Mix Challenge

That... is a lot of plugins. Though each one of them does little things. You're also using Dynameter...interesting.

Anyway - feedback after the 14th December. Please keep it coming.

Did you mean to reference the mixing rules or should it be pointing to the mastering rules?

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Please take note of the official rules - they can be found at the following thread:
Mix Challenge - Official Rules and Guidelines

Minor hiccup - sorry. Of course I mean the rules for the Mastering Challenge.
Will fix that instantly. Thanks for noticing.

I don´t know much about mastering but I tried my best to be subtle and make the track sound a little bit better (and louder) than the original mix so here it is.

First I raised the level of the track by 3.90dB with the item gain in reaper so the song would be peaking around -1dB.
On the fx chain I put ReaEq: first a high pass filter at 36Hz with the sharpest slope possible to reduce excess subbass and increase
headroom, then -1.4dB reduction centered at 305 with a bandwidth of 1.26 and -1.2dB reduction centered around 2Khz with a bandwidth of 0.88. ReaXcomp used to compress only the low and high frequency band,low frequency band: goes from 0hz to 240hz, threshold -17dB, ratio 2:1,
attack 20ms, release 77ms and +0.8dB of gain compensation. high frequency band: goes from 5Khz to 24Khz, threshold -31.4dB, ratio 1.30,
attack 10ms, release 110ms, RMS size 20ms.

FerricTDS: used the preset classic tape and dialed down the saturation to the middle. MStereo Expander LoudMax limiter with threshold set to -2.5dB and output to -1dB

I also added JS DC filter as I noticed my submissions for the SWC had some dc offset

Added 1 second of silence at the beginning and end of the song

Technical data:

Integrated Loudness: -14.3 LUFS
Range: 7.4LU
Maximum true peak: -1dB
Maximum short term : -10.9 LUFS
Maximum momentary: -9.6 LUFS

measured with Youlean Loudness Meter and Reaper´s sws expansion pack Loudness analizer.

WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f9wotk1lyy1hi ... x.wav?dl=0
MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/eeyjq9g6n9a5o ... x.mp3?dl=0

Took a couple of days to polish my master..

here's the mp3: https://app.box.com/s/gamfbud3iwwei5bp2442ub7pbn3wp40h
here's the wav: https://app.box.com/s/9p4fpu6m6kqjw07ja3gq8q0628pqw5ea

Used a couple parallel track, probably won't master anything again without using parallel tracks! Subtle, but very effective.

Direct insert:

-started with and linear phase eq removing some resonances mostly in the 2-4k region, also some focused small cuts around 200-400Hz (max 1.5dB) , also opened the stereo image a bit, was always a bit too narrow..

-next, DMG Trackcomp on G-Bus model, smoothly controlling dynamics, probably doing less than 1 dB GR but the compressor color is there..
-next, DMG Trackcomp on 2A model with some modifications to sound a bit brighter and faster than a regular darker sound and very slow release action.., this is more for flavor
-Millenia NSEQ-2 on JFET mode adding some tone on specific freqs
-ProAudioDSP DSMv2 to control the pokey very highs, the vocal sibilence (Also, I had to do some spectral processing and automation) and the lead guitar part (around 2.4k) mostly..
-FabFilter Pro-MB to further control the highs and dynamically bring in some mids around 1k

.. I have a parallel for density and stereo image
.. I have one for adding some silky saturated top end density..
..and one for adding a chorusy ambiance using a carefully set ValhallaVintageVerb + eq for controlling tone where this happens.

All of these parallel tracks are mixed at very low levels usually around -19, -17 dB (added: while the orig track being 0 as level reference)

The overall master bus processing:

-Pro-MB to control the dynamics a bit more per bands.. usually under 1 dB of GR
-BlackRoosterAudio Magnetite, biased, blue tape... but very little flavor, hitting the tape around -2dB at the loudest parts
-A smooth, auto-release DMG G-Bus model doing about 2dB GR at the loudest parts to glue everything together.
-Millenia NSEQ-2 on tube circuit to add suble color to certain freqs
-Finally, DMG Limitless controlling final loudness and GR is usually under a dB tops

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 7 days left to submit your edit.

Hello,

First of all thank you Mister Fox for this great opportunity, maybe the first mastering contest in the history.
Great work from Jeff and great mix too, very satisfying for such a challenge.

I tried to use the less plugins as possible (but...):

I mostly worked with Coral: M/S compression, M/S broad band equalization, mono filtering below 130Hz.
I made a few Eq notches for the guitar solos to be less piercing (reaper eq).
I applied some more precise M/S equing (reaper M/S setup with encoder/decoder and reaeq) and another stereo compression with a 660 emulation. Also a little dynamic compression around 5k on the sides for the cymbals.
Then some final work with the stereo imaging (mostly centered mids).

During the whole process I tried to boost the stereo imaging a little, while preserving the lead vocal authority.
I also kept in mind some 70's sound of vinyles, with less bright and less sub but all the magic in between.

Then I processed spectral edits to remove the noises in the intro and outro.
Dithering, mp3, Reaper used all the way.


