VLA for some parallel compression

Bass was compressed with a dbx 560 and some gentle Cut in the highs

All percussion elements were submixed ITB and some reverb was added with the SPX 990

Rythm guit, some boost in the low mids (to create a greater contrast with the lead guit) a gentle boost with a shelving high for clarity

Lead guit was doubled and delayed to create a very wide image (to contrast with the rythm guit)

Acc guitars were submixed ITB and some chorus from the TC electronic 1210 was added ITB too

Hammond & synths recieved no processing, just find the correct level and done

Lead vocal, this was the biggest challenge for me, I could not glue it together with the rest of the mix. I used some gentle tuning with Melodyne, I used all 4 bands on the desk EQ (something I rarely do). I used the 2A-KT (a compressor I alsmost never use without also using a 1176 style compressor). In the end I went for a very dreamy style and used a very generous dose of Hall reverb (very short, as to not drown the vocal), together with some slap back delay. Both coming from the TC M3000
BKGD vocals were submixed ITB, scooped the lows to get them out of the way and a gentle dose of the same reverb as the Lead vocal.

As usual, I had a focusrite Mix Master on the master bus (just doing 1-2dB of compression). For this song however, I also added the Waves SSL bus compressor on the final mixdown.

This was a real challenge, and at one moment I decided to pull all the patch cords and reset the desk. I'm still not happy with the result, but time constraints (I have to do some paying work ) and one of my monitors decided to blow a fuse, so this is it...

thanks for the opportunity