MIX CHALLENGE - MC38 November 2017 - Winners announced

[kevin gobin]

Congrats to the winners!

[Arthur Labus]

Congratulations to the winners !

And ... yes, my fault. Oh well ...
Thanks for the song Fabian.

[Mister Fox]

First and foremost, congratulations to the winners!

The Winners Podium is
1) Mork
2) davemcisaac
3) erictracks


We perform with the usual - please select one license out of the pool (in order of the winners podium) and mention it in this thread, then (important) get in touch with me via PM with your full name and mail address.

I'll update the "winners podium" thread shortly.

Thanks again for your participation. You can leave the thread alive if you want to exchange tips/tricks, edits, etc.
MC39 is in full swing - see you over there!



To the songwriters among us, the Songwriting Competition 04 is also up and running. You can find it here:
http://mix-challenge.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11

And for those that want to dip a toe into mastering (or excel in this area), you can find the Mastering Challenge 01 here:
http://mix-challenge.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=9

[Mister Fox]

Congratulations to the winners !

And ... yes, my fault. Oh well ...
Thanks for the song Fabian.

Let me please make clear that you're not disqualified "per se". You booted yourself out of the game with having the same links for your entry and Mix Round 2. I was merely asked to confirm this.

Guess that is a lesson learned, good luck for the next game.

[Arthur Labus]

Absolutely Mister Fox !

[davemcisaac]

Congratulations to Mork for another big win!
I'll take a pass on claiming my 2nd place prize this time around. See you all in MC39.

[Mork]

Hi,

congratulations to Dave and erictracks and everybody who created something out of this piece of work!
Being german didn‘t hurt in this MC, so that played out to my advantage I guess.

A little sidenote:
I didn‘t listen to a lot of other mixes. I tried, but being on the road a lot with only my iPad at hand, most of the mixes wouldn‘t stream. It seems like the only site left that works on mobile devices is Google Drive (without an app). I have to say, even on my workstation at home downloading everything just for a quick listen feels a bit overkill. That is why I just stream your mixes in the browser, but a lot of the sites don‘t offer streaming at all (like Mega for example). That is really a shame, as I tend to skip the nonstreamable mixes and just try the next one. Food for thought...
Going to download Daves and erics mixes now and give it a listen

Is the Black Rooster stuff an option in this MC? Otherwise I‘d take the Acon Restauration Suite.

Cheers
Mork

[Mister Fox]

Alright...

Mork picked up a license from Acon Digital
davemcisaac passes on a license
erictracks just contacted meto pick up something from Metric Halo


Thanks for your selection

[Mister Fox]

The following has just been brought to my attention - though since it's over a month too late, and nobody really commented on it, let's discuss what can be done in the future to prevent this issue from happening again.

Hey Kev, sorry for the late reply, I've been swamped with work! Unfortunately our client wasn't as impressed as you, but to be honest, there's nothing special going on.

First console emulation (SSL E) then some boosting of body and top end and a little cut for less boing. This is followed by some light conpression to just give it a little punch but don't bring out too much bleed, and finally some transient enhancement (also very light because of the poor recording). I think the secret is that I layered a sample for some clean punch which otherwise is impossible to get out of this recording. Just some generic acoustic snare, treatment's almost the same as the original snare but with more comp. Hope that answers your question, as always I won't go into numbers because my specific settings won't fit your or anybody elses soundscape. Just have fun turning knobs!

Cheers
Mork

Important bits marked in dark red.



To quote the rule sets:

http://www.mix-challenge.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5#p5

The participants are limited to the provided source material

http://www.mix-challenge.com/forum/view ... 1129#p1129

PRODUCTION RELATED: no drum replacement, work with what you have (EQ and compression goes a long way)

Going by the quoted paragraph and looking at the rule set, that is a clear rule violation.

Since this was only mentioned in Round 2 (read: it wasn't even mentioned in the requested/mandatory documentation), we can't be sure that the snare triggering was also part of the second mix. What I can say however as somebody that analyzes every(!) track before it goes into the song pool (read: doing an in-depth integrity check), and doing some rudimentary "mix tests" to see what goes, I can not confirm that the recordings were poor or boring sounding. A lot could still be done with the right tools, but drum replacement was not part of the deal.

Sadly, nobody saw this (I sure didn't - I was busy with other work) or it got pointed out in time, nether did the client comment on it. And it's also one month too late, all winners have picked up their licenses as well. With MORK (funny enough) making 1st Place - which makes this topic even more sour, and leaves a bad taste in everybody's mouth.

Every form of punishment is definitely too late, but I sadly can't let this slip either. Especially in fairness to everybody else, who invested the time to go far out and work with the material they had.



I am therefore strongly considering to issue the following:

[warning=Mister Fox]Due to a non recognized rule violation, which resulted in an unfair advantage to all other participants, I hereby issue a warning for contestant MORK.

As a consequence: you will be penalized for Mix Challenge 40 / February 2018 - read: you'll sit this one out

Important: you will not be suspended from the forum. You can mix the production regardless for personal training purposes, but you will not be taken into consideration for the evaluation process.

I am fully aware that this is a late punishment. However, the rules have been clearly stated, and the Mix Challenge community is all about fair play and being a learning process.[/warning]



Please discuss.

[Mork]

Wow, I just read this! I'm really sorry and didn't want to win through unfair rule means. I looked in the guidelines (first post) saw nothing about drum triggering and went for it. As I said I'm sorry for the rule violation but don't get the point of this- Sample replacement/Triggering is a common technique used by most engineers of any level and is just that - a technique like compression and eq. Why else would the guys that get top notch recordings for instance still thicken the snare through layering a sample? Because it's another way to shape your sound in the right direction that's different than comp and eq. And just to be clear: I didn't replace the snare, I layered a sample for point and body. Just as is done in any modern metal record that exists. It's nothing that magically propells the quality of your work up into the universe and I am confident to say that it was not the main reason my mixed worked as it did - just a small part of it.

Regarding to what I said about numbers - I still think that holds up! What good are my 4db of 4k if your mix is way more dense and it doesn't cut it, but the same boost at 6k lets it shine in your mix? That's the tip - saturate it, make it brighter, more body, less honk. All that must be adjusted to fit your context, perspective and of course your style! If somone had asked who obviously never eqed a snare in his life my answer would have been more specific numberwise. I remember I've even uploaded screenshots of my whole vocal chain once because I was specifically asked about it.

Again, sorry for the rule violation!
I already sat out MC39!

Cheers
Mork