MIX CHALLENGE - MC070 October 2020 - Winners announced

[White Punk OD]

I know of WaveLab and Cool Edit/Adobe Audition they will tell about actual bit depth i.e. whether the signal has reached the resolution that is associated with the container.
Most players will tell you only the meta data of the container format, that is the 24 bit packed wav most times when we are about mixing.
Mr. Fox stated that he uses WaveLab.

I am not concerned, if some DAW does that truncation, it will be hard to run after the last bit, more like it is fate, unless you did some serious mishandling of the process.

AirWindows/Chris has a bitshift gain, when you set it (or any such tool) to +6dB on the stereo bus (and the output fader is at unity or inactive), then guess what, the LSB will be zero, and WaveLab will find out. You need some interpolation, that from the signal curve makes an educated guess about the missing bit. Chris has many plugins about dithering and interpolation, and he describes them verbosely, so this may be interesting to check out.

You want to know it if a studio gives you a 20 bit recording or mix, when they charge you for 24 bit, while the container has always 24 or 32 bits anyway, so you need this analysis by WaveLab or any good audio analyzer.

[TomImmon]

I know of WaveLab and Cool Edit/Adobe Audition they will tell about actual bit depth i.e. whether the signal has reached the resolution that is associated with the container.
Most players will tell you only the meta data of the container format, that is the 24 bit packed wav most times when we are about mixing.
Mr. Fox stated that he uses WaveLab.

I am not concerned, if some DAW does that truncation, it will be hard to run after the last bit, more like it is fate, unless you did some serious mishandling of the process.

AirWindows/Chris has a bitshift gain, when you set it (or any such tool) to +6dB on the stereo bus (and the output fader is at unity or inactive), then guess what, the LSB will be zero, and WaveLab will find out. You need some interpolation, that from the signal curve makes an educated guess about the missing bit. Chris has many plugins about dithering and interpolation, and he describes them verbosely, so this may be interesting to check out.

You want to know it if a studio gives you a 20 bit recording or mix, when they charge you for 24 bit, while the container has always 24 or 32 bits anyway, so you need this analysis by WaveLab or any good audio analyzer.

Thanks again! I will see if i can find a less expensive tool to check the max used bit depth and keep an eye on this for my next mixes!

[IbanezoO]

Greetings to all,

@White Punk OD Thanks for your kind words.

Yesterday I spent a few hours of study with my mix and I reached the conclusion that it must be something more than just EQ and Compression. My guess is that something else is saturating that bass/kick area. Is almost like some people can make their lows look like if they where on steroids. . No even the Original mix provided achieves these levels. And if I can remember correctly that was at -15.1 LUFS TP -1.08
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I5759L ... sp=sharing

Obviously I cant check all entries, but here are a few that I saw that caught my attention.

ECMiraldo -18LUFS TP -2.20 db
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vvgn7Y ... sp=sharing

IbanezO -17LUFS TP -1.32
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CQFboM ... sp=sharing

Gaurav Taljera -17.6 LUFS TP -2.53
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m7ut7y ... sp=sharing

Im concluding that it has nothing to do with fader levels, loudness, or peaks (true or digital). Is something else, somehow these low frequencies are being saturated; and I don’t quite yet understand the physics behind.

I can tell you more about I have processed my low end.

On the kick I have used a the Transient Shaper by Kilohearts. With this I have reduced the attack of the transient.This has smoothed the kick a lot but I guess you can achieve the same with a fast attack/slow release compressor to even that out. Additionally I have boosted the low end on the overheads and the room tracks, both with heavy compression on it. Maybe that´s the "secret" behind my low end - to use other sources than the kick to enhance the kick. But that´s just a guess. I´m only mixing for half a year now and I´m only looking for something that sounds good. I haven´t analyzed my mixes in a way that you did.

[Oba Ozai]

I will share things I have tried but have not given me a result as noticeable on the graph as the ones I have showed.

- I bought the MaxBass from waves and while the sound of the bass is more deep and compressed it helped a bit but was not significant enough to push the low end graph more than a 1/4 of the levels of the big guys graphs.

- Checked the Neutron Sculpture tool (10 days free trial) and tried to shape the bass and kick with their tools. Still that did not get me where I am trying to go.

- done and redone the EQ/Compression dance, and sure it sound louder, but still no way to push the graph up.

