MIX CHALLENGE - MC067 July 2020 - Winners announced

[Clueless]

Congratulations to everybody for the work you have made!
It's incredible to me how every mix I've listened to sound so personal!

I really have a lot to learn from all of you!

Thank you!

And good luck!

P.S.

Just a little question, how do you know you are disqualified?
There's a topic about that?
It's my first time here and I couldn't find anything

https://mix-challenge.com/media/results ... istics.pdf

[Mork]

Mork
great one again, everything clear and balanced, dry and punchy
(as a pure matter of taste, I preferred more midrange in the vocals)
it rocks

Hey, thanks man

[Paolo]

Congratulations to everybody for the work you have made!
It's incredible to me how every mix I've listened to sound so personal!

I really have a lot to learn from all of you!

Thank you!

And good luck!

P.S.

Just a little question, how do you know you are disqualified?
There's a topic about that?
It's my first time here and I couldn't find anything

https://mix-challenge.com/media/results ... istics.pdf

Thank you!

[javiramallo]

Hi Guys, Congratulations to everybody. Today I finished listen all the submissions.
Great work Here.

Only as a clarification.
In my submission (https://mix-challenge.com/forum/viewtop ... 8193#p8193), I uploaded to youtube a "video description" in order to show my session in a visual way.

This video is Not Public, nobody can find it If I don´t give the link to watch it, (Just like the ".wave" in the cloud storage).

Maybe someone could think that I did something wrong publising the song or something like that.

Repeat, It is a private video in mi youtube account , not a public one. It is only for us, and it has always been private.


Cheers!

Javi.

[Mellow Browne]

Hey there,

I know I'm late. Here is my mix:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Will give you details about the mixing process asap

So, here is more information to my mix.

Compression + EQing on most tracks and building several busses (e.g. drums, backvox etc.) I think the "most fancy" thing I have done to this mix is to create two busses, one for the instrumental and another one for the vocals, so I could compress them individually. For the final touch I used a dynamic EQ on the instrumental and took the vocals as side chain signal. Vocals are send to Echoboy for ambience, instruments are send to Reverb plate for thickness. Vocals are flex pitched on 1 or 2 spots.

This was funny to mix, I like the song. Thanks

Peace!

[White Punk OD]

Best way to overcome sadness and disappointment, is to have listeners and comments!

Thanks for kind replies, but I wonder what I could have done better in the first place, if so, and I won't get hurt or onion skinned about it.

OTOH
My approach at the end of the day is "real" audience as a real target, they must get acquainted with the voice and the singer on full scale, no one seriously enters a stage to hide themselves.
So in general, I thought there is a lot of hitech in many mixes, and that is a lot about perfection, but is that really what I am supposed to love and admire as a layman listener?
Not sour-graping too much, as I provided the screen shots with the many effect tracks, but they are not to be audible, but to serve consistency throughout the whole song.

This song is very interesting, because it can go both ways, both can be seen with videos of other bands, that have millions of plays.
I.e. one is more on the low-fi and post-vintage side with lots of mid-range, brand new and very young artists, the other is more like common mainstream with a super wide spectrum and everything evened out to never insult any ear or heart or whatever.

I would appreciate to handle the mixes like a "thesis", that will get challenged in many ways, and has to be defended, for the sake of education and finding one's own position in a fair but intense way.

[Edu Cesar]

Best way to overcome sadness and disappointment, is to have listeners and comments!

Thanks for kind replies, but I wonder what I could have done better in the first place, if so, and I won't get hurt or onion skinned about it.

OTOH
My approach at the end of the day is "real" audience as a real target, they must get acquainted with the voice and the singer on full scale, no one seriously enters a stage to hide themselves.
So in general, I thought there is a lot of hitech in many mixes, and that is a lot about perfection, but is that really what I am supposed to love and admire as a layman listener?
Not sour-graping too much, as I provided the screen shots with the many effect tracks, but they are not to be audible, but to serve consistency throughout the whole song.

This song is very interesting, because it can go both ways, both can be seen with videos of other bands, that have millions of plays.
I.e. one is more on the low-fi and post-vintage side with lots of mid-range, brand new and very young artists, the other is more like common mainstream with a super wide spectrum and everything evened out to never insult any ear or heart or whatever.

I would appreciate to handle the mixes like a "thesis", that will get challenged in many ways, and has to be defended, for the sake of education and finding one's own position in a fair but intense way.

Interesting point about the “thesis”!
As you said, the song can have many different approaches. Specially in a mixing challenge scenario like we’re having here. At the end of the day, mixing is also an art form and a creative process, so I guess it’s subject to have many interpretations based on personal tastes (both from the band and the mixing engineer).

