MIX CHALLENGE - MC065 May 2020 - Winners announced

[rvodick]

It was a pleasure working on Cameron Crowson’s song “Take Your Time”.

DAW : ProTools

Type of Mix : ITB

Here are my notes on how I approached this mix.
1) I realized from the start that this song depends on the synchronization of the Drums, Bass, and Rhythm Guitar. I started with the drums by correcting timing issue by selective edits, I did not “quantize” because I hate how that loses the human feel. I just slide sections back and forth until they lined up in a “natural” timing. I did this with the Bass and Rhythm Guitar making sure they lined up with the adjusted Drum tracks. I did not do too much but being a bass player, I recognize the importance of a tight rhythm section.
2) The next step was tone and presence. I build my tracks with EQ then compression\limiters. In this case I made ample use of my Waves SSL plugins on most tracks to build the sonic “landscape” in which to work. If I add effects, I sidechain them to an Aux track so I can control how “wet\direct” I want them.
3) Picking the location of the individual instruments is always a challenge and I usually go with my gut as to where and instruments “live” in my mixes. If a hard pan works then that’s my choice. I always find I move things around until I settle for what’s right for that song. I don’t apply a template.
4) Vocals – always the hardest to mix. In this case, the background vocals were straightforward, EQ, Compression, AUX to reverb an\or Delay (sometimes a combo). The verse vocals presented a problem because they were pitchy and the double vocal really didn’t help them. I EQ’d, compressed and used various reverbs and delays to get the feel I was looking for. The result is not perfect, and I didn’t intend it to be, I was trying to get a feel that worked best for the verse.
5) The only Buss addition was the Waves Kramer Tape to provide some glue to the mix. I like the analog truncating of the highs and lows that tape provides and this plugin does a decent job of replicating that tape sound.

My Mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Zj40wG ... sp=sharing

[mattim]

This is my mix
Really nice guitar and sax solos!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wcjnipks3vxa1 ... m.wav?dl=0

Mattim

[Mellow Browne]

Hey there,

I focused on 3 things:

-tuning
-timing
-feeling

this challenge was a bit special, the vocals were pretty much out of tune all the time and to fix that was what the provider asked for. So tuning the vocals was the main work, first with Logic´s flex pitch and fixing the rest with Waves Tune. I spend a good amount of time to correct this issue and tuning all given vocal tracks because doubled vocals were desired. I also did some time correction/micro/volume adjustments on the snare, vocals, hat, room mic, guitars, kick to keep everything together and create a certain drive.

The mix itself didn't take that much time, the quality of the recordings are good, except the vocals. So, while mixing I tried to remember the sound of Phil Collins and Genesis (Jesus he knows me), Toto (Africa), Peter Gabriel (Sledgehammer) and so on because as a kid those songs always gave me that certain feeling of freedom and joy.
I used Waves SSL-E Channel on most individual tracks, 1176 to tame the peaks, La2a for bass and vocals, the vocals are also running through uad´s 610-preamp + reflective engine to give them more life. To add some weight I used a pultec, drum buss compressor is the Fairchild to give that thump and drive. To tame unwanted frequencies etc. I used dynamic equalization or multi band compression.

Send Fx are Realverb and Echoboy to create that glue.

So, here is the link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

If you have any question feel free to ask.

Happy mixing.

[Martin Buricchi]

Hi,

this is mine for this challenge.

I read a lot of posts about timing and tuning and i agree about trying to record and edit at the best before mixing, but this is a challenge and it was a funny record to mix.

This isn't my genre again, i usually mix rap/trap and i'll appreciate all kind of comments that can help me to get better mixes.

I mixed ITB using mostly plugins that replicate old hardwares. I used SSLEQ, PuigEQP1A,SSLGCHANNEL, SOME PLATES VERBS, AND ARTURIA PRE1973, CLA-2A,CLA-76, and other you can see in the screenshots.

thank you to Cameron Crowson for the record, really beatiful song.

i hope you'll enjoy this mix.

