MIX CHALLENGE - MC084 February 2022 - Winners announced

[ajlsoundwave]

Here is my ENTRY:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/alm4m48gmt2f0 ... e.wav?dl=0

This is my first time entering any mix contest and just happy to be a part of it; I listened to a few really great mixes! I enjoyed the track and it clearly had certain elements that reminded me of the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and a few others, so I really wanted to keep some of these elements true to form. Hopefully I was able to achieve this.

My DAW is Logic pro x on an iMac but I'm running the SSL 360 inside of Logic as my "mixing board" and "logic" as the automation layer. With that being said, all of the eq shaping is done using the SSL along with filters for each channel. I am also using for many of the channels / busses where I have the SSL the onboard compressor and/or gates / expanders when needed. I do have a few instances of Fabfilter pro Q2 on Kick drum and bass guitar for a surgical application vs. shaping. My two reverbs are a drum plate and a vocal plate using the Fractal Audio reverb plugin; nothing too crazy, the drum reverb is around 0.8 second vs. the vocal plate which is around 2.0 seconds. The main delay / echo is a Soundtoys echo boy set to stereo tape delay (480 / 525 ms). My room is pretty dead and I'm 100% near field (mix at very low volume) monitoring using the original Mackie HR-824's (I have 21 years mixing on these speakers, so they might not be the best, but I know them really well) I started mixing at 8am, finished at 7:53 pm with a few breaks today...

Here was my approach and mixed in this order:

Drums: I am treating every drum mic with an instance of SSL eq / filter. The tubs / shells I am bussing separate from the cymbals where they are going to a separate buss. The shells have an instance of FG-Stess where I'm at a 6:1 ratio, but allowing them to breath a bit... then into another SSL channel where nothing is turned on (just allowing for fine tuning volume if needed). The tins go through a similar process as the shells but the FG Stress is set to a softer 2:1 ratio, then again into an SSL with nothing turned on. The outputs from the shells and the cymbals then sum into another bus where I am using a shadow hills industries compressor to slightly level the overall signal (the opto circuit maybe -0.5 db, the discrete comp about -2 db) the transformer is set to "steel" to help keep the low tubbiness. The only reverb I have is a second instance of the Fractal Audio reverb set to 0.8 seconds (plate) and I have the snare drum on a send and also the tins buss on a send. This helps give the drums a really tight space, but at the same time, depth.

Percussion: SSL eq / filter and using the compressors for just taming any level differences, nothing crazy 3:1 ratio and just hitting the first LED.

Bass:  ST Decapitator, SSL and FabFilter pro Q2 (notching out 60hz a bit to allow for kick drum) Using the SSL comp at 2.7:1 to just bump any big transients - the decapitator is saturating it pretty good and leveling it out.

Acoustic Guitars: All have SSL EQ / Filter / Comp and a send to the 2.0 sec plate reverb. The main acoustic 3:1 comp ratio vs. the L,R acoustics running 5:1 and panning hard L,R.

Keys: The synth I'm doing just some EQ / filter with the SSL only. The Hammond I'm doing the same (with ssl eq / filter) but sending to the 2.0 sec plate reverb.

R Electric Guitar: This where things get interesting. My OCD kicks in and wants the rhythm to be symmetrical so... I have the supplied RHM track first going through a soundtoys decapitator, then into SSL eq / filter which is then sent to another channel where I have 26 ms delay, then into a mono chorus 0.7 hz, 12.5% intensity, 100% wet, into the SSL where I boost a bit of 1.5 - 2.5 khz just to make it a tad different EQ sounding. Both channels are panned hard L,R.

Lead Electric Guitar: ST Decapitator into SSL; then send into 480/525 ms stereo tape echo and send 2 into 2.0 second plate reverb.

Lead Vocals: Slate FG Streess 6:1 (a bit of smashing, but in a nice way) then into the SSL EQ / Filter and the onboard comp. set again to 6:1 but lightly (and barely) lighting up the first LED as it mainly just flickers when engaged... gating to get rid of the blank space between phrasing... 2 sends. First send goes into a waves GW voice centric plugin with adding the "doubler" FULL ON which that goes into the next plugin of soundtoys distorted echo 1/8th notes then into an instance of SSL channel strip to then tweak the eq slightly (filter below 80 hz). THIS fx channel then has a send to the 2.0 second plate reverb. Going back to the lead vocal, the second send off of the direct signal to the 2.0 sec reverb. I have melodyne, but chose to use "flex pitch" in a few spots.

