MIX CHALLENGE - MC053 April 2019 - Winners announced

[Mister Fox]

I can't force users to only use their usernames for submissions

[Al B.]

I can't force users to only use their usernames for submissions

Okay, but it doesn't make sense for me to use a different username. Unless you want to confuse.

[Mork]

Nooo, I just wanted to revise my mix and upload it later and now I see that I missed the deadline! Usually it's Sunday so I didn't even bother to check
Oh well, maybe I will play around a little and upload it just for fun... maybe not

Good luck to anyone and see you guys next time!

Cheers
Mork

[paperthin]

Morelia, please skip this post! I don’t want my commentary to skew your vision in any way. Thank you!

Well, since the window for comments is open, I’d like to share a few thoughts on everybody’s work. Of course, I will be coming from my personal and highly questionable perspective, so if you find my babblings pretentious and useless (which they very well could be), skip this post. But just to encourage a conversation, here we go.

CarlosB: I like your vocal mix! Given that it’s considered to be the weakest link in this song, and generally vocals tend to require the most attention, I think you nailed it. The guitars are a bit boxy to my taste, which may be something you were going for, but I would give them a little less energy in the 300-400Hz area. The snare could use some more punch. I like to balance the kick and the snare in terms of energy because they usually are the driving rhythmic force in a song like this. And another thing for you to consider is the guitar solo. To me it sounds a bit separate from the rest of the mix, I feel like it’s due to the reverb you used. I like my solos to take place of the vocal and have a similar in-your-face kind of sound. For this reason I rarely - if ever - use reverb on my guitars, I go for a delay instead.

Philk: Very convincing work, bravo! (And very loud). Your vocal mix is good, it’s different from mine but it works perfectly. The snare is a bit bulky to me but that’s a matter of taste, of course. And your solo to my ears seems to fly away from the rest of the mix. I think that in a rock song like this the space should be uniform, some elements might be farther away, some closer, but overall it should feel like it’s the same space where everything happens. And I could be wrong about this.

stu b: Great balance! All the instruments are where I like them to be, and the bass is something quite special. I notice that you chose not to have a single singer in front like most of us, but went for a choir. It didn’t occur to me before but the song is actually about US, not ME (“we fly”, “we don’t care for anything you do” and so on), so it’s kinda clever. That being said, watch out for those Ss. Like Tony Maserati says – we only need one S if they’re in time, so you could get away with some heavy-handed de-essing on most vocal tracks. And watch out for the solo as well lest it flies off. It’s not as drastic in your mix as in some of the others’ but just a cautionary note.

Kirurg: Very clean and transparent work! Nothing is harsh, great job. What caught my attention was the snare having a little too much of what I can only describe as the bottom mic (6 to 7KHz?). I feel like the song calls for something tighter and punchier, the sound itself is good but just a bit out of character to me. The solo could come out a little bit, too.

BentLangerak: Some interesting ideas there! The guitar tone changes in some sections, and there’s a nice unexpected stop before the second chorus. I love that sort of thing, I think music needs to be entertaining. In this mix I would pay a little more attention to the drums, I feel like they could use some smearing with parallel compression and/or reverb of one kind or another. And I would bring up the kick a bit. There was one moment during the solo where I felt like something was distorting, was it too much tape emulation on the mix bus or something else? I couldn’t tell. Also watch out for those Ps in the vocal during the chorus. I remember that one vocal take had some explosive Ps, go harder on those, automate the low-cut if you have to. I like your creative approach, work on it and make it your asset, the clients will love you for it.

GGermaine: I like the clarity and separation in your mix, which is often hard to achieve in this genre. Am I hearing saturation distorting the mix bus? Some people will love that sort of thing, but I personally would tone it down a notch. Or if it’s a tape emulation I’d go for a lower ips setting which tends to focus the saturation area lower on the spectrum. Another thing is the snare. It sounds good but to my taste it sends too much low end into the reverb, it doesn’t really happen in real life, so I would roll it off up to 400-500Hz on the return, or even higher. The vocals are good apart from being a little too S-heavy but that could be due to the overall saturation of the mix, I really couldn’t tell.

