MIX CHALLENGE - MC057 August 2019 - Winners announced

[White Punk OD]

(taking into account that all commercial music eventually ends up at 44.1 anyway).

plz note, Spotify, Apple, and some others have proceeded to their own versions of hires formats, and compression technologies.

[Mister Fox]

I kind of expected that his will spark another debate and in certain cases even outrage on this forum, and I have to say... I do not have the time and patience for this anymore.

The rules and guidelines exist for over 5 years. The loudness recommendations since MC005, and the requirements for documentation just as long. Now dropping out because "the rules shouldn't be as enforced in round 1", is taking the easy route out (aimed at Frequency Painter, who did indeed make it to Round 2).

We are simulating a client-to-business scenario after all, and paying attention to detail is absolute key here (even more important with the once existing Mastering Challenge). If you don't do that, then you're technically out of the game. No matter if just simulated, or in reality. If a client is like "I need this for a movie mix in format ABC", and that project is set up at 96kHz, but you import/edit in 44kHz and even distribute it back to the client - imagine the back and forth, and the extra time needed for that.



As host and CTO of this place, I have to weight in the feedback from both sides.

On one end, I get criticism by longtime users that say "sorry, but there are constantly rules broken", on the other I have people saying "why even stick to the rules" or "the rules are no fun!"/"the limitation on ABC is stupid!". I've also been criticized for a couple of months at this point to be "way too lenient". This doesn't work this way - and hence Mix Challenge 058 being way more strict right from day 1 (which is more workload on my end yet again).

The Mix Challenge, compared to the competition, always offered a room for discussions, feedback and a way to learn from each other. If people neglect that, then the concept is just like very other game: just submit, and hope for a win. But you will not know where you could improve. Where is the learning factor in that?



Paying attention to detail is important, so of course we already have an entry for Round 2, which didn't start yet.
I've (temporarily) removed those entries, please wait!

Here my submission for the round 2 :

[JulienMeirone]

My very bad, i apologize deeply for this mistake.

I am not always very good with english even if i know this is not an excuse.

[White Punk OD]

(Julien, heads up, you are on my top 5 also. This round is going very fast with all those little hickups )

Yeah, the industry hates glitches by technicians, one is probably out unless there is a long established relationship.
But OTOH, on the business side things may run in utterly chaotic ways, triggered by the hot fad of the day, and a high release count of the week, and a political scandal of the artist (especially toxic nowadays wahahaha), what have you, so its bad but those who pay have the say.

Back to learning and commenting,
I beg everyone to consider _art_.
Because it begins there, and borders between art and tech are crumbling, when the internet drives so much revenue these days, and income is made from the bedroom. E.g. Charlie Puth started on his own, with some private gear and massive talent and fast-growing skill.

So on one side, the song client of the contest has his own purpose and taste, which is the target for a win, but still reflects only a small fraction of the market, who ever he is. To me, Dirk is a very ideal client. This is my opinion from his selection. These mixes are very different, but all have personality, and are neither too thin, nor too bloated with bass, treble, effects, loudness etc..

But I still like a couple of other mixes too, that make a different point, perhaps for different markets.
Can we perhaps also introduce different viewpoints, from where respectively each is coming themselves?
Anyone who has time, please chit-chat on the topics.

I think the organ is interesting. In some mixes, it came a bit loud, when there was additional effect.
I didn't change the organ sound, just made it a bit more crunchy. But some mixes added another, strong "Leslie" effect, and I think that sounds good, but changes the style a bit into vintage.
How should the guitar solo sound? Should the guitar player come in with his notorious BBD delay pedal? Or should he have a more organic jazzy sound?

In a way, I tried to make the sound more "american", while I know that many German productions sound more clean, "bourgeois" ( ) and less exaggerated. I am mocking this constantly as the "Reinheitsgebot". So I can't expect a win.
But I am putting the question, because I see the purpose for the contestants as being a global market.


--
Dirk, it is refreshing to see you not interested in the technical notes, and I fully agree now.
But did you read the "marketing" comments?
Like, one mix wants to be more cineastic, the other wants to sell to pop audience, etc...

[dima510]

Dirk, it is refreshing to see you not interested in the technical notes, and I fully agree now.
But did you read the "marketing" comments?
Like, one mix wants to be more cineastic, the other wants to sell to pop audience, etc...

no i did not. but if that idea, whatever it was, has been implemented well, i DID hear it in the mix.
and i respect all those different ideas. as i said, some "radio ready", some "jazz-club-atmosphere", some creative and without any restrictions. all good, and i tried to select a good representation of those different ideas for the second round. thus, the "wildcard", which i really like, although it would most probably not make it into a final movie. i wanted to credit the "ignorance" (no offense!) that lead to this very different result. i somehow like ignorance and giving a sh* and do what you want.... can have great results!

[dima510]

Dirk, it is refreshing to see you not interested in the technical notes, and I fully agree now.
But did you read the "marketing" comments?
Like, one mix wants to be more cineastic, the other wants to sell to pop audience, etc...

no i did not. but if that idea, whatever it was, has been implemented well, i DID hear it in the mix.
and i respect all those different ideas. as i said, some "radio ready", some "jazz-club-atmosphere", some creative and without any restrictions. all good, and i tried to select a good representation of those different ideas for the second round. thus, the "wildcard", which i really like, although it would most probably not make it into a final movie. i wanted to credit the "ignorance" (no offense!) that lead to this very different result. i somehow like ignorance and giving a sh* and do what you want.... can have great results!

