MIX CHALLENGE - MC21 May 2016 - Winners announced

How to do this, that and the other. Share, learn, teach. How did X do that? How can I sound like Y?
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Koliev

nice arena live drums, nice build of the energy from 0 to 1:30

"solo" round 2:15-2:45 either hide it lower or put loads of delay/verb

3:45 a bit of confusion

lacks a bit of bass (the instrument) or lack of lows in the bass track, or too much of the distorted track, i can't tell, but again it really fits this mix well, i'm really bad at judging that contest :$
low end is really tight, nice bright hats and crashes



the ends is not long enough, the crash is cut short in your export
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Vasdim

great balanced mi
some kind of exciter on the drums? they sound "hollowed out" toms are pretty wide too i imagined a 10 foot drummer with a kithe 12 feet wide lol

LOTS of deep lows, well too much lows, causing ear fatigue towards the end
great tape stop

gated synth should be panned center, kinda distracting and even tho its loud there is some low rumble opposite side that makes the vu say that the left is still louder

synth round 2:45, hide the mistakes with automation or delay and cuts

fade the gated sinth after the last drum it to avoid hearing the end of the file (not sure how to say that in english exactly)
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NukeArts


snare is too loud (or too "attack-y") but nice chains resonance

could use more reverb, especially the sidestick part

gated synth is too loud in the first soft part, could actually be 3-4 dB lower everywhere and more delay/verb

the drums are too punchy, in your face for me (especially the toms), is there bus compression in addition to the individual compression?
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Davias


violent drums :)

great pitch thing when the 1st chorus arrives, what effect is that? a pitch shifted delay?


intro noise is too loud

great wall of sound, well balanced stereo image, i really like this one
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Methodology
I listened to each one at least 10 times in various conditions

very loud in my studio monitors (85 dB, mixing volume)

quiet in the studio

living room system, while doing other things

from the other room, played medium loud in the studio

beats headphones on the balconny

sony MRD7509 (or 6, the big ones)

sennehiser hd280 pro

Apple earbuds in mono

laptop speakers

car ride

i took most mix notes in the studio and some in the mono earbuds

I also made a comparison, loaded all 8 tracks plus mine in my DAW, balanced the volumes and switched SOLO between mixes to compare different parts to the original


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I'm sorry for the song, not my best, and clearly not my shortest, it's 7-8 years old and I was in a very different mindspace then than i'm in now, i used to think the original was awesome, but after listening to your mixes, mine sounds pretty boring and overcompressed, great job everyone with the dynamics and headroom(except MC21 which i can't really evaluate on that front since it was mastered/brickwalled already)


for round 2, you are allowed to cut snippets from other parts in the track to replace bad snippets some other place, had i thouht about it before i would also have allowed editing parts out altogether (tho i might have backfired and someone would submit a 12 sec mix of just the intro/outro sfx, having edited all "bad" stuff lol)
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First and foremost, thanks to M4M for evaluating all entries, and also a big thank you to all participants. And this is where I get to our current month's twist - or should I say "change of pace"?


We're now going into Mix Round 2, which will end on Tuesday, 31-05-2016 at 11:59pm CEST/GMT+1
And the twist is - all participants go into Mix Round 2


M4M had a really hard time deciding on 5-6 participants. So instead of locking out 2-3 people from Round 2, he's giving all participants the chance to overhaul their mix according to given feedback. It's also adding to the learning process, especially for our new contestants. After the second song evaluation period, we're doing a proper winners podium.


An interesting change of pace indeed. :tu:
Good luck to everyone, and see you in a couple of days.
[ Mix Challenge ] | [ Studio Page / Twitter ] | [ KVRmarks (see: metering tools) ]

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Muzik 4 Machines wrote: some kind of exciter on the drums? they sound "hollowed out" toms are pretty wide too i imagined a 10 foot drummer with a kit 12 feet wide lol
Can you tell m4m is a drummer? :D

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Wow what an exhaustive listening session M4M, this is good to know that our mixes are carefully tested in many situations ^^ congrats to everybody for making it to round 2 ;)
Muzik 4 Machines wrote:Davias
great pitch thing when the 1st chorus arrives, what effect is that? a pitch shifted delay?
Mmmh, actually there are no "creative" fx in my mix (the most I could think of is a delay on the rhythmic synth, which is a vintage delay but not pitched normally :D ), so what you're hearing is something that was already hidden in your stems I guess :)



Few days for round 2 :) and I'm already a bit busy, let's see what will happen, hopefully my todo list is not too long ;) I'll try to make it a bit less boxy, automate the choruses, and some other stuff if I get the time/inspiration...