MIX :

https://drive.google.com/open?id=19OER- ... pIvZd18ecV

Screenshots:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XGUo9 ... dDWaCX21iA
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1SLJ7A ... Vz42fpdyWH

[Dodgingrain]

Thanks so much for letting me work on your song. Love the guitar solo and its nice to see a sax in a track these days. I tried to take the vibe of what a 70's track would have sounded like if they had better gear back then so I tried not to go too bright/harsh but stay more warm and full.

Here's the mix: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqpB-RLndYJrjvdHixd ... A?e=5ds7ry

For mixing notes.....
There are some timing tweaks on the kick and snare where they were a little bit off. The vocals have a fair amount of pitch correction but I only corrected where it was obviously off.

There's nothing particularly innovative on the mix itself.
Drums:
- Localized the shakers and tamb together and pulled these down pretty low as they are typically mixed in the background. The snare is tough on this one with the amount of bleed, normally I would compress all of the drums except the kick together but in this case that didn't work and the snare was treated separately with a dbx-160, there also is a fair amount of saturation on the snare and a little bit of widening on the upper freq ranges. Beyond that its just normal eq, console 1 SSL 4000 compression, and some added reverb. Some gating was done to try and clean up some of the bleed as well as the usual high passes.
Bass:
- I blended the 3 bass tracks together and compressed. There is a little bit of eq, nothing more than +/-3db. I did keep the low end of the bass mono while making the upper end of the bass wide and open.
Keys:
- Piano has some eq, compression, several dynamic eq's triggered by other tracks, a microshift and delay to make it wider, lots of reverb, and soothe to knock down some of the peaky-ness to smooth it out some. Also there is a fair amount of saturation. Piano is panned half left while they electric is panned almost all the way right to make sure they stay out of the way of the vocals. Not much other than eq/reverb was done to the electric.
Guitars:
- for rhythm guitars they are hard panned left and right, have a little bit of eq and again a little bit of soothe to soften the peakyness. The lead guitar is treated very similar to the piano but with different eq curves and I did'nt see a need for soothe here.
Vocals:
- Pitch correction, double compressors on each track along with a glue compressor on a bus for the backing vocals and a seperate glue compressor for the leads. Some eq work here to brighten up the vocals. Also used the air eq on a maag eq4 and a clariphonic to bring out more of the vocals. The lead vocals have an add track that is blended in. The add track is heavily compressed. Little bit of Desser's needed but overall the tracks were pretty clean there. Not much on the backing vocals other than more reverb than the leads to push them back a little bit.

Master Bus:
- There is some tape saturation added with a little bit of crosstalk. Also used plugin-alliance's townhouse compressor for glue, about 0-4db of reduction. I've always used the Wave ssl bus compressor in the past and the plugin-alliance townhouse is sooooooo much better. The Waves ssl trashes the high end making it dull if you push it very much, the townhouse doesn't. No limiters or anything else used.

[hjchjc]

This was hard!

Mixed in Harrison Mixbus6. A new DAW for me, but I figured it was a good opportunity to try something different. -1.1 db, -18.1 LUFS

Harrison Xt-bc, XT-ME, XT-EG, XT-GV, XT-SC, AVA Desser
Dangerous BAX EQ
Lindell 6X-500
Mixbus EQ, compression, a-EQ, a-Compression
Voxengo Boogex, Old Skool Verb
Soundtoys Echoboy, Devil-Loc Deluxe
Waves API-2500, Q10

Mixbus’ editing tools aren’t where they could be, so I did that in Logic first, but it’s so much easier to get something sounding ‘like a record’ in Mixbus! I love the EQ and compression options in each channel - it takes a lot out of agonizing over what plugin to use. (Notice how there aren't a lot of compression and EQ plugins outside of the ones built into the stock ones!)

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

[theenemyofaustria]

Hi yall

This one was a hard one for me but i eventually got it.