Background Vocals: Panned just beyond 9/3 O'clock, bussed into a GW voice centric where the doubler is turned 50% on, which is going into my SSL where eq / filter / 4:1 compressor, lighting up the first LED, no reverb or delay sends. I find this very helpful in getting the feeling like there are background singers, but they are staying out of the lead vocal's space. I also decided to use flex pitch here in a few spots.

Mixbus: the final 2 track out has nothing on it. After mixing, I am using the IK multimedia "TR-5" metering to check my final mix level; around -17.4 LUFS integrated.

If anyone wants to see screen shots of anything, just let me know. Cheers and good luck to all!

Alan

[IbanezoO]

Hi all,

here's my entry:

file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oZAO_7 ... sp=sharing

My go-to chain on nearly all tracks has been the Slate Virtual Mix Rack with VCC set to SSL G Channel, SSL EQ feeding the SSL compressor.

drums:

EQ-wise I treated the kick with a lot of 60hz boosts, 5kHz boost to get some more attack and about 3dB GR with the compressor. Additionally I used a transient designer to enhance the attack.
For the snare I boosted 150hz to get more body and a huge high shelf boost (around 10dB) at 7.5kHz to make it brighter. The snare is sent to a plate reverb.
Panned the toms 50% L/R, grouped the and gated them, boosted 130hz for body, cut out ugly mids, boosted top end for attack and added a little reverb.
Hihats panned 55% R. Percussions & cowbell panned around 25% L/R.
With the OHs I usually go 100% L/R but it didn't feel good in here so I panned them narrower than usual, (45% L/R), high passed at 500hz and smoothed them with several boosts and cuts from the high mids to the top end and tape saturation. Feeded a drum reverb with the OHs.
A little top end boost and parallel compression on the drum bus (Distressor, Mix set to 10%).

Bass:

Duplicated the track but instead of adding a parallel grit track with distortion/saturation I added a sub bass track. Compressed the original track with fast attack. The grouped track gets a lot of compression a shimmer from the Slate Revival plugin. That's where the actual grit comes from.

E guitar:

Here's where it got complicated to me. As we only had one rhythm and one lead guitar I needed to make decisions how to place them in the stereo field. For some purposes I duplicated the rhythm with a short delay and panned them hard L/R but only when either there was no acoustic guitar of for the chorus. The lead guitar got a stereo delay (1/8th dotted) to get some with and a lot of automation to fit in the different parts. Additionally it got ducked by the lead vocal.

Acoustic guitar:

Panned one track opposite to the rhythm guitar, the other ones hard L/R. Boosted some frequencies for presence and cut low mids. Stauration and compression to tame the peaks.

Nearly the same for the hammond. Added presence and body, synths got a stereo widener to spread them out.

Vocals:

I didn't want to overprocess the with auto tune like in the original mix. So I manually tuned some parts while trying to keep them natural. Boosted top end while cutting low mids, 1176 compression with slow-ish attack and fast release, around 10dB GR. For the chorus I used Slate MetaTune to produce a vocal double. Send the vocals to a 1/8th stereo delay and a 1/4th mono delay.
Background vocals are panned 50%L and 70% R also with a doubler effect.

My instrument sub bus got some Slate MO-TT to shape the overall sound. Together with the vocal bus it feeds the mix bus with 2dB GR from the SSL bus compressor and some tape saturation.

That's it, hope you like it.