- So, it occurred to me that maybe if I lower the middle frequencies maybe that would raise the lowers and some of the highs. That worked a bit, but did not sounded as good because that’s where the voice and parts of the guitars live.

- Even pushing the bass and kick signal at high saturation (Dub Stile) did not do it for me and, worst, the signal just looks way to saturated, like a sausage.

- Here is the Wavelab Manual reference https://steinberg.help/wavelab_elements ... sis_c.html

This is the best I have been able to do with my efforts, tools and knowledge. https://drive.google.com/file/d/15MHdzz ... sp=sharing


But, I will find out, if I live long enough.

[Oba Ozai]

This is what im taking about. reverb ? (nah, some people are actually saying how they did it.) I just dont have their skill and equipment.

Turanga -16.7 LUFS TP -2.8 db
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ypTe_Y ... sp=sharing

[Mister Fox]

Two answer some questions and concerns:

Hi Mr. Fox,
i found my entry in the list of submissions marked with "23bit". Ups? The file was produced with Studio One 4.5 as 48khz/24bit. I double checked that now again. And also my editor say it's 24bit. Where can this Bit been lost? There are some other submissions wit the same problem. Are you sure your batch processing works correct in this point?
Cheers
Thomas

While you do not need to "fill out" the full 24bit dynamic range with your edit, a drop in signal strength can lead to a loss of bits (see canese, dadomachado, eladnaimi, etc). As White Punk OD explained, various tools give various readouts. I barely used Bitter, and I don't know of MusicScope. But "realtime readout" compared to "offline analysis" can be a night and day situation. Wavelab is also very picky (always has been).

It is just a warning that something might be wrong. That your loudness dropped off, that you didn't utilize the full dynamic range at your disposal (if you want to go that route), that there is another underlying issue (offsets, etc). Don't worry too much about it. Anything between 22bit and 24bit is what we can still consider "fine". However, if you're exporting in 24bit and the read-out bitrate is capped at 20bit, then there is something wrong.

On the other end of the spectrum... if you read "25bit", then that means you've overloaded the dynamic range (aka clipping).

It's really strange to see that reason by which my mix was disqualified.
I thought this competition is about mixing (as was mentioned - the focus of this game is "mixing" - NO MASTERING" )
Also nowhere was mentioned that "loudness" must be in range which highlighted at bootom of that PDF.

Apologies, but this is clearly explained in the Rules and Guidelines.

the final mixdown / export must not undershoot -23 LUFS ILk (Integrated), neither exceed -16 LUFS ILk (Integrated), while the maximum digital signal strength must not exceed -1.0 dBTP (True Peak) - NO (Pre)MASTERING. Recommended measurement specifications are ITU-R BS.1770-2+ (ideally ITU-R BS.1770-4) or EBU R-128

Please also read the follow-up bullet points of this particular Rule Book. If it isn't explicitly mentioned in the statistics PDF again, this doesn't mean there is specific rule existing.

Interesting fact, provided for reference original mix is -15.0 LUFS (same as mine), wile everything above -15.7 mentioned as Loud
DBTP - is more mastering related, mastering engineer can turn down level, and compress mix as required.
We had loudness war, but now we have battle for silence (It's a joke)
Anyway! Good luck to survived participants!

We have well established rules to create a fair and common ground for every participant. There is nothing to argue here - neither what value counts to "mixing" and what to "mastering". It also does not matter if the demo mix was at -15 LUFS or even -9 LUFS -- it is a demo mix after all.

Your task is to "create a mix within certain given parameters/boundaries". If you ignore that, because "mastering engineer can turn down level", then you've basically ignored your task. And since this game also simulates a "client to business" scenario, this is a surefire way to run into trouble.

Hi everyone, my mix was disqualified.... ops I probably should have read the rules before starting ..... for me, it's a little strange to have these rules because of the volume, the bit rate Etc... It's something that can be changed in about 2 minutes, in my opinion, it should be more about setting the tone for the song/mix, same stuff with the documentation, I probably would like to check how the best mixes were made but have it 1st round is a bit excessive.

I think if the provider doesn't like the mix it's okay otherwise we can always fix the problems but anyway these are the rules and I'm new here, I just discovered this forum (by mistake) so I accept it, have 100 mix to look and check is not an easy task.

