MIX CHALLENGE - MC094 October 2023 - Winners announced

[White Punk OD]

BTW, EZ-CD can bulk-normalize on LUFS or SPL ReplayGain. [x] prevent clipping option. Uses parallel processing.

[45Garage]

Ok, weird. I got a yellow card for song length. I literally selected one of the audio files from the package (I did not trim any of them) and used that as my in and out point for the bounce. I must have overlooked the part where it said 2:53. Every file I got is 252.235. Same length as my bounce.

[Dodgingrain]

Gain staging is headroom of course, but in my case has more to do with time economy (more works in the same time) and mixer faders aesthetics. Once I had a similar approach to yours. I used to normalize all to -12dBTP. The best would be to do it after a first manual trimming of unique spikes you find here and there (vocals in particular). Peak normalization could be dramatically affected by just one irregular peak in a track, otherwise.
My current approach is different. Once loaded all the raw tracks into the daw, before doing anything else, I normalize all the drum/percussions tracks to -42dB RMS and all the others to -34dB RMS. In most cases it results in a more or less consistent starting sum with faders at 0dB (and peaks dancing not too far from -12dBTP). Numbers are subjective, I just wanted to share the principle. hope this can help.

What I find easiest is to load in the tracks, match to the production rough as close as possible with clip gain across the entire stems, then check where the mix hits on the two bus. Outside of mix challenge I look for short term LUFS targeting similar commercial tracks where the track is loudest. I'll then adjust all tracks by the same amount to keep the relative balance. Typically, that gets me somewhere around -18 to -14 integrated LUFS going into my 2 bus. Ideally at this point all my faders are at unity gain (0) and any level changes were done on each clip or using something like the pre-gain in cubase. Outside of mix challenge I would mix from there into 3 limiters to bring the level up to commercial levels, inside mix challenge I may have to adjust the overall levels on all tracks again to create a few more db of headroom and I wouldn't use the limiters or I might use one limiter just to make sure I don't have a stray peak that violates the rules.

[maxovrdrive]

Ok, weird. I got a yellow card for song length. I literally selected one of the audio files from the package (I did not trim any of them) and used that as my in and out point for the bounce. I must have overlooked the part where it said 2:53. Every file I got is 252.235. Same length as my bounce.

Same here... I did not trim the song and the bounce reflects the time. I did however adjust the tail to make 2:53 in case of R2.

[cpsmusic]

Same for me too. The original mix is 2:55 and the notes also say that the song length is 2:55. However, all the raw tracks are listed as 2:52. This is all according to the macOS finder, but I think we can safely say that the original mix is slightly longer than the source files. Like those above I also used one of the original files to set my start and end points for the bounce - nothing was shortened.

So what should we do in cases like this?

Cheers!

[LowlandsWave]

As long as you don't cut any recorded material I assume you will be allright. If I cut after the decay of the last note anyone can do whatever they want, edit, add ... whatever. I think I don't understand the reason for this cut to short warning and why it might interfere with steps further down the road.

[White Punk OD]

Tracks are 2.52.235
Probably everyone has reverb tails on the last guitar tone anyway.
I didn't zoom in enough and faded out 0.4s early.
That's after like 10 seconds of final sound decay in the whole guitar recording.

[cpsmusic]

Tracks are 2.52.235
Probably everyone has reverb tails on the last guitar tone anyway.

Not me!

[White Punk OD]

Not me!

ahaha... great!!
I think you should be safe top 5.
for the "analog" feeling I think it's a bit many different sources of distortion.
you might consider to dump a few of the devices and try this one instead:
https://wavearts.com/products/plugins/t ... or-vintage
a modern CPU has no difficulty to run it.
without caution it may sound brittle, but for "punk" I think it is doing great, and really fat and at the same time bleeding edge.
I use it directly on the C Gtr Ash 2_01 and it sings like Pavarotti! esp. the transition from normal to solo and back works well.

YT throws at me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnmpCTt7eg0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1TDvy7djJg phantastic mixes

[Mister Fox]

Ok, weird. I got a yellow card for song length. I literally selected one of the audio files from the package (I did not trim any of them) and used that as my in and out point for the bounce. I must have overlooked the part where it said 2:53. Every file I got is 252.235. Same length as my bounce.

Same here... I did not trim the song and the bounce reflects the time. I did however adjust the tail to make 2:53 in case of R2.

Same for me too. The original mix is 2:55 and the notes also say that the song length is 2:55. However, all the raw tracks are listed as 2:52. This is all according to the macOS finder, but I think we can safely say that the original mix is slightly longer than the source files. ...

I technically do not need to answer this. However, considering that there seem to be "issues" with the Rules / Statistic Sheet, I need to clarify things.

Yes, technically the Rule Set does not mention that you should render with a bit of space in front/back of a mix. Although it is always highly recommended due to various reasons. Most notably: old playback devices (especially those with stability buffers) omitting the first 250-400ms, possible transient smearing (follow-up mastering if there is no "space" given, affecting the initial "hit" of the signal), things like that. In fact, a 300ms "space" pre/post a mix is a default setting for most authoring tools (aka: "actual" mastering tools!).

You do not cut for a commercial, where you are not allowed to exceed a certain song length. Neither was that an "add-on rule" for this month. So give the material some room to breathe.


On that behalf... I invested the time to check on the song length:

Code: Select all

Multi-track length:		2 mn 52 s 235 ms

"Precise cut" length:		2 mn 51 s
(if you cut away super quiet noise from the initial transient and adjust the fade-outs)

"Minimum cut" length: 		2 mn 52 s 235 ms (recommended)
(resembles half a bar of silence in front of first transient, and half a bar of silence in back)

Highly recommended cut:		2 mn 54 s 353 ms
(this adds half a bar of silence in front of first transient, and 2 bars in back for FX trails)

The "minimum cut" length is taken as basis for the Statistic Sheet warnings.

To put the wind out of the sails, I've updated the Statistic Sheets (see post #132).

Here is the old version:
Overview of Submissions - is your entry within given parameters? (PDF - updated: 28-OCT-2023 19:30 UTC+2/CEST, full sheet)
Overview of Submissions (disqualifications only) (PDF - updated: updated: 28-OCT-2023 19:30 UTC+2/CEST)

And here is the new version.
Overview of Submissions - is your entry within given parameters? (PDF - updated: 30-OCT-2023 11:10 UTC+1/CET, full sheet)
Overview of Submissions (disqualifications only) (PDF - updated: updated: 30-OCT-2023 11:10 UTC+1/CET)


The TL;DR is basically - you have won this argument. You made noise about something that is not a criteria for being "tagged disqualified"... yet. Merely an information that you might have cut things too short. Notice that I did point out those entries, that definitely cut shorter than necessary.

But I am now considering overhauling the Rule Book and adjust that topic accordingly.