MIX CHALLENGE - MC104 June 2025 - Mix Round 1 in evaluation

[Michael_K]

Hello everyone! Thanks to @BenjiRage for this great track.
Great arrangment, sounds, and vocals!
It sounded great just bringing up the faders so most tracks are very close to flat.

Kicks: very little EQ on individual tracks, grouped then compressed slightly as a group for glue.
Snares and toms : same as the kIcks
Hihats: just a hipass and some panning.

Bass: slight dbx style compression and small cut on low mids
All other instruments had minimal treatment with eq, mostly high pass depending on the instrument, and sometimes a small cut to prevent masking. Also a tiny bit of fast compression to emulate tape saturation but without the distortion effect. Used the FF C2 for that.

The verse vocal and the center chorus vocal were treated the same way: 1176->expander->eq-> neve style compressor-> de-esser
The backing vocals panned L-R grouped and then ->cl1b->eq->parallel compression->de-esser
The left and right chorus vocals same as the backing vocals with a bit more reverb than the center vocal track.

I used fx busses for all tracks adding to taste for each track.
Mix Bus: SSL style bus compression with the C2 in bus mode

Mixed mostly using Gelelec 8030, referenced on Barefoot MicroMains, and 770 headphones. Reasonably treated room.

My mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mgpr_x ... drive_link

Good luck to everyone!

[ari5to5]

Hi!

My mix here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10pCup_ ... sp=sharing

My comments:

Groups and their treatment:
a. drum elements - api 2500 compressor catching snr hits and a limiter with saturation catching snr hits as well. on individual tracks, kicks were grouped and a transient designer and an eq were used. same with the snare - other tracks remained flat. kick and snr were sent to a parallel compressor (fet) and saturation.
b. bass elements (diva bass and sub rhythm) - api 2500 compressor triggered by the kick, multiband saturation/compressor (74hz-168hz) - 2 parallel saturations to enhance the mids - no other treatment on the individual channels
c. gtr - flat - individual tracks flat
d. keys - multiband compressor only up to 113hz triggered by the kick, maximum 6db gain reduction - all individual channels flat, except:
Keys OB Plucky - eq and vca compressor
Keys Piano K2000 - eq, vca compressor, eq - sent to shimmer verb that was eq-ed to reduce the mids
Keys Piano Shim - eq and vca compressor
e. vox - mv tracks were grouped and treated with compressor (fet), compressor (opto) and eq. on individual tracks eq was used for fine tuning. mv tracks were send to echoe and plate reverb. bv tracks were grouped and treated with eq and echoe as an insert.


I'm using a pair of Neumann KH80 (tuned by the Neumann software), paired with a Presonus Temblor T8 sub - yes guys, I'm poor (tuned by ear), in my untreated apartment. Mixing @ not more than 60db due to angry neighbors. Audio interface Clarett 4pre usb. The mix was checked on galaxy buds pro.

[Yusuke-I]

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

DAW: Studio One Pro 7
Monitoring: Unbranded speakers, no room treatment.
Headphones: Sony MDR-CD900ST and SuperLux HD681 (2x32 OHMS).
Correction Software: None used.

I'm participating from Japan. I read the rules using a translator, and just wanted to double-check: we don't need to master the track, is that correct?

I had a lot of fun mixing this. Thank you!

[JeroenZuiderwijk]

Hi Ben,

Thank you very much for giving us the oppurtunity to mix your song. A great production, I am impressed by the catchy and professional sound…and vocal btw. Nice work!

Before I started to do some serious mixing with this song I couldn’t help but experiment with some extreme reverb and delay settings. The drums sounding eighties over the top with a huge stereo field and the vocal going everywhere at the same time. That was good fun Not much of that stayed on the final mix but this way i could try out some different reverbs and reverbs settings that i liked.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/i3hc4maa ... cbjg9&dl=0

The tracks all sounded very good, so corrective eq wasnt needed. The usual high pass filters to make room for the kick and bass. It is a pretty dense arrangement so keeping enough space for the vocal was sometimes a challenge. I did this with cutting some frequencies that overlapped with the vocal in the synths and guitar. Also there is automation and sidechain compression to keep everything from going muddy.

The vocal has got a ‘blockfish’ compressor because I like the saturation option on it. I used serial compression (Reacomp) because it gave me the best results.

I dipped the vocal at around 5Khz because it made the vocal sit on top of the mix instead of in the mix.

The ‘verse’ vocal is sent to a Rob Papen verb (RP verb) for some warm long hall delay. The chorus vocal goes to the TC Electronix M-One XL . I used the ‘Gothic Cave’ setting…..I think that preset name says it all.

With volume automation I tried to keep the mix dynamic sounding. There is not much on the mastertrack, only the WarmAudio Buscomp and a little bit of eq to lift some frequencies i the high mid.

