MIX CHALLENGE - MC095 December 2023 - Winners announced

[Christoph_K]

Hey y'all, I finally finished listening to your R2 mixes. As you may already know, it's always a tough choice in the end and a very subjective one. The differences of the mixes are not subtle and for me it's not possible to stay in the realm of objectivity. The winner mixes don't have any more obvious flaws, they have their strengths and weaknesses.

It was a lot of work to listen to all the submissions but it was a big learning for me! You all did great a great job and I am thankful to everyone who took the time and effort to be part of this challenge. A big thanks again to @Mister Fox for keeping things up and running!

► Show Spoiler

So here we go:

First place:
@Michael_K
You get me with part 1, it has so much vibe. The sculpturing of the sounds is really great. You keep the suspense really perfect until verse 1, mainly probably because you went „all in“ in part 2. And the rest isn’t disappointing at all. Your mix has the best flow. Maybe the acoustic guitars could have been a bit more automated here and there to bring more motion.

Second place:;
@EmClrk
Part one is almost the opposite as Michaels version, and I still dig it! It really pictures that sense of loneliness we had in mind. The mix in general has no hype, it’s warm, full of feeling and goes along with consistency. The main strength of the mix is the good overall balance. Part 3 is a bit weaker then Michaels Mix but still very good.

Third place:
@ari5to5
Part 1 is spot on now. The guitar sounds much more natural. Biggest strength of your mix is the vocal treatment. Overall your mix maybe lacks a bit of excitement compared to Michael_K and EmClrk. But there’s nothing wich bothers me too much. Part 3 is still a bit cluttered with effects, but the drum sound still beats the others

And a few runners up I took into consideration for the winners podium:

@SimaGT
Vocals in part 1 are way better now. The mix has its strength in the creative use of the effects section IMO. The mix in general sounds a bit small compared to the winners mixes, they also have a better glue.

@MartialFromentin
Strength of your mix is the good vocal treatment. Balance wise it falls behind the winner mixes, some sounds just poke out too much for my taste and it’s less consistent - or a bit too playful effects wise. Less would be more in this case (yeah, I hate this phrase)…

@jw_
If I would only listen to part 1 and 2 - your mix is still a winner. Also the vocal treatment is great. But from verse 1 things beginn to fall apart. The vocals don’t sound that great, the synthbass is too prominent and in part 3 your mix can’t compete with the winners, mainly because the vocals didn’t find their pocket so to say.

Congratulations to the winners! See you in the next challenge

[EmClrk]

Thanks @Christoph_K for the podium selection! I really enjoyed this challenge and I'm glad that was audible.

Congratulations to @Michael_K for his top place finish, a great mix that I really enjoyed listening to.

Huge thanks to @Mister Fox for your hard work.

Here's to the next!

[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 consists of:

1. @Michael_K .....(entries: Mix Round 1, Mix Round 2)
2. @EmClrk .....(entries: Mix Round 1, Mix Round 2)
3. @ari5to5 .....(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 is not available for the rest of the podium anymore.

I'll update the "winners podium" thread shortly.

⚠	Moderation Message from Mister Fox
	Important Information: As part of a new collaboration with Hornet Plugins, you are allowed to select either 2 plugins at a maximum value of 20 EUR MSRP for both, or one individual plugin of choice from the whole available plugin range (bundles are exempt). Due to time constraints, I could not make a bigger announcement about this yet. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Thanks again for your participation. You can leave the thread alive if you want to exchange tips/tricks, edits, etc.
And thank you @Christoph_K for the final words of feedback and encouragement.


Please check out Songwriting Competition 077 (our yearly Special Sound Design Challenge called "Community Scramble").

See you on the flipside.

[ari5to5]

Hey @ari5to5, love your mix. The reverbs for one sound amazing, could you tell me anything about how you achieved this very airy sound, which plugins, what settings, what EQ etc?
Thanks v much

Hey @scottfitz. Thank you.

The airy sound is a byproduct of the workflow implemented during structuring this specific mix. The use of FX started right from the beginning, as soon as the rough-mix was "happening", by placing each particular element of the mix in a layer. The airy sound was also caused by the use of Valhala shimmer on some elements of the mix (see below).

