MIX CHALLENGE - MC062 February 2020 - Winners announced

[Frequency Painter]

@Frequency Painter, EXPOSE tool (by Mastering The Mix) says you have -0.6dB Peak! Good old Cool Edit says -0.64dB. I always check with both.
Not sure which tool gave you a wrong reading? DAW meters normally can be switched between Peak and VU.
Are you sure about the gain staging? Seems a lot of red everywhere. I would like to see you in the top 10, as the basic sound is lovely. Just be a bit softer with the faders

Thank you so much, Mr Fox and White Punk OD for answering. A friend/colleague of mine who works in post-production had the same kind of problem and he contacted Nugen Audio. Just FYI, this is their answer:

"EBU Tech doc 3341 specifies the expected loudness tolerances for loudness meters (see the test signals on page 10). These are all rated as ±0.1LU. This means that two meters that are both compliant with the standards could read values that differ by up to ±0.2LU. Although the loudness standards are fairly well described, there is a little room for manoeuvrer in how they are implemented, and this is where small rounding errors can creep in.

Another thing to consider is the resolution of what is being displayed. If the reading was right on the threshold of wrapping to the next number (-22.95 for example being displayed as -23.0), only a small change (for example -0.00000001) would be enough to make the apparent value change by 0.1.

The EBU currently recommends a tolerance in pre-recorded material of ±0.5LU for acceptance. You should always aim for the target of -23LUFS, but because of the reasons mentioned above, ingest houses and broadcasters are encouraged to accept content reading in the range of -22.5 to -23.5LUFS."

Baseline conclusion for me right now: meters can't be trusted 100%.

[GaryRegnier]

Here are the notes for the remainder of entries. Hopefully I didn't leave out any valid ones and these make sense.
Gary

ChrisKamery
Nice moody start, good clean intro. Rev cymbal could do with high passing a bit and I would prefer it not to be panned to one side only, should have movement. 2nd section all cool except low synths need lightening up and pulling back. Vocal section all good, well balanced and good stereo image. Final section comes in just right and balance is really good.

Franz
Nice fx on intro fade. Intro crash cymbal into section one nice but too loud. 2nd section needed to brighten a bit. Vocal section fine although would like to have had it thinned out a bit and reduce drums selectively. Good hit into final section and great balance there. I Like the rhythm parts treatment. Very good sense of building up.

Kevin Gobin
Starting parts seem not be related to intro when it comes in. First second nice and tight, great feel. 2nd section build on first but remains subtle, I like it. Vocal section changes just enough to add interest and allows for the big hit into the ending. First hit on last section a bit over the top and drums very good at end but I feel a little bit too prominent.

policarpo_r
Intro very creative, nice one. Feel the vocals should back off in first section though behind melody line. Drums parts and bass really tight, very good. Solo vocal section excellent. The deep hit on final section needs pulling back a bit and perhaps deeper/more verb? Also melody seems to get a little lost in final section, strings perhaps? Play out again creative and I like it although think that gating would work a little better at double the tempo.

LesLingle
Interesting vocal fx on intro, reverse cymbal fades missing and could do with high passing. 1st section driving along well and nice light feel. 2nd section low synths sounding a bit weird with harmonies sticking out a bit too much as well as being too loud. Vocal section backing feels a bit too heavy handed. Last section drums too much. Lots of good ideas in this one just a little bit too heavy handed with them.

Clueless
Start seems a bit harsh going into that softer voice and fade too fast on fx. 1st section nice and clean and spacious. 2nd section low synths too prominent. Vocal section lead voice seems a little far front but nice and clean. Same again on final section the voice seems too far ahead of the rest which again is very well mixed.

WhitePunkOD
Reverse cymbal at start needs to fade in/out and be lower level. Melody line a bit too quiet. Good handling of low synths in 2nd section. Good width on vocal section. Nice build into final section although becomes rather sub heavy, could do with cleaning up

FrequencyPainter
Not keen on intro. Intro voices finish is a bit sudden, rev cymbal fx doesn't seem to sit right for me, taste thing really. 1st section OK. 2nd section nice additional fx. Vocal section a bit on heavy side although I like the tape stop / pitch bend fx into it. Final section OK but maybe that was the time to change up the drums and perc a bit as the additional fx I liked at start had lost it's appeal.

