MIX CHALLENGE - MC091 April 2023 - Winners announced

[cpsmusic]

Hi All,

I was wondering if the song provider could give us a bit more information about the original mix of the song. The song provider mentions in the notes that "I had to work hard to make it sound like it does in the original mix". I'm particularly interested in how the guitars and drums were processed. Was an ampsim used for the guitars, or was it re-amped, etc. What about the drums?

Cheers!

[VasDim]

Hi all,
this is my attempt to mix:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/53rt583j5b8wi ... m.wav?dl=0

For all track are used:
- Waves Q10;
- Waves C4;
- Db ProComp.

AUX Effect;
- Waves TrueVerb;
- Waves SuperTap;

Good luck to all.
VasDim

[JeroenZuiderwijk]

Hi All,

I was wondering if the song provider could give us a bit more information about the original mix of the song. The song provider mentions in the notes that "I had to work hard to make it sound like it does in the original mix". I'm particularly interested in how the guitars and drums were processed. Was an ampsim used for the guitars, or was it re-amped, etc. What about the drums?

Cheers!

That is a good question. The guitars (DI) are going through a VST: FA3 Amp (is free btw) and mostly using the fuzz and distortion that comes with that plug in just because I realy like that sound. But I'm sure there are many good (free) ampsims available . The drums if I remember correctly had the roommic crushed with lots of compression and saturation, it is possible that we augmented the kick with a sample (but that is not allowed for this contest). And on the drumbus there is parallel compression. You might notice that the vocal sound more aggressive in the mix, that is because there is lots of saturation / added harmonics on the vocal track.

[Mellow Browne]

Hi,

here is my attempt for this challenge:

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

First of all, nice track, I really like the energy. I decided to not change or edit anything, all those small little imperfections make this track really good.

I didn´t use lots of amp sims, only on the bass (AmpliTube 5) and 2 other guitar tracks (Guitar Rig 6), the rest is pretty much very clean. The coloration and distortion is coming from the tape simulations (Studer and Oxide) which I used on almost all the tracks, especially on the drums. I compressed the overheads and roommic quite a bit to get a more pronounced ambient vibe. Most compression is done with the Fairchild 660 and the 670 on the drum bus in parallel processing + a little high and low shelf boost with PSP e27.

To get a more glued sound from the very beginning and while gain staging I added an Ampex tape on the stereo bus and went with a preset (Vintage Classic Dub) which gave it a more ruff character. This way I found 2 "hidden" tape formulas "111 and 35-90" which I didn't knew before and went with the 35-90 settings at 7.5 ips. I had to adjust the high shelf filter a bit because the sound was very dark.

I then did the fx work like phaser, flanger, reverb and delay on the guitars I considered as "most important" and applied the same to the vocals. I tried to get a more hifi sound for the break while the rest of the song has a more "classic" sound.

All reverbs are from the lexicon 224 with 2 separate sends (one with the chorus preset of Lexicon 224 for some stereo wideness, the other with a shorter, duller sound for ambience) for the verse and one with a longer, crispier sound for the break. The guitar bus has an insert fx of lexicon with 55% mix or so. Like I mentioned before, some guitar tracks have a flanger, a chorus or a phaser (all from Softube) to make things a little more interesting. I also added a delay (Echoboy) on the guitar bus to get a bit more fullness.

I then had to apply some compression on the guitar bus because it became very edgy with all these effects, so I slapped a Fairchild 660 on the bus to manage the dynamics. Same goes for the vocals, as they became more and more edgy while adding effects.
I had to make some minor scoops to tame the hot spots between the vocals and guitars. One cut that really made it was @ 1.6 kHz on the guitar bus. This helped me to tame the harshness from the overall sound and get a good balance between vocals and guitars.

I added PSP e27 on the stereo bus for the last final touch and glue effect, but with the amplifier distortion disable, as the colour was too strong and distorted in the lows. Some tiny little boosts (I would say 0.2 db) on the high and mid band @ 3 kHz + 14 kHz and the mix was done.

Happy mixing to all!

[jake sg]

Hi

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o4IrGm ... sp=sharing

Here is my attempt on this challenge,

Firstly, balancing all the tracks on the volume.
Then im equing all individual instrument while listening the whole tracks.
Compressing the vocal.
CLA Vocal applied on the 3 vocal tracks.
including reverb delays and stereo widener on the vocal.
The rest of the tracks just eq only.

Thank you

[kombainera]

My Entry: https://drive.google.com/file/d/173A0YM ... share_link

I use psp channel strip on every track i think that it gives the character that song need and it have 3 type of compressors
Drums: cut some mud opto compression ssl style comp on the bus and little bit clipping and reburb on paralel decapitator and on more with devil lock
Bass:little compression again and blend with dark glass on a send to ad some hi end to cut in the mix
Guitars: basic hi pass low pass a little bit cut on 4 k a little add at 2 k and i use some amp sims on some di-s to make the lears even more thik
organ: a lot of a low cut and some hi and decapitator again to cut more
vocals: a little bit of deessing r fox compressor and cla-epic for revurbs and delays
i use instrument buss so i can and the glue comressor there and pass the vocals for more dynamics
on the master buss j 37 for a little bit tape saturation pro q 3 for cutting some stuff and polish ozone multiband tranzient shaper and ozone imager for a little bit multiband wide

[Dirtymcduff]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tik8sB ... share_link

Hey all, first time submitting and this was certainly a challenge to get dialed proper. Some elements I felt needed very little attention and others were quite involved. Here is a brief breakdown of what I've done.

