MIX CHALLENGE - MC103 April 2025 - Winners announced

[Mister Fox]

The "Overview of Submissions" PDFs have been uploaded.
You can check them through post #096.



The Statistic Sheet is used to give an overview of all entries, and whether or not they are within given parameters (loudness, sampling rate, bitrate, proper filename). This is adding to the overall learning process of the "Mix(ing) Challenge". Please take note that creating this sheet is not a fully automated process. I am using Wavelab 10's "Batch Analysis" tool (EBU R-128 specs / equivalent to ITU-R BS.1770-4), but the overall layout and highlighting issues/mishaps, not to mention triple checking files and time stamps, is time consuming. If you do not find yourself on this list, please let me know.

Please keep in mind, your mix being "tagged disqualified" (a bold "X" on the Statistic Sheet), does not mean "you're out of the game" (exceptions do apply). For more information on the Statistic Sheet and the "Wild Card" Mechanic, please consult the following addendum thread:

Mix Challenge - Addendum: Statistic Sheet and Wild Card Mechanic



Statistics Addendum:

⚠	Moderation Message from Mister Fox
	We have a disqualification rate of 29,33% for MC103 / April 2025 (75 entries, 22 disqualifications, 01 "Out of Competition" submission not counting). Compared to last month, MC102 / February 2025 was at 19,30%. As usual, many of these disqualifications are due to not paying attention to detail (careless mistakes), e.g.: wrong sampling rate, loudness specs, lack of documentation, not properly using the provided filename template, or file access issues. There is another entry with an unfortunate render error. On average (37 months of tracking), we currently have a disqualification rate of 25,89% (compared to last game's 25,80% avg), the rate is on a slight increase again. The disqualification rate over the course of the last 12 games (June 2023 to April 2025) is about 26,16% (previously 25,89%) and is also increasing again.

A commentary on this month's entries:

As stated in previous Mix(ing) Challenges, future detailed "follow-up posts" will be a rare occurrence. These posts take up a lot of time, and I can only get so much done in the day.

Please consult the Mix Challenge - Addendum: Statistic Sheet and Wild Card Mechanic page on how to interpret the provided PDFs.

A REMINDER:
Please pay attention to detail. A lot of the pointed out issues/mistakes could have been prevented. Please also provide more documentation, not just things like "this mix uses a lot of parallel compression" or a generic plugin listing and nothing more. We're all here to learn - and I would love to read more "this is how I created sound ABC" type posts in the future. This is part of the game mechanic after all.


Once more thank you to everyone that invested time with this month's game. And an additional thank you to everyone that keeps spreading the word about the Mix Challenge. I hope you could learn something, and had fun in the process.

See you in the next challenge.
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I now (re-)open the field for everyone to give each other feedback (highly encouraged). This will be independent to the client feedback however. Though please note - (harsh / misplaced) criticism on the rule set and angry posts will be deleted without further notice.


Please watch this spot for the client feedback and Mix Round 2 participant announcement.

This will ideally happen sometime within the next 14 days (starting tomorrow).

We (as in: the Song Provider and I) will keep you updated, and of course send out appropriate reminder newsletters!




EDIT: 28-APR-2025 06:28 UTC+1/CET - initial post

[Drannob]

Please also provide more documentation, not just things like "this mix uses a lot of parallel compression" or a generic plugin listing and nothing more. We're all here to learn - and I would love to read more "this is how I created sound ABC" type posts in the future. This is part of the game mechanic after all.

I agree, but I didn't respect this point, sorry.
I find it difficult to explain things after the fact.
That said, if I have time this afternoon, I could try to reopen the session and explain my choices if anyone is interested...

[christianthomas]

Awesome work everybody. In the spirit of the forum and learning from one another I've got two ideas:

1. Leave a critique or review of my mix and I'll do the same for you. viewtopic.php?p=19304#p19304

2. I'm thinking about doing a video walkthrough of my workflow, mix layout, and what a hybrid digital / analog mixing rig looks like for me. The pros and cons, etc. Let me know if that's something that might interest you and I'll get it out this week.

[christianthomas]

I picked a totally random page and click on the first mix to listen to. @Stfh Well done! I know you didn't ask for it but here is my feedback, take it for what it's worth (not much!).