Sorry, but no. We have to set a common ground for everyone to adhere to with the Rules and Guidelines. Saying "the client can fix this himself" or "the focus should only be on mixing", is barking up the wrong tree.

This game is not only about "learning by doing" (including learning how to properly document your edit, for a possible session recall months down the line!), but it also acts as simulation for a "Client to Business" scenario (through the form of a "Mass Engineer Shootout"). If the client says "I have this multi-track in 48/24, and I need a 96/24 version, that must not exceed -16LUFS - because it goes on the fictional platform 'Super-Ultra-HD-Releases' ", you can't just work as you seem fit, and then release in 44/16 at -9,5LUFS.

Two things will happen in this case:
One - the client gets in trouble because he forwarded a mix that he commissioned a mix for, and it is out of spec. Which can in turn result in penalty fees (this is a huge topic in the broadcast realm!). Two - the material will ultimately be pulled down to the target loudness. And since it's now lacking transients and definition (because everything is compressed to a square wave), it has zero change to competitive productions. Maybe even on the own album.

I saw someone liked the mix in the post, so here is the final version (in parameters) with documentation in case you want to recreate this kind of sound, or if the band wants an extra version, maybe 92 wasn't enough hahaha. Good luck to the finalists and see you next time ...

While it is nice that you tried to fix your shortcomings, including properly naming the file, your resubmission is still:

Code: Select all

44100 kHz, but 24 bit this time around
Loudness (ILk):    -14,4 LUFS
dBTP:              -0,267 L / -0,095 R

Please take this as learning experience and improve on that for your next entry.

[Mikael]

We have well established rules to create a fair and common ground for every participant. There is nothing to argue here - neither what value counts to "mixing" and what to "mastering". It also does not matter if the demo mix was at -15 LUFS or even -9 LUFS -- it is a demo mix after all.

Your task is to "create a mix within certain given parameters/boundaries". If you ignore that, because "mastering engineer can turn down level", then you've basically ignored your task. And since this game also simulates a "client to business" scenario, this is a surefire way to run into trouble.

Ignoring what? Double standards which lead to misunderstanding? Nobody argues here, It's clear. I expected adequate response.
Instead of agreeing with mentioned fact, and promise clear explicit requirements in future (Which I get everytime working with clients),
you refer to "contract"-like florid rules, and acting like a "BOSS".

Very dissapointing.

[Oba Ozai]

Looking deeper I found my answer, im somehow blocking these frequencies. Now I have to figure why.

Only the kick goes down so low.
Kick Tracks
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sLJXSE ... sp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K1jv9Q ... sp=sharing

[Mister Fox]

Ignoring what? Double standards which lead to misunderstanding?

There are no double standards. Everyone agreed to adhere to the established rules, and those clearly state: track must not exceed -16 LUFS +-0 LU and -1,0 dBTP. End of story. Your track exceeds both the LUFS limit and the dBTP limit (-15 LUFS and -0,04 dBTP) and is therefore disqualified.

What LUFS the demo track has, is irrelevant.

Nobody argues here, It's clear. I expected adequate response.
Instead of agreeing with mentioned fact, and promise clear explicit requirements in future (Which I get everytime working with clients),
you refer to "contract"-like florid rules, and acting like a "BOSS".

Very dissapointing.

First and foremost - I am the boss of this place.

Second, the requirements are pointed out in a more than clear manner.

There is a lot(!) of time, effort and attention to detail put into every simple game on this community. Do not tell me how to run this place, or how I distribute things like statistics. Every other newcomer can read up on requirements and rules, or can clearly understand final results. Yet you apparently don't want to and now start an argument.

Since we have this type of bickering every single month - and I'm honestly getting quite tired of this (hence me revisiting the statistics sheet, which was already a thing in 2014) - I'm putting an end to this conversation. All I can and will say from this point forward: try to learn from this experience and/or improve upon that in a possible follow-up game.

Have a nice remaining weekend.

[Oba Ozai]

Seems like I found the cause, phase cancellation with the kick tracks. Could anyone else confirm ?

Kick/Bass with phase correction
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oXFpdO ... sp=sharing

I also changed the phase on one of the bass tracks
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CtghJh ... sp=sharing

Mixer with plugging used
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1twRP1d ... sp=sharing