MIX CHALLENGE - MC057 August 2019 - Winners announced

[White Punk OD]

It's a matter of discipline. While everyone will have their own taste and opinion.
When I have a say in the production, I dump the sample immediately. Just my personal taste.
But when I have not, I will follow guidelines and try to support the vision of the producer, including to make the sample shine and give it a meaning.

To me, the snare sample sounds a bit "plastic", like a thin skin with a cheap mic, but this may be a very conscious choice, and a few mixes here have actually managed to mitigate that aspect, and created a soft, full snare. Would be interesting to discuss, how this can be achieved.
I went for a pop sound that is quite frequent, but aligned and panned things more in a "band" style.

(About Dirk's remark on poor listening environment, I hope that my bump in the 3k range can be cured by the mastering engineer quite well, e.g. with a soft dynamic EQ. If I try this myself after the fact, and after listening to many more mixes, I'm probably getting quite close. But I chose to avoid stereo bus processing. Also, this time the mp3 sounds almost better, as it has a dampening effect on the strong brightness.)

addendum
Technically, I think that replacing the sample makes sense only in the original session with the drum engine, because all those overheads and rooms are also based on it. It might even sound less organic, to just add in something else, or just not create any relevant change, it would have to come out very subtle, so it is possible to achieve something equivalent with some other, regular processing. As mentioned in my description, the Waves valve was the salvage tool go get something reasonable out of it, and it also created a little RnB aspect, together with kick and bass.

[dima510]

IIRC, creedchub re-uploaded his files in early days, because of the file-name debates. Then his follow-up post cut off the links, so this made it non-downloadable. Since he shows up twice in the TXT, that would make it 80 entries. I don't know if this contestant also re-edited/re-submitted his material. Dirk has the final word on this.

i took the first post of creedchub, which was a valid entry to me, even if the filename was not exactly correct.

[dima510]

Hello, Dirk,
For the time's sake, I just checked all links and made a txt file, just to make everything easier, I know it's not an easy task, anyway good luck, and happy listening time

thank you!

[dima510]

To me, the snare sample sounds a bit "plastic", like a thin skin with a cheap mic, but this may be a very conscious choice, and a few mixes here have actually managed to mitigate that aspect, and created a soft, full snare. Would be interesting to discuss, how this can be achieved.
I went for a pop sound that is quite frequent, but aligned and panned things more in a "band" style.

this was actually only 1 of 17 songs i wrote for the movie. and i was in a hurry - as always with film... so if in any doubt: all decisions regarding the exact sounds were intuitive and not conscious at all. i chose a native instrument preset from the abbey road 60's drummer library, mainly, because that includes a lot of useful midi-patterns that i used here. drag and drop. adding the drums therefore took only about 1 hour. this is the reality in composing/producing for (small budget) film with a director behind your neck and his watch ticking in your ear

[White Punk OD]

well, your instinct may have quite some merits!

[Pussylover]

Wrong big wrong. A mix without tuning sound dull and emotionless! To me, tuning is a way of allowing the vocalist to express the emotion without recalling and overdubbing. If you use it artistically, you can make a singer make you cry.

The vocals were edited great to begin with, and the original mix has a lot of expression. So what would you have changed? Pitch correction? Vibrato? Is that really necessary?

In fact, drum replacement should have been allowed. My approach would have been different from what I have had delivered. what I could have achieved mixing this song would have been night and day. It is creativity killer disallowing engineers drum replacement.

I am not debating this any further. Drum replacement is not needed to 95% of the cases with the mixes we get.

And in this particular Mix Challenge case, you'd have drum-replaced drum samples. (did you check the bundled TXT's?)


If you often reach for samples (especially 1:1 replacement) than work with creative EQ, compression and saturation, also parallel processing, maybe you should rethink your editing strategies. From your viewpoint, you might work faster (and in your case maybe even more streamlined). However you do not have used all possible resources yet, but rather went the easy way out.

No I haven't added a vibrato. Just simple pitch edit and the obvious drift correction and to my test it has changed her drastically. Please understand this she is a great singer the way she is but with a little bit of help from the computer she ended up becoming amazing to me.

Surprisingly enough I haven't checked drum sample. I haven't even checked if there was one. I was wondering to use mine which I have already spend time creating. It is ok though. The music was fantastic and it was a pleasure working on this track.

[White Punk OD]

>>but with a little bit of help from the computer
while we are at commenting, let me express my reaction on this, I felt like a totally different person was created, that appears 16 yrs old just with a bit darker voice..
that's sure not a trivial job.

[Chriswilson83]

Wrong big wrong. A mix without tuning sound dull and emotionless! To me, tuning is a way of allowing the vocalist to express the emotion without recalling and overdubbing. If you use it artistically, you can make a singer make you cry.

The vocals were edited great to begin with, and the original mix has a lot of expression. So what would you have changed? Pitch correction? Vibrato? Is that really necessary?

In fact, drum replacement should have been allowed. My approach would have been different from what I have had delivered. what I could have achieved mixing this song would have been night and day. It is creativity killer disallowing engineers drum replacement.

I am not debating this any further. Drum replacement is not needed to 95% of the cases with the mixes we get.

And in this particular Mix Challenge case, you'd have drum-replaced drum samples. (did you check the bundled TXT's?)


If you often reach for samples (especially 1:1 replacement) than work with creative EQ, compression and saturation, also parallel processing, maybe you should rethink your editing strategies. From your viewpoint, you might work faster (and in your case maybe even more streamlined). However you do not have used all possible resources yet, but rather went the easy way out.

No I haven't added a vibrato. Just simple pitch edit and the obvious drift correction and to my test it has changed her drastically. Please understand this she is a great singer the way she is but with a little bit of help from the computer she ended up becoming amazing to me.

Surprisingly enough I haven't checked drum sample. I haven't even checked if there was one. I was wondering to use mine which I have already spend time creating. It is ok though. The music was fantastic and it was a pleasure working on this track.

Listening to yours, you have actually created incorrect notes in the vocal melody with the tuning (choruses in particular).

I hope the lack of mix notes gets addressed too, I thought some of them last month were light but there's a lot of entries that haven't even bothered to provide one. I'm not sure if giving just pictures without an explaination is good enough either tbh.

[White Punk OD]

BTW it took some effort to make the chorus vocal a bit stronger than the verse, I turned up the exciter track, and introduced the "detune" voice thickening mults.
It was an issue with some comrade mixes, that the chorus did not really stand out.

[RileyJordan]

In regards to poor mix notes (which I am guilty of), I was in a rush to upload the links with the limited time I had. I will be sure to include a very detailed mix explanation and screenshots if I am fortunate enough to make it to the second round. It was my mistake waiting until to last day to do the mix.