MIX CHALLENGE - MC104 June 2025 - Mix Round 1 in evaluation

[MemphisB]

Hi All

here's my mix of this great song, LUFS 16.3 -3.5 Peak
Mixed on reaper on Sennheiser HD201 and a small speaker & a few other places

Broke everything into Group Aux then into Music, Rhythm & Vocal Sub Bus for treatment. Mostly EQ and saturation and any compression on the Aux & Sub Bus. Master bus had a fair bit on it but more for taste than anything control wise.

Keys and instruments used panning and reverb plugins to set them back slightly in the space around the main drum and bass drive

Concentrated on most of the processing to the vocals to bring them out and give them a soft but up front place

took me a while to get the balance right as there are lots of elements in the mix

hope it turned out ok

keep rockin

MemphisB

Above the Clouds

[LowlandsWave]

Hello,

Thanx for sharing this song with the Mix Challenge community. Solid production, and even without a ton of delay drenged in reverb it still sounds very 80's.
I think I went for a cleaner version than the provided mix by the song provider. My goal was to retain the intention from the song provider but make it fit in 2025 ....

Mixed completely the box using LUNA.
mixbus has master tape emulation on it (clean type 468 master), deesser to tame high frequency transients, chandler curve bender into a ssl bus compressor.
Audio interface: Apollo Solo
monitoring: headphones and speakers; Beyerdynamic DT 1990 pro and Adam Audio T7V
Room correction using Sound ID reference for speakers and Realphones for headphones
Room is "treated" with DIY wall panels and a small cloud panel

Mixing this song using my template, with SSL 4kE channel strip on all instrument busses.
Instrument busses go to different group busses with different compressors on it. Very much derived from the Michael Brauer way of mixing.

I tried to get the kick a bit stronger in the low end so I ended up with a chain like this: SSL 4kE, MHB Green, Helios 69, Pro-Q
The Uad helios 69 gives it a lot of low end smack.

Here is my mix: MC104__BenjiRage__AboveTheClouds__LowlandsWave

[floodo]

For this mix, I mostly used IK Multimedia’s MixBox because I wanted a lot of analog-style emulation throughout.

I used various types of reverbs and delays, along with other effects like phasers and chorus — including UAD Plate, Raum, Valhalla Supermassive, UFX, CSR Hall, LoFi Spaces, etc. I think I threw in everything I had. For the vocals, I used EQ, 1176, LA-2A, and Hornet’s HarmoniQ. For the verse and the chorus, I believe I added a bit of air with Coral Baxter. There are lots of automations — I spent more time automating than mixing, really.

Well, I won’t go on too much. Here’s my mix, and a big thanks to Benji for his contribution!

my mix --> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YUX9cm ... sp=sharing

[MadMav]

Hello Everyone,

Thank you BenjiRage for providing this track to work on, and sharing something personal. As far as the track goes, I definitely herd more of a pop direction. My goal was to give the track a more focused, open sound. I really enjoyed the challenge of giving all the synths their own space in the mix. I used a few different reverbs and and delays to archive this. I hope I was successful.

To get get my bass sound, split the bass into two frequency bands and processed them separately. I put the crossover point at 250HZ. On the low end I put a FET compressor to keep the low frequencies, and, on the upper end, I didn’t compress to leave the transients alone. I boosted the upper end to get the clarity I wanted out of the bass. I then sent both bass tracks to a bass bus and used a compressor with a slower attack and a long release time, as to keep the transients and keep it smooth.

Here is my mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13rhy5Q ... sp=sharing

I used Audeze MM 500 headphones on Logic Pro to mix this track.

Thank you,

MadMav

[Drannob]

Hey guys,

Here is my mix:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EuJJ2a ... sp=sharing

Thanks to @BenjiRage for this track, it was a pleasure to mix for me!!! Very good production that gave me a bout of nostalgia lol (I was born in the 80s).

Regarding the mix, listening to the "client mix," I thought it would be hard to do better! So I set out with the idea of ​​creating a mix that resembled the original while trying to add something extra. I wanted this sound to sound wide but "blocky" because in my subconscious, the sounds of the 80s sound like blocks (but that's probably just in my head lol). I'm pretty happy with the result, especially when the vocals come in; I love how they sit in the mix.

Regarding the equipment used: Ollo S5X headphones corrected via Ollo's USC plugin (a simple EQ), followed by a crossfeed plugin (CanOpener). I don't remember if I used my speakers to check, but if I did, it was with a pair of Event Opals and a pair of HS50s in a room that was acoustically perfect... CRAP!

Finally, I just wanted to add that it's good to have a client mix in the zip file; it helps you understand the client's direction and intentions and we can A/B during the mix. Thanks again, Benji and @Mister Fox, of course!

[Kron]

Hi, here's my mix of this amazing song.

