MIX CHALLENGE - MC37 October 2017 - Winners announced

[Mork]

Well, this is really too bad, because your mix would've been a really strong contender Seems like you got where I was heading with my mix, just made it better. I really dig it. Maybe the female bg vocals in the chorus a slightly more audible and the strummed guitar a teeny tiny bit quieter.
I really would like to see some of your EQ settings (acoustic guitars and vocals)!

Thanks, glad to hear it!

The vocals were really a pain to deal with. I think it took me four different approaches to get them where they are. And I have to admit that I'm still not 110% satisfied as they still fell a teeny bit harsh here and there.
The goal was to make the vocal as big and inflated as possible, give it some attitude but don't get too unrealistic. So for deharshing, fullness and dimension I used a little saturation and stacked two dark compressors (MJUC into VComp). After that both Pultec-style eqs are used to add some more bottom, a little air and some midrange around 1.5k. To keep midrange and top end in check all that is followed by a C6.
Did you process the vocals a lot during recording? They are really harsh, but to me it seems like this "hard" kind of harshness that I know from fast attack/fast release style compression of an overly bright source (Oh boy, describing audio ). Also one or two esses seem overde-essed to me. If there is no processing involved, maybe it's the mic/preamp combination.

Nothing special happend with the acoustics. A little tape emulation to tame the transients, API-tyle boost at 1k and 5k and some compression for consistency. On the chorus (the parts are splitted) some parallel compression is introduced for impact and a excitement. I feel like the acguitar really moves the song in the chorus, that's why I brought it up so much.

Thanks for the song, it's been quite an experience! My first thought was: "This will be easy..." WRONG!

Cheers
Mork

[VasDim]

Hi all,
this is my mix to roung 2:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9qsvrv3taxiq2 ... 2.wav?dl=0
Good luck to all.
VasDim

[HerbFelho]

Here´s the revision,

I threw off the “Stingray-ish” amp sim and only tweaked the DI-track a bit to get rounder bottom end. I did quite some changes to the vocal and the acoustic guitar to address your critique points and make them sound - well - warmer. After that the whole mix turned out to be less brittle anyway so I didn´t have to EQ the stereo bus much.

It´s been a fight to remove the harshness from the tracks and don´t make it sound muffled and dull at the same time, pretty much like Mork said already. I also suspect the tracks may have been recorded with a cheap mic/preamp combination and also had some saturation in it (one of the not so pleasing kind), that couldn´t be noticed at first. However, when trying to compress and EQ tracks like that all the nasty stuff really comes out. Nearly impossible to make the vocals sound open and airy without getting harshness, so it´s always compromises that have to be made.

I generally reference a lot while mixing and this time I had some beautifully bright sounding tracks for that so consequently my first mix turned out to have a very similar tonality in the end. But embarrassingly I didn´t realize the difference between brightness and harshness here.
Gotta say you were completely right when I compare both mixes now...

So, enough blabbing here, hope you like it, thanks again, still like the song, and thanks for another big learning experience!

Cheers
Herb

WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0phm ... mM1MEsyZGc
MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0phm ... 25HZGUyZEE

[Dodgingrain]

My revisions are below. This is a far tougher mix than it would appear to be. My overall philosophy was a wide open mix.

- there‘s still a bit of a honkiness/hollowness in my voice which I don‘t like that much

I've adjusted the eq to take that range down a little bit and I added back in some subtle harmonic distortion (spl twin tube) to help bring out the vocal lead a little bit more.

- electric guitars: i feel that they overshadow the vocals at times, maybe a bit more panned?

I doubled the track and widened it out a little bit to get them out of the center where the vocal lead is. I didn't go to wide however as I didn't want the electrics masking the backing vocals that are hard panned. Also the acoustic is hard panned and I didn't want the two sitting and the backing vocals all sitting in that space. Also did a little more ducking to make sure the lead vocal cuts through.

- I‘d like to hear more of the female bg vocs especially in the second and last chorus

This was really tough and I'm not completely happy with where I ended up. The struggle for me is I don't like to thin out vocals with eq and it wasn't easy to get the backing vocals to come out without doing so. I ended up using a little bit of harmonic distortion on her vocals, side M/S eq'ing of the lead vocal and backing vocals to give them space via panning. Backing vocal is cut in the mids but boosted on the sides, lead vocal is the opposite. I'm not sure I have the overall level balance right yet though. I almost forgot to mention that there is parallel compression on her vocals as well try try and bring her out even more with out having to boost levels as much or start hacking in a whole with EQ.

- there is something going on in the final chorus with the EGuitarChorus2, somehow you made it sound like a cheesy Mellotron choir, and that irritates me a lot.

