Mix Challenge

Hi all

First a special thanks to @Edling for the song and providing the tracks and to @Mister Fox for using time on organizing these competitions.

This is a very good song and mostly nice recorded tracks. The 'kick' was a struggle though. I did not like how it sounded and it was very challenging to get it sound more as I like it. I did not get it exactly to where I wanted it, but it's now better to my ears and liking.

To do so I used several plugins and my DAWs built-in functions:

1. Harrison XT-BC Bass Character plugin. This plugins add upper harmonics to, usually the bass guitar, to make more clarity to the bass.

TIPS: I do this to make the bass/kick more present when playing the song on a kitchen speaker that do not have those low frequencies. The reason for this is that when our ears/brain hear the harmonics but not the base freq it adds the base freq so you'll 'hear' the freq that's not there. It's enhance the bass and kick on small loudspeakers.

2. Harrison XT-Drum character plugin. This plugin let you add different EQ settings to the attack and sustain on drums and specify the length of both.

3. Pultec passive EQ emulation plugin to boost and control the low end.

4. My DAWs channel gate and 32C EQ.

Other, lots of parallel compression and a LOT of automation as usual. Some freq separation and other measures to make 'room' for the different sound sources in the mix so that they are audible.

- 16.0 LUFS
- 2.6 dBTP
- 44.1 kHz / 24 bit
- 3.35 minutes

MC102__TheLastHours__ThePersonThatYouSee__sthauge

Good luck to everybody.

Steinar

Hi everyone,

Here is my submission: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gQCy-B ... drive_link

Many thanks to @Edling for providing the tracks. My objective was to create a transparent mix that was not too far away from the provided reference mix while leaving enough space for the vocals.

Processing
On most tracks, only an eq was applied. With a few exceptions (Vox_Lead, Bass_Amp and HiTom), compression was used only on subgroups and on the main bus. Worth mentioning are:
- Kick: transient designer to shorten the decay
- Bass_Amp: transient designer to emphasize the attack; side-chained dynamic eq to leave more space for the kick
- Git_Tremolo: subtle "ping-pong" delay to give it more space in the stereo field
- Vox_Lead: plate reverb

Tools
DAW: Ardour (on Linux)
plugin bundles: Calf, LSP and others

Mixing environment
Monitors: Yamaha HS80M with Yamaha HS10W (subwoofer)
Headphones: AKG K702
Room treatment: passive acoustic absorbers
No room/headphone correction software used

Hi!

here is the link to my proposal: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EUpLSQ ... drive_link

For this mix I wanted to orient it like in rock from the early 2000s with the snare drum, kick and vocals in front.
For this I mixed the 2 snare microphones with an SSL slice for each and clipping the whole thing into a snare bus and trying to bring out the attack with a transient designer.
The kick underwent a bit of the same treatment with an eq to boost the strike and the low all with a transient designer and the clipper
That's the main part of the drums with a parallel bus where I send all the tracks in saturation by compressing the attacks with an 1176
For the bass I hardly touched it, a dynamic sidechain eq with the bass drum to let the bass drum hits pass through the bass a little more
The guitars were eqed with a low shelf up to 300hz with a mix of reverbs/delay to create depth and breathing. To try to avoid a static mix, some pan automation on the gtr wha and a ping pong delay on the distos to create movement at 2 or three precise moments
For the lead voice, a quick equalization to cut the bass a little with a low shelf and the removal of a frequency annoying to my ears around 1khz then a parallel compression delay + reverb to give breadth to the voice
For the backvocals I cut into the bottom to make them move back into a second plane and I boosted the treble with a high shelf to break through the mix a little more by distributing them over the stereo width (100% and 60% left and identical right)
For the keyboards I cut the bottom with a lowshelf and sent in a medium reverb
On the master mix only a VCA compressor which will saturate everything a little and the small db of compression in rhythm to try to hold the song together
I really enjoyed working on this piece which brought back good memories of the music of that era.
Wishing you good listening!!

Thank you for the opportunity to mix this song! Here is the link to my mix.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k5SMVt ... drive_link

I am a fan of using SSL channel strips. So on this song, I used the UAD SSL channel strip. Everything was pretty well gain staged for I typically mix, but for certain elements that are a main feature of the song (such as kick, snare, certain guitars, the main vocal, etc.), I took advantage of the mic pre feature to get more of the transformer sound of the SSL console.

Once everything was gain staged, I started my rough mix and panning. I set my levels by using a VU meter to get my kick set loudness wise and adjusted everything according to that. Once that was set, I just moved along and did slight EQ tweaks. Not too much compression on individual instruments. The electric guitars had some EQ tweaks and went into a LA-3A compressor. And the lead vocals had some EQ going into a blackface 1176 a slower attack and faster release followed by the blueface 1176 with a faster attack and slower release.

