MiX iT! 3d - Post It: Mix, File + Description

[Charles Dye]

This thread is ONLY for posting a description of what you did, and attaching your mix + project/session files, or hardware settings jpgs. Please do not discuss the mixes further here.

If you have tech problems posting your files, please post questions in the MiX iT! 3 - Q&A (http://thewombforums.com/showthread.php?t=6991) thread. Thx!



MiX iT! 3 - Post It

Sponsored by Kagi Media (http://kagimedia.com/) and Auraleo Advanced Learning (http://auraleo.com/)

For the final phase of MiX iT! 3 - Mix for Mixerman we need your MIXES. In this thread we want you to upload your mixes, as well as your project/session files +/or jpgs of outboard/hardware settings. Please read the notes/instructions below very carefully before posting.


Timeframe

Given the number of subscriptions in this round, this thread will be open for approx 4 days, until Monday, May 5, 2008.


What You Should Post

Tell us about your mix

Please give us the basics about your mix. Why you made the choices you made + some of the basics of how you did it.


Tell us your Platform

Please let us know the basics of the platform you mixed the song on.


Attach your MIX

You must attach your mix of Aren't You Proud (aka "622") by Strange Faces to your post. Please do not imbed it in the post.

Please provide us with a stereo mix in one of the following formats: MP4 or M4A (aka AAC) @ 192 kbps. (See below for more info on AAC files.)

The mix should NOT be mastered (i.e. uncrushed). IOW, please NO heavy brickwall limiting. This is not a mastering event. This is a mixing event. The loudest mix will NOT be considered the best sounding. We are all smarter than that.

We suggest submitting your mix with an approximate Average RMS of no more than -11 dB. (See this thread (http://thewombforums.com/showthread.php?t=7421) for more info.)


Attach your session INFO

Please provide us with a zipped version of your project/session file (if mixed with DAW), or jpgs of hardware settings (if mixed on console + OBG).

File Labeling

It is VERY IMPORTANT that you prepare your attachments before uploading them to this thread. Please make sure you name them correctly. We all know by now the name of the song you mixed. But what we need to know now is WHO mixed it, so for convenience sake for everybody participating (200+ participants possibly submitting a mix !!!!) we want you to name your files by your screen name followed by -MIX or -INFO.

We also want to know which MiX iT! event you did this mix (Like MiX iT! 1, 2 or 3, etc...) so in the future we can tell them apart.

So, if your name is 'Mixerwoman' for example we want you to name your attachments like this:MiXiT3_Mixerwoman-MIX.m4a for your Mix

and

MiXiT3_Mixerwoman-INFO.zip for your zipped info files
This way we can all easily find the relevant mixes once the discussions start.


AAC Files (aka MP4 or M4A)

We prefer AAC (aka MP4) files to MP3. They sound better, use more efficient data compression, + are much better @ handling audio frequencies above 16 kHz. If you care about sound, you should be using AAC files instead of MP3. You can read more about them here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding).

AAC Encoding Applications:foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org/) (requires Nero AAC Codec (http://www.nero.com/enu/nero-aac-codec.html))
Winamp (http://www.winamp.com/)
RealPlayer (http://www.real.com/)
iTunes (http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/)

Attachments

We want ONE post per participant. This post should contain 2 attachments (your mix & your zipped session info... see above).

In the Advanced Text editor in 'reply' mode, you will see a section called Additional Options and within this section you will find a Manage Attachments button. When you push this button a pop up opens in which you can manage your uploads. Please make sure that all uploads are finished before you submit your post to this thread.


Discuss It: General + Featured

We're always trying to make MiX iT! as rich a learning experience as possible. We feel previous rounds have been educational, but we believe there is room for improvement.

Here are the threads for this phase:

Post It (this thread)

Discuss It: General (http://thewombforums.com/showthread.php?t=7431)

Discuss It: Kenny Gioia (http://thewombforums.com/showthread.php?t=7440)

Discuss It: Pimp-X (http://thewombforums.com/showthread.php?t=7466)

Discuss It: Mixerman (http://thewombforums.com/showthread.php?t=7511)

The difference this time around is that we will move to the featured mixes discussion almost immediately, while the general discussion will continue @ the same time. Instead of being sequential, the discussion threads will run in parallel.

This will allow everyone to discuss their mixes in the general thread + allow everyone to also participate in the discussion of the mixes highlighted in the featured threads – where we will choose a few mixes to focus on, and dissect + discuss them in much greater detail.

Since there are potentially 200+ different mixes for us to discuss, please only post your mix + info (see above) in this thread. And please move all additional conversation to this thread:

Discuss It: General (http://thewombforums.com/showthread.php?t=7431)


We look forward to hearing all your mixes, reading about how you mixed them, + the discussion that will follow.

Thanx!
Chris + Charles

[Calvin]

Well, that was a lot of fun. A pleasure to work with such quality tracks!

Mixed completely in the box, using Logic 8, on a MacBook Pro. No problems at all with horsepower. Main plug-ins included URS console strip pro for nearly all eq and dynamics, IK Multimedia CSR (pretty nice plate), Sound Designer, and SoundToys EchoBoy for delays and such.

Main objective was to not mess things up, given the quality of the performances, arrangement, and tracking. On the other hand, this is a great place to try stuff, so I didn't want to be too conservative.

My treatment of the Rhodes and the top and end of the tune was meant to emphasize the theme of warped, demented thinking. I was going for a sort of effect that would sound "worse" at the end of the tune than at the beginning. I wanted it to sound more "warped", but I ended up with a more polite chorus sound than I wanted, so I bagged the warped idea all together and went with a kind of low-fi thing.

The "gunshot" is merely a single delayed snare hit, some serious compression and eq, and a healthy dose of reverb (something concocted from Sound Designer). Meant to be mostly felt, rather than heard.

The bridge was interesting to work on. On the one hand, I wanted to emphasize the passing-to-the-other-side feeling, but that is countered by the anger/frustration evident in the performances and lyrics, reflecting the absurd/inhumane nature of the events. So, hopefully it's mournful, angry, and pleading, while at the same time retaining a bit of hope (light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak). I'm not quite sure how I hoped to achieve all this, but I played with levels until I had what I thought felt right. I also added delay and some moderate doubling/widening to the vox in this section.

Very little compression on the 2 bus, and there's only a touch of limiting, just enough to catch the occasional over. So, turn it up!

Also, I must mention chrisj's CabSVT that I used a bit on the DI bass. Worked out real well, I thought, although I'll let everyone else be the judge. Good bass sounds to begin with, of course, but the CabSVT plug added some good stuff.

[danbee]

Ok, here's my mix.

Mixed on Reaper, mostly using stock plugs, but also plenty from my stockpile. Mackie HR624 monitors in a (currently) very lightly treated room.

I spent more time on automation on this mix than anything else, mostly making sure the vocal came through right for every part of the song.

I would upload the project file, but it won't let me attach the zip file.

Edit: Few more notes.

I used almost no compression on any of the tracks, except the bass to bring the sustain up.

I have developed an interesting way of setting up my reverb sends. I use a parent track for the reverb, with no pre-delay, then I use child tracks with 100% wet delays to setup 2 or 3 different pre-delays for the reverb for layering stuff a bit. In this case I setup 3, a near space with a long predelay (150ms or so) and low level, mid space (50ms ish) and a far space (5-10ms I think).

Drums
I loved the sound of the room mics so I made full use of them to make the drums really ambient during the quieter parts of the song. The close mics were brought up during the choruses to give them more focus. EQ was minimal, touch of attach and low end boost on the kick and a bit of upper mid boost and a notch on the snare, all subtle though. The toms were edited to get rid of anything between hits and a little sent to the mid space reverb.

Bass
Some compression for sustain and a little low end boost I think. Other than that I just balanced the two tracks until I was happy.

Guitar
Some low end roll off to make room for the bass, but otherwise nothing. Main guitar sent through the far space reverb send to push it back in the mix.

Keys
Subtle mid range boost on the Rhode, sent to the long predelay reverb to give it some space while keeping it up front. Automated send to mid space reverb for the choruses. The B3 was hardly touched apart from automating the level to bring it up during the last chorus.

Vocal
The vocal was automated to hell and back to make sure all the words came through clearly without sounding like they were separate to the instruments. A little was sent to the near space reverb to give it some space. I bussed the vocal to another track which was then hi passed leaving just the very highest frequencies, liberally de-essed to keep sibilants under control, and then automated throughout the track to give some clarity to sections that needed it.

Bus
I put a compressor across the 2 with a very low ratio compression setting and a little saturation to help glue the mix together.

[Numb Thumb]

-Mix Notes-

Mixed on a Mac G5 with Pro Tools 7.4 HD3
Monitoring through Genelecs with ARC room correction software

Plug-ins used:
Ren EQs, Massey and SSL Comp, TC Electronics MD3, S1, Aural Exciter,Pitchblender, Echoboy, Altiverb, Sansamp, Phoenix Cranesong, Antares Tube, Amplitube

I took one liberty by removing the guitar for a few bars at 2:30. I found the dropout interesting and powerful…plus it unmasked the distorted drum slapback. Added an underlying distorted vocal line at certain points for punch and trailed it off with Echoboy. All Verb on the vox was ducked and
EQd. Doubled the bass with a gritty wide chorused sound. Occasionally, the vox was doubled by two spread crushed tracks. As for drums, pretty standard…I used the kick to duck the bass here and there and occasionally to duck and pump the whole mix except the vocals.

So there you have it. Enjoy with a side of depression. Love this tune.

-NT

P.S. I've enclosed just the PT session. I didn't rename anything, so referencing the original files should do the trick.

[billy_gimp]

Mixed on a Mac Book running logic 8 with a less than ideal monitoring set up.

did the majority of the mix at some obscure hour so finer points I can't recall (it was defiantly an unorganized workflow) , but I began by listening through to the parts and figured out what fits where approx according to stereo spread, dynamics and EQ etc etc...... then set about tonally saturating the mix and then applying comps and EQ to everything and sending drums to an aux to do further Saturation and some slight multi band comp and EQ to try and tame the hi hat (this may have actually been done on a seperate OH's and room Aux send)... I started mixing from the loudest most rocking point in the song to get a reference to how the levels should ride.

nothing on the 2 bus but saturation and a multi meter to try and compare what I was hearing (or seeing) to other mixes done under better conditions.

I used plenty of reverbs and delays+ some other effects I thought may suit what I was hearing and give life to segments of the song, not to sure if they did anything special to add to the song or just made it muddy and horrible, anyhow.... have a listen and hope you enjoy.

Plenty of automation going on in the mix... and I loved the B3 Hammond, made this really fun...

(note:having trouble uploading a zip of my session)/apologies for incorrect labeling of 622.

[seawell]

First of all thanks to the guys at The Womb for another great song! I really enjoyed working on this one and am glad there is such talent coming out of NC.

Gear:
Apple Powermac G5 Dual 2Ghz -2GB Ram
Pro Tools 7.4 HD3
Lynx Aurora 16
Shadow Hills Equinox Summing Mixer
Adam P33a's / Genelec 7060a Sub

Drums:
Drums sounded great(really great room at Echo Mountain!) I used a couple of snare samples blended in because the snare had a little too much high hat bleed for what I was going for. The samples were Steven Slate Snare 21AZ1 and LedSnare Z4. The LedSnareZ4 is a stereo room sample that I used in place of adding reverb to the snare track. URS Channelstrip Pro plug-in all over drums. I also used the 2 Stage Compression setup for my drum buss.

Bass:
DI and miced track summed to one aux. URS CS Pro on Gates Sta-Level setting. Also a little Massenburg EQ to boost low end after the CD Pro.

Guitars:
URS CS Pro - 1176 setting on main guitar riff. A little Massey TD5 and either Waves IR-1 Room reverb or Breverb plate.

Vocals:
URS CS Pro - Fairchild 2 setting with Pultec EQ. A little Digi De-esser. Effects: Split Harmonizer , Massey TD5 eighth and quarter note delays, Breverb. Since there were no background vocals I automated the effects to really come up in certain parts to give the illusion of more vocals.

Rhodes:
URS CS Pro - SSL Compressor 5 and SSL EQ setting.

B3:
The Organ was awesome and added a lot to the song. URS CS Pro - 1970 Limiter 1 Setting with 1951 EQ. I automated a Breverb Large Hall or certain B3 sections.

Overall:
I really love the URS Channel Strip Pro plug-in and used it everywhere on this mix. Just got my Shadow Hills Equinox yesterday so this is my first mixed summed through it. The settings for the Equinox were:
Transformer: IRON
Channel Gain: 5db
I automated effects in this song quite a bit so that played a large part in the emotions I hoped to invoke. Nothing on the 2 buss, I just wasn't feeling it for this particular track so you'll probably need to turn it up when you listen. I totally ripped off mixerman's idea of blasting reverb on the snare when he sings-"I heard a CRACK in the distance." It sounded great so I had to do it as well. I look forward to getting everyone's input and hearing all of your mixes.

[outre n deep]

Thanks Ryan I REALLY like the song. :)

[chckn8r]

This was a load of fun guys - thanks to Mixerman and Strange Faces!

This mix is done in Logic Pro - tried to stay away from anything other than what the app comes with just for shits and giggles. The only "cheat" I did was put Ozone on the output bus and Izotope Vinyl for SFX.

Bass - pretty much bottom end for the DI everything is rolled off on top - the amp track is rolled of on the bottom and there for articulation. Applied a bit of sub-bass to get a subliminal way down there thing going

Drums - Kick, I rolled off low frequencies and brought out the attack transients, snare: got rid of the ring and lower frequencies - wanted a snap there. Toms - gated the hell out of them. OH - rolled off kick bleed and put a shelf up high. Stereo Room - rolled off highs and lows and is only really slightly in the mix. Mono room - didn't use.

B3 - panned hard left and about 11 o'clock - rolled off below 250 and put in a slight emph for attack and "flute" sound.

Rhodes - panned at about 9 o'clock - applied overdrive and ran through Leslie simulator - default was a chorus on the horn and then brought in vibrato when things built up in the song

Gitters - panned at about 3 o'clock - some overdrive applied on prog track - ran the distorted track through a bit of the Leslie and then a Wah-wah to get some motion in the track as the song builds to climax.

Vox straight down middle - serial compression not hitting too hard, but bringing it to the front. rolled off bottom end and highlighted around 2 and 4 k for some presence...

I think that's it - bit o' reverb and delay applied for taste.

ah crap - didn't name the file right

Will upload zip of logic file later...

[maartenl945]

Hi,

I've attached my mix. Zips are currently not allowed. Will add it later.

1. Tell us about your mix

I tried to enhance the dynamics of the song (and in some places the textual content) by adding appropriate automation and effects.

2. Tell us your Platform

Cubase 4 on a PC, with mostly Powercore, UAD and Liquid Mix plugins. Used an outboard compressor on the mix bus (Portico 5043).

3. Attach your MIX

See below

4. Attach your session INFO

Will do once zips are allowed.


Looking forward to the discussions and hearing the other mixes.

Maarten

[Knastratt]

Here's my mix. I have had complaints about the level of the tamb but have decided not to lower it.

My idea was "mix and run". I did not listen to Mixermans version prior to mixing.

The session info is in the .pdf file. I just found 2 faults in the INFO pdf. The Rhodes is NOT tilted to the left. And on the comments on the RE-201 Cambridge EQ it should say "highpassed".

It was mixed on a Mac Dual G5 w Cubase 3.11 using LiquidMix, UAD-1, Sonalksis Comp and PSP Vintage Warmer.

