PureMix / Sonnox Mixing Contest!

My entry into the current mix competition is attached; and it’s the first time I’ve tried something like this. I really had a blast doing it to and am glad I ran across this here. Thanks for hosting these events. As for my approach, I didn’t listen to Ben’s mix on purpose. I wanted to try bringing out what I heard in the song without either trying to match or differentiate from any pre-conceived expectation.

I really didn’t do too much to the tracks except for panning, some EQ and sweetening to accentuate the beauty of what I heard in the recording. I used Cubase, bussed like instruments to group tracks and added a bit to the entire group. I hope the “judges” enjoy what I’ve done as much as I enjoyed doing it.
Cheers,
 

Attachments

  • Howlin Steve Shambaugh.mp3
    4.1 MB · Views: 37
Last edited:
Thanks HarveyA and Fishmed. Really nice to hear you enjoyd it! About the ending I didn´t do a final master on this one so I didn´t think so much about the fades, but I liked when the singer got the adlibs going and I think I managed to fit adlibs good in the mix and brought that new dimension to the song as a final chorus should have.

Best regards
Anders
 
Update on my mix

Hello everyone,

It took me a while to figure out why I wasn't able to post my mix in here... (size limits).
Anyhow, here is my mix. I would appreciate a lot any opinions. I'll try to have a listen and to comment on everyone else's work too.

Thanks again,

Andre

ps. My comments are on a previous post.
 

Attachments

  • Howlin - mix AndreFerraz 28may14.mp3
    8.8 MB · Views: 58
AndreFerraz said:
Hello everyone,

It took me a while to figure out why I wasn't able to post my mix in here... (size limits).
Anyhow, here is my mix. I would appreciate a lot any opinions. I'll try to have a listen and to comment on everyone else's work too.

Thanks again,

Andre

ps. My comments are on a previous post.
Click to expand...

Nice version of the song.
 
puremix.net said:
No you're not stupid. This is a god whistle. This is very high pitched.
So if you are listening to it on a lap top or ear buds that can't reproduce that frequency, you probably won't hear it.
Click to expand...
It must be a god whistle, because my dog paid no attention to it when I played it through my speakers, not even a twitch of the head.
 
Fishmed said:
It must be a god whistle, because my dog paid no attention to it when I played it through my speakers, not even a twitch of the head.
Click to expand...

Same here ... neither my cat or dog paid any attention to the sound, and they can hear! I simply dropped the pitch so it can be heard in the mix (sort of!).

Anyone got any comments on my take on the mix? (On prev page). Will take listen to the last few in and comment later. I'm sure we'll all have different views on how this could be mixed, and I wonder how much away from the "original mix" people have gone? Like others, I did my own mix first before taking a listen to the "reference" mix. A lot of organising needed to be able to work on specific groups of tracks - e.g. each harmony group was fed to a stereo buss and the panning and levels of each track adjusted to fit what I needed for that group to be then mixed in leaving just one fader for the group, knowing the relative volumes were just right. Finally, I bounced that track down and muted out the originals so I could then think about FX and automation without killing the cpu.

I found it useful to automate the reverb SEND for most of the track so as to stop things getting swamped in overall mix. I found this was a slightly better approach than volume automation for some tracks and track elements.

Anyway, comments, good bad or indifferent always welcome.

Rob (aka doctorbob)
 
doctorbob said:
Same here ... neither my cat or dog paid any attention to the sound, and they can hear! I simply dropped the pitch so it can be heard in the mix (sort of!).

Anyone got any comments on my take on the mix? (On prev page). Will take listen to the last few in and comment later. I'm sure we'll all have different views on how this could be mixed, and I wonder how much away from the "original mix" people have gone? Like others, I did my own mix first before taking a listen to the "reference" mix. A lot of organising needed to be able to work on specific groups of tracks - e.g. each harmony group was fed to a stereo buss and the panning and levels of each track adjusted to fit what I needed for that group to be then mixed in leaving just one fader for the group, knowing the relative volumes were just right. Finally, I bounced that track down and muted out the originals so I could then think about FX and automation without killing the cpu.

I found it useful to automate the reverb SEND for most of the track so as to stop things getting swamped in overall mix. I found this was a slightly better approach than volume automation for some tracks and track elements.

Anyway, comments, good bad or indifferent always welcome.

Rob (aka doctorbob)
Click to expand...

Rob,

Most of the instruments, including the drums, are too low for me… unless you are going for a certain feel. Although the vocals sound great, that one delayed vocal is way too hot and is very jarring to listen to. I would love to hear a revision.
 
Just uploaded to pureMix. Quick notes. This took a couple of nights. Three actually, because the first night was spent prepping the stems. Grouping, normalizing, adding colors to the tracks. I like the song and the performance and arrangement. Therefore it was easy to see the potential in those bare-bones stems. I concentrated on creating space for the nice vocals. Space and support and no distractions. Because I am pretty sure Amber sang all of the vocal tracks, I needed to be mindful which parts were sung only by the "backup" singers and which were sung by the lead vocalist. In other words I treated it like she was on stage at center mic and the backups were off to the side and she would sometimes sing with them and sometimes not. So I wanted my pans and levels to reflect that picture. There were many decisions. Three hi-hat parts. Three kick parts (not including the part labeled "beat.") Which to use and when? Well, it depended on which ones blended better with the vocals. I mixed to NS-10s. After that I monitored the mix fairly loudly through my old but very good hi-fi spkrs and made adjustments mainly to the Phatty and kick part. Good luck, everyone.
 
Fishmed said:
Rob,

Most of the instruments, including the drums, are too low for me… unless you are going for a certain feel. Although the vocals sound great, that one delayed vocal is way too hot and is very jarring to listen to. I would love to hear a revision.
Click to expand...

Hi, thanks for this. I did actually drop the drums down a bit - maybe I'll push them back up with the instruments. I'll take a listen to that delayed vox again ... it's a funny one anyway, almost doesn't need to be there ...

I'll post when I've revised it ... thanks for this feedback - very useful -

Rob.
 
Hi John Watt,
Well, I listened to your mix again with my speakers, and the bass sounded really good! Liked your mix. Just a little work on the ending and I think you would have a great mix there.
All the mixes that I've heard here seem to be very well done. You guys on this site really seem to know what your doing. Good Luck in the contest!
 
It was Great to work with such professionally recorded tracks. My mix turned out great. It took allot of processing to work with 90 tracks so I eventually had to bounce my drums. If i could go back I would turn down the kicks a little bit. But overall I think my mix sounds great.
 
doctorbob,
Very nice mix! A little more original than the other mixes, but well dome. The only comment that I can hear in your mixes that, in some places, your Backup singers seemed to be featured as much as your Lead singer. I always thought the lead singer should be the featured one, with backups more in the back ground to support the lead. So, just a little volume control and, or Fx tweeking, and you'll have a great mix there! God Luck in the contest!
 
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