Like the verb on the whistle at the beginning

Drum kit is well balanced. Nice job drawing the attack out of the kick and balancing the hi-hat. Great snare sound!

Good treatment of the vocals, nice and smooth, present. I’m not sure about the large decay on the reverb but it’s a bold choice and as always, the truth lies with the client. I usually pick decay times in some relation to the tempo of the song.

The mix moves along nicely into the bridge and I like the movement you gave the heavier guitar parts.

As for what I think could improve (this is all subjective, we all have belly buttons and opinions).

The rhythm guitar in the verse is over compressed for my taste. It squashes what energy it can lend to the track by losing the attack.

There is a strange ring modulation type artifact on the Rhodes keys and BGVS. It's very present on quieter parts. I’m not sure if that’s something that happened during a render or a plugin but it’s a little harsh.

And lastly, at least on my monitoring setup the bass isn’t coming through in balance with the kit. I could use more of it or maybe even just more upper mids to help the bass line become a little more clear.

Overall nicely done and good luck!

[mbernbrich]

Hello Mix-Community

Living between Cologne and Frankfurt I was happy to see a german song here. Thank you Strange to let us work on your song.
So, here is my mix - download: https://bernbrich.de/MC103/MC103__Stran ... nbrich.wav

phpBB [media]

. . .

Hello @mbernbrich,

thank you for sharing and mixing my song! First I'm very impressed how you present your mix,particularly how you embedded it in the post: one click to hear your mix, one click to download. How did you do this?

Thank you very much.
Inline Player: There is the black play icon in the second row of the editor. It basically just adds the empty media tags. Then I added the url to the wave file manually.
Download Link: In the first row of the editor I used the earth/chain icon.
Alternatively, you can add the tags manually. In the editor it looks like so:

Code: Select all

 [url]https://bernbrich.de/MC103/MC103__Strange__WegZuDir__mbernbrich.wav[/url]
 [media]https://bernbrich.de/MC103/MC103__Strange__WegZuDir__mbernbrich.wav[/media]

Cheers - Martin

[red86549]

I'm so sorry that I was disqualified of the contest.
I understand is because I used a wrong sample rate, I must to pay attention the next time but I don't understand why my account wasn't associated to my submission.

Can someone explain this?

Thanks all and good luck to all the "survivor"

[sj25604]

I'm so sorry that I was disqualified of the contest.
I understand is because I used a wrong sample rate, I must to pay attention the next time but I don't understand why my account wasn't associated to my submission.

Can someone explain this?

Thanks all and good luck to all the "survivor"

There was filename template we had to adhere to. And at the end of it was place for your forum nickname. Since your file doesn't use correct template and there is no forum nickname in right place, the entry is tagged "no username association". That's what i'm thinking.

[Mister Fox]

Can someone explain this?

Please see post #122 (above), 2nd paragraph, made more visual with the icon.

Mix Challenge - Addendum: Statistic Sheet and Wild Card Mechanic


Everything is explained in minute detail multiple times over. Including the mix pack bundled "TL;DR Rules.txt".

[fercobm]

+1

[juhu]

Hi, fellow mix engineers / friendly competitors!

1) Foreword to my feedback:
Due to large number of entries, I chose to provide my feedback to those select competing mixes that I liked the most. For the most part this means that I could pin-point just a few potential Round 2 improvements to consider in each mix, should it get selected for Round 2 by the Song Provider, whereas for a few mixes I couldn’t even pin-point anything specific to improve upon so for those I simply described my impressions. Please don’t take this harshly if your mix doesn’t appear in my feedback, or if it does and you disagree with my comments!

2) Click on "SHOW" to expand my feedback:

► Show Spoiler

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@Mork
Good tonal balance in Choruses and in the Bridge! As for Verses, I would like to hear “git-fills” louder than “git-verse” because I believe “git-fills” is supposed to form a query-response kind of dialogue against the Lead Vocals. Easy to fix for Round 2. That one detail aside - a well-balanced and clear-sounding mix that propels the song forward really well!

