MIX CHALLENGE - MC054 May 2019 - Winners announced

[Mange]

What's up everyone!

Great mixing challenge this month, I really enjoyed this song

The majority of the work here was focused on the vocals and drum kit. Cleaned up most of the headphone bleed, the click tracks, and gated most of the drum parts as well. Otherwise, I added your basic EQ's and compressors across most tracks. I also added some lite chorusing efx to the keys and added some sound to the bass with guitar rig to remove some of the pluckiness. I did automation to most of the tracks and added reverb as well. Slapped on a limiter and compressor to the mix buss.

Mixed in Ableton Live 10 Suite

Plug ins used:

Drum Kit: Pultec EQP-1A, Ableton EQ8, Glue compressor, Ableton Simple reverb, Gate compressor and Teletronix LA-2A compressor limiter.

Sax and Trumpets: Pultec EQP-1A, Ableton EQ8, Glue compressor, UAD RealVerb, and Manley VOXBOX.

Keys: Pultec EQP-1A, Ableton EQ8, Ableton Simple reverb, Glue compressor and UAD Brigade Chorus.

Guitar and Bass: Pultec EQP-1A, Ableton EQ8, Glue compressor, Ableton Simple reverb, and NI Guitar rig (for the Bass).

Vocals: Pultec EQP-1A, Ableton EQ8, Glue Compressor, Manley VOXBOX, UAD RealVerb, and Softtube Saturation knob


My Mix:

WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/avmhrd1vmrhlz ... e.wav?dl=0

MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ub52leu178nz7 ... e.mp3?dl=0

Screenshots: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wtjyz0neeebp ... SBDsa?dl=0


Hope you enjoy my mix. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you and good luck to you all, Cheers!

Bass could be worked on. Feels strange on headphones. Levels are going a bit up and down. Lead vocals too low, too loud. Brass too low too loud, guitars too loud too low. Mix slightly left handed. Most stuff sounds like a bit low fi wich is ok but then sax and trumpet sounds too good!

[Mange]

hey,
thanks for the opportunity mixing this nice song.

i tried to go for a controlled, cosy and cohesive sound. I used parallel compression to get the rhythm-section to interact with each other to create a nice groove. For the vocals i wanted some crooner-like vibe, i felt he has the voice for it. I felt a nice natural sounding space worked best for his voice and horns.
Drums: in the first verses i used an expander to tighten them up. went for a quite high kicksound (round 110hz) and left the the space underneeth for the bass.
Bass: cut out a little 110hz, added some texture and width.
Guitars: wanted them tight and smooth at the same time and working well with the keys
Keys: tried to make fit in well with the bass and drums
backing vocals: used a guitaramp to get a different texture as the mainvocal
Mainvocal: nebula pre-amp, tape to get a rounder and deeper sound, different stages of compression
Edits: some kick and snare-hits, de-essing and some other vocal-edits, ...

hope you enjoy!

wav file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/olcxabwdkk0ol ... v.wav?dl=0

Third mix posted after mine. Read somewhere a suggestion to comment on the closest posts to your mix.. post wise that is. So.. I listen to and post some short feedback on the three after mine. Maybe more later.

This mix has more reverb than the two others i commented on. Not sure I like the one you choose. Overall levels are quite good. To me, the reverb should be revisited. After that maybe other stuff need attention.

[UprightJoe]

Hey everybody! I've clicked around and sampled some random mixes and I've heard really great stuff already. Y'all are a talented bunch of people. I'm going to start pulling the mixes into my DAW and level matching them tonight. FYI, this weekend is a holiday weekend in the US and I'll be heading out of town for a short vacation with my family so I'll likely be out of touch for a few days. I'll try to drop in status updates from time to time though as I work my way through the mixes.

[bluesation]

This month there were 71 entries of mixes. IMHO too much for a decision maker. Too many mixes and too much time. Nobody can remember at the end, what mixes were at the beginning. You have to keep in mind, that the mixes are the same song. So difference are quite minimal most of the time. Sure, there is a sheet to judge every mix. But I think this cannot fight against human ear fatigue and boring moments hearing all the mixes. Too zapp quickly mixes would be quite human but not fair for the mixer.
I have no solution, cause you cannot limit the number of entries, which would be quite unfair. But with a certain number of entries, a challenge is quite useless, in my eyes. And this point it is reached right now.

