MIX CHALLENGE - MC044 June 2018 - Winners announced

[Aditya.inHim]

it's been a long time since I participated.. And this is my first submission in this new standalone official web (congratz by the way)

I uploaded it in last hour before the end of submission.. So I just put the link here without any explanation about mixing details. I'll do it later..

Here is my submission
Details :

First I balancing all tracks in reaper as my main daw. I didn't using all available track especially in guitar track.
After get the good balanced mix, in masterbus I only using tb reelbus and vari mu to get my sound.
DRUMS:
I only using sampled kick, but for snare I mix all track (sampled, top, bot) together using MJUC for glue. Others I only using essential eq and comp.
In drum bus I using tape ampex and compressed it again with rencomp (I love this comp for drum)
BASS :
For DI, I reamping it to bassman
For amped bass, renbass, pultec, and la2a
I mix it together and summing in RN 88
GUITAR
No special treatment but many automation to get the track mor "life" because this is the star in mix. All balanced guitar track going to tube/valve pre to refinement
REVERB :
only using valhalla vintage verb

That's all


https://www.dropbox.com/s/46m96984wqupk ... 3.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z69s1h26l3k6y ... V.wav?dl=0

God bless

I edited my post.. Sorry about this late post edit

[Taurean Mixing]

For anybody who wants to hear it..Baddo, here you go as promised. My original post is updated too.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/d8vveeif8qfh5 ... g.wav?dl=0

As this mix comes outside competition I guess it’s ok to comment it as it’s not affecting judge’s decisions.

Excellent, sounds great to me. I like the overall tone and attitude in your mix. The groove feels right.

Main (small?) problem to me is the mono listening. Side guitars disapper almost completely. On the other hand in stereo listening it feels as if the side guitars are louder than center. Well, this is quite typical problem always if one prefers to make extremly wide sound. I’m not sure if it’s problem to other people but I belong to those old farts who listen guite much music through kitchen radio with single mono speaker.

Some minor comments:

Bass gets buried a bit. I’m not sure if it’s problem for a groove feels fine to me.

Transition at 0:50 and 3:14, lead guitar could come in stronger, now it feels a bit suffocated. And one can hear how faders are moved.

In those parts were there’s no clear lead guitar in the center, one might try to narrow the side guitars a bit. And when the middle gets busy, side guitars could go fully to the sides.

I might try a bit longer or stronger tail with snare, (but it might be a bad choice). As the guitars are very wide, it feels now that the front wall is too near.

Hi Olli, so sorry for the late response, been swamped!
Thanks for listening and the input. So to have some fun here, I treated your input just as a real-world client situation and as tweaks. Check this version out with your considerations. Along with the other tweaks, I backed off and found a compromise with my stereo expanding process and perfected the phase as well. So you get good stereo sound stage with even the lows more gelled and coming out you more focused as a bonus. It's subtle but it's there. Also, you'll notice it's definitely different in mono now, with the side guitars more prominent. The other major thing is the snare is lifted out just a hair more with better sustain and body.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5gqd1b8ohtb7d ... 2.wav?dl=0

[Coiled_Ear]

Please, mr. Topicstarter, don't abandon the Greates challenge on this site. Thank you in advance)

[Baddo]

Please, mr. Topicstarter, don't abandon the Greates challenge on this site. Thank you in advance)

Not a chance Coiled Ear.

I am nearing completion of the reviews / critiques. It's a lot of entries but I have done my best to listen to each one without haste and with objectivity.

Almost done!

[OctopusOnFire]

Thank you for listening.
More motivated. Thank you very much.

The sound of the drum may have become too old-fashioned. It is a future task.

The sound source included the sound of the sampler 's snare drum and kick drum, but I did not use it.
Through the gate to "DrRoom.wav", the gate is opened by the side chain with the snare drum channel.
The release time of the gate is 480 milliseconds.
"OHs.wav" and "Room.wav" are blended to the extent that there is no discomfort in the cymbal localization.

Hey, sorry, missed your reply!

Yeah, I see what you did. I did the same, a side chained gate to bring up the room when the snare hits. Great idea! Omoshiroi!
You just needed to be more subtle, maybe doing some of these things:

- Leaving more release time so it doesn't feel so sudden.
- Use an expander instead, so the volume goes down naturally.
- Just turn the track volume down until it can only be felt.
- Add a reverb plugin after the gate to add some custom tail and push it all back so it doesn't jump out that much.

