Mix Challenge - Are Friends Electric.

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  • TTonyTTony Frets: 27345
    Must have been a problem in the space-time continuum.  


    Or user error.  Fixed now.
    Having trouble posting images here?  This might help.
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  • poopotpoopot Frets: 9098
    TTony said:
    Must have been a problem in the space-time continuum.  


    Or user error.  Fixed now.
    Files sent :)

    if you have any issues give me a shout.
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  • FazerFazer Frets: 467
    Bezzer said:
    @Fretwired I’m pretty convinced everyone’s mix will be better than mine! But a remix would be awesome.
    I'm going to have a look at a remix, but if it goes too far off ... well, lets see how it goes
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  • BezzerBezzer Frets: 581
    Lot of remix chat!  Just my 2p on that given the thrust of the challenge.

    The idea is that this challenge is to try and come up with a commerical mix of a given track, something which people may wish to practice on projects much larger than anything they normally create.  So ... that's what I think this is.

    Remixes ... by christ I'd love to hear them though!  And you have my permission to pull apart my version of someone elses song to do so.  I do think though, if that's happening they should be excluded from the judging on this challenge, or if enough entries encourage it ... a second vote on the remixes.

    You have my blessing, however, to mix remix demix supermix ANY of my tracks (my entire back catalogue is open to those who genuinely wanted to mess with one of my tracks)
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  • poopotpoopot Frets: 9098
    Bezzer said:


     I do think though, if that's happening they should be excluded from the judging on this challenge, or if enough entries encourage it ... a second vote on the remixes.


    Agreed.
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  • poopotpoopot Frets: 9098
    Files sent to @revsorg ;

    My Mix added to the playlist below:

    https://soundcloud.com/thefretboard/sets/are-friends-electric-mix
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  • SnapSnap Frets: 6256
    poopot said:
    Bezzer said:


     I do think though, if that's happening they should be excluded from the judging on this challenge, or if enough entries encourage it ... a second vote on the remixes.


    Agreed.
    I'll look at doing a remix but won't be ready until way into September. More than up for the challenge regardless of competition, but then being a massive Numo fan this is no chore! 
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  • HabaneroHabanero Frets: 248
    edited August 2021
    Earlier this week I found an old archive of the Garageband file that Nine Inch Nails released for their track "The Hand That Feeds". It's only 100Mb so I'm wondering how this one weighs in at 5Gb???
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  • BezzerBezzer Frets: 581
    Habanero said:
    Earlier this week I found an old archive of the Garageband file that Nine Inch Nails released for their track "The Hand That Feeds". It's only 100Mb so I'm wondering how this one weighs in at 5Gb???
    Because I am better than them? Ha ha

    I suspect they were some form of compressed files.  100Mb won't give you 6 minutes of wav.  So when you stack 50 tracks of WAVs in 48.1k and 24bit ... soon gets very big.
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  • poopotpoopot Frets: 9098
    Bezzer said:
    Habanero said:
    Earlier this week I found an old archive of the Garageband file that Nine Inch Nails released for their track "The Hand That Feeds". It's only 100Mb so I'm wondering how this one weighs in at 5Gb???
    Because I am better than them? Ha ha

    I suspect they were some form of compressed files.  100Mb won't give you 6 minutes of wav.  So when you stack 50 tracks of WAVs in 48.1k and 24bit ... soon gets very big.
    5gb? Its under 2gb iirc
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  • BezzerBezzer Frets: 581
    @poopot the zip is yeah, but unzipped you've got 3.5Gb of tracks (including DIs) and 1.3 Gb of drum wavs ... they are all about 80Mb a piece.
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  • poopotpoopot Frets: 9098
    Bezzer said:
    @poopot the zip is yeah, but unzipped you've got 3.5Gb of tracks (including DIs) and 1.3 Gb of drum wavs ... they are all about 80Mb a piece.
    Blimings… didn’t notice that… I just stuck your original mix through a couple of plugins ;)
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  • andy_kandy_k Frets: 818
    I'm not sure it is actually a 5 Gig project, but by the time I bounced a few stems it soon crept up there.
    Not really a problem on my ageing MBP, all projects are stored on an extra drive, and I like to commit to stems anyway, frees up resources for mastering, it is a good project to get involved in, plenty of room to re-amp etc.
    Should have my mix up in the next week or so.
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  • SpringywheelSpringywheel Frets: 941
    edited August 2021
     I struggled with my mix tbh.  It would be good to hear from bezzer and everyone else with regards to how they approached their mix, particularly in the use of EQ.
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  • BezzerBezzer Frets: 581
    I am happy to give a full breakdown of what I did, at least conceptually, if anyone is interested ... sure.  But now ... or after the closing date?
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  • poopotpoopot Frets: 9098
    Bezzer said:
    I am happy to give a full breakdown of what I did, at least conceptually, if anyone is interested ... sure.  But now ... or after the closing date?
    Go for it now! 
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  • BezzerBezzer Frets: 581
    OK ... you asked for it ...

    OK well the key thing for me, whether I have achieved it or not, was to define a goal for how I wanted this mix to sound.  At a very general level is was "dense and dirty" ... like really dirty.

    I always do the same initial setup, create sub groups and main groups.  So for this I had rhythm guitars group channel, lead guitar and break leads, all these sent to an "all guitars" group.  I guess effectively a guitar stem I can tweak bits of.  Same for Vox; Main, spoken and "other" vox sent to an "all vox" group. And so on. This gives me a lot of control ... I think anyway ... without always managing 60, 70, 150 tracks.