Kirurg
Nice restrained start, Rev Cymbal needs hpf. 1st section good balance and clean. 2nd section low synths a little too forward but otherwise well treated. Vocal section good. Final section seems a bit compressed and flat

Samonov
Nice intro and first section. Effective treatment of rev cymbal by muting it. 2nd section feels a bit muddy but still ticking along OK. Vocal section good although lead voice a little quiet at times. Final section doesn't hit hard and bright enough. The arp bells are too loud and again sadly it's muddy. Good work overall

copyc4t
Good start, like the panning. Rev cymbal needs fades and high passing. 1st section drives nicely but subs way out of control. Nice balance on 2nd section. Vocal section has voice too far forwards and loud although treatment of perc is great and rest of balance very good. Final section hits as it should and is well balanced again

Piranha
Decent start, nice spatial fx on intro, rev cymbal needs tweaking. 1st section grooves well and has good feel. 2nd section pretty good, low synths need high passing as there are some nasty grumbling resonances I hear. Vocal section arp synth too prominent and vocals need less fx and be more upfront. Final section I like the drums but too loud and forwards in mix

MirkoRusso
Solid start. Reverse cymbal could do with hpf. Night tight 1st section. 2nd section low synths too prominent and deep. Vocal section nice and light and reducing percussion is a good idea to add space and back off ready for the end. Final section hits well, string runs a bit quiet and drums a bit loud but everything pretty well represented.

Snarowitz
Fade out of intro voices is a bit sudden. Good clean up work on 1st and 2nd sections. Solo vocal maybe a bit loud in both solo part and final section? Would like to hear more strings in final section

VasDim
I like the bass synth treatment although a bit too prominent. Could do with losing some of the subs, good idea just too much. Great tone of the arp voices. Final section sounds a bit empty and electric snare too loud for me

CoiledEar
Not keen on intro voices at constant level. First section great, nice and clean and bouncy. 2nd section melody too quiet. 3rd section vocal seems really loud because of previous section although it is nicely balanced. Final section needed to lift and stayed too constant although drums increase is good

ciaranchrisoshea
Nicely balanced but overall sound feels subdued, sort of distant. Vocal section creative but not my thing. Final section also doesn't seem to hit hard which it could after the previous parts.

Ltjost
Overcompressed and distorting badly

loupi
Good intro fade in although when drums start I'd prefer if the intro fade should tail off rather than stop dead. Good driving bass line, tight and concise. 2nd section low synths are too loud for me and muddy in the lows. We seem to have lost the main vocal. Again on the ending the melody has gone although the driving drums are great.

DimitrisPalantzas
Starts well. 2nd section Low synths too loud and deep. Vocal section voice is too quiet. Final section good but melody seems to have gone missing.

Dnlptn
Starts well, low synths too loud and deep, vocal parts a bit quiet for me. Vocal section OK. Final section good but rather thick sounding and a bit bass heavy. Shame this was too loud

Tomigoi
Too loud. Creative but too far removed from original piece for my tastes

ManuC
Great start, low synths could be high passed a bit more. Good work tightening drums. Final section sounds clipped. Too loud

stu.b
Great start very creative. Good use of panning to add width and dimension. Good use of synths on 2nd cycle for variation and again with rhythmic synths in next section. Main vocal feels a little set back and perhaps slightly dull. Last section could do with cleaning up a bit more I feel, great ending.

HyeInnCho
Pre intro not really used well, rev cymbal needs high passing and I am not keen on a static panned to one side sound. 1st section good but bass seems to be lacking at around 100Hz which wouldn't be bad if it picked up in section 2. Vocal section good. Final section has nice ethereal quality, good work. Bass levels again on end and low end drums also not really pushing it along enough, feels like there could be yet another bigger section to come. Otherwise really very good work

hjchjc
Good start although intro vocal pad seemed detached. First section I like the use of panning. Cool work on drum tracks. 2nd section would have been better if t had changed more. Vocal section maybe snare would be better pulled back then reintroduced at final section. Love the final section, perhaps the snare again still 1-2dB loud

Jpanderson80
Intro a bit bright lots of 8Khz, first section fine, 2nd section OK, getting sense that the super bright drums are not part of same mix. Vocal section much better. Final section good and like the panned drum fills.

Mojo21
Interesting vocal effect on intro, I like it although would like to hear it with some lows removed. Nice clean melody line. The low synths a bit bass heavy for me. Vocal section very sweet sounding voice but backing synths have a lot of low mids, boxy/muddy sounding , Very good final section and ending. Would have been better if it wasn't so loud and have had more range.