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camsr wrote:
Muzik 4 Machines wrote: some kind of exciter on the drums? they sound "hollowed out" toms are pretty wide too i imagined a 10 foot drummer with a kit 12 feet wide lol
Can you tell m4m is a drummer? :D
actually i'm a sound engineer who plays guitar :)
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Muzik 4 Machines wrote:NukeArts


snare is too loud (or too "attack-y") but nice chains resonance

could use more reverb, especially the sidestick part

gated synth is too loud in the first soft part, could actually be 3-4 dB lower everywhere and more delay/verb

the drums are too punchy, in your face for me (especially the toms), is there bus compression in addition to the individual compression?
snare can be made broader.
yes there is bus compression. just wanted to try it this way. i overhit the target i think.
the comment about the synth is gold :) because i extra boosted it about that amount when i reread your original mc comment (guitars center - synth lead) to be on the sure side. xD. good hearing. i take it back down where it belongs.
i overdid it with toms also i think. got similar comments from other sources.
about the delay/verb i am not sure what it will be. can it be that you like chaos much? ;)

i will try to get you a new version at the end of today (which timezone you are? may i ask directly? xD)
Last edited by NukeArts on Sat May 28, 2016 12:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Hi! :party:

Here we go for Round 2.

To answer you M4M, yes there are some delays on the synths!

I tried to clean/extend the low end, and tested on some more speakers. Hope you'll be satisfied with the changes, good luck for your extended listening session!

Good luck everybody, see you soon!

https://soundcloud.com/kevin-gobin/milf ... evin-gobin

https://soundcloud.com/kevin-gobin/milf ... -gobin-mp3

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Okay. I reworked some stuff. harmonized some compressors and had due to that rework some other stuff also :)
Here you have a new version with revised drums. Still no change in the reverb tho.
the synth is now more or less gone. it is not gone. it is clearly there. but i disguised it with a massive delay.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3k5C ... kRETmZlV2c

https://soundcloud.com/nukearts/the-mil ... ukearts_v2

ps: mixed with bitwig ;)

and here is the same version with a masteringchain attached:
https://soundcloud.com/nukearts/the-mil ... asterlimit

edit: and now listening again to it i feel super insecure about it. need a new revision with fresh ears today. the masterlimit version reveals something i do not like about the sound.
Last edited by NukeArts on Sat May 28, 2016 11:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Compyfox wrote:We're now having the 22nd May, about 3:45pm (a generous time window to still sneak in a mix) - the first Mix Round has officially ended.



Sadly, we only have 8 mixes this time around. :(


And I'd like to talk about this... also as general feedback for the Challenge and future song providers. Was the track uninteresting? Was it too difficult to mix? Is the Genre not your cup of tea? What should we look out for in the future?

Because this pretty much determins our "song requests" in the future. However - if nobody is providing new material, ideally in the genre you'd like to see the most - the challenge is over.


So yeah... while M4M is listening to all the content and selecting 4-5 people for Round 2 (happy B-Day btw), let's talk about that.
I didn't get the chance to enter this one (again!). Was busy up till the last few days of the competition and figured I'd have time to get a quick mix in and my computer crashed & burned - completely dead! It's taken me this last week or so to get a new computer up & running and get all my software re-loaded and authorized/licensed, etc. I'm good to go now! So you'll be hearing from me on MC22 :D
Dave McIsaac

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Hi M4M,

Here comes my new mix for the second round.
I followed all comments. Hopefully, I did not make it worse and it fits now your taste!

MP3: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/717 ... %20Rd2.mp3
WAV: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/717 ... %20Rd2.wav
soundcloud.com/photonic-1

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A friendly reminder:
48hours left to submit your mix for Mix Round 2
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