Monitored via Benchmark DAC-1 to Genelec 1029 w 7050B sub in a room that measures superbly.

[IntelDoc]

So I got in this thing last minute and really wanted to test out my new Mix Room as well as Monitors. Well I was incredibly happy with whole thing.

THis was mixed on a HD 3 setup summing though a 16 channel API DSM setup, API 2500 Buss compressor and a 7800 going back out. I write it back in through a Benchmark ADC-1 AES back into Pro Tools and was very happy. Mixed on Blue Sky System 1 monitors in a 2.1 setup. Calibrated, etc.

1. Kick and Snare were cut somewhat to get what I wanted. I then used some enhancements with the Steven Slate samples on the Kick and Snare to get more edge that I wanted. As "Organic" as people were calling this tune, I did not hear a G Love thing going on, and that is what I think of when I hear "organic." I like what turned out with this. I went through the snare track and got the snare that I liked the most with no other bleed and when through and made the verse have the same hit. Then did the same for the chorus. The kick was the same. Any excess noise was cut out to allow some room. Really like the roominess of the kit. It still holds punch, but is very open sounding.

2. Overheads and Rooms were busses to a AUX track that had a pair of distressors and a pair of Trident 80B eq's running on it. Kept the brightness and what not. M2000 for reverb. Warm bright Plate setting.

3. Toms - Bussed to a pair of 160's for a little more punch.

4. Vocals were through the X73i eq and a 1176. Rvox on there too for some edge. The effects were layered with a few low level delays, the T.C. Electronics M2000 verb, Lex PCM 90 Verb, some Eventde and some DP4 (Vocal magic) All very low in the send (usually -25 or so)

Manually faded the breaths as they seemed too much for me, almost like the guy was deep throating the mic. Just did not like the over the top air that he sucked in. Great voice and the song is very dark. I think the growl in the voice that the compressor grab'd sometimes was cool so I tried to enhance that.

5. Bass - X73i - 1176 and the Eventide Clockworks Omnipressor

6. Guitars were all in the box URS API eq. Used a slight delay to throw it to the left and add a little fullness to the mix.

7. The keys at the beggining were eq'd and doubled to get a slight reverse effect that I thought fit the eeriness of the tune.

In the small break with the keys and tamborine, I cut all other noise (faded) and then automated the two parts up as it grew back to the end. Kinda wanted that "walk up on you feel" with it. Then found a cymbal hit in the song and added that as a transition part with a reverse effect. Seemed to work?

Mastered in Pro Tools with Massey and some other goods. Kept the dynamics before I gained it up a bit. It is not loud at all, but sits pretty well in my mind. I think we found it to be 11.39 RMS. Has plenty of room to go, but why? Use the volume right?

Great tones overall and had a blast with this one. Really like the vibe of the tune and I am VERY happy with my room translation. Lots of analog was used on this for eq and compression.

Thanks, and more to follow...

Doc

HERE os Attached Below - Updated

http://mixer.tbrstudio.com/MixIt3_IntelDoc.m4a

[tannoy]

Hi everyone!

Can't upload here...had that problem before, everytime a file is a bit bigger
I'm gettin' logged out - maybe due to my lowspeed internet-connection. Therefore the external links. Anyway...

So here is my tiny mix. First I have to say, that it really was an experience
to work with so well performed and nice recorded tracks. I enjoyed it a lot.
My goal was to create a dynamic and open sounding mix, similar to the tunes
we were listening to till the end of the 80s. So turn this one up, please!

I've used the following gear:

-Cubase VST/32 + echo layla 3g audio interface
-Mostly free available plugs, except for the de-essing
-Pod 2.0 for adding some overdrive to the Rhodes
-Tannoy Reveal Active Monitors

The zip-file contains a pdf-file in which I've tried to
explain deeply what exactly happened to the different tracks and why I chose
to do it that way. It also includes the session-file.

I'm looking forward to hear all the other mixes! Great Event - thanx to Chris,Charles, Mixerman and Strange Faces for making this possible!
:Thumbsup: :Thumbsup: :Thumbsup:

All the best,

Marco.

Links:

http://h1.ripway.com/tannoy/mixit3/mixit3_tannoy-mix.m4a
http://h1.ripway.com/tannoy/mixit3/MixIt3_tannoy-info.zip

[Ashley Smith]

Hi peeps,

Enjoyed this one. Something kinda went wierd on the bounce and convert to .m4a, the drums level got a lot louder. Don't ask me why. Guess I should've scheduled more time on this mix too as it was rushed unfortunately.

Anyway, all good in the hood! :Coolio:

Will discuss mix in the next thread.

Cheers

P.s. Unable to upload .zip attachments :Confused: :Thumbdown:

Edit; thanks for fixing zip, added mine ;)

[Ashley Smith]

Just a quick heads up, I had to add the .m4a extension to IntelDoc's as it downloads as an mp3 and wouldn't play in WMP on my PC.

:)

[Starfucker]

I'm also having trouble with the zip file but here's my mix.

My Mix: I tried not to fuck up what I got and then I tried to play with volumes and pans to make the mix move with the song.
I started out with 3 Reverbs and a Delay. 1 rev for drums (probably snare only), 1 for GTRs (I think a plate) 1 for vocals (a room... in fact it might have been a courtroom). Dly for a guitar.

I mixed a few Roughs and the first one told me to ease up on the vocal reverb and I believe the snare was too loud. 2nd Rough had too much lows on everything and I highpassed the bass and maybe some other tracks. 3rd Rough I thought the vocal was too loud so I turned it down on the compressor out since I had automation on the fader.

Then I lowpassed the Rhodes since it had some nasty shit going on up in the highs.

Cleaned everything up, made some crossfades and added a few details and that's it.



Platform was Logic Studio. Plugins were all stock except the Airwindows Classic Channel on the 2bus.


Gotta run, hope you like it

[fizbin]

I loved this song. Amazing recording all around and a pure pleasure to work with. I went for a wee bit of ambience in (hopefully) the right places and a touch of psychedelia in a couple spots.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Mixed in Cubase 4 on a PC, using a combination of Waves and Voxengo plug-ins mostly. Reverb is from IR1 plate - used sparingly. A treated delay (bandwidth limited and distorted) was used for some ambience as well. Most EQ was from the included Cubase Studio EQ, compressors were mostly Voxengo Marquis and different versions of the Waves Rennaissance compressors. Also, the Voxengo TapeBus plug-in was used on various tracks (vocals, keys, drums, master bus)

Best,
Jay

[hamonrye]

Tried to keep it simple for the most part, wanted it to give a bit of that nick cave vibe. Not sure if I attained that or not.
I used nuendo with my uad plugs, and some urs eq's.

[amater]

Well, I decided to keep it simple.
There is some compression on the drums to limit the dynamic range a bit. Vocal already sounded compressed so I just ridden it along drums.
Then came the bass( mostly amp), Rhodes paned right, B3 hard left-right, guitars left, everything being automated to previous parts added. No eq on anything except low pass on guitars, B3 low shelf cut+ high shelf boost. Comp on the main bus barely working and limiter to bring level back to zero
without overload. I had trouble finding the reverb I like so I left everything dry. There is just a little delay
on vocals on few occasions. Anyway, tracks sounded great to me, it made mixing fun!

[meLoCo_go]

At first I felt Mixerman's slave - fader up mix sounded good right from the start, but later I felt I can and should try to move it further sonically and emotionally, well you all can see the result...
My mix is simple - I cleaned drums a bit and being kick drum addict EQd it, compressed and added attack with transient designer plugin to get more definition. Other stuff was mostly EQd a bit and panned, well I tried to solve "rhodes+B3+guitar" puzzle and you can see what I came up with. Vocals - a bit EQ, compression, reverb and tiny bit of delay once in the song.

Well, I think nobody would go completely wrong with such tracks - to me mixing was getting into the song and present it as good as I can.

[glitchfactor]

I'm going to keep this short and sweet since there are so many posts.

Mixed ITB: MacPro, PT HD Accel 3 w/ ProControl on Genelec 1032s

I Can upload my ProTools session as soon as zip files start working.

For most of the tracks I stuck with the Waves RenComp and RenEQ stuff. There are a couple of exceptions:

Tamborine: TL Aggro - Pultec
Basses - two trx summed and used RBass on the sum
Vocal - Fairchild 660; Pultec

Delays - standard Digi Delay
Guitar Verb - ReVibe - Roomy Spring setting
Plate - TL Space on 140 setting
Big Verb - TC Vss3 on Church setting

MASTER: AC 1, Impact comp, S1 widener, POWr Dither


SUPPLIMENTAL NOTES:

Most of the time I will reference my recordings to something else, but I wanted to see how this came out if I did it completely off the cuff. No referencing of any external material or the original mix.


Justin

[MortenDK]

Well my mix is done in PT HD2.
Really liked the song!, its been mixed twice, first as a premix to listen to and then the final mix.
Funny thing happened the day I mixed it, it was this past monday and on my way to work in the morning a deer comes up on the road and stops!, and kinda watches me aproach in the car, just stands there till im pretty close and slowing down, then when im like 10 meters from it, it runs/skips off out over the fields. I just knew that I had to mix the song that day!, so when I came to work lo and behold that days recording session is cancelled. So I went home and mixed it :) .
Its all done in the box, I dont consider myself a pro mixer yet as im not living of it, I have been a live sound engineer for 10 years and the last 3-4 years I have worked as an assisant sound engineer for the danish national radio.
And last years i bought this PT HD2 rig which I love!, cause now I can work at home and have a blast doing it in my own time.

Hope you like it :)

*EDIT* Now whit ZIP file! :D

[MKZ]

Ok,
The Setup:
G5, Digi002, PTLE7.3.1, Oxford, Waves Renn, Digi3 -plugins, Tannoy reveal actives

so I had about an hour to spare one day so I started by going through the tracks and listening to it faders up. Then I opened up the drums and started adding EQ and Compression.

Oh yeah, I had Oxford Dyn with the "Warm" -function enabled at probably like 30% as well as the oxford inflator on the Master Bus from the beginning.

Couple of days went by and I had an afternoon free so I continued to mess around with this song. If I remember correctly, I brought up the vocal fader with the drums, added a little de-essing, compression and EQ. I think I also had some FX for the vocal set up at this poing (verb, delay)

Then I started opening the other tracks, starting with the bass and the rhodes and so forth. I used all of the the Bass Amp- track but high passed the DI -track and added distortion. Not sure if it worked or not but i didn't have that much time so i had to move on.

I added delays to the main gtr track and the rhodes track on opposite sides of their respective dry signals. Then I started with automating some things, and adding more FX. then I got tired and went to sleep.

When i had a little bit of free time again I continued with balances and automation, changed a couple of things and printed a couple of mixes.

That's the short version of all the travesty.

I also would like to say, like a million others, that this song kicks ass

thanks

[Baeli]

Hey All,

Thanks to all involved in setting this event up, it's been a great learning experience for me.

I tried to keep the Bass & Drums tight and consistent, though I changed the Bass in the 500k range when the B3 was wailing. I tried to get the Gtr to be full when by itself and then have the B3 take that place when it came in. I used delay on the Rhodes to give the impression it was a little wider. I also used delay on the Gtr occasionally to help spread it out. On the vocal, well I tried.....


I mixed ITB .
Protool 7.4
Digi002 Console.
JBL LSR 4326's
Aurotones


On the master bus:
McDSP AC1 (console 1)
Waves RComp (Light, soft squeeze)
Waves S1-Imager

For EQ's:
DigiRack III 1-Band
DigiRack III 4-Band
USRStripPro
Waves Q4-Parametric EQ

For Reverbs:
Waves Trueverb
BREVERB
Waves Rverb
TL-Space
Izotope Ozone3

For Delays:
DigiRack Mod Delay II

For Compressors:
Waves C1-Comp Gate
DigiRack Gate II

Bass:
Amplitube SVX
Amplitube2 (Distorted bass)
Waves Stomp2

[Molly's Lips]

Well, my mix is done. Kind of sad to see this one go, if you know what I mean.

Started out by listening to the tracks and soloing different intstruments to get a feel for what they were doing. I tried to listen for where the "hey look at me!" moments were going to be.

Then I went through the drum tracks and set up gates where I thought they were needed and tried to get a rough balance. Then I balanced and panned the rest of the instruments in a way I thought was going to work. Much more listening, and then started adding eq and compression.

Once I felt I had a good balance going, I started on the vocal track. From here on out through the rest of the mix I would say I spent about 90% of the time on automation alone. Since all the tracks were pretty solid tone-wise, I wanted to work in broad strokes. So, tried to just listen and do things fast. Used the Massey vt3(bass, mid, treble only eq) and did a lot of riding on pretty much everything. There were a few things that I hunted down specific frequencies for but I tried to not spend much time doing that. I wanted the mix to sound natural and kind of unpolished.

The one instrument that I kind of massacred a bit was the bass. My room sucks and I always kind of end up "mixing deaf" when it comes to bass. Burn a cd, out to the car stereo, come back and adjust. I'll just say my end result involved a heavy compression on the DI track, time slipping, phase flipping, and eventually a limiter being slammed with some pretty heavy low end eq.

At the very end of the mix I backed off my compressing of the drums a lot. Specifically the snare. I think I was making the whole kit way more aggressive than it needed to be. With the sound of the room they already had plenty of meat.

So here you go. Mixed on PTLE.

[revmen]

Drums:
Duplicated the kick and snare tracks and edited out bleed. Added some lows and highs to the kick and kompressed it to get some more attack and meat. Snare eq and compressor to make it crack more. Blended them with the unprocessed original tracks. Used the pultec and distressor emulations from liquidmix.

Added some highs to OHs and compressed them. The room tracks i just squased with distressor nuke mode from liquidmix.

No FX on drums otherwise.

Bass:
Sent the di and cab to a buss and added lows and 1.6k and compressed them.

GTR:
Can't really remember.

B3:
Light LP and HP. Scooped some low mids too. Big reverb with lots of pre-delay and LP.

Rhodes:
Scooped some low mids and boosted 1k I think. Added a delay.

Vox:
Added 5k and a delay.

2-bus:
SSL emulation from liquid mix.

Platform:
Cubase SX3, LiquidMix, FabFilter and Altiverb.

[takk]

About my mix: Because the raw tracks sounded so good this mix was all about subtle manipulation. My mix consists of mostly automation of levels and a few effect sends. A little reverb on the vocal, Rhodes, guitar, and snare - but not much at all really. Added some delay to the guitar and vocal in the choruses but nothing too drastic. If anything I am afraid of my mix coming off as a little dry or bland, but I think it allows the performance to shine through and come across naturally.

Platform: Cakewalk Sonar 6 Home Studio, Waves SSL + API plugs, URS CSP. Again, not drastic with these effects, just some subtle bumps and moves.

Below is a text-only description of what I did with each track and there is a zipped PDF attached that contains these same descriptions along with screenshot images of all* plugin settings used.

B3: No effects. Only automation of levels. Panned near-hard right. Having the B3 and the guitars on the right allows the Rhodes on the left to stand on its own and come across clearly.

Bass Amp: For the bass guitar I used the bass amp track for the core of the bass guitar sound, left untreated. I kept it at a steady volume throughout.

Bass DI: This track's fader is automated throughout. In the chorus and pre-chorus sections I used the Bass DI track to bring the bass level up in the mix. In the softer sections I took it back down. I used URS Console Strip Pro for a little compression, took out some low-mids, and bumped up the lows. I think the bass plays a very important role in driving the song's momentum.