Kevin Gobin: I really like the instrumental mix, it’s well-balanced and smooth. The snare is trashy which could be a taste thing, and like I said before – I would tighten it up for this particular song. Also I would advise caution with the reverb, the sibilants on the vocals give it away too much to my taste. Or is it delay? Either way. Same goes for the solo – I’d like it to be closer to the listener, exactly where the vocals are. I also think that the phrase “we fly” (arguably the main idea of the song) could be underlined somehow. For example on my mix it almost fades out into the reverb, and I don’t hear much of it on other mixes. Is it cheesy? You tell me

Jerze: Great mix, punchy and clear! I think I heard the left guitar’s reverb in the right channel, was that it? Classic! There are vocal lines that could be accentuated with a reverb maybe, particularly the final lines of the verses and the choruses. Think of the singer and why he/she chooses to use louder or longer notes on some parts – this is where the accent should be, otherwise these key phrases could end up a bit underwhelming. There is something going on delay-wise on the vocals, you could be more aggressive and deliberate with that. Is it vibrato on the solo? Whatever it is, I like it, very grungy and appropriate. I think I heard a similar effect on somebody else’s mix but I forget which. Cool stuff!

Please take everything I said with a grain of salt. Some of my comments may overlap but I tried to devote equal amounts of time to every mix and suggest a nudge towards my idea of improvement. I could be wrong about everything, feel free to hate me for it

I also noticed that the mixes are a lot more similar now than in Round 1. Somebody’s gonna have a tough time choosing.

Great job everyone! Hope I was helpful!

[kevin gobin]

Hello,

I just want to ask if you can please consider Mork R1 mix as a valid one for R2?

Unless of course anyone disagree with that, I think it would be fair. I just do not know what the rules state in this case.

[kevin gobin]

Hi Paperthin. Not cheesy.

[OctopusOnFire]

Hello,

I just want to ask if you can please consider Mork R1 mix as a valid one for R2?

Unless of course anyone disagree with that, I think it would be fair. I just do not know what the rules state in this case.

It's been done before and I don't see why not.

[philk]

Hey everyone!

Thanks for picking me in the top 10! Here are my files for round 2.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qstskpbylqoh7 ... 2.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/57gw1fc2c77ae ... 2.wav?dl=0

Worked on your feedback regarding my first mix, checked every group of instruments and tweaked here and there, fixed the problem with the snare and the solo, redid the vocals to get it more gelling with the rest of the mix! I hope you like it.

Thanks for doing this! <3

Cheers, Phil

Hi, I asked you questions about your mix bus. See here. In my eyes you used a limiter and didn't stick to the -18 dB rms. Wouldn't that be a reason for disqualification?

Hey Al B.,

sorry, didn't follow the forum the last days and didn't see your quote.

I use this competition to practice mixing and to get a kind of "real" competition situation with deadlines and competing with other mixers to match the feel and taste of a real person. Whenever I mix something, I use a mixing template which has 2bus treatment set in place right from the start, as I adapted a mixing style, where I try to mix backwards, processing the 2bus and the instrument busses more than single channels. This means I have a chain of bus compression, mb compression, eq, stereo spread and limiting going which I mix into as my goal is to have a modern mix which matches modern listening standards. I wouldn't send a mix to a client who would immediately reply with why my mix is that quiet, so I thought I would not change that in this situation.
I honestly didn't think about the guidelines and didn't remember there were recommendations for the RMS, as I just read those a long time ago and changed my processing since then and if I broke the rules, please feel free to disqualify my mix.
What Im thinking about right now is, my mix should be way less dynamic as mixes of fellas that didn't use any compression or limiting and if one is looking for a dynamic mix, mine should disqualify itself. But if someone chooses my mix over another mix, I seem to have done something that he likes better, whatever that means.
Anyways, I don't want to cheat or fool anyone, this is just my recent style of mixing and YES, there is a limiter involved, which definitely reduces the dynamics of my mix.

Cheers, Phil

[Mister Fox]

Hello,

I just want to ask if you can please consider Mork R1 mix as a valid one for R2?

Unless of course anyone disagree with that, I think it would be fair. I just do not know what the rules state in this case.

It's been done before and I don't see why not.

Technically: disqualification (no participation in Round 2)
In reality: up to the song provider

But we do have to adhere to the rules at some point, everyone.

[kevin gobin]

Ok that’s clear. Thank you Mr Fox. Sorry for the rule violation request then.