MIX CHALLENGE - MC35 August 2017 - Winners announced

[The Rocker]

Just wanted to say I joined the site less than 24 hrs ago,,, You would have had one more!!!
Looking forward to more challenges, I just got here lol,,,

[Studio Saturn]

To be honest, I would have participated every month but when I did I didn't get criticism from the song provider he just shut me off and it is not about winning for me but explanation would have been great. So I considered it as if it is a waste of time and decided to make them new plugin testing sessions except for this contest. What is the point song provider kept silence and for next round he came up with a bunch of criticism

We will make this place shine in the future.

[SRMix]

I asked SRMix if it was possible to upload the mix to a different site, I keep getting warnings from Zippyshare

I have sent you the files via PM. Let me know if everything is OK now please.

[SRMix]

Re-sent with Mega. Let me know. TY

[OctopusOnFire]

Re-sent with Mega. Let me know. TY

All is good, apologies for the extra work. I got all the submissions, let's do some listening!

[OctopusOnFire]

Just confirming the remaining submissions:

SRMix
Studio Saturn
kc23
Beeble
Arthur Labs

Good luck to everyone!

[OctopusOnFire]

Okay, here are the results!

There was so much good stuff. Down below there are 3 quotes, the first one has the list of those who advance to round 2, the second one has some submissions that stood out to me, and the third has some more feedback.

Congrats to those who passed, and thanks everyone for participating, I had a great time listening!

Let's go!

FEEDBACK - Chosen for the 2nd round

This one was extremely difficult to judge. The song is complex and there are several routes to choose from. Giving you the DI tracks and clean synths allowed you to shape the character of the sound in a drastic way. Some of you chose to go the way of the rough, some chose to drift away from it. I wanted both approaches to have a fair judgement, so I had to spend some time trying to understand every submission independently from all the others, including my own vision when necessary.

Additionally, I removed the names from every track and gave numbers instead. I didn't check the names until I was writing the feedback.

I based my choices not only on technichal skill but also on how the song just made me feel on the first impression and after a few listens. I'll try to explain myself the best I can and be helpful.

Here are the chosen participants for round 2, in no particular order:


donkeyt

You added a lot of stuff to the production, and for the most part I loved it. Outstanding atmosphere. Needs a lot of polishing but it's working great for the song.
Punchy and aggressive drums, I like them but maybe the snare is poking out a little too much. The kick is a bit subby, especially in contrast with the snare's heavy atack. Try balancing those 2 out.
Good job on the bass. I kind of miss a little bite, and a little less thickness. Just a hair.
The vocals are great but they're on top of everything else and don't let the music transpire. Try blending them better, backing off a little bit on the vocal effects, rebalancing it with the band.... It also feels like there's a little congestion around the 2-3kHz area. This area needs a lot of attention.
Superb work with the synths, but I'm kinda missing the eagle synth at least as a transition between sections.

Last section: What I said about the male vocals applies here as well. I like the transition ("Safe in a place...") but could you push the vocals back/roll some highs to create some dynamics?. I love the build up fo the synths up to the drum fill. I want the feeling of building up and exploding a bit more featured, though I understand it is a long part. Also, don't leave the guitars and the bass that loud after the drums stop. Feature the synths. Either fade out or filter the guitars.



MedII


Hard not to headbang at this one. Great job. Back off a bit on the delays of the YT voice clips ("He will not divide us"), though.
Nice stutter on the guitar harmonics, but make them more like ear candy, less noticeable, not that upfront.
Perfect balance and tone overall. The drums are rocking, the guitars are powerful and the voice is perfectly mixed in.

Last section: Perfect transition. Voice a tad to thick, let it fly a little more. Very pleasing combination of guitars and synths. Fade out or filter the guitars/bass after the drums go away. Let the voice and the synths carry on to the end.

I've got very few criticisms. You took my rough and elevated it to a great mix. Just try polishing the rough edges and put some final "fairy dust" on it.



