Hey guys, sorry for the one day delay, I had a few crashes last night with my DAW and I've only managed to solve the problems today, a few VST were conflicting with Cubase 10.5.
Now, I've finished the round 2 evaluation and boy did it blow my mind!
First of all, let me just say that nearly ALL THE SUBMITTED MIXES were very, very good, I would happily work with any of you as an artist on projects.
What did actually surprise me this time is that feedback on R1 actually made a HUGE difference on the overall quality and how you guys have improved your mixes.
Now, these are the first 3 winning mixes in their podium order:
1ST PLACE: RJR
2ND PLACE: JULIEN MEIRONE
3RD PLACE: PIRANHA
And here's feedback to each of you 7 that have submitted:
1: Piranha - A really nice mix, nice detail on the high end, spectrally a tiny bit of low mid was the thing missing from it;
2: AlexVanMixland - Your mix was somewhat spectrally unbalanced, with too much mid-high end and missing a good amount of bass and low mid;
3: Julien Meirone - Great rocky mix, very good dynamics, good depth, I just wanted to hear those toms a bit louder and maybe just a tiny bit of high end "air" detail;
4: RJR - This is by far the most polished mix out of this challenge, it is a lesson in delay usage for anyone who wants to learn, mix is very well balanced, very good backing vocals usage, levels and panning intuition, good mix depth;
5:TPR - I really liked your progressive level automation. spectrally your mix is well balanced, I found it a bit weird with the main guitar panned a bit to the left, but that didn't really bother me, maybe the drums being a bit too loud around the bridge did , because it was a clear 1-2-3 place contender if not for that issue.
The difference was tiny;
6: 3ee - Your mix needed a bit more overall high end and either a de-esser or just lower cymbal volume, the only thing that put you behind the first guys was the fact that the overheads were making too much noise on the choruses and your fx volumes, which were a bit too loud;
7: Dave McIsaac - This mix could have benefited from a bit more low end, it was well compressed but the kick + bass were not pumping enough, also there was a bit of harshness around your high mids. I found the reverb on the vocals interesting at the ending, it seems like it was an automation, i don't know if you intended for it to be there, but it was nice and interesting as an idea for production, the octave backing vocal was a bit too loud and your drive guitars at the chorus really should have been more in front;
I'd like to congratulate all of you for doing such a good job. especially these guys who've managed to submit for Round 2. I feel sorry that some of you couldn't do it...
Fox, I'd like to thank you for this opportunity, I hope I didn't cause too much trouble for you.
It was an honour to work with all of you!
Regards,
CeZar
The following might therefore sound highly unsympathetic and show no compassion: