MIX CHALLENGE - MC049 November 2018 - Winners announced

[erginozler]

Hi,
I will make an update tonight. I apologize for the delay. Things have been hectic.
Cheers,

[erginozler]

Kevingobin

A beautiful mix. It’s sweet and balanced. It transfers well to different systems. I liked the vocal very much. The balance of the instruments and the use of space is perfect. Could you make the drums (or the snare drum) a little more driving and just a tiny bit wetter? I find the panned slap delay on guitar distracting, particularly during the solo.

Herbfelho

What a great mix! It grooves and swings. It sounds good on laptop speakers, on high-end studio monitors, desktop speakers, cheap headphones, expensive headphones, on every system I have listened. I loved the panorama, and I think that you can be even bolder. The vocal has a plosive problem. I assume it’s that max bass plugin. Although the vocal sits very well in the mix, I felt like it still has some room for improvement. It sounds a little constrained, could be more open. Excellent work!

Guizgui

Your mix has high energy and excitement. The use of space is fantastic. The tones of the instruments are very aggressive and convincing. It’s like Greenday playing the blues.
I found your mix to be a little harsh on some systems. It has lots of high-mid energy between 1K and 7k and not enough air. I understand that the aggression comes from that concentrated energy in the high-mids, but it turns out to be tiring on some of the systems I used. Could you try a different type of drive for the vocals?

Yoruhitp

Great balance. Good mix. Your mix has no information above 15 kHz. It’s interesting. It makes the mix sound mid heavy, maybe even nasal at times, but it works. Drums and cymbals sound really good.

Henrik Hjortnaes
Great exciting mix! I like the aggressive approach. It has old-school hard’n’heavy aesthetics. The balance is excellent. The feeling of space is first class. I can almost see the walls of the room. However, your mix is a little light. It needs some weight. Add subs and some low end, and it will be perfect.

Jerze

Your mix is excellent. It may use some more high end maybe a little excitement (like a subtle saturation)

Ellrozza

Perfect balance. Your mix just like yoruthitp’s mix has no information above 14K. But it works. Rhythm guitar can be a little louder in the mix. Good overall feel and groove. Congrats!
Stilespod

Your mix has a tremendous spectral balance. The use of space is good. Nothing is over compressed. Everything blends very well. But the vocal is a little weak. I feel like it needs to be louder in the mix and has to claim more space. The guitars are very close to the listener the may move a little backward, not regarding volume but concerning space.

Daxtheanimal
Great mix, everything is fine. I didn’t like the delay on guitars, it’s very upfront. It could be more subtle. Adding a little saturation may bring some excitement to your mix. Good job.


Olli h

You have an exciting mix. But the high midrange sounds a tiny bit harsh on some systems. It just needs a small bit of taming. The room the band is playing in is too big for my taste. Could you make it smaller?

Elad naimi
Good work. Your rhythm guitar is a little low mid heavy. The vocal can and be more prominent. Your mix is almost there. A tiny bit less energy in the low musical octaves and a little more sub energy would make your mix sound more open.

Photonic.
Great work! I really can’t find anything to ask. Maybe experiment with a subtle saturation?

[Mister Fox]

Thank you for handling the evaluation, fese.

Let us kick off Mix Round 2, which will end on Wednesday, 12-DEC-2018 11:59pm GMT+1/CET


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



The following 12 participants go into Round 2 (alphabetical order)

daxtheanimal
elad-naimi
ellrozza
guizgui
henrikhjortnaes
herbfelho
jerze
kevingobin
olli-h
photonic
stilespod
yoruhitp



A thank you to everyone, and good luck for Round 2

[HerbFelho]

Thanks a lot for your critiques erginozler and congrats to everyone reaching round 2.
I´m very pleased that you like my mix and it sounds good on all your speakers. Translation to all listening systems is always one of the big topics for me as a mixer so I´m very glad to hear the mix works well in this respect.
You´re certainly right with your criticism about the vocals, I suspect the plosive problem occurs on smaller bass heavy speakers, I should have checked that before, but that should be easy to fix for round 2. I will also work on the vocals on terms of openness, I wanted them very dry and upfront on purpose for the first mix, but that´s a highly subjective thing of course.
Good luck to everybody!

[yoruhitp]

Dear Erginozler, thanks for the feedback.