I mainly used Fabfilter plugins. I played around with the vocals a lot, adding reverbs and delays. I also used Valhalla Supermasive for some vocal effects. And I layered some of the vocals in some parts of the song with a radio effect.

Thanks, @BenjiRage.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15nkmvw ... sp=sharing

PD: Mixed with Sennheiser HD205 headphones.

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 07 days left to submit your mix.


So far, we have 27 entries (compared to 120 Mix Pack downloads -- now in standard ZIP form that doesn't need special apps).

Please continue to pay attention to detail (see bundled TL;DR Rules.txt and/or post #003). There will be no deadline extensions.

[PapaScrumptious]

Thank you for sharing. This is my first trying something like this. I have only worked on recordings for bands that I am a member of or for close friends. I am usually covering everything from the mic placement to burning CDs / posting to streaming platforms and everything in between. I had to modify my workflow slightly to fit within the spirit of this challenge so I hope it turned out ok.

Feedback is greatly appreciated. While I've been playing music for a long time (primarily bass), recording/mixing/production has always been a secondary hobby to live gigging. Health troubles have kept me from doing as much gigging as I'd like so I've been leaning into recording/production a lot more lately, trying to learn all I can.

My mix environment has DIY acoustic treatment. 16 panels of 48" x 15.5" x 6" thick rockwool on a 1.5" open back frame to space it of the wall for 7.5" total thickness. They are placed in the front corners of the room, Left wall, right wall, rear wall and a cloud hanging above the mix position. Monitoring chain is an old Focusrite 18i8 (maybe 3rd gen?), TC Electronic BMC-2 monitor controller, Arc Studio for room correction into Focal Shape Twin speakers. I just moved everything into a this room and this is the first room I've had with any treatment. I've only had it really set up for a week or two so I am still getting used to the room. Mix cross checked on various headphone and a home stereo.

I tried to accomplish the requested spacious, lush and reverberant sound. No pitch correction was used. I mixed in Luna utilizing all of its extensions for tape, channel strips and summing. In addition to several additional plugins, I did use some analog hardware on the mix bus. Massive Passive, Dual Pultec EQP-1As, Neve Master Bus Transformer and Black Box HG2. I really leaned into the real tube and transformer saturation to try and enhance the lush reverbs.

I'm not used to working with samples or virtual instruments so this was a fun challenge for me.


Loudness measurements:
-16.1 LUFS integrated
-1.1 dBTP

The link to the mix:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/nwshtty1 ... smyio&dl=0

Thanks again for putting this on and providing the tracks to mix. I enjoyed working on a style I'm not used to working with.

[red86549]

Hi, i retry this month and i hope to respect all the rules this times

I'm really excited to read your feedback

I usually mix with REAPER and a hybrid setup, because I prefer hardware saturation and dynamics but ITB eq (usually SSL native channel) for a quick recall.

I mix for most of the times with a pair of HIFIMAN 400se with a correction by dSoniq Realphones.

So, on this beautiful song I do more or less this thing:

DRUMS: have a parallel to a townhouse convolution that gives a lot of pumping at drum and I work an each channel with a UAD Century tube. There’s a bit of reverb on the snare

BASS: at first there’s a parallel to a channel strip with a valve preamp and a VCA comp. This gives me the sound I love on bass. There’s a eq for give some space at the kick

GUITARS: Not to much to do on this track There’s a parallel on a UAD distressor and a De Esser on the buss

SYNTH: I love this sound, I pan also this thing a lot. The only external outboard is a parallel to my analog multifx that give a little bit of delay, chorus and reverb

PIANO: I pan a lot this track, and I send the two channel of piano keys into a lexicon plate and a UAD tape echo

MAIN VOX: eq by usually SSL, an analog 1176 (it works a little but give a lot of presence) and a parallel to my 1986 Yamaha spx50D for the reverbs… when you use this, you are into the ‘80s

BVOX: I use a parallel to the 1176 with the same settings of main vox for have some glue with that.

MIX BUSS: Here’s is more complex, I’ve a lot of this that does little things:

- UAD Pultec for giving brilliance at 10k
- SSL Fusion Drive, i love the sound of this
- UAD verve analog machine for giving a taste of tape
- Vybz a multifx, in this case I use a little bit of 80’s tape and a low pass filter

Let me know what you think about… I hope this time to respect all the rule

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xL4EkQ ... sp=sharing

[Blue-S-man]

Thanks to @BenjiRage for the multitracks.
I mixed in Reaper using eq and Taupestudio on the masterbus.
Final Limiter I used is realimit.
FX Valhalla Delay.

Mixed on JBL 308,no room treatment.

Loudness measurements:
Peak -1
-16 LUFS-I

https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/jvecqfzfl ... yghkr&dl=1

Cheers
Gerd