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Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC072 December 2020 - Submissions until 21-12-2020 23:59 UTC+1/CET

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 00:00 CET
by diegoneryproducoes
diegonerysts wrote:
Mon Dec 21, 2020 23:49 CET
This is my first valid mix. I chose to put the guitar in stereo. I compressed each instrument around 3dB. I did automations I used Vertigo on the master, saturation and analog channel. I also tuned the base guitars with the melodyne. I need to send the link to participate, if you are interested in the mix I will get more details soon. Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations to the composers.
My Mix:
https://mega.nz/file/DEVwFRzA#pDsT20CN4 ... b51fM2ZfYY
I used reaeq to filter out frequencies that I didn't want. SSL 4000 G, Volume Eleven on Buses, Maag eq to give shine, Lexcon reverb, ping pong delay and Cla76 for parallel compression. MS EQ to distribute the bass more in the middle and treble more to the sidebands.
The mix is ​​balanced with -18.7 LUFS and -5.53dBTP.

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC072 December 2020 - Submissions until 21-12-2020 23:59 UTC+1/CET

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 00:01 CET
by canese
Hello, mixers, https://www.dropbox.com/s/dglju73y65584 ... e.wav?dl=0

Finally some spanish lyrics! Glad to work in such a professional recorded song.

Minimal surgery effects and edits in this. Very well recorded tracks.

Vocals: Cut some harsh breaths. Compress with 4.1 ratio slow attack and d-esser to reduce harsh letters like p or b. Also eq and two reverbs, one short and one long.

Drums. Mixed with low boost eq, ressonance cut for the snare and compression and reverb in parallel.

Acoustic Guitars. Paned to the sides, added delay and cut low mid eq.

Electric: Added compresion, eq, and distortion. delay in parallel.

Piano. Only reverb and compression

Bass. put it through and bass re amp to give it more energy and character.

Thanks for reading!

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC072 December 2020 - Mix Round 1 in evaluation

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 01:01 CET
by Mister Fox
It is the 22nd December 2020, 01:55 UTC+2/CEST - the first Mix Round has officially ended

Another very warm welcome to all new participants and as usual, a huge thank you to everyone that is spreading the word about the Mix Challenge. Please help get the Songwriting Competition as popular (less than 3 days left).


STATISTICS:
  • If I didn't miscount, we have 75 submissions this month (75 prior to the deadline, 79 including entries after the deadline)
  • We have 4 submission after the deadline (as of 23-DEC-2020)
  • We have 1 submission that could not be downloaded by the time of this post and is therefore disqualified
  • We have 1 submission that has been withdrawn (but counts as entry within the deadline)
  • Overview of Submissions - is your entry within given parameters? (PDF - updated: 23-DEC-2020, full sheet)
  • Overview of Submissions (disqualifications only) (PDF - updated: 23-DEC-2020)


:arrow: INFORMATION:

Until the end of 2020, I will provide a data sheet each month showing all entries and what values they have in terms of loudness (LUFS ILk), maximum signal strength (dBTP), if they are in the correct bitrate and sampling rate, if they were downloadable, etc. This data sheet is not an automated process. You can read about the whole process here

I will post separately once I have the data sheet prepared and uploaded (which will be linked to from this post you're reading right now).



I now open the field for everyone to give each other feedback (highly encouraged). This will be independent to the client feedback however.


Please watch this spot for the client feedback and Mix Round 2 participant announcement.

Good luck to all participants.





:arrow: The Songwriting Competition 40 (SWC40) is still in full swing.
The deadline is 24th December 2020, 23:59 UTC+1/CET. The genre is "New Age Music" - interaction is highly encouraged.

And since I feel in a positive mood, I've extended the "Community Scramble Sample Collection to 24th December 2020, 23:59 UTC+1/CET as well, and I'll guess do that in 2021 right from the start.

Please spread the word!

