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

How to do this, that and the other. Share, learn, teach. How did X do that? How can I sound like Y?
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Here is my entry for this first Mix Challenge

https://soundcloud.com/docjon/nine-of-k ... -1-doc-jon

Download MP3
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/252 ... %20Jon.mp3
WAV
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/252 ... %20Jon.wav

I hope I’ve complied with all the rules, in particular the loudness criteria, I think I’ve understood it all but as a definite amateur in this regard I’m quite happy to be advised otherwise
Great track by the way Nine of Kings, thanks for lending it to us

Basics of my mix:

Everything high pass filtered 100-200Hz apart from Kick and Bass

Kick: Small EQ boost 80Hz, Compression, Saturation
Snare: EQ boost at 200Hz, Envelope shaper to get rid of the ‘click’ at the end of each hit, Compression, Distortion/Saturation, Gated reverb
Hats, Crash: Small shelving boost high frequencies
Handclaps: Compression
Guitar: Gating, Compression, Guitar Rig to dirty the tone, Stereo-ised
Solo Guitar: Subtle stereo delay
Bass: Small EQ cut at 80Hz, EQ boost at 1800Hz, Compression, Distortion/Saturation
Metronome: Hopefully within the rules, completely mangled – Radical distortion, delay and filtering until it ended up as a Mini Pops style beat, in the end have only left it in the mix for one section in the second half of the track
Monosynth: left alone
Reverse: left alone
Plucky: Autopan, Delay, Stereo enhancer
Saws: Phaser, Stereo enhancer, Plate reverb
Lead Vocal: some minor pitch editing, Compression
Vocal harmonies: pretty much left alone
Choir: Chorus, Delay
Litany: Ping pong delay, high and low pass filtering on delayed signals

Master bus: Subtle Glue style bus compression, TRackS metering, Voxengo Span - no limiting of any sort

Can list the exact plugins used if required
Any feedback (positive OR negative) would be most gratefully received!

Jon
Image

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Hi,

I have updated my MP3 and WAVE-file with the correct name according the rules.
See previous post from me.
soundcloud.com/photonic-1

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Ok, here is mine. I will edit my mix notes later because I have to unfreeze every track and note my chain. And that will take some time. But most of my concept how I mix has already been posted.

https://soundcloud.com/watch-them-kraut ... rmc1-halma

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xclmyo1otve5l ... 0Halma.mp3

https://www.dropbox.com/s/uyb6t5kgi9ege ... 0Halma.wav

Edit: in case the dropbox link does not work -> 48/24 wav Nine Of Kings . Doubtfully Optimistic - KVRMC1 - Halma.wav

320 CBR mp3 Nine Of Kings . Doubtfully Optimistic - KVRMC1 - Halma.mp3



My guide is straight from my head (did most of the mix last weekend but the concept stays the same).

Step 1) Import tracks into daw and gainstage stuff.

Setting up each stem to either -18dbFS RMS or -6dBFS - -9dBFS PEAK.

Step 2) Pan & Level all Stems (LCR)

Panning decisions: most important stuff deadcentre mono (kick, lead vox, snare, bass), rest of the audio is going to be hardpanned either left or right. At this stage I start using a compressor (TDR FEEDBACK II - bloody transparent) on mostly each stem to even out the peaks. Makes gainstaging easier. It is not about "compress to death" but catching the peaks. And I often use a mono compressor to convert the stems into a mono signal afterwards. Mixing with mono signals is a crucial task for me and my LCR concept. And I gated stuff, de-essed the voices (and the guitars, found out, that I could get rid of some nasty distortion I didnot like in a second).

After I was satisfied with most of my panning decisions (like HH hardpanned left, guitar 1 harpanned right) I decided to not to mono or hardpan the synth but put some nice & fat chorus on it for some nice contrast to the rest of the pretty bright instruments (guitar, pluggy things etc).

3) Setting up busses

Drums got one, Vox got one too, some slight optical compression (1.9:1) with a max gainreduction of maybe 1dB on my master for some "glue".

Drum buss & vox bus bot got special treatment from my beloved IKM Classic MultibandLimiter. No drastic settings, but some valve satursation and overall limiting for some glue and overall balance of the instruments/voices.

4)EQ & Filtering

Most stems got some eq on it. Mostly wide and round curves for some real tone shaping & colour (VOS TDR Slick EQ - all modes). The Bass got some huge bump in the 800hZ region to let it stand out in the mix, the guitars have been highpassed pretty drastically (around 350hZ iirc) to give the drums & bass some room. No default highpassing. The lead got some bump in the 2kHz region iirc No default highpassing. Guitars got some eqing too.

5) Special FX, Delay & Reverb

I liked how the song switches in the middel from upbeat to downtempo. So idecided to give the snare in this part a slapback echo. Makes it more epic. I also put a flanger on some of the voices plus some delay to make the whole voice thingy more mysterious. I also used a phaser on the saw iirc.The whole section with all those delays, reverbs and flange/phase was my attempt to make it all sound fuller.

