MIX CHALLENGE - MC103 April 2025 - Mix Round 2 in evaluation

[Drannob]

Hey guys!

Congratulations to everyone who made it to round two! I listened to a few of your mixes (the first ones, not the v2s for those who have already posted their v2s) and there's some really good stuff. I really like your mix @scottfitz , well done! It's also very interesting to see the directions and decisions that were made, all quite different.

Anyway, here's my v2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/155npJ9 ... sp=sharing

I corrected the points mentioned by @Strange and I also listened to Pharrell's Happy to see. This made me make a lot of small adjustments, especially on the low end. Happy is very mid-range and the highs are very forward. I was really going in the opposite direction, so I rebalanced everything in that direction and made everything a little drier while trying to keep what I had originally done. I don't know if it paid off, we'll see.

Thanks again @Strange and @Mister Fox for your work!

[Mellow Browne]

Thanks to @Strange for picking my mix for round 2.

I tweaked some compressor settings on several tracks and also added bx console focusrite SC (GR of 4 db or so) to get more body from the kick. I also reduced the delay amount of the guitars to match the distance of the vocals.
I tried to tame the hihat by reducing the overall volume and some more clip gain changes in various sections.

My goal was to get things a little bit closer together while adding punch to the drums and taming the bass resonance. The ampeg bass amp does have a little sustained tone to it so I used Ozone 11 Equalizer to tame the sustain part of the bass in that 100-250 Hz area.

Here is the mix:

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

The mix has lost some of the brightness because there is less guitar delay and hihat but I think it has more punch now.

[VividPhase]

Thanks Strange for selecting me as one of the participants for round 2, and congrats to everyone who participated with their interesting and excellent mixes!

I took the direct feedback from Strange and updated my original submission per those revision notes, and if he was working with me as a client I would have sent that version back as our next revision. But in this case for this competition, I also took in the information from Strange's older post #100 and the recent one #138 regarding referencing from "Happy" and his vibe notes for the production sections, and then pushed my mix slightly in those directions with further EQ tightening, brightening, and more automation in different sections. So I’m submitting that tweaked mix here instead of simply a corrected rev2 version and hope it’s more on target. Thanks again Strange for the fun song to mix and use in our portfolios!

Song: MC103__Strange__WegZuDir__VividPhase_R2

[LowlandsWave]

Nice to be in mix round 2, been a while. Thanks @Strange for the opportunity to work on your song again, but with some extra client information. I liked the idea of posting "your perfect mix' in addition to the mix specific comments.

I worked on all of the comments you made and tried to incorporate some of the things you mentioned in the "perfect mix":
- balance adjustment for HH and also congas
- balance adjustment for vocal and guitar to bring em more together
- BG vocals more present
- Lead vocal got some STA-level treatment to tame the volume at the start of some of the lines
- less distortion in the bridge
- vocal distortion only on first part of the bridge and volume adjustment
- verse guitars attenuated some high, resonant frequencies
- added some widening automation at the end
- pre outro chorus automated the reverb and some volume

I did go back to Acces Analog to proces the mix with:
- SSL fusion
- SSL G style compressor

Link to download: LowlandsWave Mix

Good luck to all participants in R2,

[GeorgeCorg]

Hello again,

Thanks for the opportunity to be in the round 2 and keep tweaking things I may have left out from the first round

Everyone has this itch to get "the perfect" mix, whatever that thing is and this was a nice setup to get back and scratch that itch a bit

Anyway, @Strange , the wall of text(and I mean it in the most respectful way ) was very insightful to understand what you hear for this song and what was the intention behind it, I hope I was able to check the boxes when it comes to the mood, the overall balance of the instruments, frequencies and what not.
For the round 2 I did not add any more processing to the mix, I just went and corrected some things I heard and made the changes suggested in the review.

Final thoughts, I am happy(see what I did there? ) I had the chance to work on this song and flesh out my craft and improve my mixing skills.

Here's the file with the final mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UQDslK ... sp=sharing

Peace

[titantraxx]

Thanks for the opportunity and advancing me to round 2.

I simply applied the suggestions Strange made and it definitely turned out for the better. Four ears are better than two.

Here is my mix for round 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e_pokE ... sp=sharing

I lowered the left GTR in the verses -2db
I reduced delay feedback and reverb decay times on vocals
I raised chorus lead vocal by +3db
I reduced the lead vocal delay in the middle when the music drops out.

Overall I’m very happy with the mix.
Congratulations and good luck to everyone else.

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
We're in the final 24 hours to submit your edit for Mix Round 2.


So far, we have 09 out of 15 entries, with 20 hours left on the clock.

There will be no deadline extensions! Please get your edit submitted today. Please also pay attention to detail still.

[MadMav]

Hello fellow mixers,

I am honored to be in such good company. Thank you Strange for the opportunity to mix his track. It was a challenge giving all of the elements their own space.

I addressed the issues that Strange pointed out on my mix. On this second pass of my mix I focused on the relationship between the bass and the kick. I feel the track has better rhythmic control and balance.

Here is a link to my mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mRLwCj ... sp=sharing

Thank you Mr. Fox for all of your hard work.

MadMav

[JeroenZuiderwijk]

Hi Peter,

here is my R2 mix for the MC103. Thank you for your feedback on the mix. I tweaked the mix according to your notes. I took my time to rebalance it a bit without loosing the initial 'warmth' of the mix. That turned out to be a fragile aspect of the balance. I am happy with the result.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/8yg9czuh ... 2ci8k&dl=0

Cheers,

Jeroen

[Mork]

A little too much sub... welcome to the rabbit hole
As always, everything depends on each other and when I began to get rid of some sub it got muddy, then thin, then indirect, then off-balanced... but now it's great!
I listened to Happy again and tweaked to what I think this song could inherit from it. It's a lot of small eq and balance moves that make a big difference, I think. I spend some with the lead vocal to get somewhere near to (at least into the direction-ish) the warm-with-super-hifi-clarity sound of Happy. That was quite challenging because of the somewhat harsh recording, so eq moves in the upper spectrum had to be done extra careful, but not overly careful. EQ couldn't do the job on it's own and got some support by multiband compression to gain control, without sacrificing too much of that precious clarity. I am surely no Brathwaite, but still hope you like the results!

https://icedrive.net/s/P5VvPZ2jvF1Q7xCVBtfGtyA5g359

Cheers