[UHLS]

hello guys, thanks for the cool song.
this time the mix went pretty quickly, since the material already sounds processed (especially drums).
i didn't clean the tracks either - if i make it to the second round, i can do all that.
i also used very little automation, only on the keys and lead guitar.
drums:
kick - reagate, infeq
snare - infeq
ohs, toms, hihat - trash2, infeq
reaverb with lexicon big gee´s ir: snare plate
then with whole baggage in drumbus and drumbus paralell:britpressor

cowbell,tambo,shaker bus: omega n, ekramer fx, reaverb

e-guitars: infeq, ekramergt, reaverb, repeater
a-guitars quiet, only for glue in the mix: infeq, reel adt
guitar bus: kramer hls
bass: H-comp, ekramer ba

vox:
trash2 (tape sat), ekramer vc

choir: ekramer vc, waves tune
effect busses: h-delay, h910, reaverb

keys bus: inf eq, h910, gem mod, verbsuite

delay/rev bus: repeater, verbsuite

2bus: clariphonic, magic death eye

reaper measurement: -16 lufs integrated, true peak max. -2.2db.

cheers and good luck!
------------------------------------------------------------
download link:

https://workupload.com/file/y2pSNpfaEDX

[White Punk OD]

Hello Buddy Blake Band and everyone,

hope you have a lot of fun with this time capsule, of course it has to reflect some situation of our era.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Df9fTh ... sp=sharing WAV
screen shots: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Lead Voc
I did manual mode with the recent bx_crispytuner, leaving quite some imperfection.
Then I used analysis mode with TDR Nova GE to suppress room modes and ringing frequencies, and later on adjusted its dynamic thresholds.
Luftikus for more air band and general shaping.
Nectar3 Elements with clarity, De-ess, Dyn, Tone, also using analysis, for what was left after Nova.
Waves Tube Saturator Vintage with fat mode and some boost on all 3 bands.
bx_XL V2 2-band limiter, subtle setting but using XL knob around 30%.
bx_console N for the normal channel mixing.
AirWindows ADT for Haas Delay.

BGV
both tracks have ADT and Nova GE (analysis again) individually.
Bus: SPL Vitalizer, DeEdger, Oracle (Soundspot) modulated effect reverb, bx_Focusrite for EQ, TinyQ for a sharp notch at 538Hz

4 reverbs:
ERS250 for ambience with delay
OrilRiver for long tail
SIR impulse with nonlinear shape and modern spectrum, to blur some stuff
TAL-Dub2 for slap delay, esp. lead voc and some guitars


kick and snare
Snare was rendered with TDR Nova dynamics, that removed a lot of the room ringing and mud. Rendered track reimported to DAW.
both kick and snare then got duplicated, and with selective gating and sharp EQs, the attack, nonlinear hold, and tail parts could get addressed.
Tuned de-essers in the bx_Focusrite instances were very helpful, but also a sharp dynamic lowpass at 7.8k in TDR Nova was used.
The "Oberheim engine" snare sound was created with the insane FET compressor in the Lindell channel X. I add a screen shot of this.
(What I mean is the fake bottom mic puffing sound esp. in the chorus.)
A resonant hipass at 100Hz adds some oomph to the snare.

kick+snare BUS has a saturated compressor deeply in overdrive, followed by Townhouse, and then Little Plate 0.72 sec, hipass 620, mix 33%
hihat: elliptic filter with bx_cleansweep pro at 880, this really adds character, followed by Ignite Pultec emulation

Overheads - same Nova GE trick, higher frequencies get dynamic attenuation to soften the brass bashing.
Side signal above 530 gets boosted with linear EQ, for more stereo, this is automated so the chorus has more stereo width than the verse.

Room - overhead trks were reengineered for a fake room signal.
SPL Transient designer with attack -100%, sustain +75%.
Surgical EQ with 3 notches. Mixed with 4000G, using also the compressor.
Little Plate to enhance the "room" sound.
This was added to the main bus very subtly.

Bass runs into bx_Bassdude, cabinet #21, with lots of overdrive. Extra boost around 800 with ancient NWEQ.

Acoustic guitar 1 uses the bx_bluechorus, switched off during certain parts.
Acoustic BUS has Lindell 354 multiband.

LEAD GIT - as suggested, I sliced it up into 8 clips, also did a timing correction.
In soloing mode, the main effect is Lagrange (fractal delay).
I did a lot of automation with OrilRiver and the dub delay.
Elliptic 4-pole hipass at 138Hz. ADT Haas. A couple of notches. 4000G for mixing.

The "Punk" rhythm guitar:
SPL AttackerPLus, Phil's Cascade (screen shot), Ignite PTEq-X.