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC072 December 2020 - Submissions until 21-12-2020 23:59 UTC+1/CET

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 01:16 CET
by hjchjc
I just missed the deadline - can I upload my mix anyway even if it's not in competition?

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC072 December 2020 - Submissions until 21-12-2020 23:59 UTC+1/CET

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 02:07 CET
by SamuelPelegrini
Hello, Javier and Mix Challenge!

First of all, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity of working on such a wonderfull and delightful song!

Well, regarding my humble mix, when I was listening to the original mix for the first time after reading Javier's words on the song, the first thing I imagined was his lead vocal with some propper effect during the chorus, but I was in doubt if I should go ahead with it since it's a classic pop rock song and not everybody appreciate vocal with effects, but then after checking the references and finding out that one of them has a cool effect like that on the lead vocal, my doubt was wiped out. But let me start with the instruments, from which I first cleaned up the unnecessary frequencies and equalized, panned etc:

Bass:
I tried to keep it sounding as natural as possible, so apart from cleaning and equalizing it, I just compressed it.

Drums:
Tried to make it sound as punchier and clear as possible but wanted those good transients there too, so basically cleaned, equalized and added some room (plate reverb) to it.

Guitars:
Cleaned up, equalized, compressed and roomed; wanted them harder, ragging, as they demand on chorus. Slap delay on the lead guitar.

Keys:
Cleaned up, equalized, compressed and roomed aiming to extract the best sound of them.

Backing vocals:
Tried to keep them as natural as possible and wanted that harmony found on Beatles' and Beach Boys' backing vocals, so apart from EQ, Comp and plate reverb, I added some good chorus effect to it.

Lead vocal:
EQ, Comp, radiophonic-like delay on verses plus a classic old rock boosted treeble and saturation on choruses with a little help from a vintage amp. Plate reverb. De-esser.

Bus:
EQ, Comp, exciter, tape, room, dither.

A little bit of automation...and here it is:

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

Hope you like it!

In case that there's any change you'd like to see (listen), it'd be a pleasure making it in the second round. Thank you!

Sincerely,
Samuel Pelegrini

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC072 December 2020 - Submissions until 21-12-2020 23:59 UTC+1/CET

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 03:23 CET
by White Punk OD
Some mixes seem brickwalled already.
I didn't - but kick and snare are deliberately extra loud because when I _DO_ brickwall this, everything will fall right in place.
I guess some mixes might not have enough drum power for this style, but of course we can do it Jose Feliciano style also.

Who tamed the fret noise of the bass? I know how to do it just with a rack of 2 EQs and a noise gate and a phase reverse, so with the EQs it can be extremely fine tuned.
But it was not yet possible within the deadline.

I didn't tune any vocals, I thought it is nice enough for some "live" feeling in the whole thing, together with the somewhat inconsistent drum sound, that would need samples to really get it done without editing ad nauseam.

Great how different the mixes became. This one is in the leading flock of sound diversity.
The biggest choice is whether to get doubled "Pop" vocals with some top 40 attitude, or to do a soft album sound with mainly a fine long plate reverb, and very perfectly debugged for pristine spectrum.

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC072 December 2020 - Submissions until 21-12-2020 23:59 UTC+1/CET

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 04:10 CET
by odistdan
SDB_12 wrote:
Mon Dec 21, 2020 21:39 CET
Hi all,

Thanks for the song this month, it was fun!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ermzzef13190r ... 2.wav?dl=0

I recently picked up a bunch of new tools during the sales for Black Friday, so wanted to put them to the test with this contest. I decided to mostly focus on trying out the Metric Halo Channel strip on most all of the channels, new features in Pro Tools 2020.11 like Heat, some of the new izotope stuff, etc.

Anyway, some details:

Mixbus: Acustica Audio Ultramarine 4 (Fairchild Comp)...BARELY tickling the needle. Just used it for tone mostly. It seemed to glue and widen somehow. Into UA ATR 102 tape machine for a bit more glue and saturation.

