MIX CHALLENGE - MC080 September 2021 - Mix Round 2 in evaluation (staff taking over)

[cpsmusic]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback!

There's a number at the end of each comment - what does it mean?

Cheers!

[mattaroni_and_cheese]

Hey guys I'm sorry you didn't get feedback on your mixes, but yeah there was a TON of mixes I can imagine how overwhelmed the artist was with it, and trying to give the analysis justice. I hear you on getting feedback though - I'm here to learn and not, not for the free prizes and I assume everyone else is too ... so hopefully some feedback from everyone else will help ?

Pete I listened to your mix and really like it ! I here what fcamp was saying about the filtered telephonic sound on the vocals, but for me that really works and adds to the storytelling as it sounds like she's leaving a voicemail to her lover. I guess the real challenge is that while normally we would get the ability to really interact with our clientelle and bounce ideas off them, discuss things, send samples and drafts etc, here's it's one-shot (pun intended) so we probably have to be careful with creative liberties. And yeah I think the reverb on the guitar is a bit long and mixed a bit high for my personal taste.. Also agree it could probably use a tad more width, but this isn't a giant electronic production and doesn't need to be super stereoized.

Jeff - aloha from slightly north, wish I were at Roberts' right now ! Your mix sounds very good to me too. I think you and I both put vocals forward as a way of producing intimacy, and looking back now I wish I hadn't done that. I think the pizz attack a bit hard - out of the box they have some kind of harsh highs to them, and dry they're just too staccato, so think maybe shelving down highs on them and a bit of verb would smoothe them out a bit. I think your guitar sounds better than mine though- I hear what Square says about mine having too much attack ... it worked for me while I was mixing it but I took it just a bit too far away from the original.

Hopefully this is helpful ? But what I do know, I'm just another schmuck trying to get better

[PistolPete]

Thank you very much @fcamp, and @mattaroni_and_cheese all for offering your feedback on my mix. It is extremely helpful to hear others impressions, suggestions, critiques.

@jeffssoloband I very much appreciate your offer as well and I sent you some feedback on your mix, I would be very open to hearing your comments on my mix if you have the time.

I sent each of you a PM as I didn't want to clog up the forum, but I very very much appreciate each of you taking the time to offer feedback and help out. Definitely agree that I'm here to get better, and learn from others, and feedback is very valuable. So thank you ALL!!!

[cpsmusic]

Hi All,

A quick question about a comment I received - "adding effects after seperating one track into many, will mostly always lead to strange sounds and artifacts."

"Multing" or breaking tracks out into separate parts so that they can be processed differently is very common. I disagree that it will "mostly always" affect the sound in detrimental ways. It's usually used to make an individual instrument sound more consistent when the performance style changes (e.g. fingerpicked guitar to strummed guitar, etc.). Its main application is to make a simpler workflow so you don't have to automate effects on a single track.

Thoughts?

Cheers!

[PistolPete]

Hi All,

A quick question about a comment I received - "adding effects after seperating one track into many, will mostly always lead to strange sounds and artifacts."

"Multing" or breaking tracks out into separate parts so that they can be processed differently is very common. I disagree that it will "mostly always" affect the sound in detrimental ways. It's usually used to make an individual instrument sound more consistent when the performance style changes (e.g. fingerpicked guitar to strummed guitar, etc.). Its main application is to make a simpler workflow so you don't have to automate effects on a single track.

Thoughts?

Cheers!

I've never done this with instruments but I have done this A LOT with vocals in the past and its always seemed to be beneficial, in fact with hiphop/rap many times I would only be provided a single vocal track, so I would make duplicates or even triplets many times, and one might be EQ'd differently, with a huge stereo spread on it, and the 3rd, might be chopped up into vocal "double" or backups and hit with FX or other plugins to differentiate the sound.

I've never tried with instruments though, but with Vox I have done this a lot over the years. With instruments I generally will create FX/AUX sends from the main tracks, and each send I may only have 1 or 2 plugins on, but this sort of creates the same effect.

[Mister Fox]

⚠	Moderation Message from Mister Fox
	IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: I am temporarily stopping MC080 / September 2021 until certain open questions are sorted out, since this might also have influence on Mix Round 2 participants. I kindly ask everyone that has been selected to not continue / submit anything yet.

Furthermore, I will clean up the thread from recent arguments/repeated theorizing. I've got your PM's, I've thoroughly read them, I've heard your concerns. Hence me putting Mix Round 2 temporarily on hold.

However, since this is a recurring topic every single month, I am working on possible solution so that the arguments don't even start in the future. This, including repeatedly explaining established rules, is just taking away too much time from other things I have to do/want to do behind the scenes. And quite honestly, I've had enough of that.


Please keep your feedback on topic - as in: participants for participants.
Otherwise, I will not hesitate to remove/edit posts and hand out temporary suspensions.

I will post an update as soon as possible.
Thank you

[mattaroni_and_cheese]

I agree breaking a track out is quite common, for instance if I have a track where the guitarist used a pedal on parts of it and the pedal greatly affected the tone ( like super dynamic, or really eq'd out of range or something) I will break that out, or I'll at least clip it out and then treat that clip (the DAW I use let's me apply effects to a clip directly).

regarding strange sounds and artifacts, I suppose it depends on what they mean. yes if you clip tracks in a certain manner you can get strange sounds, for instance if you clip in the middle of a note than you will almost always have a strange sound in my experience (ranging from just a digital glitch to an obviously "they clipped it there"). i don't think as a rule you can say 'don't break out tracks" though, curious what others say.

Hi All,

A quick question about a comment I received - "adding effects after seperating one track into many, will mostly always lead to strange sounds and artifacts."

"Multing" or breaking tracks out into separate parts so that they can be processed differently is very common. I disagree that it will "mostly always" affect the sound in detrimental ways. It's usually used to make an individual instrument sound more consistent when the performance style changes (e.g. fingerpicked guitar to strummed guitar, etc.). Its main application is to make a simpler workflow so you don't have to automate effects on a single track.

Thoughts?

Cheers!

[m_tree]

m_tree - Nice opening. Vocals OK. Acoustic a bit loud. Blends ok tho. Nice transition. nice stereo play when the rest comes in. Vox a bit hard to hear when it all comes in tho. Overall its a decent mix, and gets close to what im after. 65Y

Thanks for your feedback. It makes sense to me ... what does '65Y' mean?

A quick question about a comment I received - "adding effects after seperating one track into many, will mostly always lead to strange sounds and artifacts."

"Multing" or breaking tracks out into separate parts so that they can be processed differently is very common.

Yep.
You're not even forced to separate/copy one track into many ... you can simply send it to another track. This is parallel processing and very common to create space (delays, reverb) or to add parallel (upward) compression and so on.

[mattaroni_and_cheese]

Sending it to a track isn't the same thing as separating it out though is it ? Let's say for example you have a bunch of electric guitar, and suddenly it has a super fuzzy fuzz on it that's too loud, and eq'd differently because of the pedal, and you want to treat that section specifically. If you send the track, but just want to effect the one fuzzy part, is there a way to do that without automating ? Wouldn't you just be able to automate the original track in that case ?

Yep.
You're not even forced to separate/copy one track into many ... you can simply send it to another track. This is parallel processing and very common to create space (delays, reverb) or to add parallel (upward) compression and so on.

[m_tree]

@mattaroni_and_cheese
The only difference is that you can not edit the track itself with a send. For example no quantization, cuts, fade-in/out ... but you can send a track pre- or post-fx.
I cannot remember when I copied a track for separate processing the last time