There is an "instrument" bus with all guitars and keyboards.
Lead vocal is using a Trackspacer functionality against this bus, created once more with a side-chained TDR Nova.

Stereo BUS:
Ozone8 Elements for EQ; SPL Iron for glue

Thanks for the very nice song and the interesting task!
I'd be glad to adjust it to your needs.

[Hoek]

Hi y'all!

Thought I should give this one a shot!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1StQsV1 ... sp=sharing

I imported the files into a Reaper project, balanced things up volume and panning-wise and listenened to it kinda raw and liked it right away.
So I tried to keep things simple, no gating, no samples, bleed and all. Well, it ended up being quite alot of plugins used still, but most of them not doing very much.

From the top:

On my 2 bus as usual, my HW BC-1 bus compressor and TK-lizer eq doing some gentle glueing and shaping. Also a tape emulator plugin for rocknroll's sake.

Drum group: Tape emulator, paralell comp from a Neve 33609 plugin, pretty aggresive but mixed in low. Some decapitator as well for body and grit.
oh: some hp and eq, decapitator. Soothe 2 to tame some slightly harsh cymbals.
Snare: Waves ssl channel eq adding quite a bit of highs, Uad Neve 33609 compressor. Decapitator for saturation.
kick: see snare + Spl transient designer decreasing the sustain and adding attack.
rest of drum kit, just some eq.

The basstrack sounded a little harsh to my ears, so tried to tame the bright and high mids. Also duplicated it and passed the duplicate through Softube bass amproom plugin. A transient designer does the opposite of the one on the kick track, decreasing attack and increasing sustain. Compression and some Rbass.

All gtrs, nothing crazy, just eq and comp. I separated the solo parts from the rythm parts on the right guitar and treated them differently.
The hammond I thought deserved some distortion, decapitator in Punish mode, blended in at some 60%
synth, too, also some crystalizer to make it even more spaced out.

All percussion elements are pretty much just high passed and panned. boosted some highs on shakers.

Then comes the vocals. I struggled to get the somewhat (No offense! ) sour notes in tune in the choruses. No autotune applied on the verses but more so in the choruses. I didnt want to go for the obvious effect, but I'm not really happy with what i accomplished... should have spent more time on that but couldn't...Theres eq, comp and some distortion from decapitator and a Tubescreamer pedal plugin. Soothe 2. Waves Vocal rider at the end.

Effects are plate reverb emt 140 plugin (vocals, snare) , a room reverb that i sent some of the drums and guitars to and a 300 ms delay from echoboy jr. recieving from various guitars and voices.

Theres a bit of automation ofcourse, I tried to get the choruses to lift a bit compared to the verses. Theres some minor nudging on an opening note or two on the lead guitar. (I thought it dragged ever so slightly) Hope you don't mind!

All in all a pretty rocknroll and straight forward live mix. Stand by for action!

[Pingafuego]

My mix:

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



First, thanks again for MisterFox for hosting these mix challenge, and thanks for The Buddy Blake Band for this great classic rock song!

I tried to preserve the recording liveness, and mixed the song using Reason 10 built in SSL mixing desk, so all channels used built in EQ and compressor. In the mix bus I used the built in SSL Bus compressor, with light eq and imager (Reason stock MClass devices).

On snare and kick there are parallel channels, with heavy compression. The other drums elements have eq and light compression.

Bass mixed with McDSP 6050 Channel Strip - compression, saturation and eq.

The lead guitar, which contains rhythm elements, was splitted in two channels, so the solo received different eq/compression and level/panning treatment.

The lead vocals received Reason stock Pulverizer compression/saturation, as well as SSL built in eq, plus a parallel channel with PSP 1176 compressor and NobleQ.

For the background vocals I used desk eq and compression, and a little widening using Arturia Chorus Dimension D simulation.

The Hammond, Synth, and acoustic guitars were panned and received desk eq and compression.

Thanks!

[floodo]

Hi Thanks for sharing your tracks, Great Band!!!
Use google translator, I hope to be understood, I only speak Spanish

Mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cxvZ7x ... sp=sharing

I really developed my way of mixing little by little, doing everything in very separate and defined steps that I will try to explain.