Vocals: Melodyne (I went through and tuned up spots that needed it). Crave EQ (slight dip at 377hz), MH strip for shaping, compression and gating, UA 1176AE into Acustica Audio El Ray for compression, UA ATR Ampex 102 for saturation, and izotope Nector 3 for a bit of DeEssing, more saturation and some subtle Delay. Vocals also sent to a spring reverb (UA AKG Bx20) and a wide longer delay (the new CLA EchoSphere).

Drums: Kick mics were blended to one track, with Lofi, Purple 3, Bx SSL 9000, MH Strip, and Maxim (pro tools limiter) on it. Same for snare except no Purple 3, I used Crave EQ instead. I use lofi to give me .1 of saturation to soften transients, and a bit of distortion. Purple was used to fill out the low end of the kick, a slight bit of EQ using SSL 9000...mostly used the gate on this...sound shaping with Metric Halo strip, and maxim just to take off a bit more of the transients.

The tom just had BX console on it for EQ and I manually chopped out everything except for the tom hit on this track.

Hi hat had just MH Strip for a little filtering and shaping with EQ.

OH's had Lofi on it for saturation and distortion, just a bit to soften it. Then MH Strip and Maxim for shaping and more control.

I then sent the whole drum mix to a bit of room using UA Ocean Way. Very subtle.

Overall my goal for the drums was to keep them nice and punchy, but to soften some of the transients a bit so it sounded more analog.

Percussion: I just used MH Strip and some Lofi to shape and take off the harsh transients (especially the triangle). These also sent to the room verb.

Bass: Started with some Crave EQ to shape it, then into the UA Distressor for distortion and control. MH Strip for more shaping and compression, then more Crave EQ and Gullfoss to help it sit in the track. I wanted the bass to fill out the recording but also be heard in spots, it was a bunch of back and forth, twiddling and massaging things until it felt right with the groove.

Acoustics: The mic'd acoustic just got some MH Strip and Crave EQ to shape it. The DI acoustic I put on an IR using Past to Future (a Martin D18 IR). I panned them hard L and R to help widen things out a bit. It also got MH strip for EQ.

Electrics: All of the electrics mostly got MH Strip and Crave EQ for gentle EQ, some of them got Lofi as well for subtle saturation and distortion. On the guitar bus, I wanted to widen things out a bit so I put on Ozone Imager, Gullfoss EQ to help smooth it out, then the UA Fatso Jr for gentle compression and saturation. Some of the leads sent to the spring and room.

Piano: Only had MH Strip on it for EQ and compression. I brightened it up a bit and made it punch a bit more.

Organ: I delayed one side to widen, and also added Ozone Imager. I wanted to clear out the middle and make it float around the track a bit. I used MH strip for EQ to bring out more upper mids and clear out mud.

BGVs: All sent to a bus with just some MH strip to brighten and control. Sent to the spring a touch.

Edit:
Also, I forgot to mention I summed through Avid Heat in Pro Tools!

Thanks all!
Clean and controlled. Learning what I could have done with my mix.

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC072 December 2020 - Submissions until 21-12-2020 23:59 UTC+1/CET

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 04:52 CET
by hjchjc
might as well post my mix anyway, complete with a lot of notes:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16zHpVL ... sp=sharing

-1.2 dbTP, -17.6 LUFS.

The goal was to make something that mirrored the frustration (but also the defiance) in the lyrics - this has a lot of contemporary resonance and that's all I'm going to say. Definitely more aggressive than most mixes but that's part of the point... within reason, of course!

A lot of automation used here.