Monitoring: Genelec 1030A in an accoustic treated room. No additional eq correction. I also check the mix on DT880PRO headphones.

I hope you like it.

Cheers,
Jeroen

[TonyF!]

Hello
First of all, I want to thank @BenjiRage for contributing his song for this month’s challenge. The track is very interesting, well produced, and every musical element is well used — or at least that’s how it felt to me. I really enjoyed working on my mix.

I did the mix through an SSL 2+ interface using Pro Tools Studio, monitoring with Focal Alpha 65 speakers and occasionally using AKG240 Studio headphones. Both monitoring systems are calibrated with Sonarworks Sound ID. My studio also has acoustic treatment.

Here’s my mix — hope you like it!

Mix by Tony F!

[Waleed Morris]

Hello Everyone, long time no see ,
Glad to be here again , Thank you Mr. Fox to enable work on these tracks and @BenjiRage great song and production as well .
What I made : first of all I like to maintain the 80's sound which I liked a lot.
Drums : EQ / Compression / Added saturation as well , just a touch Fab filter for EQ and Recomp
Bass : Split to Bass low/high, there is already sub bass coming in chorus only ! I ducked the masked frequencies between low and sub bass, still
the low bass the leader to me but with a little help in super low freq.

Good luck everyone,

► Show Spoiler

Analyze Audio

My submission.
MC104 Above The Clouds

Cheers !
Waleed Morris

[Ohbeejuan]

@BenjiRage Wow. I think this is the best song I've heard on here so far, bar none. This thing should be blowing up the charts and wrecking all the garbage that's on the radio nowadays. Well done.

For my mix I used a hybrid setup with Pro Tools being piped through a Tascam US20x20 Interface to a Black Lion Summing Mixer then back into my interface. My monitoring setup is just my interface piping the audio out to a Presonus T10 sub and a pair of Fostex 8.4.1 monitors. Nothing fancy, but it works.

Stylistically, this song could go a ton of different directions. It reminded me a lot of Shiny Toy Guns, with kind of a retro-modern sound, so that's where I decided to go with it. To incorporate an 80's feel, I bussed the snare tracks to an aux track and ran them in parallel though a gated reverb into a stereo spreader. I ended up doing the same thing for the vocals as well, but I automated the gate to be off for the choruses. This opened up the vocals on the chorus to let the reverb go, while shortening it up in the verses to avoid having the reverb tail getting in the way of the lyrics.

I did something similar to a lot of the synth tracks, or a variation on that where I used a Ping Pong delay to give some movement into a reverb into a stereo spreader. That really opened up the middle for the vocals and made space for all the different synth parts. The piano part I copied the delay from the supplied materials. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

BenjiRage mentioned that the demo mix felt a little bit too compressed, and I felt he was probably right. although when you use finished samples to start with, it makes it harder to have something less compressed overall. I think focusing on getting things right in the stereo field helped clean this up a bit. I think something else that helped give my mix clarity was to clean up the bottom end a little bit and not have it be so overpowering. I get that the low end is supposed to blow you away, but at some point it just masks other things.

Speaking of low end, I slapped a chorus on an Aux track for the low end parts to help the song dance, and I used some subtle side chain compression on the 'bass' parts to help let the kick have the impact that it needs to kick you in the gut. I also used some pumping on a parallel track with all the midrange synth parts bussed to it to give a subtle sense of tension and release. I though about going ham with it on the whole thing, but it was too much and I liked the subtle approach better.

The vocals were very interesting. I've got to look up what you used to make them. To my ear the sounded a bit thin, wo whatever was the main part I doubled up the track and used a stereo delay on one to delay the duplicate by 24 and 30 ms. It's a subtle thing, but it did bring the vocal up where I wanted it to be without it sounding harsh. The gated reverb I had mostly on whatever the main vocal was and had much less on the backing tracks just to avoid a reverb ocean swallowing up the legibility of the lyrics.

On my submaster fader I didn't really go ham with the compression just because everything was so heavily compressed already. I think I cleaned up the EQ with a TRD SlickEQ, a SSL bus compressor that was just kissing it, then into a Shadow Hills Class A Mastering compressor, a instance of Ozone that was hardly doing anything.

The last thing that I used on my submaster was a plugin called Type A by AudioThing. Man if you haven't discovered this thing, it's absolutely amazing in emulating tape machine compression that gives it a sheen of clarity that was so common on records of the past. If you haven't looked at it, I highly suggest it.

After that it was out to the summing mixer and back in. That thing just glues things together in a way that's hard to beat in the box.

I think I had an instance of Frontier and Maxim to just make sure I wasn't blowing things out of the water, and a YouLean Loudness meter to keep an eye on the LUFS om my master fader before kicking it out.

Anyways, a very fun song. We need more music like this nowadays.

