MIX CHALLENGE - MC090 February 2023 - Winners announced

[sthauge]

Hi All,
Here is my take on this months track - again out of my confort zone which is good
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CIU15y ... sp=sharing

HI jules666

We are encouraged to give critics to the mixes, so we can get different views on our work and probably learn from them. I have been listen to your mix and here are my comments based on my taste and my preferences, others may differ. It's perfectly fine to disagree.

1. You are changing the rev/delay on the snare when the vocals starts. To me the snare sound best after the change.

2. The vocal could be a bit more upfront, it's somewhat low in the parts with lots of instrumentation.

3. Hihat dry and to the left. Read my comments to other on this topic

Good luck in the competition.

Steinar

[sthauge]

Hi,
i focused my work on the core elements. Vox, bass and drums. I did the same kind of treatment to the drums as last time. Mainley for a different kind of drum sound. I used things like drumgator, dsm v3, distortion boxes and what not. Stuff i have not used for a long time. ;-)

https://c.gmx.net/@317237882228053658/T ... JELeYtshYA

Hi tiptoe3

We are encouraged to give critics to the mixes, so we can get different views on our work and probably learn from them. I have been listen to your mix and here are my comments based on my taste and my preferences, others may differ. It's perfectly fine to disagree.

1. Your vocalist lisp, adjust you de-esser or use automation

2. The mix is slightly thin, so it could be soften/warmed up a bit. Try + 1 dB at 500 Hz with wide Q from 150 - 1.7 kHz, - 2.4 dB at 3.20 kHz wide Q from 1.7 kHz - 8 kHz.

3. I miss a more pronounced hit on the kick and a bit more body on the bass.

Good luck in the competition.

Steinar

[sthauge]

Started with gain stage making all aligned, eqed what I belief was needed to and the same for compression with different levels / styles of compression; DAW of choice: Mixbus v7 by Harrison Consoles. Passed the tracks to Mixbuses 1 to 8 with some saturation and the same for the master channel (about saturation); Finally I recorded through my Alesis 3630 and aligned to a good mixed level shaping to -1.83 dBtp and -16.5 LUFS (int) what to me is good for a mixing level.
My entry: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BCpqNr ... share_link

Hi mahzinho

Nice to see another Harrison Mixbus/Mixbus32C user

We are encouraged to give critics to the mixes, so we can get different views on our work and probably learn from them. I have been listen to your mix and here are my comments based on my taste and my preferences, others may differ. It's perfectly fine to disagree.

1. The acoustic rhythm guitar have some rather annoying chord change noises. Some are so loud that they need some automation to be reduced, eg. at ca 00:30:23 to the left. Some noise are natural, but it must not be to annoying. This needs to be done for almost every other mixes in the competition as well.

Good luck in the competition.

Steinar

[Mastemoth]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EioY9e ... sp=sharing


I had two personal goals on this mix, that I achieved:
First was to use BX Focusrite Channel Strip on every tracks and see the result of this (I've needed to reduce THR and V noise Gain for that).
Second was to build some nice echoes on chorus......

3. The HiHat is panned rather far left. Are you a drummer? Drummers tend to put the HiHat to the left when mixing. Usually as audience we are used to hear it slightly to the right. You might have an idea behind the decision, but to me it sound strange and it could give the feeling that the HiHat is "disconnected" from the drum set or that the drummer have extremely long arms

This is interesting and I just came to think about it now. I've been mixing for 20 years. Mostly for clients. I've always mixed drummer's perspective. I'm not a drummer myself but I am a musician. However, I don't feel that's why I mix drummer's perspective. Also I'm not bothered when someone mixes audience perspective. I basically just accept it as a mix choice. Here I get the feel that you feel it irks you the wrong way. Is that true? I can't remember that any of the bands/artists I've mixed during these 20 years have said that the hihat is on the wrong side. I haven't really thought much about it over the years. But one thing I thought was that people that watch a lot of music(live) and don't play (don't know how drums are played) might be the ones who thinks it sounds odd.But since no one said anything it never bothered me.

When it comes to me it gets a bit more interesting. It wasn't really a stylistic choice. I was more a recordist in 2000-2010 and recorded for bigger mixers. When I started out and you had to patch microphones correctly and keep track of what was what I got annoyed by not keeping track of what was left and right in the overheads.But you always had Tom 1, Tom 2, Tom 3 coming up on the console, left to right. So for me it was natural that Tom 1 was on the left and then overhead left would ALWAYS be the lower over head number. This is a practice that carried over to my mixing.

The funny thing is that for 20 years no one thought it was odd. That's it for this anecdote that I just came to think about.