Vocals:
Unfiltered
Waves Tune
Red 2 EQ high pass 105hz, -8db 5khz, hi shelf +2db at 10khz
VLA-FET, taking off 10db of compression but set to mix at 50%
TDR Kotelnikov taking off 3db, leveling things out further
F6-RTA -8.4db 'range' at 2.5khz

Sent to bus with Second Option (EQ + VLA-FET, and EchoBoy)
Bus has large low-mid compression curve on C6 of 5db
F6-RTA, 500-1000khz

Vocals sent on ValhallaVintageVerb, 1.03 of concert hall with some severe high passing going on

--
BV
All summed to a bus with:
VPRE-73
Shapeshifter
1/8 echoboy
F6-RTA

Set to a bus with OneKnob Pumper, VintageVerb, and Red 2 EQ boosting a ton of high-end.

Drums
Unfiltered gate,
Maag EQ4 sub turned way up on kick

Snare:
CLA-2A -20db (yes I'm serious)
Surreal Machines Crack
API-2500 -6db
Bx-Console Focusrite SC for more EQ

Hi-hats
Red 2 EQ

OH Center
Maag EQ4
650hz +4db, 160hz -5db

OH Floor Tom
Logic EQ, 328hz, 12db/cut -7.4
850db -18.7

Tom mics:
MixPressor
Red 2 EQ
Unfiltered

Triangle
PanMan > API-2500 > EQ 2660hz +6.0

Snare Overdub
Maag EQ4
API-2500

Texture
Maag EQ4 +2.5khz +2.5db for everything
API-2500

Acoustic Guitar
Maag EQ4
API-2500
PSP MixPressor

Bass
Logic SubBass
Logic EQ

Lead guitar
ShapeShifter sent to bright VintageVerb

Other guitars:
No individual processing - 2 F6-RTA instances side-chained to vocals and piano.
PSP ClassicQ +6db 1khz
Sent to separate EQ4 bus to ride automation

Magnetite Red.
Red 2 EQ for slight boost at 5khz
RoughRider -4db

Extra guitar: TSAR-12 Reverb

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC072 December 2020 - Submissions until 21-12-2020 23:59 UTC+1/CET

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 07:30 CET
by Manii
White Punk OD wrote:
Tue Dec 22, 2020 03:23 CET
Some mixes seem brickwalled already.
I didn't - but kick and snare are deliberately extra loud because when I _DO_ brickwall this, everything will fall right in place.
I guess some mixes might not have enough drum power for this style, but of course we can do it Jose Feliciano style also.

Who tamed the fret noise of the bass? I know how to do it just with a rack of 2 EQs and a noise gate and a phase reverse, so with the EQs it can be extremely fine tuned.
But it was not yet possible within the deadline.

I didn't tune any vocals, I thought it is nice enough for some "live" feeling in the whole thing, together with the somewhat inconsistent drum sound, that would need samples to really get it done without editing ad nauseam.

Great how different the mixes became. This one is in the leading flock of sound diversity.
The biggest choice is whether to get doubled "Pop" vocals with some top 40 attitude, or to do a soft album sound with mainly a fine long plate reverb, and very perfectly debugged for pristine spectrum.
I listened to your mix and found it very interesting. First time I'm joining a mix competition so I think I will learn a lot here. It's true there are such variety in the propositions, in a real client scenario we would have discussed with the client for such strong decisions but here we will see what he likes. I think however that a lot of the choices leading to decision will be subjective.

True that some sound better than others, but then it leaves a lot of different intentions. I'm glad we are able to read each other thinking.

Back to your mix, in my perspective I find the bass and drums too proheminent, leaving the other instruments in background and making the song more "easy" to listen to, which for me loses a bit the soul of the song. But that may actually be what the client was looking for! I think my mix is quite different and now that I listen to both, I wish I've made something in between haha!

Anyway, congrats for your job!

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC072 December 2020 - Submissions until 21-12-2020 23:59 UTC+1/CET

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 07:31 CET
by Mister Fox
Hello everyone, just some quick feedback from my end.

