2024-MAR-01 Info: Check out Songwriting Competition 079 if you're into "Synthwave" music making.

MIX CHALLENGE - MC044 June 2018 - Winners announced

Join the Mix Challenge - recurrence: February until December
Baddo

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC044 June 2018 - Mix Round 2 in evaluation

#211

Post by Baddo »

Rogro wrote:
Sat Aug 04, 2018 16:23 CEST
Sorry guys, I was on vacation last two weeks, not able to update the mix. So my version of the first round will also be the version of the second round:


WAV www.dropbox.com/s/i7zm5rqk7limbqo/MC044_Rogro%20mix.wav
MP3 www.dropbox.com/s/gk3zpu9o4o5jk8i/MC044_Rogro%20mix.mp3



Rogro
Hi Rogro,

Fair enough, I'll add your Round 1 mix to the session then.
OctopusOnFire

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC044 June 2018 - Mix Round 2 until 31-07-2018 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#212

Post by OctopusOnFire »

Baddo wrote:
Sat Aug 04, 2018 01:30 CEST


Wow, nice punch. You retained all the clarity and lowered the bass without loosing fatness, very nice. I will have to look into this parallel particles plug, sounds like a nice tool to have. I love the different tones you gave the guitars and I really have nothing negative to say about the mix. There is one minor thing that I am not sure about and it just might be myself being a little close minded and that is the subtle auto pan effect you used on the guitar when it is riffing alone. But man… I love your mix.
Thank you again for putting good material up for mixing, and giving feedback like a true MADLAD.

I'm pretty sure if you google parallel particles you'll find many people saying it's snake oil. I don't know exactly what it does, and to be honest I don't usually grab it (probably I will more often), but it truly is amazingly simple, versatile and good sounding. So good that you will overdo it all the time until you get used. I'd tell you to watch Andrew Scheps promo videos if you want an overall walkthrough.

Now... I'm pretty sure I didn't use any panning effects on the mix, so can you specify what part and which guitar are you talking about? Maybe it was some kind of widener or a side effect of tape or something :headscratch: :headscratch:
Coiled_Ear

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC044 June 2018 - Mix Round 2 in evaluation

#213

Post by Coiled_Ear »

so who is the winnnnner?)
User avatar
Henrik Hjortnaes
Posts: 91
Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2018 22:03 CET
Location: Dynaudio City, Skanderborg

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC044 June 2018 - Mix Round 2 until 31-07-2018 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#214

Post by Henrik Hjortnaes »

Baddo wrote:
Sat Aug 04, 2018 06:51 CEST
Henrik Hjortnaes
Listening a little closer, I hear some slight crackling sometimes in my R2 mix unfortunately. I'm not sure what it is (gain staging is fully under control), but the session did max out the CPU during the bounce, so it may be due to a computer on the verge of collapse. Well, too late do correct it, but I will revisit the mix here locally.
Baddo

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC044 June 2018 - Mix Round 2 until 31-07-2018 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#215

Post by Baddo »

Henrik Hjortnaes wrote:
Mon Aug 06, 2018 23:45 CEST
Baddo wrote:
Sat Aug 04, 2018 06:51 CEST
Henrik Hjortnaes
Listening a little closer, I hear some slight crackling sometimes in my R2 mix unfortunately. I'm not sure what it is (gain staging is fully under control), but the session did max out the CPU during the bounce, so it may be due to a computer on the verge of collapse. Well, too late do correct it, but I will revisit the mix here locally.
I see, yes. But I know if this was a real gig, it would be no trouble for you to hunt down the culprit and send a new bounce, so don't worry.
Baddo

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC044 June 2018 - Mix Round 2 until 31-07-2018 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#216

Post by Baddo »

OctopusOnFire wrote:
Sun Aug 05, 2018 21:26 CEST
Baddo wrote:
Sat Aug 04, 2018 01:30 CEST


Wow, nice punch. You retained all the clarity and lowered the bass without loosing fatness, very nice. I will have to look into this parallel particles plug, sounds like a nice tool to have. I love the different tones you gave the guitars and I really have nothing negative to say about the mix. There is one minor thing that I am not sure about and it just might be myself being a little close minded and that is the subtle auto pan effect you used on the guitar when it is riffing alone. But man… I love your mix.
Thank you again for putting good material up for mixing, and giving feedback like a true MADLAD.

