MIX CHALLENGE - MC055 June 2019 - Winners announced

[Clueless]

For a good mix, give each track a place in their frequency ranges:

Thanks, for the info, I'll try and do a better mix next month
Edit
Also I would like to comment on your track but I have problems with mega, both DL and listen back on chrome or Firefox

[loupi]

thx for your feedback eatme. i agree with the drums being a little too saturated and actually a little too boomy. the idea was to go for a more rockmix than pop. i left the poppy topend for the vocals.
i'll return the favor: your balance is quite good. your mix sound nicely in control. drums sound maybe a bit a cartboardboxy to me. i miss the guitars in the verses and feel they could be a little more present in the prechorus/chorus. maybe spreading them out a little could have made them stand out easier. great basssound!

[White Punk OD]

meanwhile, a short one,
I very much liked the contributions from Japan and India, quite a different, and entertaining perspective each.
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A few mixes sound great and very perfect and professional. I would be eager to learn how it was done.
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Some other mixes have excellent instrumental work and depth, but I am shocked about the horrible LF hum and other artifacts, that they could not get rid of, and it's really a show breaker.
Some mixes created quite a nice vocal sound with suitable effect, but how could it be they produce drop-outs like a dirty and broken tape machine, and this is the lead track?
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The higher we reach for brilliant modern vocal sound, the more certain artifacts and inconsistencies become audible, it really becomes a trade-off or cat-and-mouse hunt.
I was lucky to catch that Subspace reverb (which is broken itself but I don't care for now) and it fills some holes quite smoothly.
(Since the upload, I found ways to reduce even more artifacts, and found another DeEsser that makes the vocals sound a bit rounder.)
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Some mixes had brilliant ideas about all kinds of effect, but the poison is in the dosage. It is easy to overdo something that we suddenly discover, and it takes a lot of discipline. The main question is always: "why at all?" It must come so naturally, that we think this song is entertaining, without noticing any distracting detail.
3ee - I love that effect, which starts the drum solo! but some cave echoes between some song segments seemed a bit much, and also some other freeze-like sounds that were kind of hanging out. First voc verse is a bit boomy. Still one of my favs.
Another fav is Satoshi-san. A hell of a great snare sound, pristine vocals, huge dynamics and beautiful flow.
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It is not really a rock song, though we have distorted guitars and drums hitting hard. Therefor, I found some mixes did put the vocals way too low in the balance. At least for me, best usage is radio pop with vocals upfront. This, a wider audience probably would love a lot!
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Drums for this genre need not sound too natural (though it's a good thing when they do), but can be any sound that supports the song, and has a suitable spectrum of frequencies that maintain energy and groove. My choice was to make the drum sound a bit more contemporary and artificial, not snappy at all, but maintain some 3D.

[anto]

mix by anto
** pros: Pretty decent mix of guitar, bass and drums.
** cons: The vocals are laying behind their effected room layer.
The vocals are missing clarity in the pronounciation because of a big effected room layer, topping over the vocals. Quite alright, improve by learning.

Thanks for the feedback EatMe.
Just out of curiosity, did you level match the submissions before critiquing them? If not, I would recommend doing so.
Your opinions may change somewhat, particularly with mixes that have a large dynamic range.

Given that this felt like more of a rock song than a pop one, I wanted to get the feeling of a band performing in the same space.
So I used a short ambient reverb (RT 0.5 s) and a short time-synced delay and adjusted the levels of the sends from various tracks to these "ambient" reverbs + delays to help do this. The consequence of doing this is that the vocals don't sound so dry or upfront.

Just to clarify, this is a conscious stylistic choice, not a case of keeping or emphasizing the "room sound" of the original recorded vocals.
(For this "de-verbing" task, I used TDR Proximity, a SPL Transient designer and TDR Nova to de-resonate the vocals to make the original recordings, recorded in different spaces (and times?), sound more similar).
For the drums though, I tried to preserve more of the "room" sound (e.g. the overheads and room mics) and match them with the "ambient" reverb.