In the “real world” the band would normally trust someone they feel safe to put out a mix that not only sounds good, but has a specific character or “touch” to it.
In a mixing contest I think we’re more in a “natural selection” process, based more on what the band thinks the final product should sound like.

Sometimes bands send reference tracks that don’t quite match the recorded material and going for the reference sound could make a good song sound bad. In that case the mixing engineer has to “defend his thesis” (like you said) and convince the band to move on (not saying that’s the case in this game btw).
Sometimes we can get our ears leading to other directions (based on experience, taste or even on what speakers/room we mix in) and misinterpret what the band really wants the song to sound like.

The only way to solve this is (in my opinion) is to have good communication with the band, in a real world scenario. In a mixing contest this is limited, but also a good chance to make mistakes, pay attention to other people’s successes/mistakes and not have to lose a client.

Anyway, I don’t know if I’m making any sense here and I’m typing on mobile...

P.S.: Haven’t heard your mix properly, I only have headphones here, but I’ll try to do it tomorrow!

[White Punk OD]

In the “real world” the band would normally trust someone they feel safe to put out a mix that not only sounds good, but has a specific character or “touch” to it.
In a mixing contest I think we’re more in a “natural selection” process, based more on what the band thinks the final product should sound like.
....
In a mixing contest this is limited, but also a good chance to make mistakes, pay attention to other people’s successes/mistakes and not have to loose a client.
..
P.S.: Haven’t heard your mix properly, I only have headphones here, but I’ll try to do it tomorrow!

Thx, I must admit this is headphone work as well, and I have experience this way, but mid-range often is an issue and needs further checks e.g. in the car, and advice by the artist or engineer comrades. Normally it is not hard to correct it.

I rather risk making mistakes, it is more instructive in the end. So I delivered something I thought might lead into a good direction for the closer future.
Then something interesting happened, after I completed this mix, YT suggested to me the Brit-Band "beabadoobee", and they are a good example of creating a sound that might get some critique on the technical side (like it were an audio directly ripped from a 90ies MTV show), but with the style and genre it works great, and this is what they wanted to do. Just an example about sound production that does not aim to adhere to the standards of today (except studio stuff like levels, formats etc).

On another note, I would love to hear what other engineers did about the timing and the groove, e.g. turn certain instruments not too loud, or do a number of edits on the grid. I thought it was good for a very organic live show, but needed tweaks for the current standards of "studio perfection".
Being on my own, I decided that the live approach is more exciting, so I did only a minimal edit, and tried to put some live appeal into the sound.

[Mister Fox]

Regarding "perfectionist edits", we had this topic a while ago and this sparked a new entry at the FAQs as well:

Rules and Guidelines - FAQ section

[Edu Cesar]

Thx, I must admit this is headphone work as well, and I have experience this way, but mid-range often is an issue and needs further checks e.g. in the car, and advice by the artist or engineer comrades. Normally it is not hard to correct it.

I rather risk making mistakes, it is more instructive in the end. So I delivered something I thought might lead into a good direction for the closer future.
Then something interesting happened, after I completed this mix, YT suggested to me the Brit-Band "beabadoobee", and they are a good example of creating a sound that might get some critique on the technical side (like it were an audio directly ripped from a 90ies MTV show), but with the style and genre it works great, and this is what they wanted to do. Just an example about sound production that does not aim to adhere to the standards of today (except studio stuff like levels, formats etc).

On another note, I would love to hear what other engineers did about the timing and the groove, e.g. turn certain instruments not too loud, or do a number of edits on the grid. I thought it was good for a very organic live show, but needed tweaks for the current standards of "studio perfection".
Being on my own, I decided that the live approach is more exciting, so I did only a minimal edit, and tried to put some live appeal into the sound.

Sorry, I wrote a very long reply and my phone went out of battery.

I listened to your mix on headphones and it sounds really good! I’m still not sure about mids because I’m going away from headphones and working on my room/speakers, but I would check eq on the reverb/delay tracks maybe. I really get a live feel from your mix, like a band playing in front of me. It’s very faithful from the performance I think.

Risking to make mistakes is a fundamental part here I guess, at least it’s what I’m trying to go for.
That band reference you sent is awesome (beabadoobee). I would also use The Gossip (which I kinda used for myself).

About timing and groove is something I have to get my head around it as well. On that subject I think I try to focus more on the relationship between “noise” and “silence”, loud and quiet, etc...If that makes any sense.

Sorry, I took too long to type this and had a couple
of beers already.

Cheers!