KVR MIX CHALLENGE - MC01, June 2014 - Submissions Feedback and Q&A

[satYatunes]

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Since it's the first challenge, and the rules are still refined, we will cut you a lot of slack. But with the next challenge... those that do not stick to the rules will be instantly disqualified. So please take that in mind.

yeah.. disqualified with 10 lashes

[MaxSynths]

@Max: Thanks for the details man, good stuff. I am gonna try a few tricks from that, I hope you haven't copyrighted your approach

Haha!

[Uncle E]

Listen here:

https://soundcloud.com/jrrshop/doubtfully-optimistic

Download here:

https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/15393 ... d1406755d9

LCR panning throughout. Everything except bass, kick, and snare were automated. Snare is gated (I didn't like that mess in the tail). Lead vocals and opening guitar riff were melodyned. Silence trimmed out of all vocals and guitars. I used the following UAD-2 plugins:

Pultec MK2 EQ
Neve 31102 EQ
Harrison 32 EQ
1176 MK2 Compressor
SSL G Buss Compressor
33609 Buss Compressor
88RS Gate
Roland CE-1 Chorus
EMT 140 Plate Reverb
EMT 250 Digital Plate Reverb

Kick: Pultec -> 1176
Snare: 88RS -> Harrison (low mids cut hard) ->1176 -> 31102
Hat: 31102
Clap: 31102
Crash: 31102
Metronome: 1176 (gave it a little snap)
Drum Buss: SSL G Buss -> Pultec (added a ton of sizzle at 8K)
These channels (not buss) sent to EMT 140 #1

Guitar Left: 31102 -> 1176 -> Pultec
Guitar Right: Harrison
Solo Guitar: Pultec -> 1176 (smashed!)
Monosynth: Pultec -> 1176
Plucky: Harrison -> CE-1 (Dimension D would have been better but I was trying to limit how many different plugins I used and preferred the CE-1 on the Saws)
Saws: Harrison -> CE-1
These channels sent to EMT 140 #2

Lead Vocals: 31102 (big boosts at 220, 3.2K, and 16K, then high passed at 160) -> 1176 (sounds heavily compressed but a lot of that was actually the automation)
Vocal Mixdown (called Litany): 1176 -> Harrison
Each BV channel was sent to its own Harrison
These channels sent to EMT 250 (I initially had even more reverb on the BV's, it sounded lush but detached from the rest of the music so I turned it down. It's probably still too loud )

Main Buss: 33609 (2:1, a1 release, limiter off)

[Halma]

.. .LCR panning throughout. ...

I am looking forward listening to this later because of it`s LCR concept. Big LCR fan overhere and mine is build on that idea too. I am really interested in what you have come up with.

Regards
Sebastian

[IrionDaRonin]

Hi my friends, long time!
Hmm, i have a doubt regarding the limiting at -3 dBs and RMS at -15 dBs.
Is this rule made for the stems uploader or for the participant? It wasn't enough clear for me. Thanks.

We could learn from this contest too much, specially if there are different music genres every month. As mixing and mastering are the themes i'm more into since years, i love learning about all this.
Also, i could give the stems of an electronic track for any other month if you want.

Have a nice day

[Uncle E]

I am looking forward listening to this later because of it`s LCR concept. Big LCR fan overhere and mine is build on that idea too. I am really interested in what you have come up with.

Likewise, I'm looking forward to hearing yours! I had some real challenges with it on this mix because of the sparsity of the parts, I'll be interested to hear how you deal with that.

[Uncle E]

Hmm, i have a doubt regarding the limiting at -3 dBs and RMS at -15 dBs.
Is this rule made for the stems uploader or for the participant?

It's a rule made for the participant.

[kbaccki]

EDIT 6/13/2014: Reposted mix with extra kick/snare/cymbal hits removed (2nd verse, outro)...
EDIT 6/14/2014: Fixed file names... sorry! (thanks photonic)

MP3: http://www.hepcat.biz/kvr/NineOfKings-D ... baccki.mp3

RAR'd WAV (44.1k/32fp, 41/51MB):http://www.hepcat.biz/kvr/NineOfKings-D ... baccki.rar

I gave myself a little extra headroom so as to avoid the wrath of the Compmeister General. Also, I think the bass in the verse is a tad heavy, depending on where you're listening, but no more time for polishing my little audio turd ... Have some work to do at the mo', but I'll reserve a space at the bottom to add some detail from a few notes I kept. Off the top of my head, overall approach was as follows:

1.) I really like the overall vibe of the song, and didn't want to do anything crazy in terms of structural edits. Two exceptions to this: a.) I felt the 2nd verse needed some drums to keep things moving forward, but a lighter type of drum sound than the chorus, b.) I felt the second section's halftime snare feel (from the source) was really good, but called for some kick and cymbal splashes.

2.) My general approach to "the sound" was as follows: try to get a very upfront lead vocal, with a bit of dirt; a grungy kinda bass sound for the verse; a deep growly bass for the chorus; add a bit of fuzz and punch to the verse guitar but otherwise keep it simple; try to get a dirty and wide guitar sound for the verse to sit below the vocals; figure out how to really highlight the excellent background harmonies; figure out how to sonically fill out the outro a bit...

3.) So I bought the P&M plugin bundle a few days ago… and I wanted to put it through it's paces, get to know the what and how of those little guys… every plugin in the mix is from the P&M bundle, except for PSP meter + DR meter on the master. Everything done in reaper, except for some source file edits in sound forge.

4.) All sounds in the mix are from the source tracks. No external sounds were used, and a small amount of chopping and channelling was performed -- particularly snagging kick, snare, and crash samples, arranging those in the verse and outro… the source crash cymbal was very throaty and also truncated, so I had to enhance it with some EQ and used reverb for fake resonance.