[yoruhitp]

Thank you for listening.
More motivated. Thank you very much.

The sound of the drum may have become too old-fashioned. It is a future task.

The sound source included the sound of the sampler 's snare drum and kick drum, but I did not use it.
Through the gate to "DrRoom.wav", the gate is opened by the side chain with the snare drum channel.
The release time of the gate is 480 milliseconds.
"OHs.wav" and "Room.wav" are blended to the extent that there is no discomfort in the cymbal localization.

Hey, sorry, missed your reply!

Yeah, I see what you did. I did the same, a side chained gate to bring up the room when the snare hits. Great idea! Omoshiroi!
You just needed to be more subtle, maybe doing some of these things:

- Leaving more release time so it doesn't feel so sudden.
- Use an expander instead, so the volume goes down naturally.
- Just turn the track volume down until it can only be felt.
- Add a reverb plugin after the gate to add some custom tail and push it all back so it doesn't jump out that much.

It was very helpful. Thank you very much.
I could not think of an idea to add a reverb sound behind the noise gate sound. It is great.

[EchoOread]

I hope you don't mind my asking but (1) what is the true purpose of side chaining the "room" using the snare? What would it do to the whole mix or the "room"? (is there an easier way?) and (2) you said you strapped a reverb behind the gate to "add some tail" and "push it all back so it doesnt jump out that much..." According to what I know (very little that is) a gate is a processor and the reverb is an effect, so does that mean you strapped a reverb as an "insert" right behind the gate or the reverb is on an "aux"? What confuses me is: when the gate opens and the sound (whatever it is) goes thru the reverb, can it (the reverb) know where is the tail end of the sound or it would just wash the whole thing in reverb? And if that is the case then how can it "push it all back..." while I know for a fact (my alternative facts) that a reverb just simply cannot "push" anything "back". If anything, and I can be super wrong, a reverb can lengthen a sound more than pushing it back. And finally (3) the release time of "480ms" is quite long, closer to a quarter note (at some parts of the song), and if I remember correctly, the snare hits are mostly 1/2 note. Neither of them would match the release of 480ms, so the gate would close a little earlier in time. Wouldnt it mess up the timing of the song? And final finally, what I understand about the "expander" is: it helps make loud sound louder and quiet sound quieter, somewhat opposite to a compressor, I think. So how can an expander bring the "room" (I assumed you want to replace the gate with an expander) volume down naturally? *Sharing is caring and caring is cool and being cool is wanting to share because when we share we show that we care... and where is my bong? (no need to answer this one. I know where it is)

[OctopusOnFire]

I hope you don't mind my asking ...

Just play around with that stuff and pass the bong while you're at it

Here's what I did: I didn't process the room that way, but the track labelled percussion. The verb is after the gate, but not 100% wet, and the gate isn't 100% wet also, so it's more like automating a fader that's feeding the reverb. You can play with different kinds of reverb and different lengths, and of course, I wouldn't recommend to use this throughout the whole song. I automated it up in the heavy part that comes right before the solo (the 'E' labelled marker). The purpose of using the snare as sidechain is to bring up the percussion track when the snare hits. I thought an expander would kinda do something alike so I suggested it.

Here's a link with 2 screenshots showing the gate and the verb, and a print of the section of the song where it's supposed to be noticeable. I've pushed the percussion fader up some dB to make it more noticeable for the example, but it's meant to be subtle. There are 4 snare hits, the first two with the effects on, the last two with them bypassed:

http://www.evernote.com/l/AaxwXZSvddtCq ... OSueLAp5U/


DISCLAIMER: I don't even know what I'm doing or aiming for half of the time.

[EchoOread]

I hope you don't mind my asking ...

Just play around with that stuff and pass the bong while you're at it

Here's what I did: I didn't process the room that way, but the track labelled percussion. The verb is after the gate, but not 100% wet, and the gate isn't 100% wet also, so it's more like automating a fader that's feeding the reverb. You can play with different kinds of reverb and different lengths, and of course, I wouldn't recommend to use this throughout the whole song. I automated it up in the heavy part that comes right before the solo (the 'E' labelled marker). The purpose of using the snare as sidechain is to bring up the percussion track when the snare hits. I thought an expander would kinda do something alike so I suggested it.