Once the rough mix was set, I added some reverbs and delays. I had 3 delays (a stereo slap spread style delay, a stereo eighth note delay and a long half note throw delay) and 3 reverbs (a lexicon 480 plate, a Eventide 80s style drum room, and a EMT140 plate). Once I started getting effects, I started doing automation. Then, I decided I wanted some telephone effect so I added and automated that.

For my master bus, I had a Pultec with a slight low end boost/cut and a 3kHz boost/cut. I had the UAD SSL G Bus Compressor (slow attack, fast release, hpf at 80 Hz) and the last thing was the Ampex Mastering Tape. I also decided to utilize the auto fade in and fade out on the bus compressor as I printed the track.

This was a fun mix and I hope you enjoy it! Have a wonderful rest of your week!

DSBotez wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 18, 2025 15:51 CET

Oh.. while I was trying to use it as a reference track, I noticed that the youtube version of the song is set at -10.9 LUFS... basically 5 dB louder than the permissable -16 LUFS.

If it’s on YouTube it’s most likely a mastered version that’s been volume adjusted by YouTube.

/Edling

Thanks to the people who make this possible: Mister Fox and Edling. Good quality recordings and performance makes our task more pleasant.
This is my mix for this month:

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

I consider the arrangements themselves make the dynamic flows nicely. I’ve tried to get strong and wide chorus.
Some details to point out.
Master: I’ve been tinkering M/S eq, confronting bands so that to give more stereo feeling.
Discrete ping-pong effect: on hats, shaker, tambourine, guits wah and tremolo, pad and strings dub. Gives some movement, doesn’t it?
Guits 1 and 2 were duplicated (verse/chorus) because they have different purposes on each place.
Chorus send for guits. For more width as well.

My setup: Reaper native plugins and my old Fostex headphones. A good bunch of checking (car, speakers, earphones).
Any feedback would be more than appreciated.
Good luck to you all.

Hey everyone, here is my mix, hope you all like it :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DMdar1 ... share_link

It was a great song, and I had a lot of fun mixing it!

What I did:
Every channel has an EQ, unless otherwise mentioned below

Bass:
-Amp: High pass at 150Hz
-Line: Low pass at 150Hz & compressor side-chained to kick and low tom
-Fuzz: 6oct HP at 1920Hz
-Bass buss: EQ & Compressor

The HPs and LPs on these channels are to take different parts of each sound in the bass part. The low rumble of the line is there but the life of the amp is there too. I only needed the top end of the fuzz as it added extra life without overcrowding the mix.


Drums:
-Kick: Large boost at 65Hz, big reduction at 390Hz and at shelf boost at 4560Hz. After this was a very heavy compressor. This was then sent to a. parallel compression
-Snare: EQ & Distortion. This was then also sent to parallel compression.
-Hats: EQ & Distortion
-Ambient: No EQ or any other effect

Instead of adding a reverb, I liked the ambient sound, so I used this instead of a reverb effect on the drums. The parallel compression channel has a compressor and distortion. This channel added a lot of life to the drums.


Guitars:
-Distorted: These guitars were panned left and right by 45. The bus of the two signals had an EQ and compressor. This was then sent to a room reverb and an amp simulator aux
-Crunch: This had an EQ, then a multiband compressor compressing the mids and high mids. This then went to an amp simulator.
-Acoustic: This had an EQ, multiband compressor (this compressed lows, high-mids and highs). This was then sent to a room reverb.
-Solo: This had an EQ, compressor and pedal board FX. The pedal board had a fuzz and delay. This was then sent to an amp simulator.
-Tremolo: I duplicated this track so that I was able to put another tremolo on it in stereo, which would change sides every bar.
-Wha: Sent to room reverb and amp simulator.

In the end, I am quite happy with the guitar sounds that I got. I didn't like the solo sound very much to begin with as it sounded a bit muffled, so I added these effects to brighten it up. Again, the crunch has a lot of the lower frequencies cut so that the mix wouldn't be overcrowded, but it would help with presence. With the acoustic, I again cut a lot of the lows. This was to bring the acoustic back from the mix especially in the part where all the other instruments cut out.


Keys:
-All the strings and pads were sent to a big concert hall reverb
-The keys noise had an amp simulator

The pad and pad dub were EQed so that the dub only played the higher frequencies and the main pad only played the mids; this made blending and mixing them much easier. The same was done for the strings so that the main strings only had the higher frequencies and the dub only had the lower frequencies. I didn't want to get to many low frequencies in these parts so that they wouldn't interfere with the bass.