See you soon everybody.


https://www.dropbox.com/s/jmw2ozy0zwxbp ... n.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wcq529sj2hf0v ... n.wav?dl=0

Following good mastering practice I tried to do as little as possible and do a master that covers streaming, vinyl, and CD. Here's my list of changes and my thinking:
1. Set freq at 100Hz and lower to mono for better vinyl compatability.
2. Widened frequencies above 110Hz to make the track feel a bit bigger. Couldn't go much wider without affecting the vocals negatively.
3. Reduce high end slightly to prevent cymbals from causing issues with vinyl.
4. Dynamic eq bands at 2.4kHz and 6.09kHz to try and control the excessive guitar resonances and vocal sibilance.
5. Deesser to try and control the lead vocalist sibilance.
6. Compression on over 10k with no make up gain to help control cymbals.
7. Parallel compression on upper mid range to even out peaks.
8. Parallel compression on low mids to control peaks and fatten the track.
9. Peak control on low end.
10. Maximizer to push up level.
11. Add S curve fade out.
12. Dither to 16 bit with noise shapping for CD release.
13. Added ID3v1 Tags to mp3.

wav: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqpB-RLndYJriZYalbmYHIzn7pL3bA
mp3: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqpB-RLndYJriZYZpbEZCZ1sziHjuA

I stuck to Ozone 7 for all my mastering work with metering in Cubase. iLUFS goes up to -14LUFS and peaks at -1.1TPdB.

Screenshots:
https://1drv.ms/i/s!AqpB-RLndYJriZYmjw8jd3ewhwAI2w
https://1drv.ms/i/s!AqpB-RLndYJriZYnMv2yGXzrGcMJSA
https://1drv.ms/i/s!AqpB-RLndYJriZYoku-np0edk587Xw
https://1drv.ms/i/s!AqpB-RLndYJriZYpK5cfJyTXXucboA
https://1drv.ms/i/s!AqpB-RLndYJriZYqGbZjKi_QSKt1Ww
https://1drv.ms/i/s!AqpB-RLndYJriZYrkDYC2x1khO9iVg
https://1drv.ms/i/s!AqpB-RLndYJriZYsnbaoRcPc1o7UGQ
https://1drv.ms/i/s!AqpB-RLndYJriZYtH8fh0CIvOf4hgQ
https://1drv.ms/i/s!AqpB-RLndYJriZYuMlCBkj_w5h7NLw
https://1drv.ms/i/s!AqpB-RLndYJriZYv2b53Lj2KgMpLAg
https://1drv.ms/i/s!AqpB-RLndYJriZYwj2J4SsJmpWy6jg

I tried to embed images but they showed as broken links in the preview, strange, maybe it's a one drive thing.

Hi,

I've been very busy lately but I figured out it would be pretty interesting to master this track since I'm used to squeeze the loudness out of electronic music. In comparison, my treatment has been pretty minimal, but first of all, the material:

WAV
MP3

Now let's get into it. One track with the source material, no gain.
- ReaEQ with a high pass around 55Hz and a high shelf with a gain of 0.8dB around 4650Hz.
- A ReaXComp (multiband compressor), three bands with the divisions in 155 and 4400Hz. The low band reduces between 1 and 2 dB mostly when the kick and the bass are played at the same time. The high band reduces maximum 1dB, it hardly ever gets triggered. The medium band does nothing.
- A JS plugin that turns the bass below 155Hz to mono.
- Another ReaEQ reducing 1dB with a bandwidth of 0.6 octaves around 215Hz.
- A TDR Kotelnikov. Maximum reduction is around 2dB, triggered with kicks and sometimes with vocals and guitars in the loud part, but as you can see the dry signal is also mixed with the wet with a lower volume:




- An SDRR saturating just a little bit in it's gentler model, the transients control also turned a bit into "sharp" and the bass and treble "tight" controls turned on. Honestly I don't know if they work as they are in this config but oh well, why not. The treble knob is a (very little) bit turned to the gain increase:




- Finally, the mighty TB Barricade (in it's CM version, this is the poor man's mastering chain! ) in a config that gives me the loudness I want. It cuts just a few snares that are a bit hot in the mix, nothing important:




This is the final status of the Youlean meter (1.5 beta, honestly pretty good ):



As you can see the loudness values are correct (I think, I always mess up the standards). A bit of patience was needed in order to get them correctly, since the snares in the intro of the track get the highest true peak values and but the loudest part in terms of LUFS is when all the guitars are in the solo (it may be the bridge, I don't know ).

I could probably have done a better job (you can always do better in this kind of things) but this was mostly for testing, and getting ready to learn from you guys! Thanks for the opportunity.

Jorge

Hello everyone ,
Wav : Wave file download link here
Mp3 : Mp3 file download link here

-Good production overall and mixing as well .

MY plugins :
Brainworx bx : remove some rumble area cut 1-2 db around 25hz , 270hz , 400hz.
Pultec Eq :add 2db 10k area
Massive Passive : boost around 50hz and 8k / cut around 270hz and 1k
Slate Digital VTM : FG9 , 30 ips, normal bias
Fabfilter MB : bands around 2.8k and 6k for guitars res.
added little stereo width by flux stereo tool plugin.
Fabfilter Limiter: +3db transparent style
-Test my master with Nugen Audio VisLM Loudness Meter Plugin
-14.1 LUFS , -1TP
-Add tag to mp3 file by Mp3tag app.

Cheers !