My most used effects were:

1. Valhala plate on snare and toms with decay 3s - no other treatment
2. Valhala vintage verb on BV (mix 30%, color now, decay 2,37, pre-delay 20ms)
3. Valhala shimmer on Farvox (default settings with mix 50%) and on the 33 Bottle Solo Amped (bus - default settings with mix 100%)
4. Eventide SP2016 on MV (bus - Program: modern plate, pre-delay 4ms, decay 3,1s). Stock Reaper comp (side-chained by the MV).
5. Eventide SP2016 (Program: stereo room, mix 26%, pre-delay 4ms, decay 3,1s) and Soundtoys echoboy (mix 50%, echotime: 1/8 dot ) on the intro gtr parallel and intro space.

I hope you find the above information helpful.

At your disposal should you need any additional information/clarifications.

Cheers!

[ari5to5]

Hey y'all, I finally finished listening to your R2 mixes. As you may already know, it's always a tough choice in the end and a very subjective one. The differences of the mixes are not subtle and for me it's not possible to stay in the realm of objectivity. The winner mixes don't have any more obvious flaws, they have their strengths and weaknesses.

It was a lot of work to listen to all the submissions but it was a big learning for me! You all did great a great job and I am thankful to everyone who took the time and effort to be part of this challenge. A big thanks again to @Mister Fox for keeping things up and running!

► Show Spoiler

So here we go:

First place:
@Michael_K
You get me with part 1, it has so much vibe. The sculpturing of the sounds is really great. You keep the suspense really perfect until verse 1, mainly probably because you went „all in“ in part 2. And the rest isn’t disappointing at all. Your mix has the best flow. Maybe the acoustic guitars could have been a bit more automated here and there to bring more motion.

Second place:;
@EmClrk
Part one is almost the opposite as Michaels version, and I still dig it! It really pictures that sense of loneliness we had in mind. The mix in general has no hype, it’s warm, full of feeling and goes along with consistency. The main strength of the mix is the good overall balance. Part 3 is a bit weaker then Michaels Mix but still very good.

Third place:
@ari5to5
Part 1 is spot on now. The guitar sounds much more natural. Biggest strength of your mix is the vocal treatment. Overall your mix maybe lacks a bit of excitement compared to Michael_K and EmClrk. But there’s nothing wich bothers me too much. Part 3 is still a bit cluttered with effects, but the drum sound still beats the others

And a few runners up I took into consideration for the winners podium:

@SimaGT
Vocals in part 1 are way better now. The mix has its strength in the creative use of the effects section IMO. The mix in general sounds a bit small compared to the winners mixes, they also have a better glue.

@MartialFromentin
Strength of your mix is the good vocal treatment. Balance wise it falls behind the winner mixes, some sounds just poke out too much for my taste and it’s less consistent - or a bit too playful effects wise. Less would be more in this case (yeah, I hate this phrase)…

@jw_
If I would only listen to part 1 and 2 - your mix is still a winner. Also the vocal treatment is great. But from verse 1 things beginn to fall apart. The vocals don’t sound that great, the synthbass is too prominent and in part 3 your mix can’t compete with the winners, mainly because the vocals didn’t find their pocket so to say.

Congratulations to the winners! See you in the next challenge

Thank you @Christoph_K.

Congrats to @Michael_K and @EmClrk (It must have been a tough call choosing 1st/2nd since both mixes are exceptional, each in its own way).

Cheers.

[Michael_K]

Wow!! Thank you @Christoph_K !
It's an honor!
Congrats to @EmClrk and @ari5to5 and thank you to @Mister Fox for the hard work.
I will make my selection by tomorrow, if that's ok.
Cheers to everyone!

[Mister Fox]

Sure, just keep us updated in a timely manner, please.

[cpsmusic]

Congratulations to the Challenge Winner!

Could you explain a bit about your spatial FX processing and maybe post a screen shot of your DAW. From what I can see you've achieved a great mix with fairly minimal processing so I'm interested in learning how you did this.

Cheers!

[Michael_K]

Hello again everyone!
I choose the MH SpectraFoo.

@cpsmusic Thanks for the kind words! I will post a screen shot in a few days when I am back home. I am travelling right now.

Cheers!!

[EmClrk]

I would like to choose the IK Multimedia Tape Machine Collection please.

@cpsmusic I agree it would be interesting to get some more information about @Michael_K's mix too. I definitely found it was one of those songs that you don't need to mess with too much.