Regarding "midrange heavy", the following processing is carried out.

• With the EQ of the master bus, the frequency around 500 Hz has been lowered slightly.

• Reviewed the compression of the base, and corrected the place where the volume becomes larger at a specific pitch.
  (Processing to lower near 100 Hz and 200 Hz by 4 db with dynamic EQ)

• Parallel compression with the release time of sixteenth note is added to the drum bus.

The modified file is here.
mp3: https://colabo-share.s3-ap-northeast-1. ... itp_R2.mp3
wav: https://colabo-share.s3-ap-northeast-1. ... itp_R2.wav

[guiZgui]

Hello back !
Thank you for this feedback and the comparison with green day playing blues haha
I do mix a lot of rock so it's a part of me when I mix I guess
Anyway I tried to tame this harshness you told me but without loosing the overall energy. So I used a multiband compressor on the guitars, vocal and drums, targeting the harsh area frequencies. I also reduce the amount of saturation I had on the guitars and vocal.
Finally I added a little more air on the master bus.

I hope it will work better like this but anyway I'm glad you liked my rock vision of it

Mix Round 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TwxTxb ... sp=sharing

[DaxTheAnimal]

A sincere thank you for the Round 2 opportunity. I didn't think my first mix was good enough upon review. This one makes up for it.

WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1UXuZj ... X6Uv5ADqEm

MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yXy7d ... XWTcuxMVb5

Made the guitar delays more subtle and back a bit. The feedback is lowered and the delay is sent to reverb, making it deeper and smooth. The right guitar is louder than mix 1 to balance it with the left.

Made everything more exciting.

It wasn't always a matter of more saturation. Some tracks, such as the snares, needed less. Others, such as the room, needed more. Removed tape from the kicks. I drove into the master tape a little harder which brought out some pleasing character across the board.

Set the bass tape to 15 ips which cut some extreme low flubbiness.

Added more air frequencies in the vocals. Also made the ambience more interesting with another reverb send. I did reverb to delay on one send, delay to reverb on the other. Lots of saturation on the reverb. Low frequencies set to last longer than highs in the tails. Overall, a deep sound. Lots of automation to make it interesting. Sometimes you hear only one or the other send, sometimes both.

The plugins used are the same as Round 1 with the addition of the Aphex Vintage Aural Exciter and the SlickHDR compressor.
The vocals are sent to the Aphex, adding some saturation. The left guitar is sent during the solo.
Got rid of the SSL-G on the master and replaced it with Slick. It gives as a much more open sound than the SSL. Slick has three different drive knobs. I put the left and middle at 1 o'clock, the right at 11 o'clock.

That's the technical stuff. I mostly focused on making the song more fun to listen to. The guitars are panned wider. The drums are roomier. I timed the tape flutter to the track to add something subtle to the groove and swing. I made the song more vibrant and enveloping compared to my R1 entry.

I learned a lot. Thanks again.

[erginozler]

I will also work on the vocals on terms of openness, I wanted them very dry and upfront on purpose for the first mix, but that´s a highly subjective thing of course.
Good luck to everybody!

Hi, HebFelho,
I think the wording in my comments was confusing. When I said open, what I meant was relaxed. So, it is not a question of reverb, but rather a matter of tone. I don't have a problem with the vocal being bone dry and upfront. I don't want to misdirect you and ruin the right thing you already have, but the texture of it felt a little dense to me. Not that there's anything wrong with experimenting with reverb but that wasn't what I had in mind when writing the comment.

[HerbFelho]

I think the wording in my comments was confusing. When I said open, what I meant was relaxed. So, it is not a question of reverb, but rather a matter of tone. I don't have a problem with the vocal being bone dry and upfront. I don't want to misdirect you and ruin the right thing you already have, but the texture of it felt a little dense to me. Not that there's anything wrong with experimenting with reverb but that wasn't what I had in mind when writing the comment.

Ok, think I got it now, thanks for clearing that up!
Cheers,
Herb

[vitaminx]

Hi,
I will make an update tonight. I apologize for the delay. Things have been hectic.
Cheers,

Hi, would it be possible to also leave a review for the mixes that didn't make it to round 2?
I would really like to know what I could do better - that's in fact the reason why I participate.

Thanks!