Mix Challenge

@Mister Fox

Unfortunately have to drop out of this month's challenge. It's a holiday week here in the US and my plans have changed, won't have time to properly participate.

Good luck everyone and maybe see you next month.

Well, this is unfortunate - also considering that there is really time until the end of 01st December (which is 4 days from now), and there is also still the "overtime mechanic" offering you to provide up-to-24-hours late feedback at the cost of loosing -5pts on the score sheet.

However, life happens, and I can work with that information.

I now moved @Ike H-mope's entry to the "Withdrawn" section.
This entry still counts as "submitted within the deadline" (overall statistics), but it can no longer be voted for.



The overall game mechanics still apply for all other participants.
Meaning: feedback and vote for 5 participants is necessary, the rest is bonus.

Including today, a bit more than 5 days left to submit your feedback and cast a vote.

Thanks, Mr Fox

Am I again the first one to give comments? That suits me fine. I prefer to be uninfluenced. It's easier to find one's own opinions and write them down when I have no clue what others will be saying.
I listened every song at least three times and everytime my opinions changed a bit. So if I listened these submissions more, I might give just opposite opinions.

But first, what I learned this month? The main thing is that I noticed that musical idea and sound are separate things. Or should it be thought the other way, musical idea is always dependent on the sound. I don't know. What I mean? I was fighting way too much to get the rhythm guitar right. (well, I never did.) I had clear ideas what I wanted to play. And then I played, and it sounded awful in the context. And as I tried different things, it happened that what sounded better was a stupid idea that I didn't want to use. And as I have several guitars both electric and acoustics with electric pickups, and I can record them with normal microphones or with their own pickups, or with combination of those two. But if the sound is fat (neck humbugger) or edgy (P90 bridge) or thin (hi-passed normal mic), or both full and bright, in each case the one and the same playing idea serves a totally different role in the mix or context of other instruments. And when I thought I had it right, the situation changed if I used drums with brushes or with the hard hit or decided to do a drumless song, etc. In the end, the most difficult part was the one that should have been the easiest. And funnily the easiest part was the solo guitars, which I had thought to be the hardest. But if one thinks, solo guitars role is fixed. Just play your thing and that's it. Other instruments will adapt to what solo instrument is doing. But rhythm guitars will have to adapt to everything else. And if the rhythm guitars role will be around 400 hz, one has to think the playing differently than in the case when guitars tone will abide around 5000 hz. And if you want to be smooth or edgy in the 5000 hz area, one must choose different musical idea. Funny that one must learn the basic things again and again.


Here's my highly subjective comments to each submission. I don't intend to be harsh, but I want to give real opinions. But my opinions change quickly, I'm ready to disagree with myself tomorrow.

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Elcubano: "Storm's Solace"

I do have to admit, that I don't know anything about heavy music and it's subgenres, so keep that in your mind while reading my comments.

This song starts with an absolutely wonderful theme. It is easy to remember and its beautiful. But for some reason I don't properly hear what happens in that metal part, so I'm not able to ascertain what is the musical idea or thing in the heavy metal part. There I feel lost, and I have no clue where I'm on my way. But every time you come back to the starting theme, the song feels solid and deep. Then I relax and start to enjoy the composition.

After that opening, I strongly believe that you have a solid idea within that heavy part also, but to my old ears it feels that it's buried under the distortion buzz of guitars and sizzle of hi-hats. The problem may be the nature of distortion in the sound of those guitars. There's no attack left. I'm not able to tell if the player hits the strings hard or touches them very gently. Also, I'm not able to properly hear the pitch and note changes. Those things are buried under that constant buzz and sizzle. Or maybe it's my brains that focus to them too much, and prevents me to listen the main thing. Maybe thats the reason I feel lost.

To solve that problem (which is probably problem only to me), I might try to turn down a bit the guitar mic level or the amps gain stage. Or is it some pedal that eats the attack from the notes out? Also, a low-pass filter might help. Either before or after the amp.

If the buzzing sustain is the thing in this genre, how about blending in another amp which has only a bit of distortion. So the guitar sound would consist of two different layers. The first amp would properly give the beginning of the note, and then as the first amp sound decays quiker the other amp would take over with sustained sound. Somethinglike that. Just a little bit of cleaner amp might be enough to tell the brains what it is, and with that information brains could probably hear better the note within the buzzing distortion.

