I think this is the subtle (yet long overdue) cue for me to address a big elephant in the room. I think this is also somewhat the reason why Jorgeelalto didn't post yet. I think he waited on my commentary on the situation.
"The" big elephant is once more the Rules and Guidelines for participants of the Mix Challenge.
We have yet another month, where people seem to plain downright ignore their existence. The rule book is mentioned in the first two posts at least several times. In case of MC064/April 2020, it was twice in the first post because of the rule adjustments for clarification reasons. And as with every game since MC031/April 2017, it is also mentioned twice after the "Words of the Song Provider" and "Words by the Staff". In fact, in both posts there are summaries (highlighted in red even) - while the in-depth explanation is on it's dedicated place. Always pinned, always referenced, easy to access through the dropdown menu on the landing page. In fact, I've even spread awareness about the changes in the April 2020 Newsletters (#069 and #070), and now also Newsletter #071/May, that
everyone should
please get a refresher.
My focus of the Mix(ing) Challenge was always
"having fun, while learning something new in the process", and I still stand by this today. I've been very compassionate in recent years. I've given a lot free cards (and were even barked at through PM for not doing that enough!), which in some cases (and in retrospect) was a bit unfair towards all other long-term participants. If I continue to ignore established, and in my opinion more than easy to understand / fair ground rules, there is no learning factor. And it will turn harder and harder with future games to introduce new or different twists. Like tools you've never used before. Or you're forced to do something you might not be as experienced in (yet) you might usually try to evade (like track time alignment). Things that might be a big topic in the future (like DDEX documentation, or creating a mix for headphone surround).
Which is why I've made clear in February 2019 already (MC051), that I will be more strict with enforcing the Rules and Guidelines. The "Mix(ing) Challenge"
is not a small "thing" anymore. We've exceeded 50 participants on average in the year 2019 - and we've exceeded 100 participants for the first time in March 2020. I can't give out participation medals - this won't be fair to everyone involved.
Which sadly brings me to today's post.
Mix Challenge 064/April 2020 had 45 participants.
Yet we have
about 19 disqualifications due to rule violation.
Some of them even simple careless mistakes from long-term participants.
A summary of the common issues / violations:
- mixes not downloadable because of a needed "Decryption Key" (Clueless), or download folder set to private (doobop, TomFernsby), and I was almost not able to download Optoslam's entry either (possible server glitch, I've tried 7 times!)
- resubmitted entries (due to an upload mistake, example: BeSpokeAudio uploaded a surround mix first, then an updated stereo mix -- also: the filename was different to the forum username) and dual entries (cutlet90 submitted two revisions "to choose from")
- massively edited posts (Cchapmix edited his post 13 times)
- mixes submitted in different sampling rates and bitrates than the source material was provided in (cdj1000, ChrisKamery, cutlet90, DennisBastioni, Dwic, JonasLasse)
- mixes that exceed either -16LUFS ILk average signal strength and/or -1dBTP maximum signal strength (some tracks were straight up mastered)
And that's not counting the lack of documentation for a lot of participants. Or those that did post screenshots, however only from the arranger and not the Mix Console with the used inserts.
Here are the statistics in PDF form:
MC064 Statistics (PDF, 13kb - files measured with Steinberg Wavelab 10)
As a result of this, I will be putting
even more time and effort into creating tutorials for Song Providers especially. Most notably, how to check if all submitted entries are within given specifications / limits (sampling rate, bitrate, LUFS ILk, maximum signal strength dBTP). This will (hopefully) be addressed by mid May 2020, probably in the
Production Techniques forum as possible follow-up to the
How to: Loudness Normalization post.
The "client" (Jorgeelalto) and I had some longer conversations about this topic.
We've decided on certain "tolerances" for overshots, which will be +-0,3LU for all mixes that exceed -16LUFS (that is +0,2LU higher than the allowed specification tolerance of +-0,1LU!). And due to the nature of dBTP meters having a completely different response depending on the implementation (the allowed specification tolerance is actually +-0,2dBTP), we've decided on a tolerance of +-0,05dBTP if signals exceeded -1dBTP (which shouldn't have been reached in the first place). We've also decided on not to disqualify any entry dropping below -23LUFS ILk (from which we have two).
Everything else established in the known Rules and Guidelines, remains untouched.
With that said - and to reiterate - the Rules and Guidelines are not a "Pirate's Code" (Pirates of the Caribbean - Curse of the Black Pearl, 2003) or a "Matrix sparring program" (The Matrix, 1999). These rules
are not just
"loose guidelines", or
"rules that can be bent, others that can be broken". They do exist for a reason - to provide a fair and objective baseline for everyone.
And as it is posted in every introduction post:
Failing to adhere to the rules will result in instant disqualification
There will be no more leeway for MC065 and all following games.
Any follow-up discussion about this will be moved to
Mix Challenge - Gossip and Discussion - however I
will not get into any further argument about the established rules. Please accept that I just don't have the time and patience for this anymore.
Thank you for your time.
I will now leave the stage for Jorgeelalto to post his feedback and announce all Mix Round 2 participants.