Typically in rock songs, the lead vocals are sitting a bit further back in the mix (e.g. Green Day, Garbage) and have a lot of compression applied.
In my mix, the vocals were level automated and there's parallel compression too (1176 (ratio 2:1, 3-5 db GR) + LA2A (1-2 dB GR) chained.
There's also some short delays on the vocals too that are used to thicken up her voice and some distortion (UAD 610B) applied to the lead vocals to add some "grit" and power in some places.

Getting the vocal to sit just right can be quite a pain: too loud and the rest of the band can sound small, too soft and the vocal gets inevitably buried.
Maybe there are are some adjustments to be made but I'm not too concerned about where the ended up, given the direction that I wanted to head.

I'd also be quite interested in hearing the opinions of others and in particular, identifying the problems that they encountered and/or spent a lot of time on for this mix?
(Although this is a competition and it's tempting to keep your cards close to your chest before the Round 1 finalists are decided by the client, I think increased transparency would also help us all learn more from the experience )

Cheers,
Anto

[EatMe]

For a good mix, give each track a place in their frequency ranges:

Also I would like to comment on your track but I have problems with mega, both DL and listen back on chrome or Firefox

The download is working fine here. For the download in Chrome: Allow to store files. What problem are you having in Chrome? The preview is not completely working.

thx for your feedback eatme. i agree with the drums being a little too saturated and actually a little too boomy. the idea was to go for a more rockmix than pop. i left the poppy topend for the vocals.
i'll return the favor: your balance is quite good. your mix sound nicely in control. drums sound maybe a bit a cartboardboxy to me. i miss the guitars in the verses and feel they could be a little more present in the prechorus/chorus. maybe spreading them out a little could have made them stand out easier. great basssound!

Thank you too!
The drum sound in my own mix is pretty much done on purpose, provided what I had to mix with. The guitars are indeed more low per volume in the mix to make room for the vocals and to let it remain pop/rock music. They could have done with spreading (or chorus), although this sometimes sounds too much attention holding in the mid in a mix for me, bringing the total span of the mix to the guitar too much. I used a High Pass Filter to cut their bass a little and gave them a little more punch per compression.

[EatMe]

The first 29 participants are reviewed in this post.
The next 9 in this post.
Below are reviews for the next 13. More reviews coming soon!

mix by LughSenderson:
** pros: A well balanced mix. All sounds sit on the right level.
** cons: Maybe a bit too much reverb on the (backing) vocals.
A very good entry, but a pity that the reverb stands out too much on the (backing) vocals. Really well done, great listen.

mix by MadAlien
** pros: Good punchy drums and an overall pretty well mixed mix.
** cons: The vocals have a little too resonant edited effect on them, and they sound a little distorted here and there.
The mix is fine, but the vocals have lost a little of their clarity in the mix. Quite a good listen.

mix by Mange
** pros: Really well expressive sounding drums and space for everything in the mix. This is a very excellently done mix.
** cons: The drum break sort of gives a drop in the song, which was already present in the original mix. It is definibly low in your mix.
Excellent mix. Very smoothly mixed and done every part. The drum break still leaves quite a drop. Very well done, an excellent listen.

mix by Marc Rapture
** pros: The guitars are really well treated in this mix.
** cons: The snare drum has lost most of its expression, and the vocals remain low in the mix, almost undefinable.
Sounds like there is much of the original sound lost in the equalizing and volume deduction/compression in this mix.. Hard to hear the vocals, with a lot of syllables coming out. It's not too bad, still good to listen.

mix by Martin Antonsson
** pros: The guitars and somehow feels like the reverb on the master sound really nice. The drums have been handled excellently.
** cons: A lot of reverb on the vocals, and a lot of ducking in the sound that sounds too low, make it a little unnatural.
A good overall mix, though there is a lot of vocal reverb and some ducking.. This is quite a nice mix to listen.

