MIX CHALLENGE - MC071 November 2020 - Winners announced

[White Punk OD]

@JohnK
great one on the modern, non-Musical side of things...
(caution about balance between sibilants and air band of synths)

[IbanezoO]

Hi all,

first of all thanks to @patrlord for providing feedback to everyone. I really like the approach of giving 100% honest feedback. As a mixer you can only get better if someone else is pointing out the things that you have to work on and for my mix I totally agree with your feedback. As I'm quite new to mixing (only mixing for a couple of months) my focus is still on getting the right balances and transitions but I still struggle on characteristics of a song.

But there's one thing I don't get:

Plus one ask for all of you:
* Please turn the Blue in Grey pad into a pad so it doesn’t sound like an organ. It was never meant to sound like an organ but because I created a ‘dry’ version for the mix, it lost a lot of its original character, which I regret. But if you add some FX you can smooth it out into a pad as per the reference track (listen in particular to the break at bar 89 in the reference track)
* The lead sound is also super weedy compared to my reference track. I stripped out all sorts of FX including saturation and tremolo to give you the dry version which again I kind of hate, so you have to put back all the stuff to give it some body and presence like a true lead

Why do you, as the writer and producer of the song, provide dry tracks although you have shaped them in a way you like them in the production process of the song? I know the borders between production and mixing (and mixing and mastering) are fluent but as we have to work with restrictions regarding mixing and not mastering songs I don't get why we as the mixing engineers in this scenario should make production decisions that you obviously already made.

Or to point it out in a more simple way:
If you have an organ track that shouldn't sound like an organ in the mix - don't provide an organ track. If you are proud of the FX you put on your tracks always provide the wet track.

Personally, when mixing a song I want to bring the song to life by finding the right balance, working out the characteristics, getting the dynamics right etc. I don't want to think about the production.

Cheers!

[alavault]

Hello,

Thank you @patrlord for the feedback !

And I would like to discuss one point with the community : I have personally received a lot feedback telling me my mixes have a "dark" feeling (twice this Mix Challenge, thanks @canese).

Since this is not the way I feel about the mix (I personally aim for impact and space i.e. overuse of compressors, delays and reverbs until satisfaction), I would like to know makes a "dark feeling" mix for you (and maybe end up with a standardized reference like "Hierarchical ontology of timbral semantic descriptors" [Pearce 2016]).

Thank you, and good luck for round 2 contestants !

[patrlord]

Hi IbanezoO,

I agree with your point.

Why do you, as the writer and producer of the song, provide dry tracks although you have shaped them in a way you like them in the production process of the song? I know the borders between production and mixing (and mixing and mastering) are fluent but as we have to work with restrictions regarding mixing and not mastering songs I don't get why we as the mixing engineers in this scenario should make production decisions that you obviously already made.

This is because of two things I think. Firstly, the track I wanted to submit for this competition was already fully mixed (by me). I chose to submit this track because I wanted to learn how to improve it / mix it better. I therefore had to 'undo' all my mixing decisions and FX in order to provide a 'dry' version for the competition. There were some FX that I had applied very early in the production of the song which, having removed them for the competition, changed the character of the sounds. Secondly, I was specifically asked by the organiser to provide tracks as dry as possible, and he had highlighted some tracks as still having reverb. I stripped the preset FX off the Blue in Grey pad and resubmitted, and only realised later in the mixes how much it had changed the sound !! Like I said, I regret that, I wouldn't do that again ! However when I evaluated the mixes, and chose the finalists, I expressly ignored that (as mentioned in my feedback spreadsheet).

In short, in a normal producer / mixer relationship I would not consciously remove important 'sound design' FX from the version I submit to the mixing engineer. But for this competition I overdid the 'unmixing' and we ended up with some issues. I can't go back and undo that unfortunately, so I tried to least highlight it for round 2.

Fortunately everyone handled it well, the issues were not that major, and it did not prevent anyone from being chosen as a finalist. I chose what I considered to be the top mixes regardless, based on an assessment of the whole mix built on what you were given to work with.

[Mark Andrews]

Hi @patrlord ! Thank you for your participation here and all the time you have invested in giving everyone feedback. May I ask what playback system you are using to listen to the mixes.

Originally my link wasn't downloadable as I hadn't set the sharing parameters correctly. It would be wonderful if you would take the time to give it a listen. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_T0rLG ... sp=sharing

Thanks.

[javiramallo]

Hi @patrlord ! Thank you for effort.

Cheeres from SPain!

[Photonic]

Hi @patrlord !

Thank you for your feedback. I am glad, that I made in on your short list. Too bad, that I was not carefully enough with my levels and got disqualified.
But my goal is allways to know, if I can make a mix that pleases the client. And that was the case. Thanx!

[Mister Fox]

Thank you for handling the evaluation, Patrick.

Ladies and gentlemen, let us kick off Mix Round 2, which will end on Wednesday, 09-DEC-2020 23:59 UTC+1/CET


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



The following 11 participants go into Round 2 (alphabetical order)
(all Mix Round 2 participants should have been pinged)


@alavault
@canese
@flat_hat
@Green-Dog
@Jerze
@JulienMeirone
@kirurg
@MattRocket
@rvalle
@TonnoBass
@VasDim


The feedback to the productions can be found here:
viewtopic.php?p=9369#p9369


If you are unsure what to do exactly with your mix, reach out to the song provider and engage in a conversation here on the forum.
And please keep the Rules and Guidelines in mind regarding submitting your entry.

[patrlord]

May I ask what playback system you are using to listen to the mixes.

Hi Mark, I generally listen on three devices. Firstly and most importantly, for detailed mixing decisions, my Behringer headphones calibrated individually with Sonarworks Reference 4 ... this software basically counterbalances the imperfect frequency response curve of the headphones to give a flatter response across all frequencies. I also listen a lot on my iphone with earbud headphones. Finally, I've got a home hifi setup to see how it sounds with its coloured response (which usually means more bass).

I'll listen to your track and add my feedback to the spreadsheet!

[Mark Andrews]

May I ask what playback system you are using to listen to the mixes.

Hi Mark, I generally listen on three devices. Firstly and most importantly, for detailed mixing decisions, my Behringer headphones calibrated individually with Sonarworks Reference 4 ... this software basically counterbalances the imperfect frequency response curve of the headphones to give a flatter response across all frequencies. I also listen a lot on my iphone with earbud headphones. Finally, I've got a home hifi setup to see how it sounds with its coloured response (which usually means more bass).

I'll listen to your track and add my feedback to the spreadsheet!

Thanks for that information and your time listening to my mix - even though its no longer in contention. I would really love to have a go at mixing your instrumental track Pandora.

It's interesting hearing about the equipment and software people use in the real world to produce their music. When it comes down to it, most people (consumers) will use the popular/fashionable playback systems of the day, not top notch audiophile devices.

I use Sonarworks on all my headphones (ranging in price from throwaway to £100s) but use the much more powerful Acourate by Audio Vero for room correction when using speakers. My speakers are also decoupled from the room structure so only they vibrate and not the room. The room itself has much acoustic treatment to compensate for room modes etc as much as possible.