Mork

Not a fan of the roomy sound of the intro. Try favouring the music a little more over the voice clip.

I love the tone and the dynamics of the mix, but it feels like the kick and the bass are somehow dragging down the momentum. I wouldn't say they're fighting, maybe the bass lacks a bit of definition. And I like how the kick pops out, but it feels a bit overwhelming after a while.

Great work with the synths, nice automation, but they feel a little dry in my opinion, especially the bouncy ones coming from the sides.

Last section: I think the transition has too much stuff on it. It feels bigger than the chorus that precedes it. Make it more intimate so it explodes when the drums come in. Fade out the guitars after the drums stop so they disappear before the voice and synths. Other than that, I like how you introduced the percussion, it's not very obtrusive. It sounds big and majestic, I like it very much.



Marc Clement

Okay this is a wildcard. It deviates a lot from the original concept but it sounds so insanely good and has so much character that I couldn't leave it out. This could perfectly work out if we had the chance to have some back and forth about the final sound, and build up on those ideas. We don't have that luxury, so I'll try to sum it all up the best I can.


Guitars - I like the idea, but I'd love you to dirty them up a bit more. Not full on distortion, but something QOTSA would do (check out "If I had a tail" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjYZToX ... iRathMIeLv), or maybe some Orange amp/cab simulation.

Kick pokes out just a hair too much. The snare verb has some changes through the song that feel a little too noticeable. On the chorus it looks way more dry than in the verses, which is distracting. I'm fine with the weird verb, just doesn't feel yet fully integrated with the rest of the mix. Actually, maybe the snare is causing the drums to pump a bit weird on the chorus, check it out.
A bit safe on the main vocals. Try some slaps. Stellar work on all the background vocals though.

Last section: Nice transition, maybe the piano a little too "in your face". Very nice work on the vocal, it's a shame that it gets a little buried by the piano (I think you can make it a tad less loud after the transition and get away with it), and the percussion. Try hiding them a bit more. The snare creates an interesting openness in the sound, just try to polish it so it works here and through the rest of the song. Nice ending, btw.


I think you reinterpretated the song in a way that ticked with me, just check out that snare and that weird pumping on the chorus, along with the rest of the feedback. But it definitely has character and says something to me. Great job.





Coiled Ear

Fade in the intro in some way, or at least don't keep it static.

Very nice balance, open sound yet kicking in the middle. Outstanding work with the textures of the guitars, synths and overheads. The whole picture is great, but maybe it has a little too much of "smiley eq curve" if you know what I mean. It feels full and more balanced in the choruses though, but you could polish that difference.

Nice bass, love the punch and definition, maybe it doesn't need to be that upfront?

The voice feels a little too heavy on the 3-5kHz, maybe it's helping to create that bump. It feels both small and on top of the band at the same time. When the distorted voice comes in, it feels way bigger and blended with the band (though there's also a lot of fizz and noise, obviously).


Last section: Voice a tad too distorted. The second voice can work, just try polishing it and getting it out of the way of the main voice, which needs to fly a bit more. The balance and tone are great throughout the whole section, but it feels a bit static. Maybe bringing the main voice more upfront would help. Again, it looks to me like the bass could leave a bit more space for the other elements to fly.





Vas Dim

Intro fade in feels a little too abrupt somewhere in the middle.

Snare a little paper-ish and dry, should "explode" a bit more. The while kit would benefit from some edge, some teeth, some distortion, maybe.

Bass a little thicker that I'd like to, feels like dragging back the momentum sometimes. Maybe it's a tad loud as well.

The work with the voices is nice though it falls a bit towards the safe side. It gets a bit nasally on the chorus, probably because of the vocoded choir? Anyway, you can misbehave a lot more.

Last Section: Nice work with the music, the voice feels a little too dry and kinda boxy, maybe? Favor the drumkit snare over the percussion snare.