Guitars: Panned all 3 guitar tracks right, with their reverb panned hard left. A good amount of fader automation on the Ryan track. Treated with reverb using sends to a “Verb” bus. Used the Wave RVerb plug with a setting called “Short warm slap”. Any track that uses reverb on this song is going through this same bus, so only 1 instance of a reverb plug was used in my mix for the whole song, using the send level for more/less effect. Added just a bit of hi-mid and hi's on the Ryan track using Waves SSL EQ. I also inserted a send on the Ryan track to a bus with Waves Doubler inserted and automated the send level so that it was only in effect in the choruses. I wished a doubled guitar part was tracked in the first place as an option, so I guess this was just my attempt to fake it.

Vox: With the vocal track the first thing I did was clone it to a 2nd track. So I had two tracks, Vocal and VoxDbl. The original Vocal track I just hit with a little Waves SSL EQ to make it stand out a little better, but hardly much EQ at all. I used my VoxDbl track to apply a Waves SuperTap Delay and URS CSP's input gain with its tube emulation to beef it up a bit. The VoxDbl track I used fader automation to bring up in the choruses while leaving the original vocal track static throughout the entire song (similar to how I used the two bass guitar tracks). The original vocal track was treated with the same reverb send as described earlier.

Rhodes: Automation of levels again. Panned hard left but the reverb panned hard right. Same reveb bus used here too. Waves SSL EQ. I am realizing while I write this that I treated guitars, vox, and the Rhodes with virtually the same EQ settings. I'm not sure what made me do this, it just ended up that way.

Drums: First of all tracked beautifully! The first time I've worked with room mic tracks and loved it. I'll break it down.

Kick: Waves SSL EQ to add a touch of lows at ~100Hz, reduced the low-mids, and again the same hi-mid and hi boost (Why do I keep boosting up there?). I also put a Waves L2 on the kick. Why? Well since I was getting most of my kick sound from the room mics I wanted the kick track to be a uniform level thru the whole track. The room mics provided all the dynamics I needed.

Snare: URS CSP for EQ and compression. Also used the reverb send, I felt the room mics alone just didn't give me enough of what I wanted there. Again, as with the kick, rooms where giving me most of the snare I wanted.

OverHeads: I didn't think the overheads were needed for much. I panned them about half-way Left/Right and brought them way down in volume, heavily cut their lows and some mids and boosted the hi-ups. I used Cakewalk's Sonitus EQ for this. I was using the OH tracks just for some cymbal “shimmer.”

Room Mics: The mono room was left untreated, panned center, and is right up there in the mix. The stereo room mics were panned hard left/right, much wider than the overheads. I sent them to a bus and strapped on the Waves SSL Compressor. I also used the CakeWalk Sonitus EQ and reduced the highs.

Toms: Gated with Waves C1 Gates, some reverb using the same send as all the other tracks. Both Toms panned 35% to the right (that was an oversight but I don't hear that causing a terrible effect.)

Tambourine: Panned 40% to the left to impart a “drummers perspective” feel to the mix. Other than that it was left alone.

Master Bus: Waves AP-2500 Comp 2:1 ratio 1.5 db makeup gain. URS BLT EQ +1.6db of treble.

*In my PDF I forgot to add description and screenshots for the Waves API Comp and URS BLT EQ I used on the master bus.

[CaptainHook]

I'll be surprised if anyone listens to this.
Here it is anyway. Most my time spent on automation.

[booman]

Here's my effort.

Pleasure to do - quality track and quality tracks to work with.

Mixed on a protools HD3 system running 7.2. Mainly used waves plugins.

Basically just tried not to ruin what is a great track and sounded great before I did anything to it. Used no sample enhancement/ replacement and left everything as it was track wise.

Looking forward to hearing what everybody else did to it.

Booman:)

[Vonraddatz]

My MIX!!

PTLE 7.3, KRK Mons, Project Studio, Ren Bundle, DaD tape and valve (demo).

I can't realize if I'm getting better, but it's great being here!!!!:Thumbsup:

[magicchord]

Here's mine. I used the REAPER application, splitting the mix out to 16 stems for my analog mixer. Stock plugins only. All console faders at unity so it's like using a simple 2-bus. The ZIP contains the RPP project file.
Did a touch of limiting after the fact.
Reduced the overall level 2dB when I made the mp4 to prevent encoding nastiness (I don't have as high an opinion of AAC as do some here).

[Pimp-X]

Hi All,

I want to kill my computer.

I want to kill it dead.

I remember Aardvark issuing a 'Fuck Punctuated' (TM, Aardvark) missive because his browser ATE a very long post he had painstakingly constructed, where MY browser did exactly that, just now.

I had gone through my mix, blow by blow, track by track, and laid out what I did and why. AND FIREFOX ATE IT. But it wasn't firefox's fault. QUICKTIME. Steve Jobs, you asshole, you're next. Quicktime tried to play a link I was testing, but the audio device was in use by something else, and quicktime crashed taking firefox with it. OH BOY. Urge to kill is EXTREME.

ANYWAY, now that I have acute OOS in both wrists (From typing, jackass, not the byproduct of marriage) I am going to type the whole fucking thing out again from memory. My bad, alcohol addled memory. And I'm doing it because I love you.

THAT'S LOVE. TRUE LOVE.

So anyway, here we go. I'll try and swallow the bile and re-enter the mood of love, overcoming my inbuilt instinct to put my fist through the fucking screen. :doubledeuce::doubledeuce::doubledeuce: motherfucker :doubledeuce:.

How I approach a mix

In order to deliver an appropriate mix, generally a good mix I think (You know, one that doesn't suck ass crack or similar), I need to fall in love with a song, or something about a song.

In this case, the song was pretty easy to like. To love, in fact. This is great, we're off to an easy start. Of course, being handed tracks that sound like molten dogshit would be disadvantageous and instantly kill any feelings of love, but of course, these tracks sounded like liquid gold. Happiness is!

I am a very visual person. Most of my internalised emotions and memories are accompanied by a minds-eye picture. In the case of this song, I have a cold, bleak day with bad light. It's cold and misty. The deer has taken on human characteristics like love and despair, of course. How else would a deer plead with you?

Believe me, when I first wrote this, I was more passionate. It's difficult to be passionate when you can still taste your duodenum in the back of your mouth.

My faders-up is a fader-by-fader thing. I don't use my forearm or my foot. I try and lay out the peices as I feel they will fit during this process, to give me an idea of where I'm going to start things. I find this especially useful mixing a song of this type that has a clear climactic section in the middle, while starting and finishing much more low-key.

This isn't the first time I've mixed something Mixerman has tracked, so I had a feeling it was going to be a breeze, and it was. The mark of a true tradesman is in the quality of his work. That I had absolutely no struggle on my hands spoke volumes about the skill of the tracking engineer.

Obligatory ass nuzzling is now complete. Onwards to the 'what I did'...

What was the setup?

I am between studios right now. This is what happens when you build a studio into the house you own, and subsequently move house. Yep. That has another byproduct - making you so incredibly broke you have to wait a few months before beginning studio construction again. This will be studio #3. I don't intend to build studio #4 - I refuse to die in this manner.

So, I mixed this in a rather acoustically poor room. Very sparse treatment, save for a few corner traps and a bit of absorbtion at sight-line reflection points. Far from ideal, but workable.

Basically all the good shit is boxed up, and stored at the moment, so this was 100% ITB. I monitored with a pair of Tannoy Reveal's, and Avantones. The DAC was an Apogee Mini-DAC. All this driven by the DAW which is Sonar 7 PE. Only hardware DSP was a pair of UAD-1's.


An Overview Of The Processing

Because this song is quite gentle and open, I have been a lot more gentle with my processing. My 2buss compression is gentle, though effective. I opted for less compression on the drums, and no drum buss compression, like I'd typically use. I let the 2buss compressor handle quite a lot of the individual duties. Approaching things this way tends to make a better jello - especially with songs like this.


The Drums

Kik - Initially i wasn't too fussed on the tone of the kik. I'd usually track something sharper than this, because I'm a rock guy. However, if the kik was all D6 on my ass then it'd have stuck out like dogs balls on a hot day. Not really in keeping with the context of the song.. So anyway, the kik got a dose of SSL E-Channel. I used no gating on the kit, just EQ and compression. The compressor topped out at 3dB metered GR. Pretty gentle by my standards...
Snare - Sounded fantastic. Brightened up a bit with the E-Channel, again no gating, very gentle compression.

Toms - That crazy ol' E-Channel made an appearance again. little expanding this time, but certainly not to infinity and beyond - just enough to take care of any obvious ringing.

Overheads - You guessed it. EQ and a HPF at about 300. A bit of sizzle added, and GR topping out at about 12dB metered GR. Okay, so maybe I wasn't totally gentle...

Room - The trend continues. I like to use the same breed of processing on the drums, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and synergistic. I'm sure it's all in my head. Anyway, a bit of shaping to bring out the mids, and to kill any rumblies that might skew the compression. Again about 12dB metered GR at maximum.

Mono Room - nothing but compression with the G-Master Buss compressor. Blended to taste.

The Smash Buss - The kik, snare and toms all go here, where they are greeted by a G-Master Buss compressor. This compressor achieves up to 16dB GR with a 30ms attack and 300ms release. Ratio of 10:1.

Why The Smash Buss - I'm a punch freak. Plain and simple. Blended in parallel with the drum buss.

So the drums sounded like this. (http://thewombforums.com/audio/px-m3/drums.mp3)


The Bass

The bass was pretty straightforward. I loved the sound of the cabinet, so I gave that some compression with a Sonalksis compressor, followed by some shaping with a RenEQ 6 band.

The DI, i took into Amplitube2 and roughed it up a bit. I gave it a stereo component with a bog-standard Cakewalk chorus, followed by Mac's MacEffectOne.

And the bass sounded like this. (http://thewombforums.com/audio/px-m3/bass.mp3)


The Guitars

The guitars all got a tickle from the PSP Vintagewarmer. Individually and to taste, they got compressed with various things from Rencomp to Sonalksis, and EQ'ed with the SSL EQ. Most of the EQ was for penning purposes, ie, LPF and HPF. The tone in tracking was awesome and didn't really benefit from any further brutalizing.

Ambience was provided by UAD Plate140 and CSR Hall. Some delay added here was Voxengo AFDelay.

Here and there I used some HRTF to place guitars a little wider than the speakers. Couldn't go too silly with this or the song would start to sound weird.

And the guitars sounded like this. (http://thewombforums.com/audio/px-m3/guitars.mp3)

The Rhodes

This really didn't need anything. So, it didn't really get anything. No EQ. No compression. I sent an aux of the rhodes off to an instance of Plate140, and widened that out with S1.

And the rhodes sounded like this. (http://thewombforums.com/audio/px-m3/rhodes.mp3)


The B3

I actually forgot to bring these tracks up till last, at which time they blew my mind. I compressed the L & R separately to preserve as much of the stereo difference as I could. They got a little bit of limiting on the stereo buss by a UAD 1176, just to take care of any pedal craziness. Other than that, nothing really happened to the B3..

And the B3 sounded like this. (http://thewombforums.com/audio/px-m3/b3.mp3)


The Tamborine

Best tamborine track ever. Took nothing, left nothing. Might have squirted a little verb onto it, but that's it.

And the tamborine sounded like this.
(http://thewombforums.com/audio/px-m3/tamborine.mp3)

The Vocal

The vocal sounded great. If I was spending more time in editing, I may have cleaned up some of the punches, but it was generally pretty good. I really like the Cakewalk Vintage Channel VC1 for vocals, so I used that. Bit of deessing, bit of compression, bit of EQ for air. That's about it. Ambience was Plate140 and Voxengo AFDelay.

And the vocal sounded like this. (http://thewombforums.com/audio/px-m3/vocal.mp3)

Those MP3's I posted

They're all via the SSL on the 2buss. I can't figure out the math in my head, but I suppose if you took all those MP3's and played them back at unity, you'd get my mix, and a bunch of lossy MPEG artefacts. I did use a bit of limiting on the mix I presented to bring up the level a bit, but I was pretty gentle with it.

I'm not exactly sure what the point of me going to all this trouble and WRIST PAIN to describe what I did here IS.. but I hope it's helped shed a little light into what I did, why, and how. As always I'm happy to address any questions about stuff, so, feel free to question me about stuff.

As the fearless Mixerman would say, enjoy.

-PX

[FredSanford]

Mixed ITB in Logic 8. A couple of tiny arrangement tweaks. UAD-1, Waves, URS, DUY plugins etc..........

Thanks again to Ryan and Mixerman for sharing.:Thumbsup:

[KPHayes]

Here's mine. Pretty straightforward, nothing fancy. Vox out front as I felt they should be the focus of this tune.

I mixed it on a Yamaha n12 and automated it by hand so it's pointless to post my Cubase session, it's just the tracks with a few FX returns. Had some trouble with the bass, I found it a little boomy in parts but I think I may of taken it to far the other way. Didn't feel like messing with it anymore. Good tune and pretty easy to mix, lot's of room for different ideas, looking forward to hearing everyone else's.

[prunelle]

I love this song... I love the band... I love the Womb's team...
Thanks for this great project.
So here's my mix.

1. My english isn't very good (I'm french), it's not easy to ear the sense of the singer's words in english, sorry.

For me, this song is a requiem-like... so :

I've tried to preserve the "vibe" of the song, the emotion. Something who makes me imagine the band playing live in front of me. Tried also to keep the voice "in the mix".
Lot of automation, I've deleted some hi-hat "tic-tac" in the verses (feel the 6/8 groove), the vox is dry, the drums too. The piano sounds like "bells of hell" in the intro, I've tried to amplify this feeling with a distortion (BF-PSA). Some distortion on certain words to amplify what the guy's saying, even if I don't understand the lyrics... lol


2. Mixed on PTLE 7.4, genelec 1030, DT770 pro. My room is not treated.

[uncleozzy]

Mixed ITB in Logic 8, monitored on tiny KRK monitors in a lousy room. Only built-in plugs except for a little of Massey's TapeHead on the drums, and Airwindows Classic Channel on the 2-bus.

Many of you will hate the amount of compression on the drums. I liked it; big and nasty. But I'm a rank amateur, so really, what do I know? Hope I didn't completely ruin Mixerman's fantastic work.

Pretty straightforward mix, really. Doubled the snare for some silly EQ and compression, but it was a bit gratuitous.

Rock on.

[Kenny Gioia]

Here's my mix.

I'll be posting my mix notes in this thread (http://thewombforums.com/showthread.php?t=7440), where you can also ask questions and discuss it.

Thanks.


NOTE: This is Mix #6, which is an updated mix to the previous Mix #5.
.

[kgderrick]

Mixed ITB: PTLE Digi003, XP, Quad Core

Most tracks were treated with URS Classic Console Pro. Some use of Massey Compressor, Ren Axx, and Roger Nichols EQ

Guitar Reverb: Waves IR1
Delays: Digi
Vocal Effect Chorus: Waves Supertap fed into Waves Doubler

Notes:
Verses - somewhat dry (wanted intimacy)
pre-chorus - added a little effect to vocal
choruses - increased vocal effect, added reverb to guitar
bridge - crushed the drums a little

k

[teetoleevio]

Here is my mix.

My approach has been "natural" and strictly LCR panning. :lol:

Not Alsihad here, but Nuendo 3 on a PC, ITB mixed with Uad-1s and SSL Duende thru a Sumo analog summing box and a FMR RNLA leveler and Duende Buss Compressor. No mastering. Just a HPF monoizing, a UAD 1073 and a limiter.

My fake console is a Tascam US 2400.

The final output is dynamic and quite low, I think.