[jules666]

Hi All,
Here is my take on this months track - again out of my confort zone which is good
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CIU15y ... sp=sharing

HI jules666

We are encouraged to give critics to the mixes, so we can get different views on our work and probably learn from them. I have been listen to your mix and here are my comments based on my taste and my preferences, others may differ. It's perfectly fine to disagree.

1. You are changing the rev/delay on the snare when the vocals starts. To me the snare sound best after the change.

2. The vocal could be a bit more upfront, it's somewhat low in the parts with lots of instrumentation.

3. Hihat dry and to the left. Read my comments to other on this topic

Good luck in the competition.

Steinar

Hi Steinar,

Thanks for taking the time to listen to my version of this mix challenge.

I agree listening back to my mix that the vocal should come up a little, if I am asked to go into round 2 I will action this (assuming the song creator wants this).

Intro snare I kept it drier for the intro, just what I felt like at the time worked.

The hihat is panned left as I prefer to mix drummer perspective....comes from "air drumming" along to songs when I was kid (though I cannot play drums for s**t)
When you state the hithat it is dry, do you feel I should have added some verb? I do not normally add verb to cymbals but if in this genre it is expected I will bear that in mind next time.
If you feel the hat is a little disconnected due to the hard left panning, then yes I could pull it in but I do tend to stick to LCR panning as much as possible... so again if I make it to round 2 and the song creator feels it needs to come in more then not a problem.

Thanks again for the feedback though!

[sthauge]

Hi

We are encouraged to give critics to the mixes, so we can get different views on our work and probably learn from them. I have been listen to your mix and here are my comments based on my taste and my preferences, others may differ. It's perfectly fine to disagree.

For the rest of the comments, I'm sum it up in this post.

1. The acoustic rhythm guitar have some rather annoying chord change noises. Some are so loud that they need some automation to be reduced. Some noise are natural and could be there, but it must not be to annoying. This needs to be done for almost every mixes in the competition.

2. One tricky thing with the vocal was to avoid lisping. This is present in many mixes, so check it out.

@Ronson79 - May be a bit more upfront vocal in louder parts

@RB310 - Open up, more clarity

@PistolPete - Vocal could be softer in parts of the song. You are using the acoustic guitar relative loud, so check against #1 over.

@Andreas_Ko - Vocal could be more upfront. The vocalist lisp some places eg. 01:25:09

 @VasDim - The vocalist lisp eg. 01:25:09

@barleyguy - The drums could be opened up, more bright. More present kick and with a pronounced hit.

@LCM! - The mix could be opened some more, drums brighter?

I think I stop now. That does not mean there are comments to others as well. You have seen what elements I have been looking for, so check you mix.

To everybody, good luck with the contest. Keep up the good work.

Steinar :-)

[White Punk OD]

BTW many folks missed the bell tree sound at 2:16.
I targeted some Latin sound scape which is a bit more dry, where it plays quite a nice role.
(My mix can therefor be mastered with the bass-heavy "Miami Loud" option in the PA AI mastering service, if one wants a free take on it. I used the 48k render to check that out. Here, according to the rules, you can find only the 44.1k unmastered version.)

Some drum breaks and rolls sound a bit mechanical.
A certain old "Euro" sound with much reverb and little of subsonics seemed a popular choice this time.
Among the 15 I looked into, I think Paupeu delivered a mix that I like.

[barleyguy]

Hi

We are encouraged to give critics to the mixes, so we can get different views on our work and probably learn from them. I have been listen to your mix and here are my comments based on my taste and my preferences, others may differ. It's perfectly fine to disagree.

For the rest of the comments, I'm sum it up in this post.

1. The acoustic rhythm guitar have some rather annoying chord change noises. Some are so loud that they need some automation to be reduced. Some noise are natural and could be there, but it must not be to annoying. This needs to be done for almost every mixes in the competition.

2. One tricky thing with the vocal was to avoid lisping. This is present in many mixes, so check it out.

@barleyguy - The drums could be opened up, more bright. More present kick and with a pronounced hit.

To everybody, good luck with the contest. Keep up the good work.

Steinar :-)

Steinar,

Thanks for taking the time to listen and comment. You are absolutely correct about my mix. My drums could be better. The kick is too low and too dark, and the drums could be sculpted, which would give the mix more space. So thanks for the accurate feedback.

I listened to your mix and will comment, not necessarily because I'm the person to do so, but because you also deserve the constructive criticism. So...

The first 90 seconds of the mix, from the beginning of the song to the guitar solo, are quite good. Any comments I had would be purely subjective.