Since it was specified in the post i used to sme tuning for the vocals to get them to fit in better with the music but this was just a very very light use of gsnap slightly pulling the note to the closest porper one.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AfJnXn ... sp=sharing

I also used old school gated reverb on the snare here where the rooms open up at every snare hit

Anyways hope you like my attempt
Mix:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W4Tq4H ... sp=sharing
Photos:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1geCDx ... ZsjqNIXbAM

[chriskamery]

Hi!

Thanks again to the host and the artist for this months challenge. I did not find as many problems as others referenced so I guess I still have a bit to learn and train my ears for. Either way my submission is below. Other than setting levels and panning I did not do too much tweaking. I have been playing with the Scheps Omni Channel a lot recently and used that on the Kick, Snare, overheads, Bass, sax and lead vocal verse. Just some small EQ tweeks and a small amount of compression. I fed the guitar solo, sax and lead vocal verse to Trueverb to give them a little space. The ooos were sent to a different Trueverb with the direct sound removed. Tried to walk the line off too much processing from the artist. A small amount of compression on the guitars. I welcome the feedback.



Mix:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ab22ja0zzyzyt ... y.wav?dl=0


Screenshots:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mgfhflcxni9l1 ... .pptx?dl=0


Chris

[nicores]

Drums:
Ohs: fab filter pro q 3, abbey road vynil, camel crusher,
Bass drum: fab filter pro q 3, ssl channel, camel crusher, drum leveler, smack attack.
Snare: fab filter pro q 3, ssl channel, Puig tec, drum leveler
Rooms, hh, shakers, tamborine: fab filter pro q 3
Drum buss: ssl comp, devil lock, Reelight, L3.
Bass: amplitube 4, fab filter pro q 3, gate, camel crusher
Guitars: kramer hls, cla 76, camel crusher
Keys: fab filter pro q 3, puigchild, camel crusher, dseq.
Vocals: fab filter pro q 3, cla 76, red compresor, h delay, abbey raod reverb, echoboy, smack attack, camel crusher, dseq.

Master bus: ssl comp, tdr vos slick eq









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

[pabloAT]

Dear all,
Please find my mix below.
Stay safe and health, best wishes,
Pablo

DAW = Cubase 10.0.60
Integrated LUFS = -18.90
True Peak = -5.7 dB
44100 kHz, 24 bits

Here is the link to the mix

Mix Preparation
Preliminary raw balance: setting levels, panning mono recordings, checking phase, timing adjustments (mainly on drums and vocals), tuning pitch/articulation corrections on vocals.
High-pass filtering on most of the tracks
Applied Cubase’s silence stripping tool
Drums
Kick: gating to control the spill, mainly from snare hits. Subtle modification of the kick pitch to match better the song key.
Snare: gating to control the spill, mainly from room & OH. Added a bit of distortion to reinforce the snare transients. And yes, added a touch of gated reverb to reinforce the 80s flavour...
OH: cleaning low frequencies, added a bit of tape saturation for taste.
Room: not much, some frequency cleaning, compression et voilà...
Tambourine and shakers : grouped together, frequency cleaning and delay/reverb for 80s feel
Bass
DI + RE27: EQ to fit the kick, a bit of distortion and RBass, grouped together after checking phase
Ribbon: Activated only on chorus. EQing and a bit of filtering.
Acoustic Guitar
Grouped tracks, LA-3A compression, a bit of delay/reverb, some tape saturation for flavour.
Solo Guitar
Not much, a touch of chorus and a bit of tape saturation.
Piano
LA-3A compression, a bit of distortion, checked M/S.
Keys
LA-2A compression, a bit of distortion, checked M/S.
Sax
LA-2A compression, deesing and reverb for 80s touch.
Vocals
1176 + LA-2A compression and deesing.
Verse: reverb, tape saturation.
Chorus: delay L/R
Chorus Ooh Ooh: reverb, 80’s panning
Main Mix Buss
Gentle SSL-G master compressor for gluing the mix together, subtle tape saturation for 80s ambient.

Waveform showing the track dynamic range and headroom
Spectrogram (all channels mixed)