No fancy effects, not too much automation except lead vox, it's all pretty dry with big drums, a little bit old school...

Many thanks to Charles Dye, Ryan and Mixerman for this occasion.

Many thanks also to my NS10s, as always... :Coolio:


It's very late night here in Italy, I am quite tired but really enjoyed :Wink:

Any feedback is really appreciated, guys !!!


Teetoleevio

[Cheech]

Im dumb, I'll be back :Roll eyes:

[Doylemusic]

My Mix

I mix on PT 7LE 002R with Black Lion Audio Mod. Clocked to an Apogee Rosetta 800. I run my mix through my Vintech 1272 for a bit of Analog love. I also use Imager, Inflator, SSL buss comp on the track I write back into PT.

My approach was to simply follow the emotion of the tune and not try to do too much.

Drums - In addition to the kick, snare, tom tracks, i also bussed them to a Drum buss and applied some comp to them using API 2500 (about 6db). I also comp'd the individual tracks all with API 2500 except the Toms which I used the RCOMP. I tend to use all API plugs for Drums in Rock as they seem to have that magic. I created a Kick Tone track with a 52hz sine wav and triggered it off the kick to get a little more low tone (thanks Kenny). I'm using about 15% of the stereo Rooms, and 25% of the Mono. No Verb on the drums (first for me). Oh, almost forgot, I added a snare that just adds a bit if snap. It comes up mostly on the bigger sections so the snare can cut through the mix.

Bass - I used a 60/40 blend favoring the Amp. Added a bit API EQ, mostly dumping the 50hz, 180hz, and adding a bit of 2.5khz and 800hz. I comp'd these with the BF76 plug.

Guitars - I didn't do much to the Feedback, Rakes, Dly. A bit of URS CSP. On the main Gtr track, I doubled it, panned it hard left, Right. I added some Split Harmonizer (doubler with one side +9 other side -9) to it to widen it a bit. I also used the URS CSP on it, mostly notching out the 500hz areas and bumping the highs about 1.2db. I comp'd these with the API 2500 as well.

Rhodes - Used the Split Harmonizer on this as well. Also used the CSP to notch out some of the low mids to clean it up a bit. I added some Flange/Chorus on the little break down section. I also did some pannaing during that section.

B3 - having grown up playing B3 in Church, I tend to get a little crazy over Hammond tracks. I used the CSP for some minor EQ, added some Imager to widen it a bit. I also did some fast panning on a couple of the "fast leslie" parts, it adds a bit of tension.

Vocals - had a hard time figuring out what to do with these. I ended up with three vocal tracks. Track 1(main vocals) I used Desser, PSP Vintage Warmer on Mult Band Comp Lim Light. I like using it as it can bring the vocal right in front of you. Also used CSP, Inflator in the loudest section to bring it up in the mix. Last but not least I used Rvox, to really get some immediacy. As you can see, I'm heavily MILAR influenced. Track 2 - I used BF Pultec EQP-1A to crank some of the highs and cut some lows. I sued this track mainly to make sure the vocals didn't get buried in the loud sections. I didn't like the sound of just turning up the main track, so I just tried to bring up the enunciations. I should mention that I have a very small touch of 8th note delay on all the vocals to get a bit of depth/space. Track 3 I just used for some of the echo stuff towards the end. I cut a lot of the meat out of this and only wanted it slightly noticeable. I used Wizoo Verb as my main verb on vocals.

I found myself sitting on this one till the last minute as I felt the "mix" was already there with the faders at unity. I think this was tracked pretty well and I think the drums sounds are very true and didn't want to crush and spank the life out of them. I tried to use the B3 as the instigator, really pushing the tune and at time making the vocals seem as though the were getting swallowed, hopefully adding to the tension. Thanks

[jaygro]

Well here is my attempt.

When first hearing the song I thought it was great and the sounds were killer. I wanted to try and add to the atmosphere/vibe I was getting from it. I kept the vocals before the 1st chorus pretty dry and up front to give it that intimate feel... hopefully to draw you in to what was being said. I also used only the mono room mic and filtered it a little to keep the drums back... I brought the kick and snare mic in on what I would call the 2 pre choruses. Once the chorus came in I kinda let the mix get big. I tried to make the bridge vox very dreamy. At the end I brought the vox back to the intimate vibe.

Here is what I remember using.

Everything was done ITB with Digital Performer 5.12

Drums - I used Liquid Mix compressors on the Kick, Snare and Room. I had a compression bus for Kick, Snare and Toms with a PSP Vintage Warmer... I might have gone a little crazy. I hit the Kick and Snare pretty hard. I used DPs Masterworks EQ on all the tracks. I used a Waves IR1 for verb on Snare and Toms. I also gated the Snare and Kick with DPs MAsterworks Gate.

Bass - I only used the Amp track. Liquid Mix Distressor setting and DP Masterworks EQ. There was a Bass bus with a UA 1176.

B3 - Didn't do too much to it. Kept the channels hard left and right. I saw it as filling in the whole mix.

Rhodes - Panned it a little left. For the start and end I sent it to a delay on the right side. Used Masterworks EQ.

Gtrs - They were panned right. Rake guitar Masterworks EQ, Multimode Filter, and plate verb. The other guitars had a little Masterworks EQ and a send to a reverb that was panned left. Thought it gave it great effect especially on the pre chorus.

Vox - A little Waves RevVox and Masterworks EQ. A little UA 1176 on the Vox Bus. I did very little Vox Compression. The Vox had 3 send... One to a Waves IR1... one to a PSP84 Delay... one to a Masterworks EQ, Plate, Chorus and PSP84.

2Bus - Liquid Mix Compressor hitting about 1.5db.

Thanks to everyone for making this happen. I'm having a great time. Hope you enjoy my mix.

jay

[eclectik]

My name is Eric, aka as eclectik, and I'm 28 from SC. I've been mixing semi-professionally for about a year but have been exposed to live and studio sound most of my adult life, primarily from my involvement in churches.

I mixed this gem of a song in Pro Tools 7.4 LE ITB with mostly Waves (primarily the API, V, and SSL plugs). I also used some stock Digi plugs, moogerfooger plugs for general FX and delays, and Altiverb for my verb.

What I tried to capture in this mix was charged emotion with a twinge of whimsical, given the rather odd subject. Honestly, and this is going to come across as an excuse, I was rocking in this mix when my computer decided it couldn't handle all the plugs and automation I was throwing at it. I managed to get a (mostly) error free bounce and decided to leave it alone. If I could go back and build upon this even more, I would bring the vocals down and the guitars down down in the chorus. I'd also bring down the ride in spots. When I tried to go back and make the changes, my computer crapped out. Time for more RAM.

Anyway, I had a blast with the song and hope it deserves a listen. I reviewed a couple mixes before I posted mine to see if I felt mine could compete given the compromised state of where I left it. I feel like my mix can be appreciated, even with it's flaws. If interest sparks, I'll try to fix my computer woes and make some final tweaks.

I'll post a little about each subgroup below.

Drums

The drums sounded phenomenal as is and I just blended in some samples to kick and snare to avoid gating. I use Drumagog and I love it, although it's a resource hog. A little EQ, compression and verb to taste, and a little dash of parallel compression on the snare and I felt the drums had a modern edge without loosing the character of the raw tracks. I need to bring the kick up probably in some parts.

Bass
I primarily used the mic track with a little Sansamp for some bite and VComp for a dB or two of leveling. The interesting bit, and I hope you can hear it is during the prechorus, I used the DI track with the moogerfooger RingMod plug and some filtering for a neat little effect.

Guitar
I struggled with wanting this big wall of sound when the chorus kicked in but realized the song was tracked intentionally with only one main rhythm guitar and tried to keep the integrity of the production. I used a heavy dose of verb and panned it opposite of the guitar to give it some stereo. For effect, I muted the track and just used the reverb return on one of the breaks. Processing was Wave's SSL Channel for a tad of comp and a bit of hi-pass and presence around 3K I believe. In hindsight, I would turn the guitars down a bit in the chorus.

I also multed the guitar over to a new track and processed it with some Sansamp just for effect. At times, I brought it up a little and panned it hard opposite to thicken it out a little.

Rhodes
I love the Rhodes as a keyboard player and just tried to keep this natural sounding and EQed it ever so graciously. Added a touch of verb to smooth it out. I did manage to get a bit of air into it but that came with it's fair share of noise. If, and when, I go back to the mix, I will try to tame that, hopefully without losing the air. I also processed a section of Rhodes with moogerfooger RingMod for a "spinning out of control" type of effect. Hopefully it's subtle but appropriate. This is the whimsical thing I was touching on earlier.

B3
I love the B3 and the performance was top notch. Just a dose of Sansamp for a little 122 sim distortion and a touch of verb and some automation here.

Vocal
Tons of automation with the normal EQ, comp, de-ess treatments. I used the Waves Neve emulations on the vocal with a left send to delay, right send to verb, special FX send to Sansamp distorted to hell, and a little parallel for edge.

Master
This is craziness and reading the average preferred RMS of -11, I would have tweaked this but... this is my Master fader in order: AC-1, SSL G-comp, C4, URS Channel Strip Pro, and Wave's Linear Phase Multiband acting as a limiter.

Can't wait to hear more mixes and get some feedback on mine.

Cheers! :Coolio:

[chrisj]

I've had a really tough week (and day) so my mix is emo and raw as hell. It's exactly the way I want it- today. That's how I'm posting it.

I mixed on Logic Pro 8.

[eclectik]

I've had a really tough week (and day) so my mix is emo and raw as hell. It's exactly the way I want it- today. That's how I'm posting it.

I know this isn't the discuss thread... BUT I think I've listened to at least 20 seconds of every mix so far and I have to say, after hearing 50 shades of red, it was nice to hear a shade of blue. :)

[tamasdragon]

Here's mine. Didn't has much time, but I wanted to be in.
Mixed in ptle with mptk and stock plugs.
Tried to keep it simple, used lcr panning. Reverbs made with tlspace, and one room with dverb. Tried to treat the vocal as the king of the song. Did some panning effect and automation for suspense and for crescendos, also for doing some earcandy. Like in the first part of the song the two "breath" get some rev, the first prechorus keys are getting stronger, the second prechorus getting tougher/louder, etc.
Used eq and compression on drums, little eq with the bass and the guitars.
I hope you enjoy it, thanks for listening.
Tamas Dragon

[JariNi]

Mixed ITB in PTLE 7.4 on Genelec 1029/1091.

For the most part I used MDW eq and CT4.
Guitars are widened with stock digidelay.

FX:
Guitars - TLSpace EMT140

Other instruments - TLSpace 68000 WarmPlate + CSR Room Ambience

Vocals - TD5 delay

Had a real fun distorting vocal choruses with Izotope Trash. I wanted to get a feel where vocals are driven hard.
I had to brake the rules and pitchshift a new vocal harmony to "goodbye daydream...". I kept hearing it in my head until it had to be there.

Tape-Head on subgroups for glue and grit. SV315 comp on masterbuss with Pultec EQP-1A for shimmer. I "fixed" my mistakes with Ozone at the end of the chain...:very happy:

[norman_damon]

ITB

[princeton]

So my "deer" here we are.
I mixed ITB, Nuendo3,
Drums - EMI limiter and Waves EQs and SSL

Bass - Oxford EQ
L1

Guitars - REQ6

Keys - REQ6

Vocal - L1, VEQ3

Sends - Oxford Reverb, EMT 140 emu - 2.4 sec. dec.
SIR2 rev. - Lexicon 960L - Plate A impuls
Izotope Trash
Discord - H910
Ultrafunk delay

Master Bus - URS Strip Pro
Brainworx digital
L2

And thats it. BTW it was a great fun to mix such a nice and top tracked song.

[Billy_B]

Here's mine...
ITB with Sonar 6.2

I just finished an album that was pretty much the same instrumentation (down to the squeaking pedal on the piano). The drums were different and that was a change of pace.


Drums, I did some gating on the kik and snare. Toms too. Used the bundled sonitus gates.
Most hilariously I used CSP on all the close mic's and OH's with mostly bundled presets. My favorite being Tom L and Tom R. This works out fine because I'm mostly using the room mic's without any eq for the main character of the drums. All the goofy presets worked adequately for positioning. There is some UAD 33609 compression on the drum bus.

Rhodes got CSP
GTRs got API 550b
Bass got some Oxford eq and API conpression.
B3 Got some SSL channel strip.

Vocals have a slight amount of processing from several plugins including C4, UAD 1073 and Oxford EQ but not much from any of it.

For reverbs.
CSR and Oxford mostly.

2bus has CSP doing some glue and API 2500.

My RMS power in Wavelab 4 is -19 so if I understand correctly that is really -13 in the real world or something like that.

My prediction for myself came true that I would get very busy with other jobs if I decided to participate in this and I did. Good for me.

Thanks MM and Ryan and everyone else involved for doing this!

Cheers, BB

[Skwaidu]

Here's my mix. I'm in a bit of a hurry so I'll save descriptions for later... But it's the same rig I mixed Mixit1 with, ITB+analog outboard and "summing".

Cheers!

[southboundloco]

here's my mix...this song pretty much mixed itself.

thanks mixerman & ryan

oh... i used protools with DUY,Massey,Ren...the usual

[dikledoux]

Awright, cheezus.

Here's mine. I posted an MP3 instead of an M4a because I live in PC world and the free M4a encoder I tried actually DELETED my WAV file after making a useless M4a. Thankfully I'm a backup fanatic.

Aboot my mix:
First - I completely ripped off the ideas that Mixie employed to move the song along. The emphasis on the snare on the word "crack" some echo on the bridge for the vocal, some verb on the guit in the interlude thing. I figured since the subtext was "mix for Mixerman" I'd take advantage of the fact that not only did he TELL me what he'd have done, he gave me an example to work from and it seemed stupid to stray from that as he'd prolly go apeshit if I went all Kenny on him (hehehe). So I dutifully tried to execute his ideas in a like manner.

Plus his ideas were spot on (except the snare reverb on "crack" seemed a bit cheezy).

But I wanted to add some extra "rock" to it. More aggressive drums and bass, some grit to the vocals (that were sung pretty athletically on the track) because it seems that's where the singer was heading.

Since the song sounded great faders up, I decided to START with automation and got pretty much in the ballpark from there. I've included screenshots in the session zip of some of the things that I did to get there. Here's a quick rundown of those JPGs for anyone who wants to check it out:

VocalAutomation - mostly to ensure the words show up amidst all the glorious other stuff. Used a trashed vocal to thicken up the voc in parts. Automated that against the regular vocal.

VocTrashed - CamelCrusher, EQ and a delay setting to stereo-ize this effect. I wanted to be able to spread the vocal out when I employed the trashy voc without screwing with the original track all that much.

Guit and Bass Automation - Guitar for volume, pan (toward center for interlude) and verb. Bass to dip a couple db off at 100hz during the interlude so it didn't upstage the guitar part.

Bass Processing - Mostly used the amped track, but also added the DI super-low passed and crushed to shit so I could get it more ringy and new-stringy. Going for a Graham Maby kinda thing. Bass Amp track just notched the fret noise area.

Bussing and Multiband - how I set up my subs... drums (sans oheads) to a crazy comp and then parallel back to the drums and bass sub. Multiband on the drums to tame the hi-mids that started to show up from all the extra thrashing I did to them. Multiband on the hi-mids for the vocs to keep it sitting in the mix as I automated it. I use the Sonitus multiband as a glorified de-esser like this a LOT cuz it's just easy to use and it doesn't seem to take up much processor power when I bypass bands.