Here's a link with 2 screenshots showing the gate and the verb, and a print of the section of the song where it's supposed to be noticeable. I've pushed the percussion fader up some dB to make it more noticeable for the example, but it's meant to be subtle. There are 4 snare hits, the first two with the effects on, the last two with them bypassed:

http://www.evernote.com/l/AaxwXZSvddtCq ... OSueLAp5U/


DISCLAIMER: I don't even know what I'm doing or aiming for half of the time.

Haha...passing the bong. Thanks for the inputs. It was very kind of you to take the time to show. Now on to the next question, shall we? I read somewhere about the release of the compressor to be in time with the music. I know how to figure it out (60,000/bpm). However, what confuses me is: in order to have the release (from the compressor) to be in time with the music, would I have to take the attack time into consideration? Logically, the attack and release time (both) should be equal to the timing, are they not? For example, if the song is 60bpm (easier to calculate) then a quarter note should be 1s or 1,000ms. Now if I want to have a sound (any) to pump in time with the music at quarter note I should have the release precisely @1,000ms. If I have an attack time, let's pretend that I want to preserve the front end of the sound, at 55ms for the attack time then the release should be at 945ms (55+945=1,000ms) if I want it to return at the quarter note. According to Bobby Owensky, using my example, 55ms is the time it takes for the compressor to compress (at whatever ratio/threshold), and 945ms is the time it takes to return back to the threshold. So the entire time for the compressor to work and release, if I want it to be in time with the music, then it follows that both the attack and release time should equal to 1s or 1,000ms (or whatever note value we choose). If we choose to release at eighth note (500ms) keeping the attack time the same, the release time should be 445ms. Am I reading it right? Thanks. This is an open question, so anyone with knowledge of this should chime in if they want. Thank you in advance.

[OctopusOnFire]

Haha...passing the bong. Thanks for the inputs. It was very kind of you to take the time to show. Now on to the next question, shall we? I read somewhere about the release of the compressor to be in time with the music. I know how to figure it out (60,000/bpm). However, what confuses me is: in order to have the release (from the compressor) to be in time with the music, would I have to take the attack time into consideration? Logically, the attack and release time (both) should be equal to the timing, are they not? For example, if the song is 60bpm (easier to calculate) then a quarter note should be 1s or 1,000ms. Now if I want to have a sound (any) to pump in time with the music at quarter note I should have the release precisely @1,000ms. If I have an attack time, let's pretend that I want to preserve the front end of the sound, at 55ms for the attack time then the release should be at 945ms (55+945=1,000ms) if I want it to return at the quarter note. According to Bobby Owensky, using my example, 55ms is the time it takes for the compressor to compress (at whatever ratio/threshold), and 945ms is the time it takes to return back to the threshold. So the entire time for the compressor to work and release, if I want it to be in time with the music, then it follows that both the attack and release time should equal to 1s or 1,000ms (or whatever note value we choose). If we choose to release at eighth note (500ms) keeping the attack time the same, the release time should be 445ms. Am I reading it right? Thanks. This is an open question, so anyone with knowledge of this should chime in if they want. Thank you in advance.

I'm not a fan of doing maths while mixing. Probably it's nice to know about that data to set it around the ballpark, but I wouldn't rely on that 100%. That's just me, though, probably others do it like that with great results.

There's this example I read on a book (don't remember which right now, sorry, maybe it rings a bell for someone around here) about setting the time for delays. It could kinda apply to compressor release, if the intention is to make it move with the general beat of the song, and not just bring an element forward with a very short release, for example.

It goes like this, more or less, iirc:

- Teacher asks students to set a general delay for a song. Most of them do the usual math thing: 1/4, 1/8, calculate miliseconds from the tempo, whatever. Results are okay. No problem.
- Teacher asks them to calculate it again like this: Grab an object, just heavy enough to feel its weight and move it up and down without much effort. Asks students to lift it following the beat of the song, and adjust the delay time according to the moment the object goes back to the initial state more naturally. It's not exactly a fraction of the beat, it's around there, but suddenly the song has a more natural movement and cadence.

So my point would be not to obsess over numbers. If you still want to do some calculations, set the release on that number and then move it around a bit just to see if it FEELS better a little off (music is all about feeling it!!).