I also used two reverbs (1 room, 1 plate), each on it´s own bus with three cue busses in front of them withh different predelay times. With that setup I have lots of control over the depth of my mix.

6) Additional stuff: I also edited the part where the song switches from uptempo to downtempo. I "lengthend" the synth sound a bit in putting another part of it in front of it to get a proper fade in plus i used some kind of bandpassed delay with lots of feedback that comes from the voice section as a special fx for some nice blend. Both automated.

I hope I have everything covered. Well most of it.

Things I used: TDR Feedback Comp II, VOS TDR Slick EQ, IKM Classic Multibandlimiter, IKM Red Opto, IKM Classic Clipper (on bass), PHAZOR, TAL Flanger, TAL Chorus, Tal Bitcrusher (on Claps), NASTY DLA MKII, signaldusts SWEEP & Tone2 Warmverb for voice fx thingy, CSR PLATE, CSR ROOM, Eventide Ultimate Channel for DeEssing, VOS Prefix for additional Gating.

Average RMS on Master: approx. -18dbFS

Regards
Sebastian
Last edited by Halma on Sun Jun 15, 2014 5:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Underground Music Production: Sound Design, Machine Funk, High Tech Soul

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Here's mine

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/120 ... No_Use.mp3
mp3 (320/44.1)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/120 ... No_Use.wav
wav (16/44.1)

What I've done:

- declicked the drums (duh)

- small timing corrections on the guitar track

- mono-ized some tracks, so I could pan from scratch (imo, stems should generally be provided pre-pan...)

- routing related tracks to busses and sub-busses

- EQ, light (bus) compression (I was going for a kind of vintage sound, so I left some dynamic in. Iirc Nine of Kings referred to the Beatles in one post (with the metronome track), this oldschool vibe I was trying to approach, kinda)

- Reverb to create some "depth"

- quite a bit of volume automation

@ Halma:
Your dropbox links don't seem to work here.
Last edited by No_Use on Wed Jun 18, 2014 9:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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No_Use wrote:...
@ Halma:
Your dropbox links don't seem to work here.
Works here (both). :D Can you try again pls?
Underground Music Production: Sound Design, Machine Funk, High Tech Soul

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Halma wrote:
No_Use wrote:...
@ Halma:
Your dropbox links don't seem to work here.
Works here (both). :D Can you try again pls?
Just tried again, both don't play here and when I rightclick -> Save as... I get a 45kb file.

Hmmm...strange, maybe it's just me for whatever reason.

Someone else should check...

Post

No_Use wrote:
Halma wrote:
No_Use wrote:...
@ Halma:
Your dropbox links don't seem to work here.
Works here (both). :D Can you try again pls?
Just tried again, both don't play here and when I rightclick -> Save as... I get a 45kb file.

Hmmm...strange, maybe it's just me for whatever reason.

Someone else should check...
Edited my post with another download location. Thx for letting me know. :)

Regards
Sebastian
Underground Music Production: Sound Design, Machine Funk, High Tech Soul

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You're welcome.

Hope I didn't give false alarm. :D

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Hey WoodenCube,

just as a heads up...
Participants MUST at least give a small insight of what they did with the provided material. Highlights of what you did, what your main focus was while mixing, or specific tools you used would suffice. The winner is asked to reveal a tad more detail (in whatever form is preferred: text, screenshots, screencast). The concept is not to unveil your secrets, or what exact tools you used. But without a certain documentation, people can only guess what was done to the source material. The more documentation, the more people can learn from.
(rules on page 1 of this thread)

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Nowt to see here... till next time :clown:
Last edited by do_androids_dream on Thu Jun 19, 2014 8:53 pm, edited 9 times in total.
Mastering from £30 per track \\\
Facebook \\\ #masteredbyloz

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Sounds good, I like the bass, twangy. Clap sits nicely. Vocal dynamics are really good!

It's kinda missing a guitar solo somewhere in there, I thought it was just because I had my mono switch on.

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Hey cam :) thanks for the comments - I intentionally left out the last guitar solo as I had a 'vision' for the mix (explained in my post above) - more pop and 'tight' than musical if that makes sense.
Mastering from £30 per track \\\
Facebook \\\ #masteredbyloz

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camsr wrote:...I thought it was just because I had my mono switch on.
You gotta listen to it in stereo man! I used lots of panning and stereo stuff as a feature of the mix.
Mastering from £30 per track \\\
Facebook \\\ #masteredbyloz

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do_androids_dream wrote:
camsr wrote:...I thought it was just because I had my mono switch on.
You gotta listen to it in stereo man! I used lots of panning and stereo stuff as a feature of the mix.
I will. I just listened to all of the submissions a couple days ago. So maybe when it's time to vote :D

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