Overall, I love what you did with the mix, I'm just missing a little more edge, a little more space, a little ear candy, a little extra something.





Dave McIsaac


Nice intro fade in, but it goes too loud moments before the band comes in. Rebalance the volume so the actual song punches hard when it starts. Also, clean the guitar part or at least push it back.

I have 2 problems with this mix. Other than that, it really caught my attention.

1- The kick is a bit too loud, poking out and becomes overwhelming after a time.

2 - The whole mix seems a little unbalanced to me. It looks like there's a lot of stuff happening at the sides. The overheads, synths and guitars are at each other's throat, fighting for the space. Especially on the chorus, the synths seems unnecessarily upfront and pushed to the sides, and the overheads and guitars are complaining. It's a bit messy and it's screwing with the middle as well. The middle feels a bit empty, probably the kick doesn't help


Despite these problems, the mix still works for me, so it makes me think that it has the potential to be a winner if these problems are fixed.

Last section: Nice roomy voice but it needs something else, maybe some echo. It's also a bit too present, sibilants poke out too much. The synths here and throughout the song feel a bit heavy on the high frequencies, too much tickle but not a lot of meat. The percussion is a bit too loud, especially the tambourine that goes along with the kick. Nice ending, just push back the eagle synth, don't let it poke out that much, and the last "to me" echoes, make them less apparent, more ethereal.





Zsolt:

Great drums, great synths, great vocals!! The whole mix lacks a bit of thickness and has a tad too much presence, probably the character of the bass is not helping. Another problem I have is the texture of the guitars, a tad to grainy and broken for my taste. They work better for the ending, though, still not sold on them. Try giving them some body.

Regarding the drums, the kick does sound a little plasticky to me, the beater is too present. It helps in the chorus (though it could be a little more buried), but it stands out a bit too much on the verses. Like the guitars,see if you can add some body. It has weight, but it sounds a bit thin at the same time.

About the ending part, nice transition, and nice work opening up the synths, making it sound big and majestic. Still, a bit on the safe side, I'm missing some energy.

FEEDBACK - Honorable mentions
Those mentioned here were really close, and any of them could have made it into the 2nd round. I had real problems deciding who's in and who's not, so here are what you could call the "honorable mentions":


Tony Hill:

Loved the dynamics and the feeling of the song moving forward, you really achieved that effect in my opinion. Great balance between the different vocals and great mono compatibility. This one was very, very close to make it. My biggest problem, and what ultimately dragged the mix back was the overall tone, kind of boxy and heavy on the mids. It lacked the punch and sparke that other mixes had, and while it did some things better than the chosen ones, it lacked that "extra something". Great job though.





EchoOread:

Nice tone and volume balance, but I'm having the feeling that the panning is kind of inconsistent. It feels leaning to the right on the verses, thought it balaces out on the pre-chorus and chorus. There's also a feeling of energy going down right after the chorus. Guitar squeeks poke out a little too much through the verses and are distracting, same for the effects on the vocoder.
I feel that every element sounds good by itself, but somehow they're not working together well with each other, in my opinion. That applies to sections, check out the energy and volume change between the "main song" and the ending part with the female vocals.
To sum up, great work on the individual elements and sections, not so much on the whole thing.


MOA22:

Nice space and tone on the voice. Nice balance though the kick is poking a little. The whole drum kit feels a little choked, or maybe pumping in a way that's not very pleasant to me. Stellar guitars. My problem with the mix is that it opens up and shrinks depending on how busy it is. It does it in kind of an obvious way, not flowing. There are also differences in the loudness of the voice that don't help the flow. Synths feel a little too pushed back and meshed together. I'd like to see some of them driving the song a little more, while others support it.

Great, great work on the ending part. The synths work much better, the drums too. The voice, while a little dry and heavy on the 500Hz, feels like it could fit perfectly with a couple fixes.