And THEN, rather than use a plugin on my 2-bus I ran the whole thing back into my mixer and inserted my shiny new FMR Audio RNC. I tried this experiment after I used a plugin... The mixer and RNP let me get the drums much more thumpy - better impact - and I like what it did to the cymbal bloom and pump more than a plugin did.

Oh - and I did this on Sonar.

That's it. Thanks Charles, et al for this thing. And Mixerman for the totally bitchin' tracks and StrangeFaces for a great song and performance.

dik

[BoogieWithStu]

Mix Notes Created April 21, 2008 After Mixing version 1.2.7

Ableton Live 6, Macbook, Presonus Firepod, Dynaudio BM5A Speakers, Panasonic portable for checking mix.

General Philosophies & Elements:

- Wanted to take advantage of the dynamic content, tension and release.
- Thought the variuous instrument colors should change, rather than ride through the whole mix. Arrangement wise, this was already established for the most part.

- Drums - lots of great mic sounds, decided to take advantage of the good room ambience.

- Lead Vocal - Looking for a slightly distressed sound, used the 'Vintage Vocal' preset on Blockfish compressor (digitalfishphones.com) along with a rise around 10KHz on a
DDMF II EQ Pro.

-Lead Vocal Double - decided to create some tension. Made two dupes of the wet vocal, slowed one 10ms and sped one up 10 ms, panned hard left and right.

-Bass - while I prefer an amp sound, I used the DI sound to maintain some definition. The DI track is bone dry, and the mic track has a saturation simulator on it. The last bass segment was sent through the Studiodevil Virtual Guitar Amp.

- Guitar FX Clips - a bump in the high end on the delay clip in particular. reversed the feedback clip, and allowed only midrange to pass. Added a bump at 3KHz to the rakes, as well as some reverb.

- Ryan Guitar (Main Rhythm Part) - emphasized attacks going into the choruses, pulled back in placed to allow the Rhodes and B3 to speak for variety.

- Didn't use the Mono Room track. In hindsight, it might have cleared up the hat and cymbal issues a bit, and defined the bigger drum sound in the choruses.

- Tried to alternate the Room mics in the chorus and the overheads in the verses.

- Doubled the kick and snare tracks, a parallel compression scheme. Went for a little more slap and low thump, and the compression sustained the decay of the drum somewhat.

- Mixbus - PSP Vintage Warmer - seems to put the mix on the edge a bit. Shame on me - still experimenting with this stage.

- Reverb - The big tom thump was sent to a Waves Rennaissance reverb. The rest of the ambience was based on room mics or ambience already tracked.

Thanks to all involved for the opportunity. A great, well recorded song. See you in the discussion forum.

[Alanml]

Hi,
I'm Alan from Spain this is my first mix of this style, I always work with electronic music :P
I've been with final exams and had to do it with my macbook and headphones ( Fostex T7 ) instead at the studio.

It's all done with logic 8 and I used Voxengo Saturator all the rest with logic native plugins.

Well, I started the mix cleaning all the tracks when I finished I did a pre-mix leveling all the tracks.

I started with the drums, EQ & COMP sended to 2 buses doing a parallel comp.

With the bass I did a bus DI for clean and distorsioned a little bit the bass amp track.

Gtr Ryan I doubled tracks and panned them 15% to left, cutted low and hi end.

B3 I've panned it to the right, because it was always fighting with the voice and Ryan gtr.

Rhodes had a lot of automation in the hole track.

For voice I cutted low end and bringed up a littel bit the middle.
Did two more tracks that in certain parts of the songs the voice is more distorsioned.

I used 6 reverbs and some delays.

Sorry about the short explanation and for my bad english.
For the next Mix I will do it in the studio and not with my headphones :P

Best Regards

Alan

[DaveC]

I have really enjoyed this challenge - this is not a genre of music I work in, but it is one which I love listening to. It has also been a pleasure to work on such a great song which has been so well recorded...

anyway - time for me was a big limit - about 9 hours mix time over 3 days. I got it to a place where for me it worked as a song/mix, although a big part of me knows that it basically is not finished. However I feel it is presentable and complete, I just know it could be taken further and maybe in time I would reverse some decisions.

It was done in PTLE 7.3.

Drums - usually I work with a lot of samples, but I didn't feel that was appropriate or necessary here. Started with the room and added the spot mics in. Also duplicated the snare and kick tracks, deleted the sound which wasn't a kick or snare as appropriate, and put some fades in. This seemed a bit easier than gating them, and I used both the unedited and the edited versions of these drums in the mix.

Bass - ended up using both the mic and the DI (through an amp sim)

Rhodes - rolled off the top because I don't like tape hiss, and it didn't seem to miss the top when it was gone. Added a phaser to give it some movement and keep it dark.

Other instruments - generally just added a bit of ambience via delays or verb, and used eq so that the sounds gelled and kept the dark atmosphere

trem guitar - I wanted this to have more space and spread so I started with a ping-pong delay, this didn't quite do it, so I added a pitch shift down on the delay of -10 cents (I think) - positioned so the pitch shift increases as the delay feeds back. Cheesy or effective? You decide.

Vox - limited, de-essed, eq'd to warm it a bit. A delayed verb is the main space, with an added beat delay in the chorus to open it up a bit. There is also a distorted slap echo in the bridges, which helped to structure the song, but might have been too much. I kinda like it though.

'moose solo' - the guitar lead bit, I wanted this to open out and get washy, so big delay on the guitar. Also boosted the bass here.

end break - i brought the rhodes up at the start and faded it slightly so the feedback takes over. I augmented the feedback with a feeding back analogue delay and a build of filtered white noise.

At the end I faded in the pitched ping-pong on the rhodes.

[indiesynthpunk]

Hello All,

First off, this was a pleasure to mix. Mixerman and Ryan did a great job on the tracking, arrangement, and production for this song.

I didn't really load up the tracks with plugins for this one. Instead, I used the EQ to mostly carve out the low end.

I did add a little bit of reverb and delay to some parts of the song, but I think, compared to others, my mix is fairly dry. I didn't want to crank the reverb too much...just a feeling I got during mixing...a little room felt right...not a huge hall or venue.

I did a fair amount of automation for the breakout part and also in select spots where some parts needed to be turned down, and others up.

I made the mistake of leaving the faders a little too high for the mix, so instead of pulling down every single fader I threw on a gain plugin and pulled down the master a little bit.

If you guys have any questions or anything, feel free to ask in the discussion thread. Thanks again. I had fun.

I didn't use any outboard gear for this. Just the plugins that are included with Logic 7 and Ozone. For monitoring I used a pair of HS80M's with the matching sub.

I included the .mp4 and session file for Logic 7 in my post.

[Daunt]

I did this mix in Cubase SX3 using Focusrite LiquidMix and mostly Waves REQ and RComp. I added some multiband distortion to the stereo ambience tracks when the chorus starts. After adding some reverb guitars, I also copied the "GTR Ryan" and delayed it 20-30 ms and panned it to the right. I boosted some highs and lowered the fader on the copied track. I wanted to make the guitar wider. Can't remember anything else worth mentioning. I didn't use any sample replacement.

Great song with great lyrics!

[GreySound]

Hey all,
First off, unbelievably good faders up, so I was a happy boy.

Not much to say with my mix. I mixed ITB using REAPER with random freebies I've grown to love. Like others I doubled the guitars. adding about a 20ms delay and pan. For bass i used straight amp, and compressed and eq'd it to get that really nice amp growl it had going for it. I really emphasized the tambourine because....why not?? it sounds great. For Vox i didn't really do much automation, as I wanted the music to swell and fade beneath its straight dynamics. Only thing I did was auto the verb to grow during the verse into the harder bits. Thanks for listening!

[iCombs]

First off, I want to say that it was a GREAT pleasure to mix a song this solid with tracks that were this well recorded. Top level.

I heard so many say that “this song mixed itself,” and I found this to be fairly true for me as well. The drums especially pushed a fairly open feel, so I tried to keep to that sort of ethic throughout the whole recording.

MY SYSTEM:
Reaper
BLA modded 896
Dynaudio BM6A’s.

This is one of the first projects I’ve done in Reaper…I’m finding that I really like its feature-set AND its functionality. You can see the plug sets I used in my screenshots.

MY MIX

Pretty straightforward in terms of treatment…a few points I’ll single out…

-I did use a sample on the kick. The sample is a 26” Ludwig that I snagged from a post that had a slew of kick samples…it’s got HUGE bottom octave that I wasn’t getting off the recorded kick…though the punch that kick had at about 100 was AWESOME, I wanted a little more low end extension…and I wanted a little more isolation without resorting to too much gating.

-I put some “shmear” on the vocal that I rode up and down…you can see my automation envelopes in one of my session shots.

-I also rode the rooms a fair amount…I really wanted intimacy in the first verse, and those closer mics on the kit sounded great.

-The top end of the vocal gave me some trouble…I ended up using a pretty heavy limiter on the top 3dB or so and then hit it with 4-6dB of 4:1, and that seemed to smooth out the top enough for me.

Otherwise…it’s all pretty straightforward.

[zooloop]

Here is my mix. It's mixed in PT 7,3, the majority of inserts are waves ssl and api.

Unfortunatley I've been suffering from a bad cold this week so my ears are all clogged up, so I have to admit that I have no idea how my mix actually sounds like. I'm looking forward to revisit the mix when I feeling better again.

[likelystory]

[EDIT] M4A rather than MP3 attached now. PC users can grab a free WAV -> M4A encoder at http://www.nch.com.au/switch/

Thanks for the opportunity to mix a very fine song indeed! :Thumbsup:

Tell us about your mix

I tried to stay true to the rough mix rather than getting too creative as I figured that is what the producer/artist would have wanted. The bulk of mixing time was spent on automation although I did try a different automation method for this song that I wouldn't normally have done. I put all tracks into automation write mode and then went from start to finish in the song, getting a balance between the parts for each section before punching in and moving on to the next section. I then went back and added the details as well as tidying up the transitions between sections. As a result I ended up with slightly different processing/volume/send levels for each section.

Tell us your Platform

The track was mixed ITB in Nuendo 4.x with Sonnox/Waves plug-ins as the main choices and the Waves API-2500 over the master bus. Monitoring was ATC and small computer speakers. I did most of the balancing on the small computer speakers at low volume.

[nobby]

First of all, a big thanks to Ryan and Mixerman -- you guys did a super job with this song. :Thumbsup: :Thumbsup:

I have to leave shortly (got a wedding to go to tommorrow) but I'll see how much info I can post -- may have to add some later.

Platform: Sonar 6 PE completely ITB

Plugs used:
sonitus EQ on B3 L&R; Kik: Rhodes; Snare; Snare-shot, bass guitar

sonitus reverb on vox & snare-shot

Sonitus gates on toms

VC64 Vintage Channel on Vox and Drums Bus

Lexicon Pantheon on Vox clone track and FX bus

Kjaerhus Audio Classic Delay "tape" on guitar rakes

SSL LMC-1 on snare and snare-shot

Modern 1176ME on bass amp and kik

I'm treating this as if it is being sent to mastering. I went for the organic feel this time. I started mixing without 2 bus comp, liked it, tried adding 2 bus later, didn't like what it did, didn't use one. No sample replacements or enhancements.

Turn Me Up! :Coolio:

I did more fader moves than I usually do. I cloned the rhythm guitar track and put a heavy reverb on the cloned track so I could bring it up in a couple of places where a little extra nastiness seemed appropriate. I also cloned the vox track for more manageability. Probably spent more time mixing this than most, partly because the dodgy monitoring situation :finger: made me keep multi referencing and recalling it :Razz: and partly because I'm not a particularly fast worker and I wanted to do a good job so Mixerman will hire me again :Wink:

All told, I'm pretty satisfied with it; time well spent :)

[Audioboy]

I want to say thanx for the opportunity to learn on this. Truly great material! :Thumbsup:

My mix is done in Cubase Studio 4 on a PC (3.2Ghz, 2 gigs ram), through a MOTU 828MK3 interface. Event PS6 monitors.
10 analog stems summed through my mixer (Yamaha MX400-16), faders at unity, EQ’s switched out.
Plugins used were stock Cubase: auto-pan on rake gtr, gates on toms, vintage plate on an effects buss.

I used doubles of the snare and vocal audio tracks, stripped them down to what I wanted, and sent those to the effects buss.

Final mix has light compression from Endorphin plugin, and dither. This was bounced down to a 16 bit audio file, then converted to M4A at 192KhZ through winamp for upload.

This is a simple mix, mostly volume rides and a couple of effects. Given the nature of the song, I chose to highlight the breathing.

Years ago I did some tracking and mixing with big desks and tape, but this is my first attempt at ITB mixing. Hopefully I didn’t mess things up too horribly. Any comments and criticisms greatly appreciated.
This project seemed the perfect opportunity to start familiarizing myself with ITB, as the tracks provided were amazing, and to me, didn’t need lots of twisting to get the mix happening.

Again, a huge thank you to all involved in making the MIXIT event happen!

[xiangtao]

Here is my contribution. Thank you to the band and to Mixerman for letting us use these tracks. What a difference it makes to start with tracks that were recorded well and sound good to begin with. That being said, hopefully I managed to not mangle this too much. Sounds decent to me but that could be my own lack of experience and completely untreated room.

Mixed completely ITB using Cakewalk Home Studio 2004. All plugins were either native to the program or TC Electronic (in a few cases). Very little in the way of effects used, mostly just a bit of reverb and a good quantity of automation on a few tracks. Vocals I started pretty dry and added some reverb as the song got going. For the bridge I added a second vocal track that was almost all reverb and crossfaded the two for an effect kind of like an audio version of tunnelvision to get the feeling of the animal fading out as he died, then bringing the original vocal track back in to finish up the song.

[joerogers1970]

Hey kids. This was fun. Can't wait for the next one.

History - I listened to the rough at least a couple of dozen times to try to get into the mindset of the song. I'm a very visual person so one of the things that I try to do is figure out and develop a storyboard for the song. Corny but fuck it... works for me. I basically heard this track as two different songs and my storyboard reflected that with the quieter parts being "shot" in b&w, very grainy, lots of close-ups. For the more rockin parts, for whatever reason, I pictured the band playing in a very green forest with the camera pulling back (straight up) and spinning. Maybe I smoked too much weed early in life. Who knows but it's how I saw the song.

I kept everything fairly simple with a little bit of EQ or compression on most of the instruments. The only "off the wall" things that I did were really with the drums: for the quieter parts, I used only the K, SN and OH's and compressed them across a stereo buss. When things kicked in, I featured the room tracks with the rest of the tracks "filling in" and removed the compression from the buss. I was hearing a "When the Levee Breaks" kind of sound and wanted to try to get close to that while maintaining continuity. Rather than fucking with a gate for 3 days, I just kept the toms muted and opened them up when they were hit. Just a little too much hat bleed for me.

The bass was a roughly 50/50 mix of di and mic except for the bridge where it was 80% amp and 20% di. I mixed these to a bus and had a little compression there.

The B3 is panned around 9:00, the rhodes 1:00 and the gtrs filling in here and there.

I was a bit lost with the vocal track as I just couldn't figure out where it belonged. Used some mild compression and minor EQ to try to bring it out a bit. Added an 1/8 note delay for the more rocking parts and doubled the reverb in the bridge.

I don't think that it sucks but what do I know, I sell software for a living.

