MIX CHALLENGE - MC093 August 2023 - Winners announced

[pabloAT]

Dear all,
Many thanks to the song provider and Mr. Fox for such a nice (and challenging) track to mix!
As MC093 went out during my summer holidays break, I’ve used a different approach here, as I only had access to a (very) limited CPU/memory-resources laptop with REAPER v6.x + some few third-party plugins (I work usually with Cubase 12).
To overcome the lack-of-resources issues (in particular when dealing with 48kHz tracks), I’ve worked following three main steps:

Step 1 (preparing stems and first balancing)
- Cleaning, gain staging, filtering (HPF/LPF), phase checking, etc. of all tracks
- Grouping tracks into 8 stems: DRUMS, BASS, Ac GTR, E GTR, PIANO, KEYS, LV, and BV
- Individual fine tuning processing of all tracks: mainly EQing, compression and saturation, and stems
- Balancing (individual tracks and stems)
- Exporting stems (8 files)
- During this step, I activated an instance of Hornet’s VHS (virtual headphones system)

Step 2 (stems mixing and mix buss processing)
- Set-up of a mix buss with compressor, saturation, limiter (only to catch some eventual wandering peaks) and tape.
- Adjustments and (re)balancing of stems (including additional processing, parallel processing, etc.)
- Spatialization: reverb, delays, etc.
- Automation (a LOT!)

Step 3 (final adjustments)
- Checking the mix with different systems (VHS, car, cell phone, laptop speaker, …), and references (mainly from Gentle Giant’s songs mixed by Steven Wilson)
- When I back home, I did some final checks and (very) small adjustments after a listening check with SSlate’s VSX
- Rendering the final mix

[Dropbox's link to MC093]

I hope you like it!
Cheers,
Pablo

[Beja]

(Translator)

Special thanks to Rocketgoldstar for making this
wonderful Born Taurus Man. I have enjoyed it a lot !!!

here is my mix

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0j10lzzh ... cvx3s&dl=0

-16.5 LUFS INTEGRATED

-1.4 TRUE PEAK MAX

24/48

In this mix I have come to review all the instruments.
Probably the voices
and the piano have been the most fun challenge. Especially trying to find the
balance between so many signals even of the same voice recorded with different microphones.
This was so much fun !!!

I also really enjoyed the Piano in this song. I think it plays a role
fundamental.

I will explain how some groups are composed and then I will describe a track from each one:

Lead Voice Leader consists of: GAZ POLARIZED VOICE + LEAD VOX VOICE + GAZ LEAD VOX VOICE(MIC REAR)
All three are group and the balance of them goes to the Voice group.
All three have auxiliary send for both Reverb and Delay.
Various volume, reverb, and delay automations were applied to this voice.

Processing Chain:
GAZ POLARIZED VOICE: Ozone Imager (a little Stereo) + bc gain stereo + apQualizer
+ TAN (compressor) + compressor + compressor + API-550A Stereo +API 550B stereo. Shipment
Auxiliary: MannyM Reverb Stereo. Auxiliary Send: MannyM Delay.

Piano: Piano is the mix of the following tracks: Piano near ov L + Piano near ov R +
Piano far ov L + Piano far ov R + Piano near + Piano far = PIANO MIX (Group). All
tracks have aux send for effects.

Processing Chain:
For example: Piano near ov L: apQualizer + Saturn2 + apQualizer2 + Compressor + DualPan + Peak Limiter

and so on...

Good luck to all the participants and once again thank you very much!!!

Beja

[LowlandsWave]

Wow, that was something else! A joy to work on a song like this.

I only edited the piano track using RX. That one crackle when the vocals started was just to much, had to go. Used a "donor note" and spectral repair.
No tuning on the vocals

Mixed 100% ITB

All tracks have a SSL 4k channel strip on it.
eventually I route the tracks to 5 mix busses; Music, Drum and Bass, Guitar, Ambience, Vocals. These busses go to the Mixbus. So it is a Michael Brauer style mix template I use.

Mixbus has a Pultec for some top end, SSL Buscompressor for punch and glue, Drammer S73 for clarity, SPL IRON for weight and top end roll off.

Vocal has a lot of vocal rides and varies in the use of reverb per section. Vocal is a mix of the vocal send to different compressors
I used sound toys Microsoft to add some weight and space to the vocal
Main vocal is heavily compressed using LA2A style compressor,

For the drumset I copied the overhead track and crushed it with a devillock to serve as a room mic. Room, Overhead are run trough oxide tape plugin to roll off some top end harshness.

Used Soothe on the bass to control the low end some volume rides to control some very pearcing bass notes.

Guitar solo got some delay and reverb. Also a lot of volume rides to make the different parts fit together, rolled off some high end to get them a bit further back in the mix in stead off very upfront.

Organ was processed with some extra rotary speaker emulation (Uad waterfall)

Here is the mix: LowlandsWave Mix

[trackerjack]

Soothe2

Nice. Was looking into that and probably one of my next purchases.

[Zep]

Dear all,

this is the first time i come to this forum, with my french english !
Sorry for mistakes into my words...

Then this is my first participation, with this great song with a band i don't know at all, and it was a real pleasure to do with !

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

i made this miw with principaly a strip channel (SSL type) on all the instruments group

Compressors on drums (OverHeads), bass, and parallel compression on vox, drums

And a room reverb to create a cohesion's space for all the élements

Thx a lot for this forum and the possibilty for us to experiment by a different way

Good luck for all !