Here's my take on this song.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14mZrW0 ... sp=sharing

[_Enlightened_]

Hello everybody!
Since I'm new to this forum, I first of all hope I posted correctly

I'm Han from the Netherlands and getting into the whole mixing scene (mainly due to Mr. Scheps & Mr. Joe Carrol on YT ).
I'm really glad a forum like this exists for us to hone our skills, so many thanks for that to Mr. Fox!

Also many thanks to @BenjiRage for this synth banger! I've always been a fan of the 'Synthesizer greatest' albums of the 80s.

I therefore choose to focus on the synthesizers and of course the vocals, with the drums carrying the whole from the back.

I did a simple static mix, which was easy due to the quality of the provided tracks.
Then some choices on relative volume, focussing on certain elements (like the Diva Bass & Pads & Guitar).
Using automation on volume and panning, I've tried to 'emulate' the waves / ocean feel of the synths.

I've kept it simple with the reverbs; only Lexicon 224 and VintageVerb.
Delays also simple; UAD TapeEcho and the H-Delay.

Main Vocals: UAD 1176 -> PuigChild 670 -> Pulltec EQP-1A
Backing Vocals: UAD 1176 -> UAD DBX 160
Synths: Only some EQ and Waves S1
Drums: Kick with Distressor / Snare UAD 1176 + UAD DBX 160 -> on the buss SSL G-Master + SSL XLimiter

On the mixbus some True Iron saturation and EQ roll off on the highs.

I hope I kept it all within the stated limits and you like my choices!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qlRBJ2 ... sp=sharing

Edit:
I had forgotten to mention my tools.

DAW: Cubase 14
Interface: Komplete Audio 2
Speakers: Kali LP-6 2nd Wave -> untreated room

[Whitenoisestudios]

Hey folks,

First of all, I want to thank @BenjiRage for contributing his song for this month’s challenge. The track is properly arranged, well produced and every musical element fits well.

I am Christian a german based hobby producer and this is my first participation here at www.mix-challenge.com.

I mixed most parts of the Song with Beyerdynamic 1990 Pro headphones and doublechecked it with my Adam 3SV studio monitors and subwoofer. Unfortunately my room is still untreated and the L-shaped room is also not ideal for mixing purposes.

I tried to keep things simple just by gainstaging an setting the right panorama for all instruments. The hardest part for me were some of the piano tones peaking, especially in the Interlude. Of course I used basic tools like compression and equalisation.

Since there is already a lot of movement in the synthesizer tracks I hardly used any automation. Just for the send levels of the vocals effects chain.

The track should be inside the given specifications(-16,02 LUFS, -2,04 dBTP at right channel) ....

Peak amplitude: -2.90 dB -2.18 dB
True peak amplitude: -2.22 dBTP -2.04 dBTP
Maximum measured value: 6009195 6528138
Min. measured value: -5658682 -6229166
Possibly clipped samples: 0 0
Total RMS amplitude: -18.03 dB -19.52 dB
Maximum RMS amplitude: -10.74 dB -11.84 dB
Minimum RMS amplitude: -65.27 dB -68.22 dB
Average RMS amplitude: -20.34 dB -21.92 dB
DC offset: 0.05% 0.04%
Measured bit depth: 24 24
Dynamic range: 54.53 dB 56.38 dB
Used dynamic range: 53.85 dB 55.35 dB
Loudness (older versions): -17.16 dB -17.88 dB
Perceived loudness (older versions): -11.95 dB -13.49 dB
ITU-R BS.1770-3 loudness: -16.02 LUFS

You can find my Mix here:

MC104__BenjiRage__AboveTheClouds__Whitenoisestudios

Good luck to everyone!

[Martial.Levesque]

Hello!

I really enjoyed working on this song and appreciated the excellent production, great job!

You can download my mix version here:

https://ln5.sync.com/4.0/dl/91504b8f0#t ... b-hcbiewk3


I mixed using Yamaha HS8 monitors with an HS8S subwoofer in a small treated room, which isn’t perfect. To double-check everything, I used Sonarworks SoundID with a pair of HD650 headphones. I also checked the mix in the car, with iPhone EarPods, on an Avantone Cube, and through cheap speakers to ensure it translated well.

Here’s an overview of what I did in the mix:

-Kick and Bass: I EQ’d both the kick and bass and used sidechain compression on the bass to make room for the kick.

-Snare: For this type of song, I preferred a brighter, lighter snare, so I EQ’d it accordingly.

-Keys: I focused on leveling, volume automation, and EQ to ensure all the keyboard parts were clear and didn’t clash with each other or other instruments.

-Vocal: I applied EQ and compression. Throughout the song, I aimed for an '80s lush vibe on the vocals using reverb and delay.

-Background Vocals (BGV): I blended the background vocals with the lead to support it without overpowering it.

-Mix Bus Compression: I added subtle compression on the mix bus to glue everything together.

Cheers!