EchoOreadMiX
Good start and good spread of sound in 1st section. 2nd section really well balanced too, feels nicely controlled and building and bouncy. Vocal section great, final section oh dear, drums going nuts with verb? Only thing that wasn't damn near perfect.

Beyondthemind
Cool delay use on intro. Like what you have done with bass to be driving at start as well. Next section lifts really well with the slap perc hits, very cool. The bell seems a little loud at end and perhaps the strings a bit muted. Overall I felt the kick was too upfront though.

[Mister Fox]

Thank you so much, Mr Fox and White Punk OD for answering. A friend/colleague of mine who works in post-production had the same kind of problem and he contacted Nugen Audio. Just FYI, this is their answer:

...

Baseline conclusion for me right now: meters can't be trusted 100%.

To close this out:
Yes and not really. It really depends on your existing knowledge (as somebody that dove into this, it definitely is a lot of stuff), and the developer (how much time he has put into this).

Nugen Audio are among the leading lights and actually forerunners of pushing ITU-R BS.1770-x/EBU R-128. Or (simplified) Loudness Normalization. There are many companies that adapted the tech, but then again not really. I rather not start a discussion in here, that not every VU is an accurate VU (I only trust two companies for this - Klanghelm and zplane). A lot of people still do their "own interpretation" for certain meter types.

Also - your friend got an answer to the tolerances for LUFS metering (k-weighted, avg signal strength at 400ms/Momentary and 3s/Short Term). The tolerances for dBTP (unweighted, sample accurate, oversampled) are a completely different topic (see my last post).

[White Punk OD]

Hi White Punk OD,
thanks for question. I think it will be easier if I show my FX chain. Here it is:
Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2

First of all I cut and copy snare to another track. Then I mixed together processed snare and drum loop. Usually I do not use so many plugins on one track, but in this situation I have no choose because we can't use additional samples. I hope I answered your question

Andrejs

thanks much, this is very instructive.
I thought about the option to separate the sounds into two tracks, perhaps using a gate (bounce the keep and then the inverse), but decided to invest the time only in case of round #2.

[White Punk OD]

Thanks Gary, I can live with that well.
The cymbal is a bit random, would be a matter of communication. My approach as said was a bit of a cinematic shock effect, but can still be honed to fit better.
Finale subsonics, knew that, lacks of professional monitoring, could improve with some round trips to the car stereo. At least the other parts seem to work well enough, which is quite a challenge.
I would have to ask which one of the bass tracks should stay dominant, while cleaning up, and how much kick is still required, as I was not in favor of the "rock kick" sounds in some mixes. There was the choice to give it a bright beater attack, or to use it as the lowest frequency, like some timpani and big drum in a huge orchestra.
(I did not want to edit away the long deep tail in the kick sound, as I thought it would not be there without purpose, just attenuated it a bit with a multiband transient tool.)

About the melody, this might be interesting to discuss.
I found it difficult to isolate a comprehensive melody line, as every synth track contains just different mixtures of melody and second voice and something else. Volumes and brightness of the voices change and compete each other in a way that I found hard to control after the fact.
What is a good approach for this?
Then also, I tended more to a softer approach, not so much "Marsellaise" heroic. Should come more subtly, and pull the listener into it indirectly.
Although I could have pushed the parallel mono track a bit more, as currently it only closes the gap in the center, that comes from the stereo widening, which I found quite beautiful.
Actually, the "mastering" EQ correction does already a lot on that point, as it closes a little dip at 3k. But I came onto this late (mp3 added to screenshot folder).

[ThaSome]

Can I have a review too please?

[White Punk OD]

Thasome, we need you to make it through the combfilter of the rules.
It sounds a bit "squashed", some compressor could be tuned a bit more subtly.
44100 together with some knobs turned up strongly, makes the sound a bit LQ and foggy.
At that sample rate, many plugins will not work smoothly enough for this sensitive genre.

Musical decisions seem quite nice.

[Actikz]

Daaamn, I was reading rules and this is what I found "please be reasonable with your release - 44kHz or 48kHz source material does not need to be released in 96kHz or even 192kHz, unless otherwise stated", so I thought 44k would be OK, didn't noticed that source audio is in 48k. A little bit f*** up from me, but I understand that you don't send client lower sample rate.