Zep

[45Garage]

For starters the song is great! The performances and recordings are fantastic. This was a joy to mix. As I usually do, I keep it pretty simple. I tend to not gob on a ton of plug ins where they really aren’t needed. I did the whole thing with some channel strips, a handful of buss comps, and some ambience.


Mix notes:

Brainworx SSL 4000G on every channel. Based on the influences listed I figured dollars to donuts a good many of them were mixed on a 4000G.

SSL native buss comp used on individual busses and main stereo buss. Most of the instrument groups were sent to their own busses (I.e. drums, bass, Hammond, backing vocals, etc) for automation purposes. Often an SSL buss comp came into play on the buss to help glue the groups together.

Parallel busses: one for the drums. One for everything else. Blended to taste for a bit of added weight. Both used waves CL76’s in dual mono that were over sampled by 4x with DDMF superplug. The drum buss also had an Apogee EQP-1A.

Mix buss: SSL Native buss comp. Logic linear phase eq for a couple tiny tweaks. Puigtec compressor (oversampled 4x by superplug) barely touching it.

Additional FX:

Drums: A touch of room ambience on the drum overheads with Logic Space Designer. Also a separated dedicated instance just for a little extra on the snare

Vocals: Valhalla Space Modulator (just a pinch), Logic Stereo delay, Logic Space Designer. All stacked on a buss and used very sparingly.

Hammond: space designer for room ambience.

Lead guitar: Valhalla Supermassive (reverb)

Piano: space designer for room ambience.

Acoustic: space designer

Prophet: TAL- chorus-lx and TAL Reverb 4.

Mixed to 0dbVU

Enjoy!

-Dustin J. Elliott



https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/61boml6z ... e4o0n&dl=0

[bluesation]

I congratulate you to this song. I am a big Queen fan, and I was instantly reminded to their songs from the early 70ties. According to this starting point, I think is the mix.

I did nothing special in this mix, there nothing to fix surgical, cause of the well done recording. But I tried a new method of mixing the drums. I think for this song it worked fine. The drums have no compressor, no single track, no group bus. Only the kick and snare go to a parallel bus with a 160 type of compressor. Further Drums bus and bass are not routed directly to the master bus. First they go into a common bus, to better control the low end.

All the other tracks are treated conventionally, EQ to fit in, compression were needed. I spent some time to find the right reverbs. Drums have their own, the instruments and the vocals. Vocals got a bit of slap delay to. The background vocals simply got more of the same reverb as the lead vocals. The solo guitar got delay to.

After all was in raw balance. I did a lot of volume automation, to get the right amount of volume for each instrument in the different sections.

Here is the result: https://my.hidrive.com/lnk/eiST20uC

[Pingafuego]

Mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19TMKU0 ... drive_link


Thanks for Rocketgoldstar and Gaz Williams for the opportunity to mix this great rock song! Thanks for Mister Fox for hosting this mix challenge!

For this mix I tried a modern approach, using Neutron channel strips and Ozone master bus processing.

Grouped the instruments and applied eq, compression and exciter.

The snare got a verb bus, with neoverb plate, as well as a “crack” bus, with Native Instruments Bite effect for crunch and saturation, and VC 160 compressor. Kick, snare and Oh got some phasing check.

Drums sent to a room verb (NI RC 48 random hall).

Bass were sent to a group with eq. compression, exciter, transiente shaper, and Neutron “Sculptor”effect.

Guitars sent to group with little eq and NI Guitar Rig 6 vintage verb studio reverb.

Acoustic guitars got some eq, compression, transient shapper and Neutron Sculptor.

Other instruments (piano and synths) sent to groups with eq, compression and exciter).

Vocals and Backing vocals sent to gropus with Nectar channel strip for eq, compression, deesser and saturation, as well as reverb and delay effects.

Master bus: Ozone for compression, eq and exciter. Maximizer for soft clip.

[jules666]

Hi All,

Here is my version of this track:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JETgrS ... sp=sharing

Was a little pressed for time this month so not as much automation as I would normally like to do.

All instruments sent to buses (Piano/Hammond and Leslie all sent to same bus)
Buses had some subtle saturation, and EQ - Piano bus had trackspacer on sidechained to vocals to allow the vocals to come through better.


Drums - just EQ and saturation, gates kick and snare a little to reduce bleed.
Multiple parallel compression and distortion on drums, blended to taste.

Vox:
Gaz Lead (inc double) - bit of tidying up, reducing some breaths and a little tuning in places. Then Deesser, Compressor,EQ, another compressor before going into a limiter and a final de-esser.
BG Vox: Some EQ and compression

Vox FX: Used sends for vocals with various amounts (sometime automated) to a few different reverbs, slap back delay, Microshift, 1/4 note throws and a distortion.

Leslie - Saturation, EQ, compressor and clipper
Piano - Compression - EQ - CLipper (sent to a couple of different types of reverb).
Prophet - EQ and Compression

Acoustic: Transient shaper, EQ and a clipper (Bussed with a little compression also added)
Electric: Some EQ and compression with API style channel strip then used some delay to add a bit of movement.

Blended a parallel heavily compressed version of the mix into main 2 bus.
2 Bus: Just a little eq rolling off low end below 35Hz, little SSL style compression and saturation.

[Christoph Stoll]

Hello everybody!

That was fun one - and such a great practice! I used the Vocalmic in figure8, put one "pultec"-EQ a "670" and a "SSL-Comp" (all of them freeware) on my Master after Brauerizing a little (again with just freeware inserted), wrote a crazy amount of automation data and used compression via side chains all over the place. I went for something very clean and wide and "pop". I hope, you like it!
Best regards,
Christoph

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h056iA ... share_link