MIX CHALLENGE - MC080 September 2021 - Mix Round 2 in evaluation (staff taking over)

[Square]

as a participant, i found it helpful to review others both for them and myself, just know that there will be emotions involved with it, and as for those being reviewed,as the song provider, i will try and skip these posts until ive listenned for myself so that i dont have that bias going in

Yes, my concern was mostly about posting my own reviews before the song provider. Emotions... yes, but we are here to learn, both from reviewing and being reviewed; and also compete. I believe everyone can find a way to provide meaningful feedback in a polite manner.

Anyways, the benefits of ongoing discussions outweigh the downsides I think.

oh aye, i agree completely, probably wasnt even worth mentioning in retrospect

[mattaroni_and_cheese]

Wondering what everyone thought of the vox track and their approach ? It was a raspy performance (good for song) , but it also sounded pretty hot to me already so I really didn't want to add any saturation to them at all. Trying to harness them in with serial compressors just made them too hot imo. perhaps I need more time with compressors or perhaps i had a technical error somewhere. This did lead to me spending a couple days with my compressors to understand them better : )

[m_tree]

Lonliness as a human emotion is mainly a lack of companionship and the feeling of being hollow and a feeling of having less.

But conveying this emotion doesnt need to be accomplished the same from a mixing chain perspective, as in, having less is not always more in this situation.

What i mean is that, to convey the message of lonliness from an aural perspective, you would need to consider how this would 'sound' in life or media.

I basically agree with that and I think it's individual for every mix.

As a drummer I played with miscellaneous artists and bands and the drummers perspective is always a bit more distant and supportive. I think mixing goes in the same direction.

The main point is, in my opinion:
The emotion originates from the artist and the performance, not from the mix. The mixer has to understand the music with it's emotion, of course. But there are no rules and every mixer feels it a bit different, with different mixing approaches.

In my opinion a technical good and transparent mix (in terms of volume-relationships, frequency range/spreading and dynamics) with individual care for the instruments, vocals, performances in general and the structure of the song is the key. Or in other words - simply a mix that broughts the performances with their emotions in a suitable and transparent way to the listener in as many listening situations as possible (headphones, hifi system, car, poor mono speakers in the smartphone etc. ...).

[fcamp]

Lonliness as a human emotion is mainly a lack of companionship and the feeling of being hollow and a feeling of having less.

But conveying this emotion doesnt need to be accomplished the same from a mixing chain perspective, as in, having less is not always more in this situation.

What i mean is that, to convey the message of lonliness from an aural perspective, you would need to consider how this would 'sound' in life or media.

I basically agree with that and I think it's individual for every mix.

As a drummer I played with miscellaneous artists and bands and the drummers perspective is always a bit more distant and supportive. I think mixing goes in the same direction.

The main point is, in my opinion:
The emotion originates from the artist and the performance, not from the mix. The mixer has to understand the music with it's emotion, of course. But there are no rules and every mixer feels it a bit different, with different mixing approaches.

In my opinion a technical good and transparent mix (in terms of volume-relationships, frequency range/spreading and dynamics) with individual care for the instruments, vocals, performances in general and the structure of the song is the key. Or in other words - simply a mix that broughts the performances with their emotions in a suitable and transparent way to the listener in as many listening situations as possible (headphones, hifi system, car, poor mono speakers in the smartphone etc. ...).

I agree with this, the feeling must be first in the performance. In this case, it was. Then, the processing can enhance that, but not necessarily with the same approach always.

Answering to @mattaroni_and_cheese, in fact I used two compressors. First, an 1176 type just to catch some peaks and then a leveller not doing too much, the MJUC, to add some saturation and compression to keep the voice in place.

[fcamp]

Well, for me one of the more difficult things with this song was were to put all the instruments in the stereo, as there was too many options (or not too many instruments).

I mean, first option was to use the whole stereo, but the result was disperse, as if there where holes in the space between instruments. I have heard this in some mixes here.