For the guitar solo at the 90 second area, to my ears the guitar sounds like it's far away in space. In my opinion, this is the part of the show where the guitarist stands at the front of the stage and we shine a spotlight on them, so maybe move the guitar up front in the solo more. This could be by turning it up a little, or maybe by adjusting the reverb to have a predelay, or adding an effect to the guitar that moves it forward.

From the guitar solo to the end of the song, I feel like the vocal could be more prominent. Not by much. Maybe half a dB. But again, purely in my opinion, there's a lot going on near the end of the song, and we want the vocal to have the attention of the listener.

But overall, those are just my opinions, and your mix is genuinely very good. Good luck in the contest. :-)

---

Also, a commentary on your comment about automating the guitar to hide the chord changes and fingers on strings... In my opinion the trend for the 2020's is to make things sound more human. Back in the 80s the trend was to try to "perfect" everything, by making the bass player play to a click track and then cutting the tape up with a razor blade and lining it up perfectly. But nowadays we've got synthesizers and AIs that can make things perfect, so it's the breathing in the microphone, the fingers on the strings, and hitting the snare drum in the "wrong" place that are what makes us human and express more emotion that an AI. So as I said, I think the trend going forward is to accentuate the human elements. But I'm definitely getting in general discussion territory there.

Cheers,

Harley.

[sthauge]

Steinar,

Thanks for taking the time to listen and comment. You are absolutely correct about my mix. My drums could be better. The kick is too low and too dark, and the drums could be sculpted, which would give the mix more space. So thanks for the accurate feedback.

I listened to your mix and will comment, not necessarily because I'm the person to do so, but because you also deserve the constructive criticism. So...

That's great, thank you, we all have tings to learn so your(and others) comments are welcome.

The first 90 seconds of the mix, from the beginning of the song to the guitar solo, are quite good. Any comments I had would be purely subjective.

For the guitar solo at the 90 second area, to my ears the guitar sounds like it's far away in space. In my opinion, this is the part of the show where the guitarist stands at the front of the stage and we shine a spotlight on them, so maybe move the guitar up front in the solo more. This could be by turning it up a little, or maybe by adjusting the reverb to have a predelay, or adding an effect to the guitar that moves it forward.

From the guitar solo to the end of the song, I feel like the vocal could be more prominent. Not by much. Maybe half a dB. But again, purely in my opinion, there's a lot going on near the end of the song, and we want the vocal to have the attention of the listener.

But overall, those are just my opinions, and your mix is genuinely very good. Good luck in the contest. :-)

---

Also, a commentary on your comment about automating the guitar to hide the chord changes and fingers on strings... In my opinion the trend for the 2020's is to make things sound more human. Back in the 80s the trend was to try to "perfect" everything, by making the bass player play to a click track and then cutting the tape up with a razor blade and lining it up perfectly. But nowadays we've got synthesizers and AIs that can make things perfect, so it's the breathing in the microphone, the fingers on the strings, and hitting the snare drum in the "wrong" place that are what makes us human and express more emotion that an AI. So as I said, I think the trend going forward is to accentuate the human elements. But I'm definitely getting in general discussion territory there.

I totally agree on having things sound naturally. So my intention was not to remove the chord change noise completely, but take down the annoying ones. I seldom remove eg. breath. I also have given comments here about the drums and HiHat for the same reason. A drum set is one instruments with some parts. Having the HiHat upfront to the left and the rest of the drum set around the middle and in the back makes the placement unnatural. No drummer can play like that even not left handed ones. I prefer a listeners perspective, not the drummer, because we produce for the listeners. It could also have something to do with that I did mainly FOH types of jobs when I was active.

Steinar :-)

[tiptoe3]

Hi tiptoe3

We are encouraged to give critics to the mixes, so we can get different views on our work and probably learn from them. I have been listen to your mix and here are my comments based on my taste and my preferences, others may differ. It's perfectly fine to disagree.

1. Your vocalist lisp, adjust you de-esser or use automation

2. The mix is slightly thin, so it could be soften/warmed up a bit. Try + 1 dB at 500 Hz with wide Q from 150 - 1.7 kHz, - 2.4 dB at 3.20 kHz wide Q from 1.7 kHz - 8 kHz.

3. I miss a more pronounced hit on the kick and a bit more body on the bass.

Good luck in the competition.

Steinar

Hi Steinar,
thanx for taking the time for listening. As i said, i went for a different perspective soundwise. Having 90+ versions in the same spot doesnt make any sense. The original mix sounds pretty fine. No need for doing it over again.
Being "light on the foot" was intentional. Kick and bass as a good base without a too modern poke.
There are three, maybe four parts where the vacolsist lisp a bit. Could be corrected in round 2. ;-)

cheers, tippy