    General processing wise ... on vocals the most important thing was automating the levels on the individual tracks so I had consistent takes to work with.  You'll never solve this with compression on the group channels I don't think so worth spending the time here.  Processing on all the groups followed the same path with some minor tweaks, de-esser, butch vig vocals (this is such a secret weapon plugin for vocals), another de-esser, saturation then EQ.  I won't give setting for specific plugins as it's pointless if you don't have them.  The general rule for saturation is "enough so you notice it, but not so you NOTICE it" ... not distortion here, not fizz but rather enough just to lift it over the mix it's sat in.  EQ nice and straight forward, binned everything below 106 as there's plenty of stuff there already, a little low mid boost a TINY 2k cut because my voice has a weird thing there and then a shelf for air above 7k.
    Only deviaion from this was the "wee woops" that I just had for texture, they were mixed with an octave up via Little Alter Boy and a tonne of chorus.
    All the vocals had various levels sent to the FX busses which were a shortish tape delay, a stereo quarter note delay, a one second ish room reverb and a large hall reverb.

    Drums you had the same basic wavs as I did out of superior so no point going through the settings in there but on the bus I did some extra fiddling. Added saturation, again, I love saturation on drums ... again not too much just a boost to interesting frequencies. Then EQ with a small boost around 80, small cut around 600 and a boost around 12k.  Then a compressor at 6:1, fast ish attack and fast release. Last there is another EQ that I used purely for hunting and deleting nasty frequencies in the mix ... I did this once the rest of the mix was done to really edit out the nasty I didn't want ... and put in the nasty I did.
    Send to a compressor FX group as well to blend in to taste ... 8:1, 2ms attack and auto release.  Alse send to a room verb.

    Bass was mostly sorted in Helix to get a tone shape I like.  Did some pretty heavy EQing after again to shape into the mix ... it sounds disgusting solo'd. Big boost at 115, cut around 1200, big cut around 3k to bin out some finger noise I didn't like and then again a shelf around 5k to add some air back in.

    Snyths ... well these are sharp, buzzy little things ... oh how I like them. Needed taming though so 2 compressors the wavs hybrid for some "flava" and a LA-ish comp, both really like and just tickling the top.  I'd rather to two comps like this than crush the shit out things with one.  Another saturator for some REALLY like saturation.  Then the EQ which just boosts the shit out of it below 500 with a shelf and a massive cut at 3.5k to clean out some space.

    Guitars ... again mostly sorted in Helix, you have those exports and the DIs so those are up to you. EQ wise on the rhythm guitars I cut everything below 150 ish, a dip at 250 a boost around 1k and then a shelf cut above 3k ... I liked the fizz on the guitars but with the synths it was adding up a bit and I thought the synth fix was nicer.  Same basic formula on the other two guitars just differnt boost amounts to pull them forward or push back in the mix, again its to taste.  On the lead guitars I ran a doubler as well, nothing too extreme but enough to thicken and add some small width.
    Biggest thing with guitars was on the full bus, a send to a reverb for a touch of smoothing, a saturator (seeing a theme yet), a compressor at the end but the main one ... the EQ ... there's a small boost at 7k but theres a cut applied where the vocal is strongest (I felt between about 400 and 2k) which is applied to the MID only and sides left as they were.  This gives the vocal room where it's sat without completely scooping the guitars.

    After that tweaks are ear candy ... on the "dee woop" synths I added a crystal delay and autopan to move the sound around ... I don't really think the synth is recognisable any more (intentally, the guitar is the riff there) but it adds movement for the ears to latch on to.  Panning the trem runs around again to grab the ear. Oh and the secret sauce ... the 808 kick shifted down both one and two octaves ... if you've got a sub you've heard it. If not, probably not ... but if it goes you can tell!

    Another key for me is abandoning LCR mixing, the guitars are panned at various widths depending on what needed space ... there are some vocals panned hard LR for backing which don't benefit from the mid only EQ so there I bring the guitars in to 80 or 90% LR to give some room. Same with vocals, none of the main vocals are C but space around withing +/- 7% LR.

    Well ... that was a fucking essay in the end. And probably not very intersting ... but hopefully give you some insight as to how I made my travesty of a mix that you're all hopefully improving :)
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  • andy_kandy_k Frets: 818
    Mix submitted, before I read your essay, not that it would have helped me in any way.
    I decided I had procrastinated enough, did it in 3 hour chunks, for a total of about 18 hours, took a break for a few days which made it harder to get back into it, but did about 5 revisions, listening on a variety of common devices. Initial mix was done on Sennheiser HD650s at about 4 in the morning, but that was just getting used to the many tracks, and I decided to make my own stems for drums from the midi, and I had a go at re amping all the guitars from the  DI's.
    Final project folder came in at just over 8 gig, with mastering done in a new project.
    In hindsight, I could have dug into the drums a bit more, but there was a lot here to play with, vocals were pretty easy, but I definitely didn't go as deep as you describe with eq, it probably shows.
    All in all, an excellent track to play around with, and a few revisions could easily result in a commercial track, I don't have the equipment to get the best from it, but I am looking forward to some critique.
    cheers
    andy k
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  • poopotpoopot Frets: 9098
    Got @andy_k ‘s entry…

    but…

    I’m on strike! :)
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