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A Future in Noise: "Santa Clause"

I feel you have every element for the great song. And lots of nice small details. And great surprise moments. And I've always liked your sarcastic and philosophical humor that's present in spirit of your songs. I wish I had that skill to create those great absurd nuances.

But something is also wrong for I'm not able to properly remember that melody line that you just sung. I wish that the melody line would flow more smoothly and naturally. Probably it's the inherent rhythm in the lyrics that forces the melody line to be a bit clumsy. Im quite sure that if you were to play this as an instrumental and if you were able to forget the words for that moment, then, after a couple of circles the melody line would find it's natural flow. And when that happens, then try to create the words that would promptly follow the catchy melody line.

The Beatles went to extremes here. They were meticulous in getting the phonetically correct syllable at each critical point in the melody. I guess that for them the sound of the syllable was more important than the meaning of the chosen word. Perhaps this is partly why they are remembered more as composers than as lyricists.

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Paramnesia: "Occams Krzr"

A truly wonderful start. I liked it so much, that I found myself disappointed when the heavy metal part started. But it didn't last long. I soon realized that also this heavy part works, and extremely well. You serve up quite a collection of riffs. The strange rhythmic variations all feel natural, they flow smoothly and easily. If I tried to do something like that, I would stumble right away. The surprising chord progressions also feel natural. Apparently the key changes many times without the listener realizing it. In short: perfect mastery of the genre. (I'm saying this without knowing what the genre exactly is, but still I mean it.)

The only criticism that comes to mind is that this song feels more like a medley of great riffs than a composition. Maybe it is a kind of perfect "Show Reel" advertising your services: "let me make a convincing arrangement for your song."

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R0boooo: "Gotta Go but 1st"

After the opening synths this sounds to me like a nice jam session that I would love to be listening in some nice club. Or maybe the singer hasn't come yet and the band is rehearsing or doing a soundcheck. Interesting idea that slide duo: communicating slide guitars. The instrument selection of the band is also interesting and very atypical, but it works.

As there are no vocals on this one, so it's an instrumental. And quite often a melody is an essential part of an instrumental. But currently those slide guitar lines sound more like accompaniment and fills rather than melody lines. (Around 1:10 it's more melodic) I hope you could find some local emmylouharris to work with you. This would be an amazing song if she would sing some introspective lyrics with simple melody lines.

I like the fact that instruments' handling noises are not edited out. In some cases they can be an essential part of the sound. They add some sort of realism to this.

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PonySho: "Stringy"

Excellent, full of hooks, rhythmic changes, etc. Words are well written and the rhythm of words is essential part of rhythm section. And words are also very catchy and go very well with melody. I like the effect you create by repeating essential words. For some reason I'm quite sure that there's plenty of naughty double meanings in those words. Meanings hidden from others but evident to the target audience. But as an outsider I'm not able to pinpoint them.

It sounds and feels like simple song but there seems to be happening quite much under the hood. For example, I'm not able to determine the chord progression just by listening it, but still it feels natural. There seems to be key changes, but they flow so naturally that most of the listeners in the bar won't realise that they are listening quite sophisticated song. If you happen to have children, I'm sure you are able to make them eat healthy food while they are thinking that they are eating their favorite junk food from McDonalds.

So, I think this is truely a great song.

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mouse the singer: "Strings attached"

I feel like I'm listening to real and honest content, like a message from person to person. I forget to listen to the music when I end up listening to you and the message. So the music and arrangement seem to support the song very well.

I'm pretty sure this could be developed to new levels with sophisticated arrangement tricks, but on the other hand it doesn't need to, because it already does its job as it is.

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Ike H-mope: "Waiting in the Yard"

Atonal music is totally new area to me. This was a weird experience. I feel I'm in a foreign land. Everything feels and looks somewhat familiar but still I don't understand what's happening. I may understand a word here and there but I don't understand any sentence.

As I'm listening this and thinking what to say, it feels as if someone asks me to comment the poem they just read, but I don't even know the what the language was. People in the audience seem to have fun, and they have tears in their eyes. It clearly means lot to them. I just realize that there is something essential here, but I am unable to reach it. All I can say is: "One beer please. I'm sure I'll wake up soon." It's not a bad dream nor a good dream, its just a weird dream.