I'm pretty sure if you google parallel particles you'll find many people saying it's snake oil. I don't know exactly what it does, and to be honest I don't usually grab it (probably I will more often), but it truly is amazingly simple, versatile and good sounding. So good that you will overdo it all the time until you get used. I'd tell you to watch Andrew Scheps promo videos if you want an overall walkthrough.

Now... I'm pretty sure I didn't use any panning effects on the mix, so can you specify what part and which guitar are you talking about? Maybe it was some kind of widener or a side effect of tape or something :headscratch: :headscratch:
Ok, listen to the Speed section, when the left guitar plays the riff on it's own around 2:06 until the right guitar joins in at around 2:10. And around 3:07 to 3:12 on the right, when the guitar holds the low D while the left Guitar riffs on. It sounds like an auto pan or maybe some secret ingredient in one of your plugs (selective phase modulation maybe, as it doesn't grab the whole spectrum).
Aditya.inHim

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC044 June 2018 - Mix Round 2 until 31-07-2018 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#217

Post by Aditya.inHim »

Baddo wrote:
Sat Aug 04, 2018 06:21 CEST
Aditya.inHim wrote:
Tue Jul 31, 2018 20:32 CEST
This is my R2 mix.. Following the feedbakcs..
I using some paralel processing to get more "in your face" sound than my 1st mix. Enjoy it. Thank you very much for this competition

Wav : https://www.dropbox.com/s/qnp4j2kc7orbi ... V.wav?dl=0
Mp3 : https://www.dropbox.com/s/z929lctt3pwjs ... 3.mp3?dl=0

edited :
I don't know, I can't play dropbox link in my computer, so I reupload it :

Wav : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q_i71x ... sp=sharing
Mp3 : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mgYksa ... sp=sharing
Aditiya.inHim

Sounds great. Nothing negative to note other than the echo on the lead guitar when it is doing rhythm (after the chorus) messes with it and makes it sound confusing. Everything else sounds fantastic.
Thank you :)
As I remember, I put off the delay when lead guitar is doing rhytm.. I am worried I not activated the automation yet.. :(
Baddo

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC044 June 2018 - Mix Round 2 in evaluation

#218

Post by Baddo »

It is hard picking a winner after listening to all the mixes and realizing -at least in estimation- how much time you all have put into this. But it has to be done. And for better or worse, this is the one part where you can’t avoid pitting each mix against the others. So let’s jump head-straight into it:
The first thing you notice when doing this is the different spectral curves make it very easy to sort the mixes, the dullish / wooly / bass heavy mixes get sent to the back row, as do the somewhat harsh / tiring / overly bright. The next important point, at least for me (and I did mention this earlier in the thread) is dynamics and openness. Here is where impact also plays a part because there needs to be a balance between openness and impact. So I am rearranging my mixing board as I listen. Then I make loops of each section and pit the mixes against each other, here individualities start to shine, like the snare on JonasLasse’s Verse; the overall texture in Henrik’s Verse, or the balance in InHim’s Verse. Also, the qualities that seemed to be cool in the beginning wear off and let the foundational aspects gain importance, this turns out to be a negative point in a couple of mixes such as Dr.Acula's and Marc Clement's and they lose a few points. After doing this with the most important section of the track which is the Main Riff and the following Verse section, the lineup looked like this (from left to right; best to good):

Image

Let me remind you this is difficult, punch is very important and when the track goes into the Verse you want it to lay back, but not to lose tightness or get stale. Again I will mention Jonas’ mix, I think he really nailed this aspect.


Then, the Chorus,

I continued rearranging the tracks for this and a new lineup came up, Octo’s magnificent mix dropped a few points because of some lower mid resonances I identified on the guitars when comparing it against the other mixes. This section lets Henrik’s mix shine, and it’s the one I liked the most. The mixing board, after the chorus section looked like this:

Image

Now the Speed and Half-Time sections:

Impact regains it’s status. When I was reviewing this section I felt it was unfair as some of you took a long time focusing on details, but impact is so elusive you either get it or you don’t. What let me be at ease is I know I took care of judging the details mix by mix earlier, so in the end I felt I had done justice to that. On to the mix war: After rearranging my mixing board, the picture looked like this:

Image

Now on to the solo.

