MIX CHALLENGE - MC072 December 2020 - Winners announced

[Oba Ozai]

"I didn't load all the tracks into my DAW" Not everyone uses all the tracks provided. I don't know of any rule that specifies so. Yet is an example of mixing as an art form based on personal taste. To me the slide guitar was crucial to the intro. I liked the way your snare sounds, however to me it sounds very different to the original track, probably due to how it was processed. Which brings the question to my mind, how much processing is ok when the sound changes as much as it does in some cases. For example there were many options as to how to EQ the snares et all, I opted for the more traditional (I used the curves that my DAW suggested). I also tried to keep the original sounds as much as I could. There where many elements on the tracks, especially guitars. Many left the shakers (I thought they give the song a swing feel) and even the triangle (some people hide it well). As for how reverb was used in some of the tracks presented to me as the "best to listen" if I can hear he reverb to me is too much reverb, but hey, that's personal taste.

[Clueless]

"I didn't load all the tracks into my DAW" Not everyone uses all the tracks provided. I don't know of any rule that specifies so. Yet is an example of mixing as an art form based on personal taste. To me the slide guitar was crucial to the intro. I liked the way your snare sounds, however to me it sounds very different to the original track, probably due to how it was processed. Which brings the question to my mind, how much processing is ok when the sound changes as much as it does in some cases. For example there were many options as to how to EQ the snares et all, I opted for the more traditional (I used the curves that my DAW suggested). I also tried to keep the original sounds as much as I could. There where many elements on the tracks, especially guitars. Many left the shakers (I thought they give the song a swing feel) and even the triangle (some people hide it well). As for how reverb was used in some of the tracks presented to me as the "best to listen" if I can hear he reverb to me is too much reverb, but hey, that's personal taste.

i think you can do as you want to the track, however, will the song provider like it?
the choice is yours, just stick within the lufs/ sample rate limits, no samples or rearrangement

[Oba Ozai]

i think you can do as you want to the track, however, will the song provider like it?

That is the business side of mixing, he who has the gold, rules.

the choice is yours, just stick within the lufs/ sample rate limits, no samples or rearrangement

That be the Art and Science of Mixing

One thing I have learned here is that what I like is not what others prefer, sometimes in consensus. Take the shaker here, I like that sound, but is not one that is too popular. The bass lines where great on this one; I enjoyed listening to it a lot. Thanks to the providers.

I have enjoyed every mix challenge since I been here, I would not call any of them easy. They are well chosen, is mix challenge after all, not a mix picnic.

[PGPMixing]

@PGPMixing - Nice mix, thank you. My grain of sand is that I feel some phase issue constantly fighting in from of me when I listen it.
Particulary the voice and the Snare need a more natural treatment, maybe they are over processed.
I hope this help in anyway.
Really thanks PGP."

Thank you for your feedback, I really appreciate it.
I get your point when you talk about more natural treatment of some instruments, especially the snare. But that's just my taste (and every taste is different).

But I really can't hear any phase issues. Can you tell me more details? For example which instrument or instrument group is causing the issues that you hear. It would really help me a lot and improve my way of listening to my own mixes!

To all participants that made it to round 2: good luck to all of you. Your mixes are great.

Cheers,
PGPMixing

Good evening everyone,

I really do not want to disturb the current discussion or the evaluation of mix round 2. But I still can't figure out the phase issues that were criticized by javiramallo. Is there anyone on this forum that could point out some detail on the issue?

Submitted Mix: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bb6p7U ... 6F9mY/view

Good luck to all participants of the second mix round!

Regards,
PGPMixing

[JohnK]

@javiramayo

"That said, I have to say that, some mixes like yours, required so much to tell that it seemed more appropriate to invite you to compare for yourself the differences that existed between your mix and other mixed".

"I am dedicated to making mixes and I've been doing it for 25 years" To me is not about the amount of years, is about the quality of your work; some can do great work with a couple years of practice. Im not one.

about -> "About the comment: "Your tracks where not the best recordings I seen, just doing gain stage there was a pain". <- is what a few real pros that do mixing for a living told me (I can provide the sources if you request privately) more than one. BTW, none liked my mix either, BUT they where explicit about certain things. And I do respect that, as I respect your opinion.

I was not expecting a full critique, but is good to feel honestly in responses.

In my view, to just say "listen and compare yourself" is not of great help, simply because mixing is part art, part science and part, plain business. It be like Rembrandt suggesting a young painter, just look, can't you not see?

As for my work, and being honest to my taste, to me it sounds a lot better than the one included with the original files.

In any case, im definitely grateful for the experience. And yes, there are some great mixes here offered to you. No doubt you got a good deal here with the quantity and quality of mixes offered. It be ridiculous for me to expect I be making a production that is to the level of a few of the well seasoned pros here. Not to mention what I imagine to be their gear.

The forum is not just for competition, a lot of it is about educational purposes.

High respects

Even if I was DSQ using samples, I think we can help you moving forward.

When I listen to your mix, I was thrown back a couple of years when I first started, so here are some tips & trix on how you can improve from my perspective.