Sorry, that I couldn't find anything reasonable to say. Interesting experience not to be able to grasp anything, but still know that there's something. But anyway, I think I must spend some moments with atonal music just to see if an old fart like me could learn some new tricks.

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VCA-089: "Twilight Forest"
I love that bass sound. It's like from Twin Peaks. It ties the song together. And those drum sounds work very nicely together with that bass sound. You clearly master your stuff. Sound feels coherent all through. Theres nice key changes here and there, at least you lured me to think that. In the last moments I like how those rumbling drums vanish into a reverb. They feel to be present only in reverb only and no dry signal at all. I should try that someday.

Shortly, I have nothing to guide you. The trip was well done and went just the way it was planned. Greetings from Happy customer!

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EsteveCorbera: "Relaxa't I Viu El Moment"

Synths work very well, as it always does in your works. In that area your movements feel confident, and as a passenger I feel safe on the trip. But when it comes to guitar parts, it sounds as if you're thinking ”what should I do with this?” That uncertainty affects my listening moment. Think this way: just decide that it shall be "chord arpeggios", and then proudly play those chosen notes. Something that tells the listener: I played arpeggios for that's what I decided and wanted to play.

When that second guitar comes in (around 1:50), then the song comes together and as a listener I start to trust that there's somebody behind the steering wheel. From that point onwards it reminds me of Brian Enos ”Apollo”.

In the chord changes there's some kind of side-chained compressor as if muted kick track is pumping the synth volume down. Or is it muted bass that does the side-chaining there behind? Probably it's just basic artistic trick in synth music, but I'm just unaware of it.


VOTES

Hi OlliH

Thanks for your indepth critique on mine and the other songs - it's much appreciated.
I am slow getting my critique done because my wife has gone out of town to watch a cricket match and I am looking after my kids and only have time in the evenings.
I think your self critique shows a deep level of reflection and some interesting lessons learned; sometimes the simple things that we dismiss can yield the best result. I certainly find this with my music. I'm a bass player and often come up with bass lines that sound great in my head but do not groove well in the context of the full arrangement, often because they are overly/unnecessarily complex.
I agree with your awareness about what is happening in the different frequency ranges is of vital importance. I think this is best handled at the time of recording rather than during mixing, so it requires some decisiveness and forward thinking to get it right. Thanks for sharing and giving me something to think about.

PS. I am not that smart with my kids' healthy eating. My 4 year old is fully aware of my poor attempts at trickery!

My critique on the rest of the submissions. guys Im not good at critiquing, so take it with a grain of salt. I do know what i hear but I dont know what your goal or intentions are when composing these gems, besides the challenge.

EsteveCorbera Relax't Viu El Moment........

Sir, Im diggin the synth sounds, like water and wind to me. Low volume I can hear this in a massage parlor...Lol. Im not a pro but it sounds good to me. I do feel like it stayed in a certain vain and didnt go to say a b section or a c. It all flowed as one. probably your intentions for it.

Pony Sho- Stringy......

This song put another song in my mind. The band that sung that MTV song, " look, that aint living, all you do is play your guitar on Mtv, they had to move some refrigerators...etc", I cant remember the name of the song. This is sorta in that style with guitars and the singer and verses. Sounds pretty good, I dont play much Rock or Distorted Guitar much in my productions. What I do hear is if this was in a commercial of some sort, would it work, I think it could, taking a section of this and using it. Good job sir.

Waiting in the Yard.........

Sounds like its from a play, some stage production to me. Interesting, The chord choices are interesting to me, church Bell sounding, but a guitar. Vocals are nice. Dont know if auto tune was used but notes are on note, even when a disnonace is sung between the two. very interesting to me. I cant hear this as an alone track, I need this to be with a picture or a movie.... lol sorry.


Twilight Forest............

Im getting that 80's vibe from the fade in and drums. The guitar choice tones also lend to the 80's.
Then the synths come in, more 80's feel. Retro, Nice. I like the mid break down section. I have to put this in that 80's retro vibe and not critique as a modern song. It fits that genre to me. Lead guitar could be just a tad louder. overall, not bad... keep up the work.