[White Punk OD]

thanks so much, for that strategy, (honoring perfection as well as free creativity)
and it is very straightforward and reasonable, that only the mix itself reveals what it is. I should have considered this myself.

for the feedback to those who want to improve, naturally the classification from you and by the forum (if we could achieve the direction aimed for) would have a lot of value.

[JulienMeirone]

(Julien, heads up, you are on my top 5 also. This round is going very fast with all those little hickups )

Yeah, the industry hates glitches by technicians, one is probably out unless there is a long established relationship.
But OTOH, on the business side things may run in utterly chaotic ways, triggered by the hot fad of the day, and a high release count of the week, and a political scandal of the artist (especially toxic nowadays wahahaha), what have you, so its bad but those who pay have the say.

Back to learning and commenting,
I beg everyone to consider _art_.
Because it begins there, and borders between art and tech are crumbling, when the internet drives so much revenue these days, and income is made from the bedroom. E.g. Charlie Puth started on his own, with some private gear and massive talent and fast-growing skill.

So on one side, the song client of the contest has his own purpose and taste, which is the target for a win, but still reflects only a small fraction of the market, who ever he is. To me, Dirk is a very ideal client. This is my opinion from his selection. These mixes are very different, but all have personality, and are neither too thin, nor too bloated with bass, treble, effects, loudness etc..

But I still like a couple of other mixes too, that make a different point, perhaps for different markets.
Can we perhaps also introduce different viewpoints, from where respectively each is coming themselves?
Anyone who has time, please chit-chat on the topics.

I think the organ is interesting. In some mixes, it came a bit loud, when there was additional effect.
I didn't change the organ sound, just made it a bit more crunchy. But some mixes added another, strong "Leslie" effect, and I think that sounds good, but changes the style a bit into vintage.
How should the guitar solo sound? Should the guitar player come in with his notorious BBD delay pedal? Or should he have a more organic jazzy sound?

In a way, I tried to make the sound more "american", while I know that many German productions sound more clean, "bourgeois" ( ) and less exaggerated. I am mocking this constantly as the "Reinheitsgebot". So I can't expect a win.
But I am putting the question, because I see the purpose for the contestants as being a global market.


--
Dirk, it is refreshing to see you not interested in the technical notes, and I fully agree now.
But did you read the "marketing" comments?
Like, one mix wants to be more cineastic, the other wants to sell to pop audience, etc...

Tx man, i missed a couple of pages on this thread sorry.

[Mork]

Can we perhaps also introduce different viewpoints, from where respectively each is coming themselves?
Anyone who has time, please chit-chat on the topics.

I absolutely second that!
In fact I couldn’t care less which eq you turned up how many dB, because it doesn’t translate to me and my style. I generally skip those endless posts about what happened on each track, because it doesn’t matter. That is why I like to describe why my mix sounds the way it does, instead of telling you the Threshold value of my Sonnox Dynamics on the triangle track (which was sadly missing this time ). If I am (or you are) interested in something specific, it is always possible to ask either in the thread or via PM. I tried both - it works! Same for bit depth, sample rate, file type etc, it doesn‘t matter. Sure, you better should be able to output the file like it was asked for, but in the end the better mix will always shine - even as the shabbiest mp3. Because the groove is there, the main elements are in focus, the artistic choices where tasteful, etc. And that is what I want to read about and what is really valuable information. Why is it fat, thin, wide, deep, flat, bright, dark, crunchy, grungy, punchy and so on. So hopefully in the upcoming challenges that still counts as description, not only pure technical stats, otherwise I‘m going to get disqualified a lot I mean sure, I may have a glance which plugins are used, but who really „reads“ these lists? I think it’s just not worth the effort of writing it down as it’s very time consuming.

Yes, there are rules and we have to follow them (naming convention - the least you can do for the song provider!), but let‘s not forget that we are here for the art, not as IT students.

Cheers
Mork

[Mister Fox]

Thank you for handling the evaluation, Dirk.

Ladies and gentlemen, let us kick off Mix Round 2, which will end on Thursday, 29-AUG-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST


There is a GLOBAL COUNTDOWN available to check for deadlines.
Just follow this link: Global Countdown (on homepage)



The following 7 participants go into Round 2 (alphabetical order)

creedchub
finnishcharm
FrequencyPainter
JulienMeirone
Kirurg
PeterM
SuperTrooper


The feedback to the productions can be found here:
viewtopic.php?p=5947#p5947


After getting some feedback by the song provider and considering the feedback by some in this thread, I am enforcing an additional mini-rule set for Round 2. Please adhere to those, unless you want to see yourself being disqualified. As of Mix Challenge 058, please get acquainted with the rule set first, as they Rules and Guidelines will be enforced more strictly.

!

Bonus Info

Your add-on rules are: your edit will be provided in 48kHz/24bit, same as the source material the material must not exceed -14LUFS ILk and -1dBTP (in other words: no pre-mastering, keep summing bus processing tasteful you have to provide proper documentation for Round 1 and 2, not just screenshots. You don't need to list every single detail (settings used), but maybe list what tools you used, and document one thing that you're really proud of mix wise.

If you are unsure what to do exactly, reach out to the song provider and engage in a conversation here on the forum.



A thank you to everyone, and good luck for Round 2



Any further commentary/feedback/criticism regarding this current turn of events:
Please address that in the appropriate Gossip Thread, thank you.