1- I remove silences, resonances, etc.
2- I try to make all harmonic instruments as flat as possible with Eq and compression
3- I start the static mix and pan
4- I export the stems and load them into a new project which has in the mixbus a console emulation, glue compression, and some equalizers like MannyM, Titanium3Basstard and where I start to equalize trying to get as close as possible to the frequency balance of my reference using ozone tonal balance, once i am close enough to my reference i start with the next stage
5- Track by track I am removing resonances and cutting all the instruments that do not need it from the bass part and removing the excess bass and kick bass, and I start the additive Eq always checking a spectrum analyzer and the tonal balance , also in this stage I apply some saturation always keeping the gain stages in the same place as the static mix.-
KICK: Cut at 30hz, Gate, Eq,
Snare: 100Hz cut, gate, Eq, clipping, convology Rever plate
Toms: Eq
HH: Cut at 700Hz, Eq
OH: Cut at 500Hz, Eq
Drum Bus: Glue Compression, Harmonic Saturation
Percussions: Only Trimming of the frequencies that did not serve me and panning
Percussion Bus: glue compression

Bass: Ampeg emulation, Eq I particularly noticed that the bass player scratched the string with the PICK and I wanted to enhance that sound, Duck side chain to the kick
E-GTR: Eq and compression glue on your bus
A-GTR: I made a match EQ of the E-GTR and put it in reverse so they don't bother each other
keys: nothing at all
BG: A bit of EQ and some aggressive panning
VOX: EQ, palmary vocal finalizer and use neutron EQ for unmask with a relay that I put in the E-GTR
MixBus: Slate VCC, MannyM Eq, BX Refiniment to remove some harshness, SSL type Compressor, Titanium3Basstard whose preamp and the famous pultec trick I use, and Back Rosster's magnetite.
Note: After I finished the mix with my reference I started to listen to other songs of the band and I noticed that their productions have few records, so I simply made a TIlt in the mixbus, I also decided to leave the sneeze that is at the end of the shaker because it gave personality to the end of the song


And that was it

[GersonArdilaVerjel]

Hello. It is a pleasure to be able to participate.
This is my mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aZDwJ3 ... sp=sharing
Thank you very much.

~Gerson Ardila Verjel~

[Dodgingrain]

Here's my mix: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqpB-RLndYJrksYLXLE ... Q?e=y6f9jv

Every channel used an API console emulation.

Drums: Just eq, pan, levels and compression. Parallel compressed drums except for the kick through dbx160. I did do some time alignment on the kick and acoustic guitars to keep them tight.

Bass: Run through an SVT-Pro to give it some body and bite. Eq bumps are opposite eq on the kick. Also a bit of sidechain ducking triggered by the kick drum.

Rythm Gtr: Used a phaser to create some interest and increase the vintage vibe, otherwise just levels and eq changes.

Acoustic guitars, some time alignment with the kick, otherwise just compression, volume automation, and light eq.

keys: Some ping pong delay on the synth part, organ has some widening and distortion that comes in around 2:57

Vocal sample in the beginning has some delay and eq.

Lead vocal, compression, eq and level automation, added a bit of distortion and soothe to pull out some of the harshness. Did a small amount of pitch correction.

BGVs: Pitch correction in quite a few spots, also cut off all the low end that was buried by the rest of the mix anyway.

Master bus has my usual tape saturation, used an API glue compressor and a small amount of dynamic eq for above 10k.

[canese]

Hello, Mixers,

Here's my mix. https://www.dropbox.com/s/riyv2zj709atk ... e.wav?dl=0

I started with the guitars. Add EQ to remove harsh frequencies and little reverb to give them space. Also, there's is chorus in parallel.

Bass has heavy EQ and little distortion.

Kick has reverted the polarity. I found it has more low end like that. And it sounds nice in the mix.

Drums overall have eq, compression, little distortion, and reverb. Vocal has reverb, eq, compression, and distortion in parallel.
Hammond has high-end eq and phaser and backing vocals a little chorus.

the master bus is empty. I didn't change the performances at all. Nice track! reminded me of the Police and Supertramp.

Cheers!

PS: can you confirm for me please if you can see the mix? It's been a long time since I used dropbox. Ty