Nige:

Nice intro, well done. Great work with the voice.
Kick a little flabby and subby. Kind of overwhels the bass, that disappears sometimes, leaving a hole in the middle.
Great balance overall and great transition between sections. Toms are quantized at some points, which feels distracting to me.
This mix has actually very few problems, but the one problem with the rhythm section kind of makes it all fall apart for me.
As for the last part, cool echoes, try making them a little more ethereal and unobtrusive though. Some extra de-essing on the voice wouldn't hurt. Other than that, same problem than the rest of the song, great synths, nice guitars, but the problem in the low end makes it all suffer.


Photonic:

Nice intro. Nice industrial sound, I like what you went for. Great balance. The overtone on the bass is kind of annoying after a while, and "elbowing" everything else in the mix. I like the lo-fi and punchiness in the drums, but they feel a little too contained sometimes. The guitars are a tad too lo-fi for my taste though.
Though I like the sound you're going for, I think the whole mix is a little heavy on the mid range and sounds very mono to me, which detracts a little extra excitement.
About the last part. I see what you went for holding on the drums until the fill, and definitely is a good concept that would work with some tweaking. To prevent the drop in energy, dirtying up the percussion would've helped, in my opinion. Nice echoes on the voice, probably need to be more ethereal.


AlexTruta

I like the sound of the drum and bass, they carry the song very well.
Stellar work on the supporting voices! I didn't enjoy too much the hard tuning and some points and the nosey character of the main voice. It is a shame because the work on the others is one of the best for me.

I also like a lot how the drums punch and still have abody. Maybe the cymbals need a bit more of excitement, but still very very solid drums.

About the last part, I like the idea of the echo, but it's a tad "too much all the time". Used sparsely would've worked better in my opinion.

Listening back, it's a good mix overall, and it could've perfectly be an honorable mention, but during the fist impressions, the main voice and the texture of the guitars threw me off a bit.

More Feedback!!

Here's more feedback to round it up to 20!
Apologies for not giving FB to everyone. If anyone has any question about it, or wants to ask me for feedback on a specific issue, just send me a PM or ask away in this same thread. I'll try to be as active as possible.
Thanks again for participating and for all the work put into it!



kc23

I like that you went for a thick and punchy sound, but maybe you overcooked it a little.

The snare feels a little choked, along with the rest of the kit. I feel the bass is a little... woofy? It is steady and upfront, maybe a little too much, ends up being a bit overwhelming for the rest of the elements.

Nice work on the main vocals, the echo would benefit from some automation in order to not interfere with the voice.

Guitars and synths could be fighting a bit too much for the sides? None of them comes out very defined.

As for the ending, you add the piano panned right, there's still more congestion on the sides and the voice suffers from that and also the bass.


Studio Saturn

The drum kit feels a little dry and lacking energy and excitement. It sounds good, but it doesn't give me the push and the feeling of moving forward that I need for this song.

I am missing the guitars mostly in the chorus, a little masked by the synths. The voice feels a bit naked and dry. The BGVs and ok, but the vocoded choirs and the pitched hi-takes don't add up as much as they should.

The mix has good balance, tone and separation, and some nice ear candy. it's just not giving me that extra excitement that other mixes did. It's as if the band was playing the song chilling and having some fun, instead of pissed off, sweating and rocking hard.


SRMix

The mix is very open and well balanced, and consistent through the different sections of the song. Great job overall. However, I had a couple problems.

The snare has a thickness and some sustain that I don't dig too much. It makes it standing a bit by itself, attracting too much attention. The drums and the bass don't feel cohesive and driving the song forward.
I am missing the guitars, too clean and secondary for this song.
Good work with the vocoider though it may be a bit too noticeable. Maybe hold back a bit on the modulation or push it back a little.

All in all, I liked the ending part very much. Great use of the percussion, the drums seem to work much better, work nice with the bass, support the rest of the band, etc. If I could change something, I'd hide the breaths way down, or even remove them.