I just downloaded every entry that we had, went through the documentation and screenshots. Some things that really stood out quite positively, is that a lot of you were not shying away form experimenting this month. I think for the first time in the history of the Mix Challenge, I've read somebody using "Virtual Sound Stage" (which is basically a stage panner and early reflections creator). I've read about using the Brauerize technique (personally, it just never clicked with me), another one trying to run everything through outboard gear first and then committing to the sound. Then there were the ones that dove deep into the topic of this specific drum kit setup, while others went straight up go-to Pop Rock mixing techniques for the drum set.

It is great to see so much variety, and I do hope all of you could take away new ideas and improved your skill-sets in the process. `

Learning by doing, this is what this community is about. :gotidea:





Then I'd also like to address the criticism from Franz. In hope that I'm really not misunderstanding what you (Franz) try to convey here, then the following rant would be completely in vain. But it is a frustration I can completely understand, yet found a somewhat acceptable solution for myself throughout the years. It is not necessarily elegant, but maybe this helps offering a different perspective.

Franz wrote:
Mon Dec 21, 2020 23:57 CET
WHO has dared to send his music to a level of -16 Lufs ?

Anyway, these levels are automatically set to standards (CD or streaming).

In practice this is what happens: I first performed my "mix" at a level of - 17 Lufs. The sound is flat and of no great interest
(note that I still do not understand why ask to make a mix when the reference of the songprovider is completely mastered).

Then I build the "stems" which will serve as a basis for the mastering process. This is finished at a level of - 9.4 Lufs.

So a difference of more than 7 dB. Do you have any idea what that represents? An increase of 3 dB doubles the sound level, you see the rest ...

Anything that can be done in mastering within these 7 dB is STRICTLY impossible to achieve in the "base" mix.

The result: once mastered the song "sounds" !!!........
We do have this topic ever so often as to why "I" seemingly decided on -16 LUFS ILk absolute max rather than let people mix how they want.

The answer lies indeed in the current trend of "more dynamic releases" all over the web, audio CDs and co. Basically, going back to the days of early CD releases from the 1990s. Actually, @Mork posted something in the Gossip Thread months ago: a blog post by German monitoring and signal analysis company RTW -- Worldwide Loudness Delivery Standards (Summarized). A very informative read, as this is currently the best overview on this topic (as in - collected in one place, rather than scattered all over the web). And yes, I will probably create/overhaul a Rule Addendum that "summarizes" this topic again. I just need some more spare-time.



:?: Now what does that have to do with the overall topic at hand, and your problem with the mix vs a "master"?

A small dive into my work in parallel to the Mix Challenge:
While working on music for advertising in the last couple of years, I usually have to adhere to a certain loudness limit. The problem is, "perceived" loudness and therefore "feel" - the very thing you bring up with your argument. A more dynamically compressed, and therefore often also louder production, does sound subjectively fuller and better. And most clients will be like "make it loud, make it fat, it needs to groove!". But is it really better?

Well, if the music is just "Background Blasting" for an ad, then that's one thing. Here, you can limit the dynamic a bit more (especially if the music is ducked away, rather than just... mixed along). Sometimes on purpose even, like it is the case for video games (prime example: DOOM Eternal from 2020, where the "in-game" music is heavily compressed to "cut through" the chaos that are sound effects).

But if we talk regular music, then it is a bit different. Especially if the de-facto future is, that heavily compressed/limited productions will be "pulled down" on radio, on TV, on streaming platforms, etc. (technical term: Loudness Normalization)

In fact, something that some of you might not have known yet... one of the first things that radio stations do if they get new music to broadcast, especially if it's straight from a CD or a very loud distribution format, is to pull down the loudness of the track by 6-8dB to not overload the compressor arrays from the station. In case of the infamous "Metallica - Death Magnetic" release, that was a necessity. If they had run it straight up through their setup, then it would have sounded even worse than it did -- especially during the climax section in the end (due to the CD being nearly -4dB RMS in that section!)



:arrow: So what can we do about this?

