MIX CHALLENGE - MC098 June 2024 - Mix Round 1 in evaluation

[White Punk OD]

I think, @rvalle and @MemphisB did the opposite to each other, both are good takes.

There are similarities in the lead vocals, clean and straightforward.

rvalle did the whole mix this way, a bit "Pop", everything in check, and might have achieved level of acceptance for some radios.
harmony vocals are rich and tight.
balances are great, especially the tonal teamwork between bass, vocals, and guitar,
except I thought the crash cymbals are a bit loud.
guitar sounds beautiful, piano is a bit in the background, and might have contributed a bit more to the dynamics.
the choir in the finale is straightforward again, nice little effects, sounds great, but does nothing extra (while some mixes gave it extra focus and color).

MemphisB turned down the bass for the first verse, which is a great idea in terms of dramaturgy, but the balance turns out a bit bright, and the hihat track with its various sounds plus cymbals are hanging out a little bit. I would have then boosted lows in the guitar and piano, and lowpassed the drumsounds and the piano each a little bit in different ways. just for a little shift in spectrum, to stay in the middle.
Then follows the big kick-in with the bass and full sound of everything. There is also deliberate kick pumping like in many old-style productions in similar genres. So, it has some Country and Folk style, very different from rvalle's "Pop".
The bass is also singing beautifully.
Nice support of tensions in the harmony vocals with volume swelling and chorus effects.
Harmony vocals and choir are beautiful but in the finale again nothing special is happening, though the reverbs fit very well into the genre.
Regarding the output/mixbus - in several of my monitorings (none is fully professional) the subsonics and low bass might be too strong.

I thought it might be interesting to point out some particular contrast between two participants.
Good luck anyway, for a good job everyone.

[White Punk OD]

On another note, I think we aren't giving anything away when we post our opinions on good or poor aspects of other mixes, actually when there is more talk, then these opinions might even average out, but details will still be instructive to think about, true or not.
That's also because in the eyes of the participants, results are always a bit random, how can we know what the band members were talking to each other, or any other communication backstage. Furthermore, nearly a 100 mixes is huge and perfection in perception cannot really be expected. In "real life", sudden emotion plays a role as well, that leads to some release of a track or not.

[zed999]

Hi
I have listened to quite a few mixes and the piano is very strong in a lot of mixes. I sort of aimed at the Guitar and piano level left and right to give a base cutting out quite a lot of the low end on the piano. Drums a bit light, with a bit more bass(I like Bass lol) and vocals quite prominent on top. Some great mixes out there with different feels ,. Must be hard picking a few out for the next stage.

PM

Same here... but a couple of days ago out of interest I searched and found the song providers website/soundcloud and they are predominantly a piano and vocals duo. Doubled lead every time IIRC and lots of good harmonies. Personally I think doubling Rebeca's vocal for the style of music they do kind of smudges the character which I like a lot and sounds rather unnatural as a result but what do I know?

[White Punk OD]

Yeah it's wise to listen to some other songs of the same band or artist,

but OTOH the contact is only virtual, only 3 percent of the participants have direct benefit (or almost direct when we consider that winning a plugin yields much less, than bold mixing with a lot of attempts and changes, and to have a real client outside of this game).

Thus, my greeting to the artist is a different take on the vocal processing, if they like it, perhaps it may solve some issues and questions in their work. I prefer something that sounds very clear and less artificial (at least in genres that are related to our task here), although there is a ton of processings and measures behind the result. But when I say "not artificial" I mean to predict listeners that never before have heard this voice and don't know about the band or project. I cannot predict if it may sound strange to friends and fans of them. Just hoping they might like it as well.

[zed999]

Yeah it's wise to listen to some other songs of the same band or artist,

but OTOH the contact is only virtual, only 3 percent of the participants have direct benefit (or almost direct when we consider that winning a plugin yields much less, than bold mixing with a lot of attempts and changes, and to have a real client outside of this game).

Thus, my greeting to the artist is a different take on the vocal processing, if they like it, perhaps it may solve some issues and questions in their work. I prefer something that sounds very clear and less artificial (at least in genres that are related to our task here), although there is a ton of processings and measures behind the result. But when I say "not artificial" I mean to predict listeners that never before have heard this voice and don't know about the band or project. I cannot predict if it may sound strange to friends and fans of them. Just hoping they might like it as well.