System:
Mac Pro (intel) 8way with 6 GB Ram
PT 7.4 LE with an MBox 2 Pro, Crown Amp and Tannoy NFM-8's
(I'm open to suggestions on this if I can get something decent together for under $5k)

Stock LE plugins except for the FuckUsRite ISA plugin
TLSpace was the primary reverb with the drums going to the EMT 140A medium and other instruments going to Chamber 4. Used the "digital gated plate" as well and a 1/16th and 1/8 note delay for some gtr and vocal parts

All in all, maybe 4 hours hands-on mixing with another 3 or 4 just listening with the monitor off and the lights down low.

Looking forward to listening to the other 179 versions now.

Later,
Joe


LETS GO RANGERS !!!!!!!!

[7thangel]

i primarily did this otb except for a little gating with Waves C1, Waves Rbass, UAD LA2A, rdesser and *rvox* (i think i bypassed it once i got the friggin UAD to behave) for vocals. unfortunately due to only having a cell phone camera and really sketchy lighting the pictures aren't usable. but here's the process:

after gating the kick, snare, toms and vox i sent each channel out to it's own rail on the SSL AWS+ 9000 (each L & R of stereo had it's own rail) and stayed in analogue mode using the e series eq except for the toms where i used the g series.

drums: eq'd the hell out of the kick and snare and used the OH, mono room and stereo room to compensate for the changes (hence the problem with too much hi and sizzle). no individual compression.

bass: added a little Rbass

B3, Rhodes, Guitars: simple eqing on the board and panning.

Vocals: after pt processing mention above just eq.

once i had it somewhat to what i wanted i sent all the drums, including the 2 rooms, and by accident the 2 bass tracks to the SSL Xlogic compressor via the rec bus while still coming through the mix buss along with everything else. i utilized it as a mix buss insert with a slow release medium ratio (no values displayed) and about - 17 threshold.

i had the Lexicon MPX 500 vocal plate preset tweaked for the vocals, Rhodes, B3, snare, and guitars using the cue 2 sends back into rail 21-22 but no eq enabled.

want i had planned was to send it all through the Drawmer 1969 and then to the cd writer but the Drawmer' channel 2 had a hum beyond the 0 gain level, that and i forgot to bring a cd. so instead i used the AWS+ master compressor at 2:1 medium attack, slow release, and mainly used it for gaining level to print back into pt.

i then brought it home and used Flux epure to roll off any unnecessary low end, solera to ease the comp with angel's share and Voxengo elephant simply to dither down to 16 bits.

i did try to do a little bit more by trying to add more beef to the drums (they sound a bit distant due to my relying on the OH and rooms) and having delay on the vocals at specific spots but most people preferred this mix. despite using the total recall on the AWS+ there was no way to book time again by the deadline so here's my vanilla mix

[CurtZHP]

So, here goes....

I mixed ITB using SAWStudioLite. As far as processing goes, I didn't really go nuts. I used very little, if any, compression on individual tracks; and with EQ I mainly went with subtractive adjustments, cutting rather than boosting. I think the only effect I used was a little stereo echo on the vocal.

I did use a leveling compressor plug-in from Sonorus (free download) across the mix buss.

I basically took a very minimalist approach to the whole project. Based on the vibe I got from the song, that was the way to go.

[chrisjmp]

Heres my mix. I mixed it in the box with PT LE 7.4 on a Mac Pro. I just got the new computer in October, and I think I've been going a little overboard with so much juice and slapping a million plug-ins on everything. With this mix I tried to spend more time listening to the tracks and figuring out what they need, instead of tweaking stuff right off the bat. Unfortunately my setup is in the living room of my apartment, so 90% of my mixing is done on headphones.

DRUMS:
I used a little sample enhancement on the kick and snare, mainly to add a little more attack on both, the snare samp is pretty subtle and is only on the more rockin' parts. I duplicated the snare track, 1 is barely eq'd and compressed, the other fairly heavely gated and squashed. Used a little CSP on the drum buss to glue it together and had a parallel bus crushed a little harder. It seems I usually have to EQ room tracks pretty aggresively to get them to sit the way I want, but these sounded great right off the bat, so I didn't do much.

BASS:
A little Massey Tapehead on the DI, to add a hair more grit, both tracks bussed to an aux with AC1, compresserbank with an LA2A preset and EQ3, all with very subtle settings.

GUITAR:
I panned some TL space verb opposite the main gtr to fill out the stereo spread a bit. Used AC1, Massey CT4 and EQ3 on the gtr bus, barely doing anything, and then a parallel bus with the same plugs, more aggressive settings.

KEYS:
I used CSP on the rhodes, with the rhodes preset, but mellowed out the EQ a bit. Some TL space Verb as well. On the B3 I used BX control to spread it out a little and I made it a touch brighter.

VOCAL:
I split it out to 3 different tracks for different parts. The verse is dry except for a little split harmonizer, and is very compressed with an R-vox plug and BF76 all buttons in. What I guess you would call the pre-chorus is more open with a little delay from TD5 and the chorus/bridge parts have some CSR plate as well.

BUS:
CSP, probably not hitting much more than a DB of gain reduction on the louder parts and ML4000 with a pretty mellow setting on the comp.

[Extreme Mixing]

I don't know why, but I heard this song as a Psychodelic / Beatle/ Prog Rock sort of thing. Maybe the wrong way to go, but it's what I was feeling and I went with it.

See what you think.

Steve

[gitarted]

Yes indeed..

This mix is done...OTB
:lol:

That's right...

I said OTB!

Ahem...

I hadn't done a mix OTB in a while
meaning...I forgot what a PITA , er how much fun it is doing all the moves on the fly.

I was done with this mix about a week ago, but ya know how it is...I ended up trying a few other different ideas (after the point I thought it was done)....only to end up using the first mix anyway.


Console: Soundcraft Ghost
HD24

DRUMS:
I really didn't do a whole lot to them, the sounded pretty damn good.
I did however end up rolling off a lot of the high end on the rooms, a little EQ on the kick, snare.
I used a TC Electronic TripleC multiband comp on just the Kick and Snare.

BASS:
I used a DBX 160A and I used outboard EQ (Symetrix552)

GUITAR: Not much, just a little EQ, and Delay (TCElectronic Gmaj)

VOX:
Not much here either! Just a little delay (Lexicon MPX500) and comp.

KEYS: Just EQ here.

Most of what my mix is made of is riding faders...REAL faders.

I need to take some pic's of the various chanels on my console, and settings on some of my OB stuff...I'll get those to you shortly.

[NuDub]

Hi
sorry for my English , I'm french.

I work on XP Pro with Nuendo
with UAD Card.

Drum : I used SSL e ch. Sonnox Oxf dyn and C1. I used Room for Spread the drum i put all on Buus with little Neve comp.I put little Plate reverd on some track with Hall on snare.

Bass: I used 1176, Cambridge. the bass amp for keep little noise an DI for Low end.

GTR : I used Neve EQ , Sonnox Oxford EQ and C1 and Flux and I used Delay echos for two Gtr part.

Key : Rhodes Neve EQ for the mid and B3 low cut and send to buss with Pultec-Pro
I put a medium Hall wooden on B3 and Rhodes .I automated pan reverb for Rhodes

Vocal : I used Neve channel plus deEsser and I make a Doubler for The Chorus in the middle.
On this I put a Delayed reverd

The was good i like L & R room for naturaly spread the Drum.
I don't touch the arrangement but accentuate few thing.

It was a pleasure to mix it

[DeMontague]

*Sigh*

I am in two minds about posting this - mostly out of fear that I have not improved since MiXiT2! :Roll eyes:

Anyway, I mixed this in about three hours using FL Studio (hehe, I am truly converted :Roll eyes: ) with mostly freeware and built-in plugins. BlockFish and GranComp for compression, Floorfish for gating, and FL Studio's built-in Parametric EQ v2. I resorted to Waves for reverb.

Trying to learn from the mistakes I made last time, I avoided using any compression on the 2 buss, although I did have a limiter catching the overs; this knocked half a db off the loudest snare hits in the chorus, but it didn't seem to kick in otherwise.

Time is tight in my world at the moment. If I had more to spend on this mix I would *attempt* to bring some punchiness back to the drums. Mine are flat and lifeless compared to MM's rough mix, and also compared to a lot of the other mixes already up (I'm thinking particularly of Skwaidu here).

I also fear I may have overcooked the bass, but I can't really trust my monitoring environment either way. Let me know.

I won't bore you with any more details, but will try to put together some comments on other mixes soon! :D

Cheers
Tim.

[GeeWhoLeeo]

here's my mix!
just added my m4a conversion, but i can't listen to it... hope the conversion went ok.
sorry i could only convert it into mp3,for time problems (can't install any software in the computer at the studio), i'll try soon to upload an mp4 version.
This track was mixed OTB with a Soundcraft TS 12, using 16 channels, divided in 8 stereo pairs.So it was mixed in stems.
Swissonic converters were used on the way back in, while Alesis converters were used on the way out.
Monitors were ns10.
Reverb is a PCM 70, with long plate program.
Only compression i applied is to the snare track, with a Distressor,not very much though.
Back to digital the 2 buss stereo was conpressed with RComp and Limited with massey L7.

In the mix i used 2 plugins in total: SSL channel EQ for the kick, guitar and tambourine, and MOOGERFOOGER ring modulator for piano rhodes.

[Mixtressgina]

hi guys
so here is my little offering
was mixed on a borrowed G4 running logic 8 so i ran out of processing power pretty soon.....still i tried to capture the essence of the song rather then go for big sounds

you can flay me now :)
thanks to charles and slippy and mixerman and especially ryan
great work great tracks i have a long way to go
im learning :)

[superloud]

thanks to all involved in MiXiT3 for the opportunity to mix this great song. i've never heard multi tracks as well recorded as these before, so this has been a fasinating experience for me. any of the drum mics in solo easily beat the aggrigate drum sound of my recordings :Wink: this song has none of the problems that i usually face at mix time - all instruments balance nicely with each other don't fight to occupy the same space. great arrangement.

consequently instead of focusing on how to fix problems, i got to concentrate exclusively on the creative side of mixing with the aim to help the song to trigger an emotional reaction in the listener. that was the plan anyway, not sure if i achieved it but i sure learnt a lot from the process.

i mixed the song itb in nuendo, lynx l22 soundcard. very little eq used. the stereo out was compressed with a ssl bus compressor. the room mics and vocal also went out to the ssl. the tracks were printed back into the session and blended in. a couple of other plugins used here and there, but not much.

i forgot to take a photo of the comp settings used for the drums & vox, so there's a screenshot of my 'recall' notes in the zip.

[Padje]

Here's my mix. Be gentle, I'm not a professional mixer (yet :lol: ) Anyway, I'll attach the zip and some more info tomorrow when I have the time. Thanks already for this great opportunity.

Sorry to post twice. Didn't find the edit button. Maybe I'm dumb :Confused: The mods can remove my previous post, or merge them together.

Anyway.

Mixed in Logic 8 in far from an ideal room.

The idea was to start more in a sort of mono until the bridge where everything gets more stereo.

Kick and snare : transient designer (outboard channel 1 & 2 on TD)) for little more attack and sustain, then SSL duende channelstrip for bit of EQing and compression in the louder parts.

OH : Channel EQ logic and SSL duende buscompressor

Toms : Channelstrip duende for gating and compression

Room mono : outboard transient designer (channel 3)

Room stereo : logic channel Eq

All drums are going to 3 busses. One mono buss, one stereobuss, one distorted/compressed bus. I used the mono bus mainly until the bridge (where the organ comes in, nice organ btw) than I go for a more stereo drumsound using the stereo bus with an Uad LA2A on it. The distorted bus comes in earlier, where guitar ryan comes in, to give the drums a different character.

Bass cab and DI : going to a buss and then through avalon 737 for very bit of EQ (-3dB at 100hz) and compression. DI fader always ±5,5dB softer than Mic

Organ : Channel EQ logic mainly for low cut and hi cut.

Rhodes : Outboard avalon 737 for EQ and bit of compression in louder parts. Last chord in song has chorus on it. To me it felt that way. In the second part of the bridge I send it to a sepreate buss panned in the other direction with a slight sample delay for more stereo
Also little bit of spacedesigner on the rhodes

Guitars : mainly the pure sound, except for Delay sound (channel EQ low cut hi cut) and ryans guitar (bit of attenuation at 100 and boost for the high freq). Guitar of Ryan also gets a buss with a bit of delay panned in the other direction. I use this from the bridge, also to get more stereo.

Vocals : going through Voxbox for EQ and compression, fiddled around with de-essing, but decided not to use it. Bit of Uad Plate.

On the 2buss there's a pultec and ssl buscompressor to even it out.

All channels going to outboard gear have a latency fixer on board

Song added and zipped logic file and pics of outboard settings
Thanks again for listening (and laughing :grin: ) and for these tracks to work with.

[NuDub]

I repost my mix because a post it in a zip.

It's the same in .m4a.

Sorry.

[kmarkb_8017]

Ok here it is:

I was going for a dark echoey start to give the song a little image of a dark reverby place like a cathedral. I automated the reverb on the vocals aswell as the snare using Waves Trueverb. Then going for the chorus i went for an aggresive in your face sound to really up the dynamics of the track. And for the bridge, i automated the instruments here and there, then again on the chorus.

Inserted buss compression from the beginning using URS Strip Pro and Waves SSL Comp, then in the end of the mix I placed a Stereo Splitter (BX Control) to spread the sounds a little bit.

Completely mixed ITB, using Cubase SX 3 on a PC. As my monitor i used Yamaha HS50m with computer speakers and hi fi system as reference. Plugins used are URS Strip Pro, Waves SSL Compressor, Sonnox Transient, RBass, Trueverb, Metaflanger, Doubler, Sonnox EQ, BX Control

Cheers

[dirtydigital]

Tracks sounded excellent, a pleasure to work with.
I mixed it very dry. I thought it best to leave it raw sounding. Tried to make it kick you in the face.

I mixed completely ITB using Nuendo 3. (aka The Short Bus)
Lots of Compressors on things, URS and Waves with fairly low GR on most things.

Also, I mixed on headphones and checked my mix on a cheap home stereo :)

Give it to me straight doctor.

It's been fun!

[Dino]

In starting the mix I was surprised at the quality of the clean tracks. So, I took a minimalist approach and just looked at emphasizing some of the aspects of the performance that I thought were cool.

I wanted a really solid support structure for the stellar vocal performance. On the verses, I kept it simple and just provided some "thickening" behind the vocal. In the chorus, I built around the Rhodes and the Bass and let everything get a bit "gritty". The Bass seemed to have some real resonance at about 103hz that I notched out. Not too much was done to the Guitars, a little delay here and there.

The vocal got some reverb throughout the track to keep a "haunting" feeling and I added a little tape saturation (I hesitated on this knowing that is was on tape to begin with) to bring out the "pain" in the most emotional parts.

I used the room mics on the drums to create the space, this seemed to work really well because of the quality of the recording. I kept the drums "roomy" for the dark feel of it. There is a timed delay on a snare hit with the "crack" vocal. About the second time I listened to the song this jumped out at me as an opportunity to simulate a gunshot in the woods. I tried not to make it too up front, but just enough to evoke the feeling of being there, especially if the listener has heard the real thing.

What a great song to work on! I hope I was able to do the performance justice. Enjoy!

Sonar 6 Producer : Waves : Cakewalk : PSP-Vintage Warmer : AmpliTube2

[wintergod]

Hey, I spent quite a long time on this one...
It's my first time song mixing a song like this (im normally doing balls to the wall pop/punk/rock kinda stuff) and I found I had to
spend quite a bit of time automating and equing things to make them sit and blend right.

Mixed all ITB with pro-tools mpowered, plugins include
ssl channel strip and buss comp, psp warmer, waves stuff,
etc.

