Mix Challenge

A friendly reminder:
We're in the final 24 hours to submit your edit for Mix Round 2.


So far, we have 10 out of 15 entries, with a bit more than 19 hours left on the clock.

I wanted to put a little more love on the guitars and bass, but unfortunately my old Guitar Rig 5 Pro, for some reason, decided to go into demo mode and I lost the presets I had used in the first mix. Since support hasn't gotten back to me yet, I had to work on some improvements directly on the mixdown I already had from that first version. I found that it lacked a little compression on the side to bring the guitars a little further. So I used two instances of Lindell MBC, one working only the mid and the other working the side. In addition, some equalization corrections, mainly in the high frequencies region. For me, my first version was a little dull.

Very happy to be in another second round. Thank you very much @JeroenZuiderwijk and, as I said before, it was really fun mixing this song.


That is my second version:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ClH48H ... sp=sharing

Hello everyone,
Below is the link to my 2nd round entry.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dlk7vqhqjfb3n ... s.wav?dl=0

First, I would like to thank the song provider for putting me thru to the next stage, I was truly surprised and obviously very happy when I received the email saying I was going thru.
After reeding the feedback and listening back to the track I completely agree with the feedback provided and found it very helpful. So, thank you @JeroenZuiderwijk for doing this massive task.

After listening back to the track I felt a bit underwhelmed by my mix and thought I could do better this time.
So, my plan was…. Get rid of the wife and kids for the weekend and get stuck in studio lolol
Witch wasn’t as easy as I hoped but somehow it worked out lolol
Finally, completely free of any worry I opened the session and started out by addressing the drums.

First i repanned the OH to mono, I had them hard panned LR.
Then checked for phase issues between the room and the OH. I had to reverse the phase of the room which made a massive difference.
KICK and Snare I adjusted the EQ
SNARE I wanted to remove as much cymbal bleed as possible, so I added a Saturn to do the gate trick.
TOMS the same trick as the snare but with a touch of saturation
BASS I adjust the EQ a little
GTR´S didnt change any thing just tidy up the mess I left ringing lol
ORGAN I double the track and pitched one up 7 semitones to help cut thru a little better.
VOX´S I didn’t do anything to them
After this was completed, I started to volume automate every single track.
This process for me was what really made a big difference to the end result.
That and referencing against the new foo fighter’s song checking for amount of lowend vs topend.
The referencing process can be quite depressing and I always seemed to shy away from it but in reality, it makes a big difference because we lose perspective of the mix so easily.
After checking the reference I lightly reshaped my master bus EQ and that was it.
I hope I made justice to the song and actually made it better!! thank you once more for putting me thru.
Good luck to everyone!!

SDB_12 wrote: ↑

Sat May 06, 2023 20:20 CEST

Mastemoth wrote: ↑

Sat May 06, 2023 16:12 CEST

What's fun is that, I listened to all the mixes, not all the way through, and I disqualified all mixes that I felt had a lot of levelling issues. I generally put in 16 mixes at the same time and removed those I felt should go out. Then I filled those spots with other mixes and repeated this until getting through this. Even with this being very fast and maybe unfair because I don't listen through it was very interesting how different my top choices were against the provider's. And it shows that you shouldn't take this competition as being the best mixer but as being the best at interpreting what the provider wants. I like this aspect of the competition.

Don't feel obligated, but care to share who your top 15 were? Since you did all this work

Maybe I should I hope I saved it in my session. I used Metric AB to level match everything. Level matched it to the original mix. So I basically ended up with the 16 mixes I liked best. I should maybe do it after the competition is over.

Hi,

thanks for the feedback and the opportunity to work on the song in round 2. I really appreciate it!

I totally agree with the drums having a to tiny impact throughout the song and the lack of dynamics for the guitars.

I decided to work on an additional parallel drum bus and on the drum reverb to give the the drums more weight and more power. To add dynamics I automated the guitars in width and in the usage of a distortion pedal. In the verses I reduced the stereo width and deactivated the distortion pedal. For all other parts the guitars have the full width and full power.

I hope you like it!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tWPoXm ... sp=sharing

Hi all,
I’m happy that my mix made it to round two!

Here is what I did for round 2:

Drums:
I re-checked the phase and could fix some issues regarding the snare sound. Also some EQ tweeting and little bit compression on snare to give it more drive.

Voc/Git:
I improved the panning for the guitars to have more space for the Vocals in the chorus. Also I have added a Dynamic EQ on the guitar bus with sidechaine from vocals to reduce the 3-4kHz rage when singing.

The lead git got just a 1 dB boost to give this part of the song more drive.

Hope you like this version!

https://1drv.ms/u/s!As0I9hEHG4zz9SqCUHj ... I?e=5eVq7N


Good luck to you all!

Basically followed Jeroen suggestions:

• Added a db of volume to the choruses and added width to the guitars in the choruses

• Lowered vocal loudness in the bridge

• Additional balancing/cleaning, a bit more fatness to guitars, definition to keyboard parts and more cleaning to cymbals spill in drums tracks

Mix - Round 2

It's the 10th May 2023, 00:05 (UTC+2) - the 2nd Mix Round has officially ended.


STATISTICS

• Everyone has sent in an edit (none missing)
• We have 2 Wild Card uses to advance into the next round (@BenjiRage, @PeterGomes )
• We have 0 participants that decided on not to advance through the use of a Wild Card
• We have 0 submission after the deadline

Please check your upload links again, and have an eye on this thread for more feedback and a possible Mix Round 3, or an announcement of the final results.



I'm now opening up the room (again) for Q&A's and giving each other feedback (which is highly encouraged)

Please check out all other games on the community. The Songwriting Competition is still in full swing.

Please also consider becoming a Song Provider - no more material means no more Mix(ing) Challenges. Our Song Pool is empty!


See you on the flipside.

SDB_12 wrote: ↑

Sat May 06, 2023 20:20 CEST

Mastemoth wrote: ↑

Sat May 06, 2023 16:12 CEST

What's fun is that, I listened to all the mixes, not all the way through, and I disqualified all mixes that I felt had a lot of levelling issues. I generally put in 16 mixes at the same time and removed those I felt should go out. Then I filled those spots with other mixes and repeated this until getting through this. Even with this being very fast and maybe unfair because I don't listen through it was very interesting how different my top choices were against the provider's. And it shows that you shouldn't take this competition as being the best mixer but as being the best at interpreting what the provider wants. I like this aspect of the competition.

Don't feel obligated, but care to share who your top 15 were? Since you did all this work

Initially tempting as I wasn't picked by the actual real life judge, but really i think this could only undermine a main important feature of the site, that the song provider is the judge. The song provider wrote and recorded the song and knows the boundaries of what he intended and hopes to find in the remixes - even with an open mind?

Were I the song provider, or a possible future one, I'd be put off if it was likely to end up with others judging my judgement and re-running the competition without my input!

On the other hand if Mastemoth wanted to privately message HIS winners with condolences IN HIS OPINION or something like that I see no harm.

I am more than overjoyed to announce the following license sponsor for the Mix Challenge audio community



Kilohearts is kind enough to give away a "Sound Design Playground" Bundle, consisting of licenses for Snap Heap and Multipass
License will turn into NFR
More info on Kilohearts: https://www.kilohearts.com



Their offer is retroactive (starting with MC091 / April 2023).

A huge thank you goes to Kilohearts for providing the licenses.