When @javiramayo told you to listen to other mixes and then to yours, he means that it takes thousand of hours to get used to listen to certain frequency ranges in a mix. It takes a really long time, I promise.
However... I suggest you do following to really hear the differences between yours and others, just to get the "big" picture of how a song "should" sound like.

Now, when you have reached a point and learned how to gain stage appropriate, things start to get interesting like, reverbs, how much compression and so on.
For example, @javiramayo gave feedback on my mix - "Why all this compression?". This is subtle and taste, and like you mentioned... subjective. However, he's right in the sense of how to get a mix "breathe" more and not feel choked... but, this is something most of us will spend years on, as well as it is the most difficult part you will ever experience.

To describe your mix (the best I can), and how it sounded on my calibrated Genelecs, it was like listening to a song coming from an iPhone.
Doesn't this sound strange? It should sound more full, right? From 25hz to 20k.

I suggest you start with a two-step-rocket (from my experience so far):

1. Remove all plugins and set all levels on every channel at 0 and listen. Just start there and compare to your submitted mix. Where does it sound different? This is where you need to train your ears and get used to.
Take an EQ on the master and sweep around from say 25-300hz slowly. What instruments do you hear? Probably some umpf from the kick and bass at 25-120hz, right? Where's the details from the kick and bass so it actually cuts through the mix, the attack and definition?
When does the snare comes in? The bottom and "the meat" should come in at 200-250hz maybe? You get the idea...

2. Gain stage (disable all channels).
When you get the idea of where instruments comes in on certain frequencies, start wherever you want (all of us does it different) - but a suggestion could be with the drums. Start with the kick to where you think it sounds good and then add all other aspects of the drums, one by one at the time. Don't even bother to use plugins yet, they will become handy later on when more instruments are playing and you start notice rumble between the kick and bass.

Hope this helps! Cheers

[White Punk OD]

.... But I still can't figure out the phase issues that were criticized by javiramallo. Is there anyone on this forum that could point out some detail on the issue?

number of possible reasons. to start with, did you try different pairs of headphones? (my ideal for this was AKG K240 Monitor, it has flat mid-range and I paid 80 bucks.)
unaware of your situation, to me it is thinkable that for some sounds your monitoring cheats you.
examples:
- you may have turned down too much of mid-range, with an EQ that is not very suitable for it, or with less than optimal Q settings.
- some parallel routing goes wrong, when the paths have different phase response or plugin-latency.
- the snare might have wrong polarity between top and bottom mics so it sounds thinner.
actually, it is very difficult to debug such issues by tele-teaching. I hear "something". but what is it?
someone would need to use an online session collaboration tool with you, or visit you.
good luck!

[Jerze]

Hello all,

Here is my R-2 mix 48/24

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6qdkyrtdmsuet ... 2.wav?dl=0

Javier had mentioned in his comments about kic ,bass working more together and lead vocal sound in intro.

The kic got some re-eqing along with some automation on different hits throughout the track
Bass same as kic along with some volume. Tried to lock them together
The lead vocal took eq and saturation off intro.

These are some things I though it needed.
Readjusted some of my compressors on a few things (drums mainly) along with readjusting a few eqs on the piano .GT and acoustic to try to open some space up.
The snare I fought with the whole time never figured out it why it seemed to go in and out of phase . The last things was more automation on different instruments for flow and tune the vocals which i wasn't able to get to so they are what they are.



Any questions or thoughts let me know!
Jerze

[Jerze]

I really do not want to disturb the current discussion or the evaluation of mix round 2. But I still can't figure out the phase issues that were criticized by javiramallo. Is there anyone on this forum that could point out some detail on the issue?


Regards,
PGPMixing

Hello PGmixing,

The only thing I'm hearing is with the snare which i struggled with myself.If you listen from about 2:07 through the 2nd verse you can hear where the snare has body then seems to go out of phase its through out the song tho.I never figured it out tried moving things around maybe its the gate causing this not sure tho..

Jerze

[White Punk OD]

so, did anyone happen to automate the polarity switch?
I compressed the shnizzle out of the top mic (channel X or vari-mu), and threw a resonant hipass after <top+bottom>. this left over still some interesting dynamics..
I also hipassed the bottom mic so that polarity played a weaker role, and compressed with SSL G. fortunately, some punch comes in with the overheads.
(in the second half the snare sounds brighter, probably it was played louder. don't let the compressor kill the body then.)


---
my humble 2 cents, wondering, why a couple of mixers left out the ersatz "grita" track, that kicks in around 2:46? either boost this, or prepare massive background vocals for that moment, no?

[PGPMixing]

Hello everyone,

first of all: thank you very much to all of you for your fast response! What a great and helpful community.

- you may have turned down too much of mid-range, with an EQ that is not very suitable for it, or with less than optimal Q settings.

I just figured that this is the point where my processing failed.
Especially in the second verse, the body of the snare gets totally lost.

For monitoring I use some budget monitors Swissonic ASM7 (but they actually sound relatively good, I compared them with several other mid-priced monitors) and audio technica ATH-M50x headphones.