My overall goal with this mix was to make it sound close to stuff I hear on the radio. I'm relatively new to mixing, this is my 9th or 10th mix ever, but the way I have achieved this is by sucking out the mids of parts that seem to 'rough' and not polished.


Im not sure if this has been the right path, but I feel happy with my balance and I feel I have a relatively polished mix, with enough mids still in-tact to retain most of it's orginal power and clarity.

If anyone asks, I will go through my mix in greater detail, just let me know. Thanks so much to everyone, this has been a blast.

:)

[MacGregor]

So,
here it is , the way I think Mixerman should have mixed this song :Twisted:

I only had very limited internet access last week, so I had to postpone
the upload till today and the late submissions always get (unfortunately) less
feedback, but that's just the way it is.

First of, I disagree with the statement that this songs mixes itself.
True, it's not easy to mess it up because the recording is really good
(kudos to Mixerman (the AE) and the band), but OTOH that leaves not much
air to bring it to another level. Not the usual technical challenge, but a musical/
artistry challenge.

I've listened to Mixerman's rough mix, and one thing (I seem to be the only
one) that annoys me is the way it's panned. It sounds nice and open to
have guitars left and organ right, there's nothing wrong with that acoustically,
but it's like watching a movie and having people moving on the left and the right
side all the time.
It distracts me from the IMNSFO main thing of this song, hanging on the lips of
the storyteller.

I've done this completely different, at the risk that the vocals get buried
under the rest of the arrangement and I'd have to do heavy EQ work to avoid this.
Kudos again to Mixerman (the producer) and Ryan, it tells a lot about the
quality of the arrangement when you can change it in such a drastic and
unforeseen way and it still works without much fiddling around.

I've even thought about removing my B3 panning work at the beginning of the
chorus to avoid this distraction, but if you've made it that far in my mix
you'll agree that it's too dramatic to let it go.

I also didn't cut the outro, I think those additional bars increase the uneasiness
of the song's message.

And even if you disagree with my decisions (I'm fine with that), it's, as someone
else put it, nice after listening to 50 shades of red to hear a shade of blue.

Enjoy ™

Mac

PS: Oh, I forgot some info about the processing of the tracks:

- vox got some parallel compression and some reverb
- drums got some eq
- bass some eq and a bit of compression, DI was re-amped
- re-amped the guitar for doubling
- traditional panning LCR

The rest is more or less excessive fader riding.

More details are in the .INFO attachment which provides the Cubase 4.1 session file.
If you don't own Cubase 4.1 (huh?) just ask and I'll post additional information in the discussion thread.

[tnelson494]

I,m using Sonar4 producer on PC,monitoring with Alesis Prolinear 820's.
Like everyone thanks for the great material to work with both to mixerman and the Band. I got dinged pretty hard for the massive kick and lack of bass and vocals in the last rounds mixit event so i tried this time to get a more even drum tone.Moved the vocals up a little more then i'm used to and i switched channels on my monitors to a better bass setting. After sending a few tunes through it i feel like i got a better feel for the bass in my room. I used mostly the stock EQ's in sonar and same with comprosser's with the exception of RVOX i love that on the toms and vocals. Not a whole lot done mostly high pass low pass and some narrow cuts and boosts to poke thins through. I just tried to get some emotion across i guess with out (hopefully!! :Confused: ) obliterating the song.

[QweziRider]

Tell us about your mix - I’ve mixed so few things that this is always a learning thing for me. Lately, I’ve been fiddling around with using some outboard gear combined with ITB mixing, so I wanted to see what I could do in a hybrid kind of mode. Rather than do the obvious and use all the drum tracks, I wanted to see what I could do with fewer of those tracks and not rely on room mics. Not because I don’t like what was done or that I think I could make a better sound this way, but purely to experiment and see to where I could get and if it would be worth a darn. After all, we don’t always get such good tracks to play with, and I didn’t want to take an easier way out.
I ended up only using one piece of outboard gear (Lexicon MPX500), and primarily only on the drums.
There were plenty of dynamics in the performances, so I really didn’t do much in the way of automation and volumes. The on instrument I did that on was the B3 in the bridge, simply because I wanted it to gradually push the bridge over the edge into the following chorus, at the end of which it drops the bottom out.

Tell us your Platform - Logic 5.5.1 on a PC, WinXP, Delta 1010, and only a Lexicon MPX500 for outboard gear this time. All other plugs were from within Logic. Mackie HR824 monitors in an untreated but long (24’x16’) room.

[bleen]

Pulling into the station late, but at least I finished...

What an easy song to mix - the raw tracks are so good! This what I dream of getting from my clients if I'm coming in only at the mix stage.

Mixed on my aging dual 2GHz G5 in Logic 8 with the whole mix bused out through my Portico compressor and back into Logic through some beta converters and saturation processing. If I tell you, I'd have to kill you, etc.

Monitored on Focal Solo6's. Lots of automation rides written with a Euphonix MC Mix.

Most EQ was either MetricHalo's ChannelStrip or URS Neve EQs (particularly on guitars). I used lots of verb and delays, but REALLY subtly. The Rhodes has a SpaceDesigner spring verb with a different spring for the guitars. Short room and plates impulses for snare and vocals. Two tape delays, once each for the Rhodes and guitars, a stereo slap on the vocals and a long spacey delay for one vocal phrase.

Many of the FX send were ridden throughout, as well as the drum parallel compression bus and the drum room mics for varying amounts of dynamics and ambience. I also tried to build a lot of dynamics into the mix overall with everything continuing to build to a definite climax and then resolve.

Because of this dynamic, my mix is NOT loud - I tried a version with 4dB of limiting from Ozone3 to get it closer to the -11dB RMS, but I didn't like the sound, so turn up your monitoring.:very happy:

[mykllynyrd]

I hate my mix, I think I butchered it. I originally had the vocal and the rhodes going through a plate verb but it washed out the rhodes so I took it off and brought the vocal verb back a bit. I also tried doing some fader automation to try and tame same high transients but it still wasn't stopping the overs. I was weird because if I would mute the snare track for the spot I was trying to treat I would not have an over, but it I would automate the fade down, even to -65 I would still get an over. I tried to do the Dye mantra of less compression and I thought I read that MM didn't do a lot of compression, but I have no idea how you guys can get -11dB RMS, I had to fight to get -14 dB. I can wait to read how everybody else attacked this. Great tracks so maybe I should hand up my mouse and just play the radio.

WinXP Cubase SX3, inland Pro Sound 1000 computer speakers
I mixed at work because I didn't have any time at home on my Cubase 4 system.

[studjo]

ufff just got back from a short holiday so my memory might be a bit shaded ...

First off thanks to Mixerman and Strange Faces for making this possible. As I allready mentioned before wonderful production and a great performance of a really stellar tune - loved every second of it. Too bad that thing was automixing itself - I guess that comes with quality tracks ...
I worked on an analog Harrison Series 12 - with some of my outboard. I didn't use that much outboard - a tiny bit of 480L for reverb - 2290 for dynamic delay - PCM70 for snare ambience. Speaking of ambience I really loved the room tracks and they provided a lot of the low end of the kick for my mix. I was even riding the level of those on one part of the song ...
Dynamics: SSL clone for drumbus - Distressor for snare and kick mult - Buzz Audio SOC for bass comp and vocal comp - everything else was Harrison Desk.
I worked from Pro Tools but didn't use many plug ins - why should I ...
I had a freaking great time and I hope some of you can hear that in my little mix

Jo

[prunelle]

I have updated my mix. I've tried to fix the lows problem.
I think the lack of low is the common problem of this event.

[Dubnick]

Hey all, I almost didn't make this event - I got caught up in one of my own songs and a bit tunnel visioned so I didn't really get started on this one till this past Friday. I will upload the session info (and files?) and description of what I did either later tonight or tomorrow cause I really have to get ready for work. Hope you guys like it - I finished it in kind of a rush, wish is probably good for me (I tend to obsess to an unhealthy degree), but there might be some obvious details I missed here and there. Let me know what you think. I've been listening to a lot of the other mixes when taking breaks and now that I have at least one pass posted, I can't wait to critique mixes and have mine critiqued - this is such a cool idea - wish I had done the previous one as well!

Almost forgot to say that I wanna say thanks to Charles and Chris for coming up with these events and Mixerman and Strange Faces for allowing us the opportunity to try our hand at re-mixing this great track!

SESSION DESCRIPTION PT1:

DRUMS:

My General Overall Approach:
Before I go into the details, I thought maybe I should give an overview of my general approach I took to these drum tracks, so here goes nothin....

First let me say that the approach taken in the tracking of the ambient micing in this session is definitely in line with the more ideal sessions I've been fortunate enough to mess around with, so right away when hearing the original mix I knew some parts of this would be more within my comfort zone than some tracks I've received. That being said, I've learned through trial and error that no "go to approach" works for every scenario and, especially when it comes to drums, it's important to be flexible and focus more on what it is you are trying to achieve sound wise and just let the "how" part flow from there. While I try to remain as flexible as possible and not stick to a formula, I do find that there is an approach I take to the process of getting the drum mix going and I certainly applied the approach here:

Step 1:Listening to the kit straight with the "faders" up, listening to the natural balance already there. Listening to the drums in the context of the mix and by themselves. After a while I'd solo a track at a time to see what role each piece is playing and decide if I like that role or would rather transform it's role in some way.

Step 2: EQing the close mics to get the kick, snare and toms where I want them. I generally try to do more subtractive eq than additive, but I'll do what works (more details on what I ended up doing later). I'll spend time EQing both in and out of context over this period to get the close mics to a good starting point.

Step 3: Get a good balance of the kick and snare going, leaving plenty of spare head room. Once I've got that going, I'll find a spot where there's a fill and get a good balance between the kick, snare and toms going. Knowing that a lot of times I'll end up having to mute the toms until they are played, or even sample replace them, I still make sure I do whatever EQ is needed (in this case, I don't believe I did any) to make the close mic'd toms sound how I want them to and get them balanced with the other close mics.


Step 4: With the close mics balance looping a section containing cymbals, I'll start to bring the overheads up slowly just tlll the cymbals peak out over the kit. When they sit pretty nicely sans EQ, I will then usually roll off a lot of low end and then EQ whatever I don't like out of them. I'm really only looking to get the cymbals out of the overheads, not the image of the kit or embellishment of the drums, so if the snare or toms pop out too much in the overheads, I'll try to smooth those elements out of them. Once I've got only what I want out of the overheads, I'll bring them back down all the way and start slowly bringing them up till they just peak over the top of the drums. I look at cymbals/overheads like the sun - for me, it's only pleasant to stare in the direction of when it's setting or rising - I'm a generally wary of cymbal "glare". Anyhow, depending on the cymbals and the tracking and playing, I might add some kind of Opto compressor to both smooth out the cymbals and embellish the decay. Double check the balance and then I move on.

Step 5: Once I've got a good balance of the close mics and overheads, I'll do the equivalent of multing each of the close mics to it's own parallel channel for parallel compressing (to save CPU usage I just make duplicate of each of the close mic tracks using the same EQ as the original, just adding a compressor). Once I've adjusted the compression on the parallel close mic tracks to my liking, I'll start blending them into the mix - trying to add more punch but maintain the balance I've got so far.

Step 6: Prior to starting to deal with the room mics, I'll usually mute the tom mics/parallel compressed tom mics out of habit, just in case there is any kind of ugly ring when the toms aren't being played (this wasn't the case at all with these tracks) that might cloud my judgement when it comes to dealing with the room mics. I usually deal with drum tracks that have two sets of room mics or, as was the case with this session, one set of stereo room mics and a mono room mic. With the close mic'd/parallel compressed close mics/overhead mics balance playing and the mono room mic (or second stereo set of room mics depending on the session) still muted, I bring up the main stereo room mics, getting them to a place, level wise, where they add a sense of space to the kit. Then I'll listen for what I don't dig about what the stereo room mics are adding and pull in those areas - basically EQing them to better fit the context. Then I'll do the same with the mono room. Then I'll mute and un-mute the tom/parallel compressed toms to see if I'll be needing to strip silence on them or sample replace them. In this case, thankfully, I didn't have to do either. Best tuning/tracking of toms I've heard in a while - no ugly ring, no horrible amount of phase issues.

Step 7: Now that I have a balance going of the close mics, parallel compressed close mics, overheads and room mics going, I'll create a pre fader send on the room mics, set to unity gain, going to an aux track with a compressor plug strapped across it. I'll also create a pre-fader send on all parallel compressed close mics (parallel kick, snare and toms) but start out with them all at -infinity. I'll also have a pre-fader send on my mono room mic, but I'll also keep that at -infinity at first. I'll then mute all the tracks except for my new parallel compressed room aux track, which is being fed, at first, by only the pre-fader send on my stereo room track. I'll then adjust the compressor to taste. When I get that to where I like it, I start slowly bringing up the mono mic send till it sits nicely mixed with the stereo rooms. Then I start slowly bringing up the pre-fader send from the parallel compressed snare just until it gives the impression that it's sort of "setting off" the parallel compressed room, but not enough to where it sticks out. I'll then do the same with the parallel compressed kick and toms. I want the parallel compressed close mics to give the impression of "setting off" the compressed room track and, I find that in general reflects how I like drums to sound - like the kit pieces are "setting off" the room. Also, taking this approach means that when I bring up the parallel compressed room I'm also re-enforcing the close mics a bit.


Step 8: Now that I have what I consider to be my parallel compressed room aux sounding how I like it, I'll bring it down to -infinity and un-mute the rest of the mix again. Then I slowly bring up the parallel compressed room to taste. This can be tricky sometimes as to much of the parallel room can bring out the cymbals a bit too much. Once I have the mix of the drums in a nice place, if it's needed, I'll add a send to the aux track I had created for the combined snare and parallel compressed snare mix and route it to a reverb, then blending the reverb into the mix. In the case of this tune, I actually had one send to my general reverb and another routed to an aux track which was, in turn, routed to a different reverb for the "crack in the distance" hit. The reason for the convoluted routing is that in Logic, you can't automate send mutes. Basically, at this point, I'm trying to get the final balance of the overall drum mix. Once I have it, I route the whole mix to it's own aux track.

Step 9: Once I've assigned the drum submix to it's own aux track, I'll create a pre-fader send on the Drum Submix aux track, set to unity gain and routed to another aux track with a compressor strapped across it (noticing a theme here?). I then mute the "dry" Drum Submix and listen to my Overall Drum Mix Parallel Compression aux track, adjusting it to re-enforce the attacks a tiny bit, but mostly to bring out the body and decay of the drums. I'll give the specific compressing when I go into the actual details, but I'm generally starting out with a low ratio (2:1 or 2.5:1), attack of somewhere between 800 microseconds to 1ms (sometimes even lower like 10ms if I'm not going for as low of a threshold) to let a little bit of attack through, but a long release of maybe 1.2 seconds, and the threshold pretty low and a knee soft enough to not get any attacks that jump way too out front. My approach to the parallel of the overall drum mix can vary quite a bit depending on what's called for at this stage - sometimes I'll go for a quicker release.


Step 10: Now I'll bring the Parallel Compressed Drum Mix down all the way, and un-mute the "Dry" or "Straight" Drum Mix. At this stage, I'll experiment with the level of the Parallel Compressed Drum Mix and see what, if anything it adds. If it doesn't add what I want, I won't use it, but most of the time, if I do it right, it adds just enough girth and punch to keep the drums sounding big even in particularly dense mixes.