Bummer, I really liked that guitar sound which was done with a modulated delay. Anyway, I took that effect out and cut more with eq and widen out the track to try and stay out of the way of the vocals.

I also found some other fixes that needed to be done with some level automation to take out unwanted noise/pops. I also pulled a resonant frequency from the acoustic guitar solo in the intro down about 5db.

mp3 https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqpB-RLndYJriYssiDaMcU729GJ3Sw
wav https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqpB-RLndYJriYstRv5iFrxebxXYiA

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 1 day left to submit your edit for Mix Round 2

[kevin gobin]

Hello everybody!

Fese asked, I applied:

I fired that autopanner on EGuitarChorus2 and found another widening, reduced the wet of my FX on acc guitar to preserve their natural sound, reduced the bass volume, boosted the piano.

Fese asked, I answer:

To eq your voice on its channel (you have to sum the 2bus to be exact):
I used a tilt eq, enhancing the highs +5dB with a 1k balance point, a 63Hz HP and 10,41 kHz LP.
I added color and control with an LA-3A compressor.
Then I have a W295b: +15 low shelf, +9 high shelf, +4 at 0,7 kHz
This is followed by a digital EQ: +2,65 at 213,62 Hz, +2,34 at 6108,3 Hz (those 2 boosts with a Q=1) and a HiPass at 88 Hz.

Here you are with my vocal FX chain on that song. I hope you can benefit from that.


I noticed the mixes improved a lot for R2, well done everybody! And good luck too!


Here are the links, see you soon.


https://www.dropbox.com/s/medtucnhsyidg ... 2.mp3?dl=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7s03wjfsooorq ... 2.wav?dl=1

[Zsolt]

Hi!
Happy to be in round 2.
Thanks for the feedback, I followed all your commends.

For instruments I used SSL E channel eq&compressor, reverb-Verbsuite Classics.
Vocal: SSL E channel eq, CLA-76 compressor, reverb-Verbsuite Classics, delay-repeater.
Buss: SSL G-Master Buss Compressor.

For the round 2:
mp3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2neass8o027bt ... t.mp3?dl=0
wav: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lhk3agy1zcv5f ... t.wav?dl=0

Zsolt.

[OctopusOnFire]

Hi everyone!

First of all, happy to be in Round 2, and thanks to fese for providing such a beautiful song, it was a joy to mix!

Here are the adjustments I made:

- Main acoustic (strumming/arpeggio): I ended up panning it slightly to the right (20%). The solo acoustic was panned left to mirror it.

- Solo acoustic: It had decapitator on it (analog distortion). I lowered the low pass filter, getting a less hyped sound on the highs, and dialed back the mix knob to make it even less harsh. Still, it keeps the beautiful high frequencies without being piercing.

- Tambourine and shakers down 3db to push them back.

- Main voice: The sound was too thick and a bit too hyped. I did 3 things to solve this:
- Dial back on a LA-2A compressor early in the chain that was adding too much character.
- Move the Virtual Tape emulation to the very end of the chain. (It thickens the low mids and adds some distortion, which was being exaggerated by the plugins after it. It sounds more natural now)
- Use a dynamic EQ on the 160Hz area, add a high pass filter.
After this, I just rebalanced the voice. It integrates with the music much better now.

- Some very subtle automation on the guitars on the second half of the song, where things get busy.


WAV: https://mega.nz/#!SUBlETpA!Dpfb3KZ5Tifk ... x1U5mJiNs0

MP3: https://mega.nz/#!2JJCzZbb!8b0arfljlf2m ... hyWOOawFK8


Very nice mixes, btw. It's going to be hard to make it into the podium. Good luck everyone!

[OctopusOnFire]

The vocals were really a pain to deal with. I think it took me four different approaches to get them where they are. And I have to admit that I'm still not 110% satisfied as they still fell a teeny bit harsh here and there.

Did you process the vocals a lot during recording? They are really harsh, but to me it seems like this "hard" kind of harshness that I know from fast attack/fast release style compression of an overly bright source (Oh boy, describing audio ). Also one or two esses seem overde-essed to me. If there is no processing involved, maybe it's the mic/preamp combination.


Thanks for the song, it's been quite an experience! My first thought was: "This will be easy..." WRONG!

100% accurate I went into this mix thinking "This is gonna be quick and easy". It was fun, but neither quick nor easy!!

[Mister Fox]

It's the 30th October 2017, 1:17am - the 2nd Mix Round has officially ended.

All participants sent in their edits. Please check your upload links again, and have an eye on this thread for the final results.



I'm now opening up the room for Q&A's and giving each other feedback (which is highly encouraged)