I preferred not to beforehand, the providers were not happy with previous mixing of their songs and wanted something else and so I wanted to start fresh. I listened to the demo mix though and I could understand their concerns, it's thin and lacks body and depth. Having listened to their other songs (I don't count the live ones) that seems typical so in in hindsight it wouldn't have helped one way or the other.

Despite the 100 odd mixes, I hope they find time take a few minutes between listening to each to reset their ears. You know how it goes, you listen to a bright mix, the next sounds dull even if it's not really and of course the other way round. I don't envy them this job! I'd be listening while I cooked dinner or whatever, concentrating too hard on detail you can entirely miss the emotional impact, but if you're only half listening a good mix should get your attention.

[White Punk OD]

i see, just to point out the differences, I'm listening to work by artists to understand what they are striving for, how they present themselves, and what is a regular element there and which one is not.

[zed999]

i see, just to point out the differences, I'm listening to work by artists to understand what they are striving for, how they present themselves, and what is a regular element there and which one is not.

I like your mix, lots of movement, spacious and solid and you didn't use the lead vocal double (nor did I for the same reason). Stick a bit loud but otherwise it presents really well. Good job.

Another thing I did strive for in general was to make it sound like it's not coming from the speakers, you cracked that too. I think that's very important for this kind of instrumentation and style. A lot of mixes this time do not do that, too many overly wide flat mixes for my taste.As they say - you want wide, don't widen everything, pick on one or two things. I went for wide backing vocals only but I like yours better, you can almost see the singers.

[White Punk OD]

Thanks so much, zed.

Actually, the Lvox2 is always playing, if I would mute it, the vocal impression would break down entirely.
It's very good that this has been recorded!
But I used it as an effect, and thus hipassed it with an elliptic 280Hz. This takes away all volume/phase interference that ruins the regular attempts.
It sounds a little bit like a slap echo, and in some places I automated it to come forward a bit and do something else.
You hear it in the second verse at "This is the love I've always known", to support the lyrics.
Same for last part
The modified life I've always known
This body's not mine
Our time has grown
The motherless life *
It won't be long *
....
The lines with the asterisk received more of that.
At that moment, the Lvox1 required a serious hi-mid attenuation, so together this became able to even out.

[zed999]

I perceived you'd done something to thicken/even out the lead vocal and also made it more pronounced for those lines. Nice to know what you did - thanks for that.
I have to admit when I tried both vocals together it sounded a phasey mess. I did try and attenuating the higher and lower frequencies but decided in the end that the timing of the tracks wasn't something I could get past and still have the sound I wanted. I did NOT want to mess with the vocal timing, seems very rude to me to do such things. If the artist wasn't happy they'd have re-recorded or messed with it themselves during production and that goes for everything as far as I'm concerned - we're not here to produce unless specifically asked to, like the robotising suggested by the provider.

Quite late on I put a 5ms echo on it using my favourite echo, Replika, set at 25%, 15% feedback, high and low cut, "wide". That sounded pretty nice, undetectable, and definitely gave the vocal more presence in the mix.

Then I got lost overall, went back to an earlier mix and "forgot" to add the echo which I regret now (the echo). I mixed this song 20 times lol and it was better each time until the 17th. Ridiculous number of mixes really, but I was enjoying the challenge.

[White Punk OD]

The bx_cleansweep Pro with its Elliptic and Bessel filters is really one of the most relevant swords in my toolbox.
It is useful right here, when there are few tracks, so each needs to be tailored in fine detail, or with a super hard cut that is almost inaudible (elliptic = the sound just disappears below or above the selected frequency but there is a residual that somehow saves the show and does not make the thing sound too phasey and hollow and furthermore you can make it appear a bit resonant which is great to hipass a guitar amp. Bessel has a rounder knee than the notorious Bode/Butterworth).

About the choir, I thought I can give away a couple of presets, that make up part of the 3D appeal.
Chris' ADT is really great, though with limited options, but it can be used as a double Haas delay.
The Lagrange is a never-boring strong, complex, and still super tight delay, as it is granular. The Valhalla is similar, but it is sitting all over the mix with a super-wide elephant butt so its use is more limited.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nKIKjV ... sp=sharing
The panning of the harmony and finale vocals is a random +/- 0.7 to 0.9 (linear law), where the amount for the finale trx is a bit lower, as there is no center vocal any more, plus the crazy PA-Triad effect does its own panning anyway.