MIX CHALLENGE - MC091 April 2023 - Winners announced

[rvalle]

I am more than overjoyed to announce the following license sponsor for the Mix Challenge audio community



Kilohearts is kind enough to give away a "Sound Design Playground" Bundle, that includes one license each of Snap Heap and Multipass
License will turn into NFR
More info on Kilohearts: https://www.kilohearts.com



Their offer is retroactive (starting with MC091 / April 2023).

A huge thank you goes to Kilohearts for providing the licenses.

What a nice news! Another great tools for us to choose from!

[JeroenZuiderwijk]

Just letting you know that I haven't forgotten about you all ;-) I think I need a couple more days.

Cheers,

Jeroen

[d8bflup]

D8Bflup

Drums sound too friendly. It does have a good balance but misses energy. Too much pop vibe too little rock vibe. Bass sounds very good. Vocal is a bit on the dry side and doesn’t sit good in the mix. I like the ampsim sound of the guitars but the need to be more aggressive upfront…..if you know what i’m saying.

@JeroenZuiderwijk

Sorry for the late reply, but I was flooded with work. It is just great you took the time to comment on all mixes, I really appreciate that. And my late reply only illustrates what a feat that is, you evaluated and commented on all those mixes in just a few weeks, and it takes me a fwe weeks to post one reply :-)

I totally get what you mean with the pop vibe, I can't see why I didn't hear that myself (as I grew up in the 90's with Metallica, Iron Maiden,...), But now that you mention it, it is clear as day

Could you however, elaborate on the "drums sound too friendly" part? I always spend a lot of time on the drums, and pride myself on a solid rock sound when mixing live (wich was a big part of my main job, now I do mostly corporate shows). Now that I'm playing around in my studio, I notice those live tricks I used to use don't always translate in recordings.
The drums in my mix sound quite agressive to me, and of course, you as the client are always right, I feel like we are just talking a different language. What would make the drums less friendly for you?

Nogmaals bedankt, hier leer ik van

Philippe

[JeroenZuiderwijk]

D8Bflup

Drums sound too friendly. It does have a good balance but misses energy. Too much pop vibe too little rock vibe. Bass sounds very good. Vocal is a bit on the dry side and doesn’t sit good in the mix. I like the ampsim sound of the guitars but the need to be more aggressive upfront…..if you know what i’m saying.

@JeroenZuiderwijk

Sorry for the late reply, but I was flooded with work. It is just great you took the time to comment on all mixes, I really appreciate that. And my late reply only illustrates what a feat that is, you evaluated and commented on all those mixes in just a few weeks, and it takes me a fwe weeks to post one reply :-)

I totally get what you mean with the pop vibe, I can't see why I didn't hear that myself (as I grew up in the 90's with Metallica, Iron Maiden,...), But now that you mention it, it is clear as day

Could you however, elaborate on the "drums sound too friendly" part? I always spend a lot of time on the drums, and pride myself on a solid rock sound when mixing live (wich was a big part of my main job, now I do mostly corporate shows). Now that I'm playing around in my studio, I notice those live tricks I used to use don't always translate in recordings.
The drums in my mix sound quite agressive to me, and of course, you as the client are always right, I feel like we are just talking a different language. What would make the drums less friendly for you?

Nogmaals bedankt, hier leer ik van

Philippe

Hi Philippe!
I am listening to your mix right now hoping I find the right words to explain my comment better. One of the things with the drum in your mix is that there is very little sustain. That makes it sound what I call "clean". I don't mean that it needs reverb, It could be the compression setting. If you use a very fast release time you get more sustain. Or maybe it is because of the settings on the gate. There are lots of things that can add more rawness to the drum. The most dirt on the drumtracks I provided was present on the roommic I think. Smashing that track with aggressive compression and maybe some saturation or even distortion and mixing that in with the rest of the drum can give the drum lots of attitude. I am not sure if you have used the roommic in that way, but when I am listening to your mix it feels like the focus is mainly on the closemics (at least that is what I think I am hearing). I hope this helps to figure out what I meant by 'too friendly' ;-) and again, it is a matter of personal taste. Your drummix sounds very good but just not what I was looking for in this mix.

En graag gedaan!

Cheers
Jeroen

[JeroenZuiderwijk]

Ok, it took me some time but I finally can announce the winners!!!
All the top15 mixes were different and were unique and sounded great in there own way. And in there own way I liked all of them. The quality of the mixes was really high. The 3 winning mixes emphasize the raw energy of the song, feel coherent and also keep the energy when translated in mono. And in the end it also comes down to my personal preferences.

the winners are:

first place:
1. BenjRage

Second place:
2. Havol

Third place:
3. SDB_12

Congratulations!!

Cheers,

Jeroen

[Mister Fox]

First and foremost, congratulations to the winners!
We are ending the game here and do not go into Mix Round 3.


The Winners Podium is
1) @BenjiRage .....(entries: Mix Round 1, Mix Round 2)
2) @Havol .....(entries: Mix Round 1, Mix Round 2)
3) @SDB_12 .....(entries: Mix Round 1, Mix Round 2)


We perform with the usual - in order of the winners podium, please select one license out of the pool and mention it in this thread, then (important) get in touch with me via PM with your full name, email address and your plugin selection. If one company has been selected, it's not available for the rest of the podium anymore.

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.
And thank you @JeroenZuiderwijk for the final words of feedback and encouragement.


See you on the flipside.

[LowlandsWave]

Hey guys, concratulations! Great to be in round 2 with you.

Again big thanx to @JeroenZuiderwijk for providing this month's challenge.

Enjoyed it!

Kan je eye of the needle nog horen of ff niet meer
Dank voor de beoordelingen, tijd die je er in hebt gestoken

[BenjiRage]

Holy cow, @JeroenZuiderwijk thank you! I'm honoured you've chosen my mix I'm glad I could do the song justice for you. Congrats to the other winners too!

@Mister Fox if I could choose the Metric Halo Channel Strip plugin that'd be fab thank you

[PeterGomes]

hello everyone,

I would just like to congratulate the winner and the runners up.

See you guys on the next one.

[Havol]

Congratulations to @BenjiRage and @SDB_12 and all the other participants !

And thank you @JeroenZuiderwijk to have chosen my mix and providing this mix challenge

If possible, I choose the Restoration Suite from Acon Digital