Mouse the Singer................

For some reason it seems low volume, nice verby vocals and guitar. drums sounded a little week in spots. Guitar work is very good. I kinda get the singer real singing and not auto tuned, sounds more feellyyy, if you get what I mean. Although some spots do need a note correction just to not draw attention to it and not the lyrics. Keep at it, we all get better the more we do.


Paramnesia OccamsKrzr............

Interesting intro to Distorted guitars. Im not one to make much comments on Grunge or hard Rock.
Wow..... The kick on the Drums..... Drums are fantastic. I like it........ The chords with the runs work
for me. lol, not my style, but hey, nice sir. I picture a Kid in his room upset at the world because he cant get the girl he wants and his mom is bothering him......... lol Wohhh, that Kick.... wow...


Old Vinyl................

Rockabilly, Country, The vocals to me are not quite clear, the scratchy vocals is nice but the articulations made me concentrate on whats being said instead of listening as a whole. Guitar playing is very good. Also the vocals attitude is kinda layed back, I was waiting on a yell..... lol other than that, nice song.

Dear participants,


can we please not have a rerun of last month's game, where I had to dig through pages of text to scrape together feedback and votes from participants?

Let me please repeat what I wrote in post #055 - this is especially important for those that haven't joined a Songwriting Competition yet, and don't know how things work. If in doubt, please check with previous games to get a general overview.

!

Bonus Info

Participants can (and must) vote for their Top 5 entries (tiered mechanic). You're furthermore asked to please reflect on your experience this month (2-3 paragraphs max), what you have learned, what you would like to do different in the future, etc. (personal growth) You are also asked to give feedback to at least five (number: 5) entries (tiered mechanic) -- things that stood out to you, providing some final thoughts and constructive feedback for possible improvements. This adds to the learning experience of our community. It is recommended that these entries are outside of your personal "top entry" voting. ... Please cast your vote (not the feedback) in collective form through the "spoiler text" bbcode (button on the WYSIWYG editor that features the orange triangle with an exclamation mark in it). Please use the forum username of the participant to make it easier during the score collection to address what vote belongs to whom. And please, have one post as final feedback and vote. Thank you.

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You can edit your posts, everyone.

And please, also don't forget to update your entry posts with additional documentation.


Thank you

Joining this competition as well as the mix challenge really helped me to understand what the compressors in my template are really doing. I also really focused on trying to balance out the guitars to make them sound full but not fizzy and ended up cutting back a fair bit of gain. I have used an older version of this template on multiple songs now and while combing through I noticed that I had a plugin set to mono where it should have been stereo this really helped to fill my mix out and reminded me that while opening templates and copy and pasting can save time getting too complacent with things and not being mindful of what you are doing and why can really set yourself up for failure. I will definitely be more careful with this in the future and always be mindful that whatever I'm doing it should be serving the song as a whole. I think next time I would enjoy a bit more of a constraint to get me out of my box and test out my ability to mix something a bit more unfamiliar to test other issues or weak points I may have.

Here is some of my thoughts on the submitted tracks, by no means am I a professional but hopefully it can help lead to something for someone! I enjoyed them all and I am not trying to be harsh to anyone great entries all around!

A Future in Noise - Santa Clause

I appreciated the complexity of the arrangement you were going for here. However to my ears it sounded like the instruments were tripping over one another or fighting for similar sonic space. I think a bit more EQing could have really helped to smooth things out.

Bonus points for a festive song for the time of year too!

Elcubano67 - Storm's Solace

I feel like if there is any track I could comment on and really understand its this one since it is metal in nature.

In terms of your performance it's good playing I would suggest when you add vibrato though on some of those notes you change it up you really went for fast shaky vibrato but by varying the speed it can help add a lot of expression. Keep it in time to the music but think of it as note pulses and try to do some really slow quarter note or half note vibes.

As for the mix I really liked the synth layers you added the bass didn't sound like it had anything really off about it but could maybe stand to have some body added depending on these other two factors.. being the drums and guitar. The drums felt like they could have used a bit more energy in the kick, perhaps a bit more room noise or try adding a really fake reverb to the snare and blend it to taste. Also the cymbals were a little sharp and splashy try to tame some of the higher end stuff around 3-5k. The guitars sounded a bit thin to me maybe a bit too scooped sounding and most likely a bit too much gain if you were aiming for a bit of a thicker sound I suggest quad tracking and really cutting that gain back. Depending on if you try some of these changes you may need to adjust the bass after.