Some things:
Kick- tons of EQ to remove the overt boominess and add beater back. Small touch of room reverb to bring back a cleaner 'boom'. Mild compression just to keep things in check.

Snare-Gated pretty heavy with a long enough release to keep things somewhat natural. Big EQ scoops between 160-500 hz and a decent shelf on the highs to bring them up about 5db. Added second and third order harmonics to give it more snap/crack. Then kinda crushed it with a limiter to set its place in the mix(L2 set at -12 threshold and -6 cut ceiling.

Toms-basic scooped EQ but still gentle, added some bottom and top just a few dbs.

Room mic- Rolled the highs back to about 2k and ran it through a soft clipper

Overheads- High passed from 600 hz down.

Bass- Used Rbass to thicken around 60hz, REQ to remove the resonance at 90 hz and hit with Kramer PIE comp for about -2 db of compression. Again just enough to keep things in check.

Guitars- High passed everything to taste and cleaned up the beginning and ends of takes. Some flange and phase on the lead guitar track and bussed everything through an API-2500 comp. Some verb added to all guitars as well, kind of an arena style sound mixed way back.

Organ- Doubled the track, one has a rotary emulation being overdriven and phased, the other has no phase and some top rolled off to keep the sound warmer and deep in the mix.

Vocals-Vcomp and Tape saturation on pretty much all of them. Bussed through and fx group that adds some delay, width and drive

Master buss has a puigtec EQP1A warming up the bottom and crisping up the top and Kramer tape emulator saturating to taste.

[Nbwltn2]

My 1st attempt at "Mix Challenge". I hope you guys get a song for April!!!

I attempt to use somewhat of a minimalist approach, except vocals.

All tracks use SSL EV2 channel strip.
I used PuigTec EQ on drums as well as Lindell SBC compressor, and iZotope Trash 2 for saturation

Guitars, Red 2 EQ (after SSL EV2), CLA-76 compressor, bx_delay 2500 for delay and chorus, Trash 2 for bus saturation and ClipShifter - all guitar effects on guitar bus.

Bass I used the same plugins as drums.

For Vocals I used Waves Tune on each track. The 3rd track I used Trash 2 for grit. On the VOX bus, I used Waves Vocal Rider, Neutron 3, a de-esser, the SSL EV2 strip, CLA-76 to CLA-2A, PuigTec EQP1A and MEQ6, Waves RVox compressor, bx_delay 2500 for slap delay and very minor chorus, and Trash 2 for saturation.

I have a Instrument Bus with reverbs and the Saturation Knob, with CLA-2A at the end.

I finally combined the Instrument Bus and VOX Bus into a Mix Bus which has TDR SlickEQ and TDR Kontenlinkov (and metering plugins). TDR makes great plugins for finishing the mix!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hc8Uyl ... share_link

[Farlakesch]

First of all a big thanks to the provider of this song, I’ve enjoyed working on my version of it.

Drums:
Did not use the drum room channels
Some channels needed a phase shift.
EQ on every channel to taste, compression on kick and snare
Added a room reverb on the kick, plate on the snare and room to overheads
Alpine desk drumdesigner on drums mixbus

Bass:
Doubled the track, left one clean (bit of compression) and one distorted (ampire) to help it stand out a bit more and create the possibility to change the sound in the ‘nice and quiet’ part of the song.

Organ:
Added a Leslie (rotor) sound, mostly used to glue the ‘nice and quiet’ part of the song.

Guitars:
This was a challenge for me because it required decisions to be made.
I thought it was best to discard 4 of the tracks in total. From the remaining I used 1 of them as is, 1 with just a bit of delay and re-amped 1 part.
In the second part of the intro I used hard panning and a low cut (600Hz-ish) for the extra part to place it in the mix.

Vocals:
A de-esser, EQ, compression and a reverb.

Did not wanted to change anything, I like it as it is because of the energy, if you polish it too much it might lose its power.

Here it is:
https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0e3W ... Farlakesch

[Franz]

Hi Farlakesch,

I just listened to your mix on my office computer which is a PC with a 22 inch screen which incorporates 2 small
speakers which reproduce the sound in stereo. And there, from the first second of listening, unpleasant sound surprise:
certain elements of the drum kit, the snare and the kick are found on the left, completely out of phase with the rest.
Further listening on studio monitors and headphones confirms the situation.

So simply apart from a dubious choice, the problem is that when you listen to your mix in mono (even in 2023 the mixes
are likely to be stereo compatible = mono), quite simply the snare and the kick disappear. ..Experience it...

Moreover, if I can give myself a piece of advice (which is in the DNA of Mix-Challenge), when you mix, for example the
drum kit, leave all the tracks in mono at the start (and that's the that we see immediately if there are problems) and only after
using the pans. In your comment, you describe very well the error you just made: "some channels needed a phase shift".
Absolutely not...

Having said that, I really like your guitars, which have a totally mind-blowing energy !

Cheers

Franz