Actually, learn how to "cross-check" how things would sound after distribution. That can be as simple as running your mix through a heavy compression array (that is volume compensated), and/or using a tool like Audified MixChecker Pro, AudioTools Speakers or even just a special tuned "band-pass EQ (with certain random boosts and cuts here and there) to get an impression how things translate to other mediums on top of that (if you don't want to re-render things over and over, to check on other devices).


One of the recent bigger projects I've worked on outside of the Mix Challenge, was "production music" for film and radio. I was also asked to create a CD Master as limited bonus release. And while we agreed on a certain distribution loudness that works on every platform (we decided on -14LUFS ILk for the whole album, Spotify and Youtube ready), we also checked how things would sound if they are over-compressed on purpose and/or played back from a specific medium/device.

For this, I've used a combination of VladG's Limiter No6 / Tokyo Dawn Labs Limiter 6 and Audified MixChecker. I ran two different gain modules pre-limiter to either reach about -10LUFS ILk (which would be louder than Spotify Loud), or get to a more moderate -16LUFS ILk (+-1, which would not only cover "Mastered for iTunes", but works great for a vinyl release as well). MixChecker was for checking how it would sound on different devices.


This resulted in me hearing a couple of things, that I could address in the mix before I raised the loudness to it's final desired target:

a) did I use too much compression during the mix (vocals for example, though mostly you notice that with snare drums)
b) is there too much bass that needs to be addressed or can/should it be fixed during mastering
c) can the music stand on it's own without excessive pushing of loudness, or does it need a small push with the help of a gentle summing bus process (glue)?





I am an advocate for pulling back on excessive loudness. But I am used to how things sound on various volumes.

And this is a learning process:

Learn how to use your volume dial in the studio. Learn your mixing environment, already slightly compensate during mixing rather than trusting the mastering engineer (the next step in line), learn the pro's and con's of summing bus treatment (which is allowed in the Mix Challenge, as long as it's musical, and some genres really benefit from that!). Switch volumes ever so often, listen to your music on "louder than comfortable" for a couple of seconds, listen to it super quiet, take a day off, listen again on smaller speakers, then again on your studio setup. This all comes with experience.

Which is why we do this monthly game, to experiment, learn from each other, based upon the same given parameters - without super tight deadlines. I get that you're frustrated with the fact that the demo mixes are usually already heavily processed. But this is just that... "demo mixes", to give us an idea how things could go, or went too far already (you decide).

Our goal is to make the best possible mix (and only mix) that there is, that translates well to every medium out there.


Mastering should finally go away from "make things loud, fat, warm and groovy" and shall be treated again for what it originally was... looking that things are in check signal strength wise, check phase issues (would the track work in mono or near mono if you walk around the room and listen from a laptop or tablet computer, which is still important!), add a minimum(!) amount of fairy dust if needed, and prepare the content for it's final medium (Vinyl, Tape, CD, Streaming). Instead, it is still "make it as loud as possible - the streaming service will adjust anyway". And then one is surprised why your edits/productions sound bad compared to everything else. This is IMHO not the route to go - not anymore.

I don't know if I ever brought this up on the Mix Challenge community, but please compare Carpenter Brut's "Turbo Killer" CD version to the official music video. The music video is more quiet, true, but also way less aggressive ear fatiguing due to less over-compression. This is a modern day example for things going a tad too far -- and one of the rare examples where you have an easy accessible A/B comparison.



So yes, call me old fashioned. Call me out on triple checking everything and that the rules are dreaded. It is fine. But there is a reason behind the madness. I don't decide on things completely out of the blue - some of these rules are based upon personal experience from roughly 25 years of being in the audio realm. From mistakes I made myself, stuff that was I was never taught in tech classes. This is why I try to establish a certain baseline for everyone, which makes learning easier, and focus on what is really important.

And again... who actually holds you off of using a volume dial? (especially after distribution)
The biggest question you should ask yourself is: "does it 'groove', no matter the volume"? :thinking:




With that said, I'll post the Statistics Sheet later tonight. My recent nights have been a bit too long.
I'll keep you folks updated.