5.) I spent a total of about, oh, 8 hours on the mix. I'd say it breaks down approximately as follows:
* 1-1.5 hours of prep and audio file fixing -- removing clicks in the kick and snare tracks, splitting stereo tracks to dual mono, figuring out and resolving various phase issues in certain source tracks, think time to determine what sounds I want where, etc.
* 3 hours of playing around and tweaking plugins and params, learning how they work, trying combinations
* 3-4 hours of mixing, including fine tuning of plugin settings, the usual balancing stuff, adding some volume/pan/etc. automation

6.) Try to pay attention to mono compatibility, though with a dense mix that's a challenge for me… mono is always a work in progress for me, as I don't have anybody actually paying me to get it done and done correctly…

------------------------------- THIS SPACE RESERVED FOR MORE DETAIL -------------------------------

[IrionDaRonin]

I'm listening to the other's mixes.
Is it ok to change the sound drastically?
I mean, saturation is ok, but not in high amounts (distortion), right?

I'm asking this because i could put many own creative effects on the mix, but i don't want to make sound completelly different for what we got originally.
I'm taking this like if another musician or band were asking for my mixing services, so i won't change the sound too much.

I'm using, EQ, Compression, Levels, Panoramics, Reverb and Delay, Stereo Image plugins, Mid/Side and a Transient shaper, but nothing else like modulation effects or distortion. No mastering, as requested, although i would like it to do it too.

I'd like to know more about this, before uploading anything.

Have a nice day

[MaxSynths]

I'm listening to the other's mixes.
Is it ok to change the sound drastically?
I mean, saturation is ok, but not in high amounts (distortion), right?

I'm asking this because i could put many own creative effects on the mix, but i don't want to make sound completelly different for what we got originally.

I think it's ok since there are no indications by the artist about the sound he's looking for (this would be a real challenge). I think creative use of effects is ok for a mix challenge.

[camsr]

Yeah it's okay, but no adding stuff. I'm not sure if kbacci broke the rules or not with his mix. We need some input here.

[photonic]

Hi all,

I was glad to found this new mixing challenge here on KVR. Since two and a half year I take part at the OSC one synth challenge, where I could learn a lot about sound design. And I found a lot of nice people there. I hope that this group will get nearly successful as OSC.
Beside OSC I tried some of the multi tracks from Mike Senior to improve my mixing skill. Now I can do similar here.

In the OSC we are only allowed to use freeware for all FX. So beside Melodyne and some Uhbik stuff from UHE for all reverbs and some flanger, I used only freebies for this mix too. I got used to them and now I know what to do with them.

http://www.astroimages.at/musik/KVR/Nin ... otonic.mp3

Download:
http://www.astroimages.at/musik/KVR/Nin ... otonic.zip

Here is the mix-story:
First after cutting all the empty stuff from the tracks for a better overview I found it would be easier and more creative to mix when I split some tracks to separate tracks. So I ended up with three tracks for the snare, 5 tracks for guitar and 8 tracks for the vocals.

Drums:
The drums got a send-group for parallel compression and reverb. I used this group like a compressed room mike to mix in.
The kick got a boost at 73Hz and some light high shelf.
There are three different snare sounds in the wav-file. So I processed them differently. The first two snares got more body at 200Hz. The snare with reverb at the end got less body. I increased the transients for the snare in the chorus with Flux Bitter Sweet II.
For the clap I used the IxoxDelay to make it stereo.

Bass:
Just a bit of the classic compressor to keep the level more constant.

Guitars:
Here I split the different parts in the track and set them to different panorama position and different EQ settings. In the chorus I used the IxoxDelay again for a stereo effect.
For the guitar solo I used NastyDLA.

Synths:
For the monosynth I just used NastyDLA and some reverb.
For the Plucky I pushed again the transients with Flux Bitter Sweet II.
The saw got some flanger from Uhbik-F and some IxoxDelay to widen the stereo.

Vocals:
In the chorus I used Melodyne and tried to correct the pitch for the lead. It is still not perfect, but it helped. As de-esser I used IQ4gui.
All harmonies got only some EQ and reverb. The choir got some IxoxDelay to widen stereo.
The end off the litany is a bit louder in my version. With GreenEugene for saturation and some heavy EQ I made something like telephone sound.

Stereo sum:
MQ57 filter for final sound shaping
TDR Feedback Compressor for a bit of a glue.
The Span Analyser and TT Dynamic Range Meter for control.

[kbaccki]

Yeah it's okay, but no adding stuff. I'm not sure if kbacci broke the rules or not with his mix. We need some input here.

I read the following rule as meaning "you can only use the bits provided by the source, you can't add audio data outside of the source project"… in other words, you can't record yourself playing a new guitar part, use BFD to replace existing audio, etc. But mangling what's there within reason is acceptable. Perhaps I'm due lashings myself… … I did only use the source, but I also added drum parts (from the source) that weren't in the original tracks…

Contestants are not allowed to add new additional audio material (i.e. replay of a guitar part, complete drum replacement to ultimately change the tone). It is however allowed to edit and to a certain extend even mangle the source material to improve the production (think: pitch correction, reamped bass if there was a DI track at present, added saturation, different filter approach, etc).

[Compyfox]

Could the Q&A please be kept in the gossip thread?
Thanks.


But to make it short:
To be honest, I didn't think about adding additional beat "content" or something similar to the actual production. Maybe this needs to be an additional rule. Though I though that I made it pretty clear that the arrangement stays the same and only get's slight edits or a more creative FX work.

This is not a remix/rearrangement competition (unless otherwise stated - like: create a radio cut) after all.


First MC, we will cut some slack. If you want to discuss it -> Gossip Thread.

[kbaccki]

Mix reposted above w/ extraneous percussion removed, per Eric.