MIX CHALLENGE - MC062 February 2020 - Winners announced

[copyc4t]

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

Thank you sincerely for your feedback, much appreciated!

[EchoOread]

Thank you Gary for the critiques. I'll be more careful in the future .

[Mister Fox]

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.

Listen, I am not disregarding that there are still tools out there that are bitrate capped, or under-perform in certain conditions. I will also not disregard that "oversampled" compressors/limiters will generally result in less distortion while handling the signal, or that EQs can have issues around the Nyquist frequency of it was just hastily programmed.

However, I find it highly unfair to blame it all on "cheap tools"/limited budget and "using 44kHz".


For starters, we will still see 44kHz multi-tracks and mixes on the Mix Challenge community. Will these productions be inferior unless they're bumped up to "at least 48kHz" so that they're out of the "CD Format"? Also - does it really matter what tools you use, as long as the result is what the participant and client/song provider likes? Music had been made on/with quote-unquote "bad (digital) equipment" for decades. There are still users (myself included) that use plugins or instruments from the late 1990s/early 2000s. Is this content therefore automatically "worse"?

Additional to that, music and "mixing" is highly subjective. So telling somebody "a mix should only have this/that frequency courve" is the same gate keeping nonsense I despised in the 1990s already, and still do to this day. I just wanted to make good content, get some constructive tips along the way, learn and improve, not being constantly put down as to "you did wrong - this and only this way is how you should do it" (like - "multiband compression is essential everywhere" - no it's not!). This is the precise reason why the Loudness War is still a thing, why every other magazine issue has an article on "master phat, huge and loud!".


Do we really need to shame and gate-keep people that "only expensive tools are good" or "you need a better PC to handle all of this"-This is not what this community is about, and will never be about. So let me make that crystal clear!

The main concept of the Mix Challenge is to learn how to handle the equipment that you have at your disposal, and make the best out of it. If it's freeware, so be it. If it's a plugin suite worth several hundreds, so be it. The end result is what is most important. The same goes for having fun while editing and the learning experience you get out of that.

Please - just stop right in these tracks.

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.

Apologies, but this is an "industry driven myth" (IMO and all that) and a lot(!) of snake oil to get sales going.

For example - even though "the industry" claims that HD Audio at 96kHz and Surround is "the only route to go these days", the selection of content is but a fraction of what people actually listen to: 44kHz, stereo, on headphones - streamed from an app. Blu-Ray's (UHD Blu-Ray, regular Blu-Ray) most common sampling rate is 48kHz (192kHz is bandwidth limited to 6 channels - the future is currently actually 7.1.2/Atmos through object-based handling rather than discrete streams, 5.1 mixes in 96kHz are still rare). Pure Audio Blu-Ray mostly tops out at 96kHz (with a focus on 2.0 mixes and not 5.1 ones), DVB/DAB streaming is at 48kHz - with the future to offer more and more channels through MPEG-H, Youtube/Vimeo/Spotify/iTunes - this content is still in 44kHz.

Of course you can go up to 192kHz if you have access to this equipment (and it is really affordable at this point). But it is really only - IMHO and all that - for archival purposes. And while yes, 44,1kHz is mostly the result of "conversion to CD format", it still doesn't mean that it's not common-place and that it's ultimately "worse".



I will end this particular conversation here - we might continue this in https://mix-challenge.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8, but I also have to do BTS work.

[loupi]

many thanks for the feedback. just for the record, leaving out the mainvocal was an error from my part and not a conscious decision, as it goes very well with the rest of the tracks... (i won't kick myself too hard and try to learn from it), cheers!

[Clueless]

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.

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.

Just to add to this, problem being dither is considered off limits is the Airwindows plugin Righteous4
https://www.airwindows.com/righteous4/
The original was made for Neil Young's Pono
However, there is also monitoring by Airwindows, which has a myriad of great options for checking your mix, which also has different headphone options and phone, to check your mix, along with sub,slew, peak. This is something that may be of use to people?
https://www.airwindows.com/monitoring-redux/

Ii can could carry on extolling the virtues of Chris's work, but I'll let people make their own minds up, as Chris say's " I'm not the boss of you "

[White Punk OD]

Sorry, I was completely misunderstood. I'm a trouble shooter, get paid for this, and when I know what went wrong, I tell it.
I don't make politics. My point is to use the available equipment correctly, in that I point out the problems that come otherwise.
The correct way to improve the sound in the named case is not to buy gear but to go 48000. Just so easy. Then we hear more clarity and it becomes easier to correct mix issues. Been there, done that.
The content of the mix tracks does not result in an edge at 17.5k. Therefor I detect a technical flaw, and suggest to find it.
Thanks again to everyone who is interested.

@Clueless I love Airwindows, but see these gems as parts of a Swiss Knife. I used a couple of these.
When we mix, the dithering should be transparently handled by the DAW (option checkbox), going from internally 64bit (whatever) down to 24. No plugin needed.

[Clueless]

@white punk OD, yes, I understand, its just I've noticed in using certain Airwindows that they can help with certain things. Also, things like bitglitter, within a ulaw

http://www.airwindows.com/ulaw/

http://www.airwindows.com/bitglitter-vst/

Also Studio tan

I started a production thread from my time exploring, these kind of things were going to be included, I mentioned in my own mix on using Airwindowe single ended triode as a de reverberation device.
As, you are saying people dont have access to the big boy toys, well then you need to get creative

[GaryRegnier]

ThaSome,
sadly you fell foul of rules on the sample rate. I like your mix a lot all the way through you did a really good job on it. There are a few areas of concern though. The reverse cymbal treatment would have been nicer high passed some more and some movement added. There is a loud resonance on the final section vocal pads around 5/600Hz and all the way through a bit of a resonance just under 200 and again a pretty massive spike (close to 10dB) at around 15Khz. Also it was lacking in bass a bit and very mid focused. Hope that helps and aside of being super picky I'm pretty sure it would sound good mastered
Gary

[Clueless]

@GaryRegnier,
Thanks for the feedback, I understand what you are saying and hopefully will improve both my mixing and thought processes in future

[davemcisaac]

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

I feel like such an idiot! I was going to complain that I should have gotten a review because I wasn't disqualified, but checked my submitted wav and see it is 44100. So I did some backtracking to find out what happened. My project was set @ 48000/24bit and would render the same, but I had a glitch. Instead, I recorded using a streaming recorder set to automatically maintain the audio format. It didn't, and I failed to check the resulting wav format, assuming it was still 48/24. Never assume anything! I sincerely apologize for being so sloppy on the obvious!