But if I could ask for any feedback on my mix it would be great.

[Mister Fox]

44100 together with some knobs turned up strongly, makes the sound a bit LQ and foggy.
At that sample rate, many plugins will not work smoothly enough for this sensitive genre.

That is what I actually consider bad advice. Running in 44kHz or rendering out in a lower sampling rate than the source material, doesn't mean that plugins perform "worse". These times are long over. Providing the track in 44kHz, is still a mistake though.

What I do notice though, is that the focus is too much on the percussive elements, while the vocals drown in a porridge of sound (especially in the last third of the production - I think this was the biggest challenge here - "make room" for every sound). Things are getting highly distracting and undefined. So careful filter work (EQ), panning and automation would be a good starting point, while shifting the focus from "beat" down to a "more aerial" arrangement.

Daaamn, I was reading rules and this is what I found "please be reasonable with your release - 44kHz or 48kHz source material does not need to be released in 96kHz or even 192kHz, unless otherwise stated", so I thought 44k would be OK, didn't noticed that source audio is in 48k. A little bit f*** up from me, but I understand that you don't send client lower sample rate.

Actually, the rules clearly state:

Upload and Submission Guidelines

• ...
• export in the sampling rate and bitrate the material was provided. Bar minimum in 24bit however. e.g. Source Material provided in 16bit, please provide a 24bit mix. If source material was provided in 24bit, please submit a 24bit mix, etc
• please be reasonable with your release - 44kHz or 48kHz source material does not need to be released in 96kHz or even 192kHz, unless otherwise stated

But if I could ask for any feedback on my mix it would be great.

I'm not the song provider, just some personal pointers:
The percussion section could use some refinement, as in - a better balance (the hats feel like the most driving part, not the kick). The solo snare drum is also a bit "dry" (at least IMO). The vocals are definitely standing out (in a lot of mixes even), but once they set in, the "sound cloud" around the vocals feel drowned out (especially the beat). You mix also feels a bit "thin", especially on small speakers (saturation to create "harmonics" would have done the trick to give the impression of "larger than life" mixes - if done suble, it can drastically enhance a mix). Also... maybe be more bold with panning or sound movement - this is not a 60s-type mix.

[White Punk OD]

44100 together with some knobs turned up strongly, makes the sound a bit LQ and foggy.
At that sample rate, many plugins will not work smoothly enough for this sensitive genre.

That is what I actually consider bad advice. Running in 44kHz or rendering out in a lower sampling rate than the source material, doesn't mean that plugins perform "worse". These times are long over. Providing the track in 44kHz, is still a mistake though.

Sir, can I point out that plugins from these times are still in use, as we have contestants on lower budget, with not yet established businesses.

If it does not oversample with top-notch algorithms, at the same time yields compression (with fast time constants), saturation, flanging etc., then it will sound worse, as the step from 44100 to 48000 is very crucial in terms of timing-granularity and reconstruction filters. Technically, 44100 is too close to "Nyquist" for a number of tasks, or you will have huge CPU load to somehow overcome that with sophisticated oversampling or filtering. Aliasing which results from there, sounds not good for EDM.

I know from the free version of Melda Saturator (oversampling comes with the paid version) that there is definitely a difference in sound quality, between these two low sample rates. I then also used a shell oversampler (kind of dirty hack) and this was very audible.
Same with the Melda EQ. Air band does not work well at 44100. At higher Q and frequencies, the Bode curve for their bell filter is ugly and very asymmetric. ReaEQ even worse. Not so with the high-priced equalizers.


State of the art is 192k which only expensive hardware can pull, right? together with a hundred mixtracks and analog-style plugins.
I hear, in the big business nothing lower is acceptable any more. Some studios go higher.

Thus, in professional environment, 44100 is only the result of conversion to CD format, but bedroom environment like mine is endangered for sound degradation alone with use of free plugins at the lowest samplerate. 48k will definitely improve that a bit.


Addendum, I looked into the Thasome file, HF abruptly breaks down at 17.5k (slope starts with sharp "corner"), which also is an audible flaw. Sounds harsh and low-res, also is clipped. It should roll off softly close to 20k. Best situation is, like analog gear, when the roll-off starts perhaps at 11k with 6dB/Oct, and has another roll-off starting perhaps at 17k, making the slope 12dB/Oct. Then, at 20k, it may cut off.