A cool song though loved the extra layers added in there it was a good listen keep it up!


R0boooo - Gotta Go but 1st

The percussion really jumped out at times, could have been pulled back to fit the vibe of the song a bit more maybe try cutting a bunch of frequencies and adding some saturation, going for that lo-fi vibe I feel would have worked a lot more with the rest of this mix. Cool layers throughout though I really liked all the parts near the end of the song! A note to your comment on my track I'm glad you enjoyed the kick sound I spent of a lot of time getting the kick and the snare to really sound right and have a lot of weight in the mix. I am side chaining the bass guitar with the kickdrum as well to give it the space to push that transient through. I haven't given this track much thought from a lyrical perspective yet I just spent a lot of time getting the riffs down and making the sound really full. Hopefully it can become something a bit more meaningful than angsty teen who needs a girl and some parental boundaries haha thanks for listening!

EsteveCorbera - Relax't Viu El Moment

A cool vibe to this one I definitely felt my blood pressure dropping from this one. Could have done a bit more work with EQ to help the parts blend and maybe cut down on some harshness here and there.


Pony Sho - Stringy

Musically some interesting note choices to me I wasn't able to really follow what vibe you were aiming for personally bit I listen to quite different music. Great mix overall, vocals fit into a nice pocket you carved out and nothing felt harsh or pokey everything blended really smoothly. Some of the guitar parts had major potential to be harsh so great job on taming those! The mixing on this track was extremely well done I can tell there was a lot of attention to detail.


Mouse the Singer - Strings Attached

The cymbals felt a bit harsh on this one kinda distracting especially with the vocals being so quiet and muffled. I think bringing down some 3-5k on the cymbals and boosting the vocals with some saturation, 8k and perhaps around 1-1.3k could help a bit hard to tell for sure though without experimenting myself. Rest of the instruments sounded good very melancholy.


VCA-089 - Twilight Forest

I really liked the synthwave vibes here. I loved the writing and instrumental choices here but I think it really needs some EQing to help showcase everything a bit more. A bit more high end on the snare hits, cut back some of the high end on the guitars you might have a whistle frequency on there too. The early synth is a bit pokey too. Maybe explore cutting back some of the reverb on some things too just to help give a bit more space for everything. If you mix on headphones like I do it can be a major issue and you really need to watch just how much reverb is in the mix.


OlliH - Old Vinyl

Not generally my style of music but I really enjoyed the mix of the instrumentals I felt the vocals didn't quite suit the rest of the music both in performance and mix but the sonic landscape you created instrumentally was great and could easily picture it being used in a movie or a TV show somewhere great sound! A note to your comment on my track I'm glad you were dissapointed, it means you felt something! I enjoy listening a lot of progressive metal so there is a ton of variety and each song really makes you feel like you are going on a journey so that is why my writing maybe felt a bit to out there. Especially without vocals to help it feel grounded and give you something a bit easier to latch on to, hopefully one day I can find someone to help out with that until then thanks for listening!

Paramnesia wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 28, 2024 05:36 CET

A note to your comment on my track I'm glad you were dissapointed, it means you felt something!

I'm not sure how you interpreted my sentence, but to clarify for readers: my disappointment lasted about 3 seconds until I realized what a talent you are. Your harmonic and rhythmic choices were extremely musical. If this had been a "music making" contest, I think you would have been the clear winner this month. But since this is a "songwriting" contest, I had to use also other criteria.

PonySho wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 28, 2024 02:58 CET

I'm a bass player and often come up with bass lines that sound great in my head but do not groove well in the context of the full arrangement, often because they are overly/unnecessarily complex.

Actually, I wasn't surprised when you said you were a bass player, as you seem to have such a good musical instinct and vision to many genres. I've heard somewhere that in many big professional bands, the bass player is often the responsible leader of the band, because he has the overall musical picture and understands each player's area of ​​responsibility. Many other players can focus on their own thing, but the bass player has to have the overall vision, for the bass player works in both the rhythm section and the melodic and harmonic section of the band at the same time.