[Pitta]

But I think this cannot fight against human ear fatigue and boring moments hearing all the mixes

Hello everyone. I think that is a good point that i already felt myself many times. I just accept that it is the way it is (have you ever entered a Pensado's Place mix contest or something alike?). In a real world scenario the client will like or dislike your mix but he won't be comparing it to 70 mixes. I was listening to some mixes and "found" (as we all probably had experienced when using reference tracks) that each mix sounds different according to the one you've heard just before. If you hear a too bright mix, the next one will sound dull and vice versa. To criticize a mix it's a skill that we are all persuing.

Too zapp quickly mixes would be quite human but not fair for the mixer

. I'm sure I would end doing that myself, on some key points of the song, for a first screening process, intercalating with frequent reference checks. It's tough and I woudn't like to be in the judge skin. Good luck to all, judge included. Cheers.

[Mange]

If you hear a too bright mix, the next one will sound dull and vice versa.

When I was comparing the tracks in the mastering challenges that I attended (back in the day), I found it helpful to have a track of pink noise close at hand. At the same loudness as the masters I was comparing.

[UprightJoe]

This month there were 71 entries of mixes. IMHO too much for a decision maker. Too many mixes and too much time. Nobody can remember at the end, what mixes were at the beginning. You have to keep in mind, that the mixes are the same song. So difference are quite minimal most of the time. Sure, there is a sheet to judge every mix. But I think this cannot fight against human ear fatigue and boring moments hearing all the mixes. Too zapp quickly mixes would be quite human but not fair for the mixer.
I have no solution, cause you cannot limit the number of entries, which would be quite unfair. But with a certain number of entries, a challenge is quite useless, in my eyes. And this point it is reached right now.

You're not far off base when assessing the difficulty of the task. Trust me, I'm feeling it right now. However, with references and time, it is totally doable. I have a project loaded up in my DAW now with the original mix and the reference tracks. I have started comparing the entries against them and some can be eliminated fairly quickly because they clearly fall short of the mark (I do play every mix all the way through even if the beginning is rough in case there is some magic later in the song - I don't want to miss anything).

Without references it would be practically impossible. But in the end, I expect it will probably be closer to 25-30 mixes that have to be evaluated very carefully against each other to choose which 8-10 go into the second round. I'm actually feeling fairly good about how things are going so far. It's just going to take some time and patience.

[OctopusOnFire]

I'd be willing to accept some kind of restriction for admitting your mix for the contest (not for peer review, though). Even a monetary one would be fair in my eyes. But I understand this would mean more work for the admin and potential problems and complains.
Another thing that has already been discussed here is to create an incentive for the "client", such as getting one of the prizes to compensate for their work, but it has already been dismissed in the past.

In any case, I agree that this is bound to become a problem and will become extremely hard to fairly review the mixes as the number gets closer to the three digits.

[Mister Fox]

I'd be willing to accept some kind of restriction for admitting your mix for the contest (not for peer review, though). Even a monetary one would be fair in my eyes. But I understand this would mean more work for the admin and potential problems and complains.

Could we please move this to the General Gossip Thread at this point? That would be great.

Another thing that has already been discussed here is to create an incentive for the "client", such as getting one of the prizes to compensate for their work, but it has already been dismissed in the past.

I further made this clear in the FAQ for the Song Pool campaign:
https://mix-challenge.com/pages/campaign/song-pool.php

Sub-Point: "Is something in it for us, the Song Provider/Client and Mix Participants?".

[UprightJoe]

Status Update:

I'm about halfway through the first pass. I'm hoping to have the second round mixes selected by the end of the weekend though it might take me a day or two afterwards to gather up my feedback and spot check everything to validate my decisions - ensuring that I agree with my initial notes with fresh ears and such...