MIX CHALLENGE - MC091 April 2023 - Winners announced

[Franz]

BenjiRage, well, the storm in a glass of water has passed.

I come back to you on the subject (among other things) of the snare in the drum kit.
Your remarks are correct on one specific point: in a usual "normal" situation, it makes sense to use a gate, software version.
Unfortunately, it's totally imperfect and your remark is frankly relevant when you say that if you compress the snare like crazy
in this situation, the slightest residue of hihat/cymbals at the end of the sound is violently amplified. I repeat myself: the solution
consists in manually dissecting the sounds of the snare and there, you obtain an "almost", I repeat "almost" perfect sound.
Now you are right in your perception of the mixes: it can or could be a little "unnatural" for a snare sound and to hear a sample in it.
I hope that these exchanges have been fruitful for and will be able to serve you for the future.
No hard feelings...

Franz

[Mister Fox]

Folks, there is no need to accuse each other of using "samples". This doesn't lead to nowhere. This is why I've reached out in private for more clarification.

There have been some "rule breakers" on that behalf... but that was their conscious decision to ignore the Rule Book.



Other than that, yes... "getting things tight" vs "letting things sound natural" is always a trade off. As somebody that enjoys mixing in styles that didn't go for "perfectionism", I tend to lean towards the latter. However, this is my style of mixing.

The thing is -- we never had complete "disaster pieces" as challenges (like certain comments implied lately on the lines of "too many guitars", or "drums are unusable", or "vocals need drastic treatment"...). Music isn't perfect, and it shouldn't be IMHO (again: character). If we already get "perfectly tuned/cut/processed tracks" that we merely only have to "balance out" with volume sliders...

Where is the "reality" in that (this doesn't happen outside of our community either)? And/Or where is the learning aspect?

Just some food for thought.



I got my answers now... please keep up the conversation, and have an eye on this thread regarding the "Statistic Sheet".

[BenjiRage]

BenjiRage, well, the storm in a glass of water has passed.

I come back to you on the subject (among other things) of the snare in the drum kit.
Your remarks are correct on one specific point: in a usual "normal" situation, it makes sense to use a gate, software version.
Unfortunately, it's totally imperfect and your remark is frankly relevant when you say that if you compress the snare like crazy
in this situation, the slightest residue of hihat/cymbals at the end of the sound is violently amplified. I repeat myself: the solution
consists in manually dissecting the sounds of the snare and there, you obtain an "almost", I repeat "almost" perfect sound.
Now you are right in your perception of the mixes: it can or could be a little "unnatural" for a snare sound and to hear a sample in it.
I hope that these exchanges have been fruitful for and will be able to serve you for the future.
No hard feelings...

Franz

No hard feelings at all, Franz, I'm actually glad to be wrong about it and sorry again for the presumptuous comment.

Yes, regarding compression/gate/spill that's very true but I think this is just where we differ in terms of sound preference. You're putting in so much apparent work to end up with a sound that's clean, but much less like a real snare than what you started with, it just seems counter-productive to me. However, I do find your skills in the execution of your methods very impressive though.

Having listened to it, would you be able to give me any other feedback on my mix? I'm very interested to hear what you think overall

Other than the drums (which we know we differ on!) the main thing that stood out for me with your mix was the vocals were too quiet, it was hard to discern some words and the tails of phrases get a bit lost. I think it has a very good sense of space though, nice and wide soundstage with everything in its own pocket.

[Franz]

Hi all and BenjiRave and Jeoren

Here we are in the phase of exchanges of opinions of our mixes.

I come to your mix, BenjiRave. Undeniably it's a very good mix. You managed to keep all the energy contained in this title.
What gives a sound a little rough but completely in the spirit of the composition. I particularly like the vocals. Great timbre.
Regarding the drums, as discussed during our exchanges, they seem a bit minimalist to me. Nothing special to say about the
guitars except that you could add a "grain of madness".

You raised an interesting point for my mix. I may have wanted to make everything very "clean" to the detriment of the energy
(perhaps) that emanates from it (my option would rather be "radio ready"). But we can still find energy there...

Now we will soon know what the songprovider thinks about all the mixes he received. His explanation, his presentation of the title
were very clear but it was "written" and now we go to the sound version.

I take this opportunity to wish good luck and a lot of courage to Jeoren. Difficult work to designate the winners.

This written, it is the purpose of a competition but as Mister Fox pointed out in his #122, the other important purpose
is to allow everyone to learn new things both technically and musically. In the end, there are no bad mixes, there are simply mixes.

Cheers

Franz

[sirmonkey]

Hi all,
thanks for these tracks @JeroenZuiderwijk! It was fun to mix!
Which effect did you use to simulate the bass sound?

Here is my mix: https://1drv.ms/u/s!As0I9hEHG4zz9Q62uVl ... v?e=8ilS0g

....

I did this mix with Cubase 12.

Good luck you all!
I liked this mix. I was thinking "Dang, I should have made my mix sound more like this..."
I stuck pretty close to the original tones of the guitars, but now I wish I didn't. Anyway, you added
just enough energy and power, without getting that fizzy sound that can happen with amp sims.
Vocals sat just right. All seemed balanced to me. I'm betting you'll be in round 2.

[sirmonkey]

Dear All,
Many thanks for the song provider for such a nice track to mix, and to Mr. Fox for taking care of this game.
Below you can find my mix and some details of the mix procedure.
All the best for the participants!
Cheers,
Pablo

[Dropbox link to MC091]

....

I really liked what you did on the drums. Vocals sound really good too. On the guitars, I liked the tone, but I think you could,
and should "get away with" more low mids and low end. Maybe a slight volume increase and touch of saturation on the bass.
* I think your mix is better than mine. After listening to a few others, I'm not hanging my head, but I don't have swagger either!
** Listening on reasonably good (imo) Audio Technica headphones at the moment. Bass/low end comes through on these headphones
more than on my 3" speaker cone Alesis monitors, and my other pair of headphones. So that's why I'm sure you could get in some more low end here. Anyway, good job, to my ears.
*** Opinion/impression from a total amateur hobbyist.

[pabloAT]

Hello sirmonkey,
Many thanks for your useful feedback!
I'll take care of your suggestions if I make round 2.
Cheers,
Pablo

[jordibakes]

Hello everyone,

Here's my mix:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dYDC9e ... share_link

Thank you,
Cheers

[White Punk OD]

BTW congrats to the great discussion this time, keep it coming, I hope this will also attract more song providers with exciting tracks to work on.

spectral processing: SpecOps by Unfiltered Audio (PA), a ton of effects, some to intensify and repair, some for crazy sound mangling.

[BenjiRage]

I come to your mix, BenjiRave. Undeniably it's a very good mix. You managed to keep all the energy contained in this title.
What gives a sound a little rough but completely in the spirit of the composition. I particularly like the vocals. Great timbre.
Regarding the drums, as discussed during our exchanges, they seem a bit minimalist to me. Nothing special to say about the
guitars except that you could add a "grain of madness".

Many thanks for the feedback, it's much appreciated. It's already been very eye opening in just what is potentially achievable with the use of more modern tools and methods, I wish I'd stumbled upon this site much sooner.

@JeroenZuiderwijk I wish you all the best with your mammoth task at hand! And thank you again for providing the song, it was a thoroughly enjoyable mix session. I hope my mix is worthy of consideration (although I am acutely aware I've broken the loudness threshold so I'm more than likely out )