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@Miłosz
Clarity is very good indeed. Regarding ambience, the one thing that bothers me is that the Verses are too dry compared to the Choruses, and the good clarity of the mix in fact exaggerates this dryness - a good example of how achieving a good aspect can reveal a jarring aspect. In terms of balancing, the Choruses are balanced the best, while in the Bridge I feel that “git-bridge” combined with the huge Synths gets too powerful and “jumps out” and buries the Lead Vocals a bit too much. The Tom fills sound slightly anemic compared to Kick and Snare. Finally, in the Verses, my ear kinda “wants” the “git-fills” even louder, I’d say as loud as the Lead Vocals, since the two feel like they are supposed to form an alternating dialogue! Should the mix get selected for Round 2, then consider fixing those issues in addition to the technical issues mentioned in the stats sheet, and the mix will get even better I think!

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@Eastpark Sound
Tonal balance is great, but what jumps out for me is the different ambiences across instruments making some of them feel like they’re playing in different rooms. Further, the Verses feel much drier ambience-wise than the Choruses or the Bridge. I can hear heavy compression on some instruments, which makes chord tails occasionally slightly bleed into clashing harmonies of the next chord - this could have been cleaned up with automation perhaps, might be something to consider for Round 2. Peaks have been handled expertly in the sense that the Kick and Snare are not peaking out and yet are still audible, propelling the song forward at all times while still being nicely tucked-in-the-mix.

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@Alex Van mixland
Excellent tonal balance, whereas heavy compression has become glaringly obvious - especially the frequent breath noises on the Vocals. Heavy compression can be a stylistic choice, for sure, but the breath noises in this case have become loud and frequent enough to be distracting IMO. Nothing that a few hours of manual gain automation couldn’t fix for Round 2, of course. The breath noises aside, everything else in this mix kinda works, despite tons of compression.

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@scottfitz
I’m unable to find anything to complain about in the Verses and Choruses preceding the Bridge! Then as the Bridge arrives, some distinction across instruments gets lost along with specificity of notes played, as everything suddenly blends together too well, forming a sea of sound that is somewhat indistinct. The same issue persists in the final Chorus re-cap that follows the Bridge - this time around there’s so much reverb that any distinction the instruments had drowns into it. Such a thing could be a useful creative choice if this was a soundtrack to a movie where some dramatic change of events in the screenwriting would demand such a change in the audio, but since this is not a movie soundtrack I cannot really justify this dramatic change of sonic signature to myself in my mind. The final Chorus still sounds good per se, it’s just that the change in ambience is so unexpected that it throws me out of the song.

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@vitamin
Interestingly, while in my reviews of other mixes I have complained about the Verses sounding drier compared to other sections; in this particular mix the choice to have Verses drier kinda works, and I can’t even pin-point the reason why it works in this mix and not in others! The timbres have been heavily, yet tastefully processed here, in a way that works with the song, not against it. Again, in my other reviews I have pointed out when things sound overprocessed to me, and yet in this mix, everything has been sort-of overprocessed but has somehow worked out regardless, and I’m clueless as to the exact reasons why heavy processing works in this mix and not in others! All I can say is that this mix sounds solid and coherent to my ears despite all the obvious processing. I wish I knew to pin-point what the exact reasons are, but I simply don’t know.

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@MartialFromentin
This mix is for the most part excellent, the only fault worth mentioning is that the Snare in the Choruses sounds a bit too jarringly different from the Snare in the Verses - almost like a tiny explosion, which on small radio speakers distracted me out of the song as soon as the first Chorus hit. Funnily, I didn’t notice that as an issue on bigger 8” monitors at all, so it definitely pays to double-check mixes on small speakers. Fix the Snare in Choruses for Round 2 and the mix becomes even better IMO!

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@GeorgeCorg
The mix is clear and balanced in Choruses and in the Bridge, so the only places that would benefit from further balancing are the Verse sections where the Bass Guitar sounds slightly overpowering to me. I wouldn’t touch anything in terms of balance in the other sections, so I guess automation is the most obvious way to go about this for Round 2, should the mix get selected.

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@titantraxx
Good clarity and mostly balanced, my only gripe balance-wise is how “git-verse” stabs too loudly in the Verses. Ambience is interesting and works with the song. Basically, tame the “git-verse” stabs for Round 2 and that’ll already improve the mix, on top of whatever adjustments the Song Provider might request!

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