Next I'll do the actual details of what I did to the drums...(gonna upload the session next)

-----------------

Computer, interface, monitoring, room, etc:
Dual G5 2.0 W/UAD-1 Card (don't think I used it though - have to double check the session), Focusrite Saffire Interface, Yamaha MSP5 Monitors (I know - not ideal), oddly shaped side room of house - not treated.

DAW and general plug-ins used in session (from memory - will give much better details later):
Logic 8;
URS CSP, Linear Phase EQ, Compressor (stock), Altiverb 6, Space Designer, Expander (stock - used to bring out close mic on kick without bringing out as much bleed or having to use noise gate) Apple Matrix Reverb (shockingly, that's what I ended up using on the vocal!?!), Channel EQ, Chorus (stock), Line6 Gearbox plug (on bass di instead of tracked amp and on rhodes during distorted part), Waves Supertap 2 (vox), RenVox (not on lead vocal - I put in front of the long delay of certain vocal phrases), can't remember or think of any others right now - gotta run anyhow - will elaborate.

[paulie]

Thanks to MM and Strange Faces for the track and the fine recordings.

Mixed ITB with Cubase SX3 using Waves and UAD plugs. Focusrite Saffire ADC and ADAMS A7 monitors.

I wanted to make this mix as natural as possible, but ended up mixing the crap out of it - the recordings were so good there were a myriad of different things possible and I found it hard not to go off at wild tangents.

I think I managed to stay within the boundaries of taste though.

Drums:

I used the OH's for the large part of the drum sound. Close mics were gated and tucked underneath. I used the ambients pretty sparingly for emphasis in certain passages, the main part of the ambience you can hear is Altiverb plates and the Sonnox Reverb for a diffused gate. This is generally my default way of approaching drums so I went with what I knew. Had I allowed myself some more time, I would have definitely spent more time with the wonderful stereo room mics. Found the hi hats a small PITA - but hey, rude to complain with drums like that.

Bass:

Not much to do with this other than balance the two. I low passed the DI to about 150 and used it mainly for subs which was then spread with a little chorusing. The main part of the bass sound comes from the amp high passed around 100. I must admit I found the bass recording the trickiest to manage. Lots of clunks and slap noises - which I attempted to tame with some dynamic eq. Other than that some limiting and we were there.

Gats:

I liked all the guitar tones. I did very little to them - hardly any eq or compression. In the absence of a double, the Ryan guitar was biggenated a little with some stereo slap 25 and 50ms panned hard L+R.

Keys:

Again very little going on here, the rhodes was compressed a little, the hammond not at all. Some eq-ing to sculpt around the gats and vocal and we were set.

Vocal:

I would have edited these a bit if that were allowed. Didn't have time though anyway. Some LA2A for compression, minor eq adjustments. A little bit of SPL TD to give the vocal some attack. Used a small slap for some width which in turn was chorused to dirty it up. Used the Roland RE201 for delays fairly heavily eq'd to get the repeats out of the way of the gats. They were timed roughly. Used a leslie effect on the bridge sections - which I liked but sounded too gratuitous in places so I left it more as a texture. Altiverb used on a long EMT144 plate setting for some glue.

2 bus:

I used the UAD maximiser to add some saturation. URS CSPro set to 1972.

Parallel Comp:

I used some parallel comp on the vocals to add some dirt during the choruses.

Sent the kick, snare, toms + bass low passed to around 150 to a buss, spanked it with comp and stuck a Neve1081 plug on it using the Neve bass trick setting to achieve some decent low end. Didn't have chance to check out the low end properly so it's a bit of guess work there.

Really enjoying listening to the mixes submitted and looking forward to hearing your comments good and bad.

Cheers,

Paulie.

Please note there is a problem with this mix. Some wacky phase issues due to an incorrectly wired monitor. Unfortunately didn't have time to check this on other systems. Dubnick did though thankfully. If it's allowed I'll post another one soon.

[Cheech]

Ok hopefully I am not too late with this. Been busy.

Anyway, I pretty much just didnt want to mess up the tracks because they sounded so good faders up. Well, I threw caution to the wind and went for it.

Actually i didnt do much more than EQ and a little compression, some verb on the ox and guitar. I think my master buss had more processing than anything.

I mixed in Logic 8, interface is an RME Fireface 800, with the clock slaved to my Radar 24.

Thanks Mixie, Charles, and Strange Faces for the opportunity to jack up these tracks :grin:


Oh, I cant seem to upload my session zip file.
Do I need to delete the audio tracks out of it first?
Sorry for the noob question! :Confused:

[IntelDoc]

So I do not like to post twice, but figured it would be more appropriate here. I have attached a UNMASTERED version of this tune in comparison to the original that takes some harseness away. I again am not a mastering engineer and strongly feel that the ears of another who does that for a living is a much better option for mixed tunes. I prefer to have it professionally mastered, etc. So with that I really wanted to add a post with the unmastered tune. Besides, I used a very different method.

Thanks,
Doc

[annex2]

Mixed in the box with Nuendo. Great tracks to mix. It was a pleasure.

For this song, I liked the vocal pretty dry. I used no reverb at all on the vox. I used a very short delay with no feednack at times to sim a doubled vocal and a 300 ish ms delay in the chorus.

I liked having the drums and bass fairly up front in this mix. Perhaps I over did it though on this mix.

I took the center drum room mic and compressed it and gated it and added some verb to this. Strangely this kinda worked for me.

No drum samples used.

[Mikey MTC]

OK I'm late ... is this thread still open? It is? OK, here goes:

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Aaahh, damn you real work and family! I so wanted to get onto this sooner but just couldn’t. I REALLY like this song, especially after the discussion on its meaning and the writing of it. The performance and recording are both very good as has been reiterated time and time again.

In the end I only had about three hours to mess with it, but it’s a very passionate song which was a pleasure to work on.

(1) Because of limited time, I couldn’t do “the plugin dance” where you try and match the “right” plugin for each type of sound or effect. I just wacked a Waves SSL channel on EVERY track and started with that. As things went along I subbed out the SSL for a couple of other things (URS CSP, etc).

Ironically as we all know, sometimes time constraints makes you work more directly and operate on gut feeling rather than labouring a decision over and over until you kill it. This was certainly the case early on when things seemed to get to that 50% - 60% zone quicker than normal for me. Of course, the job really gets done with the automation and that’s still and area where I could do more if I had time.

In the end I would have loved to spend another couple of hours focusing things better. That’s where my mix falls over. It’s got a nice spirit that I like but when the going gets heavier, I need to get in there and clean up some of the clashing without eating too much meat – the eternal struggle!

(2) OSX Pro Tools HD with ICON D-Control.

Thanks to all involved. Great job.

[Dubnick]

I can't seem to go back and edit my original post to add the session and continue/finish the session details, so I'm just posting the session here now. If you want to check the mix, it's a few posts prior to this one (any feedback would be appreciated!). If I can complete the session notes today before the edit ability disappears, I'll just add everything to this post so it's all in one place. I already noticed some glaring mistakes I made so maybe I'll fix those too.

-----------------

SESSION DESCRIPTION PT2:

DRUMS IN DETAIL:

Kick:
When listening to the final mix that was posted by MM initially, I knew two things:

#1) Nice, big room sounds would not be a problem.

#2) My approach to the relationship between the close and ambient mics would differ from MMs. While MM seems to approach the close mics as a means of embellishing the fantastic image of the drums created by the room mics, I prefer to hear the close mics as "setting off" the room. I want the drums to sound big and roomy, but also want more of that immediate punch of the close mics if possible.

That being said, the kick drum was the element, for me, that required the most troubleshooting. Not because it was poorly recorded - not by any stretch of the imagination - but, because there was no drum tunnel used and the bleed was plentiful, bringing out the close mic'd kick to the degree I wanted to would prove to be difficult. I also prefer using parallel compression on the kick to both re-enforce the attack and bring out the decay and body of the close mic'd kick, but doing so would only further amplify the bleed. Additionally, the kick part is one of the more dynamic aspects of the performance, which, don't get me wrong, is awesome, but still makes my goal even more challenging to achieve in this case. Using a noise gate was just as problematic as I had suspected it would be in this particular situation and I was about to give in to the temptation sample replace, but then I decided to give the Expander a try - an effect that, for some reason, I've always been a bit wary of using - and, low and behold, it was the perfect tool for the job! This alone made participating in this event worth it for me!

Anyhow, here's what I ended up doing for the kick:

Kick Drum:

Linear Phase EQ:
60Hz High Pass -18db per octave
63Hz +6.3db Q=.98
152Hz -6.2 Q=1.70
405Hz -17.6 Q=.41
7200Hz +2.6 Q=.37

Expander:
Set to Peak
Threshold -12db
Attack 0ms
Release 120ms
Ratio 0.81:1
Knee 0.8
Output Gain: -3db

Fader at Unity Gain, routed to KickSubmix Fader

Parallel Compressed Kick Drum:
Linear Phase EQ:
60Hz High Pass -18db per octave
63Hz +6.3db Q=.98
152Hz -6.2 Q=1.70
405Hz -17.6 Q=.41
7200Hz +2.6 Q=.37

Expander:
Set to Peak
Threshold -12db
Attack 0ms
Release 120ms
Ratio 0.81:1
Knee 0.8
Output Gain: -3db

Compressor:
Circuit Type: FET
Attack: 7.5ms
Release: 68ms
Ratio: 6:8:1
Knee 0.3
Threshold -24db
Output Gain: 2db

Pre-Fader Send To Parallel Compressed Room at Unity Gain

Fader at -3.1db, routed to KickSubmix Fader

Kick Combined Submix Fader Routed To Drum Submix:
-2.4

Snare:

Snare Drum:

Noise Gate:
Threshold: -30db
Reduction: -36db
Hysteresis: -12db
Lookahead: 20ms
Attack: 0ms
Hold:590ms
Release:323.2ms

Linear Phase EQ
75Hz Roll Off, 12db per octave
150Hz +5.3 Q=.79
430Hz -4.5 Q1.10

Fader at -4.6, routed to SnareSubmix Fader

Parallel Compressed Snare:

Noise Gate:
Threshold: -30db
Reduction: -36db
Hysteresis: -12db
Lookahead: 20ms
Attack: 0ms
Hold:590ms
Release:323.2ms

Linear Phase EQ
75Hz Roll Off, 12db per octave
150Hz +5.3 Q=.79
430Hz -4.5 Q1.10

Enveloper (a stock Logic Transient Designer)
Threshold: -100db
Lookahead: 100ms
Attack: 92ms
Release: 210ms
Attack Gain: +26%
Release Gain: +20%
Output Level: -5db

URS CSP (Compressor only)
No Input Stage (Digital)
Ratio: 4:1
Attack: 0.8ms
Release: 50ms
Knee +1.8
Threshold -17.8
Gain Makeup: +4.4

Pre-Fader Send To Parallel Compressed Room at Unity Gain

Fader at -4.6, routed to SnareSubmix Fader

Snare Submix Fader:
-6db to Drum Submix
2 post fader sends at unity gain
1 send going to an aux track with Space Designer, Drum Implosion IR - this is the main snare verb.
1 send going to an aux track that is automated to only unmute during the few hits after the word "crack" to a different aux track with another instance of Space Designer using the Blue Plate IR.
Reverb Return 1:
Drum Implosion - -9.8 to Drum Submix throughout.
Reverb Return 2:
Blue Plate - Only unmuted at the word "crack". -4.6 at the loudest hit, backs down to -15.4, then fades out when returning to verse. Also routed to Drum Submix Aux track.
----------
Logic 8.01 (set to 0.0db pan law), Dual 2ghz G5, Yamaha MSP5 monitors, untreated odd shaped side room; Focusrite Saffire Interface, UAD-1 (unused for this project).

[hiphopdaddy]

I am a newbee and would really love you to critique my mix. Any suggestions would really help me out. THANKS!!!!!!

[AngelBomb]

Hmmmm......looks like I'm late to the party. Well here it is anyway.

The Idea: As soon as I put up the faders I had a good idea where everyones mix was gonna go with this. So I tried to do something a little different. Nothing Kenny radio radical or anything. Just different. To me the meat of this tune is in the keys and the vocal performance so I decided to make the most of those. And yes I opted for a lot of bigger stereo verbs on a lot of things here. I just liked the way it filled in and gelled, I usually don't mess with too much verb, especially on stuff that sounds this good. But like I said, trying to do something different and think outside my little box a bit.

The Gear: Mixed hybrid PT-> Sountracs Topaz -> PT. All Compression done ITB, EQ ITB and OTB, and FX ITB and OTB. Verbs from Yamaha Rev-7, Lexicon MPX 550, and Dverb. Automation done ITB with a few rides done manually OTB.

Time has not been my friend lately, I've got a new day job and by night I've been tracking full lenghts for 2 bands. There are things I don't like about my mix already, such as the vox seem a bit too quiet in the bridge and last chorus, the bass could have done with a bit of boom reduction maybe, and I wish I'd have cut some of the the vocal breaths in the begining due to the way I treated the tune they seem a bit loud. Maybe I'll revisit it if I can find an hour or so.

Oh, and I left my damned session file at the studio so I'll try to put it up in a day or two. Anyway, heres the mix.

Josh

[prschmitt]

Another participant that's late to the party!
My apologies, all.

Assembled in reaper, using all <big al> FREE! </big al> plugz.
I've torn this puppy down and started over, geez, it must be at least ten times in my determination to avoid the suckitude that plagued my simplebird and senior efforts, and I pray that I accomplished that.
It's 4am here, and I'm gonna just fucking call it.
Probably not wise, but I've listened to it on everything I can get my hands on (except for *good* monitors :Roll eyes: ) and I think it's not too objectionable.

I'll post my mix details a bit later today once I've recovered, but for now, here's my humble offering.

Huge thanks to mixie and ryan for providing such a brilliant toy to play with!

[prschmitt]

OOPS!
Chrisj is coming!
Chrisj is coming!
I better post my session file!

Seeing as I'm the last guy, I figured nobody would ever get around to my mix, so I forgot about it!

Anyway, here it is.
Not much to look at, really.. there's so many others so much better than mine :Sad:

[guyome]

hello,

here's my mix.

I'm working on pt le with a digi 002
monitor: hs 50m (in my little room wich sound like my wc)
plug: digidesign serial plug in and sonalksis for some comp and eq

I listenned it some days after i mixed and:
the reverb is not good on the voice and the rode.
the ssssssssss on the voice are agressive.
and some other stuff I don't know how to say in english:very happy: (sorry)

I can't post my mix details because i needed some place on my hard drive and i had to erase it.

I liked the song.....and my girlfriend who lost her nerve when i'm mixing was really calm:lol:

ps: if something is making you bad in my mix, please critize....i really need to learn..

thank you for this forum and this song (and sorry for my english wich sucks)

[eire]

Hi all,

Only found this aces forum recently and was even more thrilled when I found this mix post.... it was like I was in thriller I was so ... yeah you get it!

I decided to use just logic stock plugs, just for fun!

A quick note about m little effort:

Not little comp on kick and snare, gated, toms also gated. Little auto to lift the mono room on the chorus.

Was loving the bridge, great tracks to work with! used the amp for the lows and roll'd off the highs. rolled off lows and highs on the rhodes for placing and also a little med.hall

Not much auto, just a little on 3 tracks. Used Vox PLate and also a soft hall from SpaceDesigner.

Used sample delay on the chorus to widen things a little. Very light.


I know that I'm way late on this one but hey I thought I'd give it a go. Any comments always welcome.

[qharley]

Welcome eire,

Just as exited as I was - I also missed the event. Good effort. Listen to Mixerman's version - so far the best in my opinion. Yours gets close enough though.

Here's me wishing for a MiXiT 4 event again...