Kevin Gobin

Good work with the voice, I like the character that the reverb brings to it, but I'd smooth it out a bit. Maybe filtering the top end, maybe volume, predelay... Geat work with the female vocals as well, though it feels a tad thin and the breaths should be automated down or removed.

I'm not very fond of the shotgun kind of snare, kind of pokes out too much from the kit and the whole mix.

The sound of the guitars is too grainy and broken to me. Also, the right one is overwhelming the left most of the time. This makes the synths also be much more noticeable on the left. This "synths controlling the left and guitar controlling the right" doesn't work with a song that should sound like a "wall of sound" kind of mix.


Dwic


There's something weird going on with the voice reverb? It feels like it comes and goes.
It feels there's a lot of focus on the voice, it is too prominent, nasal, and there's a lot of work with echoes and panning that is unnecessary extra work and distracts the focus from the band, which begs for more attention from the listener.

In the last part, while the voice still feels a little nasal, it works much better, the band flows much better and it is finally noticeable.

I believe you probably got very invested on the details and lost some of the overall perspective. The band actually rocks very nicely at some parts, especially in the last part.

Ungifted

Nice separation and interesting sound. I'm not sold on the drums though. They feel a little static and contained to me. Kick sounds nice, snare sounds nice, overheads too, but they don't dance together so I don't feel the song moving.

I like the tone of the main voice at some moments, when the distortion is not that apparent, may I ask what did you use there?

There are some differences in levels that are distracting, like the main voice/distorted one and the voice clips.

About the end, the piano feels too dry and upfront, it works better as background. The voice has a nice roomy character, but it feels like it distorts and makes it a bit "ugly for the part", so to speak.

Nice work overall!

[donkey tugger]

donkeyt

You added a lot of stuff to the production, and for the most part I loved it. Outstanding atmosphere. Needs a lot of polishing but it's working great for the song.
Punchy and aggressive drums, I like them but maybe the snare is poking out a little too much. The kick is a bit subby, especially in contrast with the snare's heavy atack. Try balancing those 2 out.
Good job on the bass. I kind of miss a little bite, and a little less thickness. Just a hair.
The vocals are great but they're on top of everything else and don't let the music transpire. Try blending them better, backing off a little bit on the vocal effects, rebalancing it with the band.... It also feels like there's a little congestion around the 2-3kHz area. This area needs a lot of attention.
Superb work with the synths, but I'm kinda missing the eagle synth at least as a transition between sections.

Last section: What I said about the male vocals applies here as well. I like the transition ("Safe in a place...") but could you push the vocals back/roll some highs to create some dynamics?. I love the build up fo the synths up to the drum fill. I want the feeling of building up and exploding a bit more featured, though I understand it is a long part. Also, don't leave the guitars and the bass that loud after the drums stop. Feature the synths. Either fade out or filter the guitars.

First off, having done this myself last month, just speculating that you'll now be a bit tired, and perhaps a little sick of the song temporarily! Great job on all the feedback for everyone.

Having listened to my mix the other day, after a week or so without hearing it, I think I came to most of the same conclusions you have (although I do like a nice loud pop vocal - but context is all!). Plus, I've had a few more ideas for building up the end part already...

That's Sunday afternoon sorted out then.

[Mister Fox]

Thank you for handling the evaluation, OctopusOnFire.

Let us kick off Mix Round 2, which will end on Thursday, 31-AUG-2017 11:59pm GMT+1/CEST

NEW FEATURE:
There isa new new GLOBAL COUNTDOWN to check for deadlines.
Just follow this link: Global Countdown (on homepage)



The following 8 participants go into Round 2 (alphabetical order)

Coiled Ear
Dave McIsaac
donkeyt
Marc Clement
MedyI
Mork
VasDim
Zsolt


A thank you to everyone, and good luck for Round 2

[Waleed Morris]

Congratulation for round 2 guys ..of course any feedback would be greatly appreciated , thank you .