mix by Marv
** pros: May be a con, the tape-like saturation on the drums somehow make them lost in the balance of the mix. The snare sounds nice.
** cons: The guitar is panned r-e-a-l-l-y wide and this fronts them a lot in the mix.
Pretty alright, although the mix is not really solidly glued together and sounds like a lot of sounds got handled differently. A good mix to listen to.

mix by Masato M
** pros: The drums sound effected well, although they could have been louder.
** cons: A really long timed limiter/compressor leaves a clipped part through in a small (loud hearable clicking) part.
This mix really has a click/plop returning. The sounds are handled with care, but something plops in the mix. This makes this one not too easy to listen, apart from the plops a friendly sound.

mix by MattClark
** pros: Every sound it fitted right in this mix. A very well crafted mix, this is.
** cons: This mix is not as expressive and punchy as one may have desired, and has more of a short peak punch with high ratio for a low volume after the release. May have been more booming.
A very good mix to listen to, with everything at its place. Not really that punchy and booming, still, props, very well done!

mix by maxovrdrive
** pros: Everything sits on the right level volume-wise in this mix. The drum break sounds good!
** cons: There is too much (wet out on the) reverb on the vocals in the mix.
Except for a little too much reverb on the vocals, a very well made mix. Good to hear, very good to listen.

mix by Miha
** pros: The vocals sound pretty nice in the mix. A good sounding, creative nice layer of effected guitar over the drum break.
** cons: Some sounds, the snare, and especially the bass guitar, sound muffled and muddy. There is a delay at the end that I would have left out.
A little less clear total mix, though the vocals stand out. Good listen, nice attention to details in the mix.

mix by Momoko Kohira
** pros: The drums sound handled perfectly. A very total sound in the mix.
** cons: The kick drum is fronted a little too much in the mix and almost tear away all other sounds.
A very good sound color in this mix, though the sound is ducking a little unaturally from the kick. Very pleasant to hear, apart from the small bit of kick drum standing out too much.

mix by Mork
** pros: What an expression is heard in this very well glued together total mix is remarkable. Excellently done!
** cons: There are not much cons in this mix.
This is an excellent mix. Such a nice overall sound, and a good clearly enjoyable listen.

mix by Nico Caldarulo
** pros: The vocals sound handled quite alright, altough they're still a little hard to hear through the loud guitar.
** cons: Too much distortion on the guitar, too appearant in the mid make this mix hard to listen to. Sounds duck a lot from compression on a group / master track.
This mix is a little more hard to listen to, as the mid is distorted and the guitar loudly appearant. Please cut the midrange, as many did before you. Smile

[EatMe]

..
Thanks for the feedback EatMe.
Just out of curiosity, did you level match the submissions before critiquing them? If not, I would recommend doing so.
Your opinions may change somewhat, particularly with mixes that have a large dynamic range.
..
Cheers,
Anto

I put the volume up on mixes that were significantly lower in volume. I listened to all the mixes on medium low output level, sometimes louder to graze the details better.

[Clueless]

[quote=EatMe post_id=5267 time=1561313777 user_id=733]

[quote]


Seeme its mainly an issue with my internet, have dl'd will have a listen

[LughSenderson]

mix by LughSenderson:
** pros: A well balanced mix. All sounds sit on the right level.
** cons: Maybe a bit too much reverb on the (backing) vocals.
A very good entry, but a pity that the reverb stands out too much on the (backing) vocals. Really well done, great listen.

Thank you for your review. I agree that I exaggerated a bit in reverbs ... I wanted to mix this song a lot but I had to do it with rather tired ears.

[maxovrdrive]

Thank you very much for taking the time to listen. Your critique is most welcome.

I understand regarding the reverb, and now that you pointed that out, it made me wonder. I think it would be at this stage where the producer would probably comment on the issue and that would get resolved easily.

mix by maxovrdrive
** pros: Everything sits on the right level volume-wise in this mix. The drum break sounds good!
** cons: There is too much (wet out on the) reverb on the vocals in the mix.
Except for a little too much reverb on the vocals, a very well made mix. Good to hear, very good to listen.