Vocals:
-Lead: Compresor to EQ to compressor to distortion. This was then sent to a slap back delay and room reverb. At some points of the song, the large concert hall reverb is briefly introduced at the ends of certain phrases.
-Lead Dubs: EQ and compression. This was then sent to the concert hall reverb
-Chorus & Verse: These were sent to concert hall reverb

I feel I got a nice sound on the vocal by keeping the loudness consistent and adding a bit of warmth from the distortion. The slap back also adds a lot of life to the vocal.


Master:
Logic has a mastering assistant plugin, which I put on the master. This analyses the mix and automatically puts on an EQ with the option to excite it (which was activated).

Hi peeps,
thanks for the opportunity to mix the song, special to @Edling and to @Mister Fox.
Original mix is very good, material too, and I tried to implement my own vision.
The intention was especially to mix the chorus and instrumental part before the end more openly and energetically,
and thus underline the heavy emotional state.
That wasn't so easy, because the two parts are quite dense, in terms of arrangement.

So I first mixed the drums, bass and main vocal only with the help of UAD Pultec HLF 3C.
After that, I successively added other instrument groups to the mix, also edited them with the filter first and tried to work with as few plugins as possible.
In addition to the obligatory EQ and comp, I used a few reverbs and delays.
On top of the sum I had a comp and limiter, which only eliminates the peaks without raising the volume.

I did the mix only with headphones (AKG K701) and checked it via a Bluetooth kitchen radio.

Download:
https://workupload.com/file/BtaZdpjesme

Hello everyone, great song, great production and a lot of fun to mix.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/i76iy8uz ... 0ahrl&dl=0

i did a very simple mix, some eq on each channel with a neve style 1084, a 33609 on the mixbus for a couple of db's of reduction followed by a pultec with a little happy face eq, only using 4 compressors on the entire mix 2 1176 for wah guitar and tremolo guitar and a distressor for lead vocal and lead double. 3 verbs, room, plate, hall and a long slap at 333ms (re201) and a eight note delay and that's it. little automation for lead vocal and here and there but minimal.

hope you'll like it.

goodluck everyone

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zJ5zh3 ... sp=sharing

Hello,


- First I raised the track volumes.
- I created a master bus and inserted the plugins: Reaper Eq, A1stereocontrol to open up the stereo a little, kotelnicov master compressor, chowtape model to simulate tape, kclip zero and loudmax limiter.

-Vox_Lead: Reaper Eq, UAD La-2a, T-De-Esser and Britpressor compressor.
-VOZ CHORUS: Reaper Eq, UAD La-2a, ReaGate and Britpressor compressor.
-VOZ LEAD stereo: Reaper Eq, UAD La-2a, ReaGate and Britpressor compressor.
-Keys_Noise: Reaper Eq and Britpressor compressor.
-Git_Wha: Reaper Eq, Little Alterboy to insert some drive, ReaGate and Britpressor compressor.
-GUITAR DIST: Reaper Eq, and Britpressor compressor.
-Drums_Kick: Reaper Eq
-Drums_Snare_Top: Reaper Eq, Flash transiente shaper and Loudmax limiter
-Drums_Snare_Bot: no plugin
-Drums_Hats: no plugin and pan to the left
-OVER: no plugin
-Room stereo: no plugin
-Room mono: Tdr Monotok compressor
-Drums_HiTom; Reaper Eq, Flash transiente shaper and Loudmax limiter
-Drums_LoTom: Reaper Eq, Flash transiente shaper and Loudmax limiter
-Drums_Shaker: Britpressor compressor.
-Drums_Tambourine: Britpressor compressor.
-Bass_Amp: Reaper Eq, Tdr Nova and Britpressor compressor.
-Bass_Line: Reaper Eq, and Britpressor compressor.
-Keys_Pad_Dub: Reaper Eq, and Britpressor compressor.
-Git_Tremolo: Reaper Eq, and Britpressor compressor.
-Keys_Lead: Reaper Eq, wider to open the pan a little and Britpressor compressor.
-Keys_Mellotron, Keys_Strings and Keys_Strings_Dub: Reaper Eq, and Britpressor compressor.
-Git_Crunch: Reaper Eq, and Britpressor compressor and ChowTape Model.
-Vox_Bg_Verse: ReaGAte, ReaEq, T-De-Esser, Uad La-2A and Britpressor.
-Git_Acoustic: Reaper Eq and Britpressor compressor.
-Bass_Fuzz: Reaper Eq, wider to open the pan a little and Britpressor compressor.
-Git_Solo: Reaper Eq, ReaGate, Britpressor compressor and ChowTape Model.

Thanks!