Before going on with this, let me say, all these mixes are stellar, if you drop the needle randomly on one, you would be hard pressed to find anything wrong, and in fact you'd be grooving along happily ( or angrily, whichever way you like). It is only when comparing side by side that you can lull yourself into making a decision. So, after going through the Solo and the Riff section after it, the mixing board looked like this:

Image

Back to the Main Riff, Chorus and Outro.

This is the final third of the song, it’s important for the Chorus to bring closure and the way to get to the Chorus has to be satisfying. Spectral balance is again very important as well as punch and all, but at this juncture the entries sort themselves out rather quickly. The mixing board at the end of the song looks like this (again, from left to right; most accomplished to adequate):

Image

So, doing some math we get the following point summary: 13 places, 5 sections, each place gets a diminishing number of points from 13 to 1, and we repeat this for each section:

1st. Mork
63 points

2nd. Henrik Hjortnaes
55 points

3rd. Rogro
52 points

4th.Coiled Ear
49 points

5th. Jack(qhtrvw425)
45 points


6th. inHim
41 points

7th. OctoOnFire
36 points

8th. JonasLasse
34 points

9th. Wizzo
29 points

10th. Dr.Acula
20 points

11th. Franz
13 points

12th. Leo Kreshmer
9 points

13th. Marc Clement
8 points


So one more listen to our Top 5 just to see if I empirically agree with the score and I can say that I do. Mork and Henrik delivered the best mixes, both very dynamic with very nice tones, awesome balance and a clear understanding of where the song wanted to go. Rogro delivered the most brutal and raw sounding one, your mix is the same from Round 1 so considering you didn’t even review it and you got to the Top 3 that was a hell of an amazing job. Coiled Ear delivered a pretty nice mix, with great tones, and great groove. qhtrvw425 delivered the mix that placed #5, there are some resonances that are easily discernible when comparing to the other Top 5 entries and the balance is not as spot on, at times it approaches the brutality level of Rogro’s mix but it’s not as raw, so I would say you are almost there, but you are lacking consistency, and there is a little taste of either over-compression or over-saturation that ultimately made my shy away from your mix. But a hell of a great job nevertheless.

In the end I have to use taste as the final yardstick but isn’t really necessary, Mork made the most points and my taste agrees. I would have been more than happy to know about you guys 10 years ago. Excellent job everyone! And congratulations Mork for kicking ass!
Image

I hope this challenge has been useful to each one of the mixers who took part in it, if you are interested in following my deliberation process you can just follow along this last post listening to the mixes as I did.

Thank you very much everyone, I hope you enjoyed working on this track.

-Leo
Last edited by Baddo on Tue Aug 07, 2018 06:12 CEST, edited 3 times in total.
Baddo

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC044 June 2018 - Mix Round 2 until 31-07-2018 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#219

Post by Baddo »

Aditya.inHim wrote:
Tue Aug 07, 2018 05:12 CEST
Baddo wrote:
Sat Aug 04, 2018 06:21 CEST
Aditya.inHim wrote:
Tue Jul 31, 2018 20:32 CEST
This is my R2 mix.. Following the feedbakcs..
I using some paralel processing to get more "in your face" sound than my 1st mix. Enjoy it. Thank you very much for this competition

Wav : https://www.dropbox.com/s/qnp4j2kc7orbi ... V.wav?dl=0
Mp3 : https://www.dropbox.com/s/z929lctt3pwjs ... 3.mp3?dl=0

edited :
I don't know, I can't play dropbox link in my computer, so I reupload it :

Wav : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q_i71x ... sp=sharing
Mp3 : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mgYksa ... sp=sharing
Aditiya.inHim

Sounds great. Nothing negative to note other than the echo on the lead guitar when it is doing rhythm (after the chorus) messes with it and makes it sound confusing. Everything else sounds fantastic.
Thank you :)
As I remember, I put off the delay when lead guitar is doing rhytm.. I am worried I not activated the automation yet.. :(
Maybe it is the reverb? You can listen to it when the 3rd guitar does that higher line in octaves, it doesn't sound bad, but takes away from the articulation. Great mix anyway!
Coiled_Ear

Re: MIX CHALLENGE - MC044 June 2018 - Mix Round 2 in evaluation

#220

Post by Coiled_Ear »

thank you! but Rogro post his r2 version after deadline. Mr.Fox should judge this moment I think.
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