Second option, what I opted for, was to use less stereo field to give the sensation of a band playing together behind the vocalist. I liked that better, but the problem was that there was too much overlap with the vocals, so I had to apply Mid/Side eq and some stereo widening to try to make a place in the middle for the vocal. I probably haven't found the correct balance.

The violins, in particular, were specially difficult to place. I didn't like it with the two on the left or the right. So, in the end, I put each one in one side as if there was one player in each side of the vocalist.

One thing I had quite clear since the start, tough, was to create a group bus for all the strings and their reverbs to glue them with a levelling compressor. I even sent some reverb from the guitar and piano there. I think it worked fine.

What was the most complicated part for you?

[mattaroni_and_cheese]

One thing I had quite clear since the start, tough, was to create a group bus for all the strings and their reverbs to glue them with a levelling compressor. I even sent some reverb from the guitar and piano there. I think it worked fine.

What was the most complicated part for you?

I didn't group comp them, but I threw everything except vocals off to a plate, with varying send levels. I sent bowed violins left and right, 48%, and then cell more left (58%) For the intro I swapped them, putting the cello plucks right and the violin plucks left.

[mattaroni_and_cheese]

What was the most complicated part for you?

Sorry, to more directly answer this, my biggest challenge by far was managing levels and dynamics from a point by point case, while still maintaining the dynamics and crescendo of the song. for instance allowing the very quiet bridge, but not letting the string attack startle etc.

[vintage]

Hello,
Mixes without a lot of tracks are always very complicated, there is always a nice balance to be found between the different instruments, I first focused on the audio quality of each track and I processed and cleaned them. in the end to have individual tracks in solo listening which sounded the best possible, it was not obvious on the strings which quickly sound too aggressive on certain notes, it was thus necessary to make them pretty and to master them at the same time while keeping a good dynamic, I then made the placement in the stereo space and chose a suitable reverb to highlight them, same principle for the acoustic guitar that I placed in the center but made a little wider, for the voices I I also did a lot of tests on the color and the compression to do and especially to remove the hiss with a Deesser and any aggressiveness, I chose a fairly intimate reverb and I did not make any adjustment on the tune, I will do if you ask me because the little imperfections are beautiful. .. For the rest the choice of the processing bus (console simulation) is essential to give consistency to the mix, I did not apply any final compression or limitation or eq on the mix bus, a balanced natural sound ready for the mix. mastering.

After listening to different mixes I noticed that many participants don't leave much room for the mastering processing, it often sounds quite colorful and almost finished product, this is only my personal opinion and I respect every approach.

Good day to you all

[m_tree]

What was the most complicated part for you?

The most complicated part for me was to bring the acoustic-guitar, which I handled as the lead-instrument, in tune with the vocals. I wanted the vocals to sit intimate and detailed in front of the instruments, but without mixing them much louder than the rest and/or making the instruments dull with lack of high frequency content. Actually I did it the opposite way: I gave the instruments, especially the guitar, a lot of presence and brilliance and tried to embed the vocals with other approaches.
I think this is a huge matter of taste in general.

I sucked out unwanted frequency content with static EQs only. On the violins also in combination with mixing them in the background and making room for the vocals (cut at 4 kHz).

After listening to different mixes I noticed that many participants don't leave much room for the mastering processing, it often sounds quite colorful and almost finished product, this is only my personal opinion and I respect every approach.

Apart from that the mixbus shouldn't be processed too much before the mastering this is a fallacy in my opinion. Because the mixer should do his best and everything to finish the production as far as possible. The mastering engineers job is to do all the things the mixer couldn't do or didn't hear within the mixing proecess. Two pair of ears can hear more than one ... and so on.
Originally mastering was only the technical preparation of the mix for the final medium, e.g. vinyl or CD. At a certain point, too heavy processing of the stereomix tends to destruct the mix. Adjustments should be made careful.

Just my 2 cents.

[mattaroni_and_cheese]

@Vintage just gave yours a spin, have to say you really got those vocals smooth.